the 941

Katherine Harris and I have a torrid and scandalized history together. So it was sad, last night, to hear her tell me that she remembers none of it.

I was at Big E’s Sweets and Gourmet Coffee when I noticed Ms. Harris at the counter. Actually I had to hear someone else say her name – I didn’t recognize her normal-looking mien. I was used to seeing a mask of makeup and a figure-squeezing skirt-suit.

Yeah, apparently she’s been hanging out at Big E’s a lot lately. Big E’s, whose clientele is dominated by Ringling students, activists, and random socialist-anarchist personalities. She’s in some sort of painting program at Ringling College across the highway, so she comes in to the café all the time.

I approached her. “Ms. Harris?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember me?”

She checked me out for a moment. “Refresh my memory.”

Refresh your memory? How many of me have there been, Katherine? Don’t you know that ZDNet.com posted our picture under “2006’s worst political mishaps?”

I’ll refresh your memory, all right. It was the spring of 2006. A campaign stop outside Gainesville. I was covering it for the University of Florida student newspaper.

Your campaign for senate was not doing well. Staff members were fleeing in all directions, and you had just dropped $3 million of your own money into what might as well have been a wishing well.

I had come to interview you, but little known to either of us was that another sort of journalist was watching us both. Stephen Elliott, a freelance writer for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and for The Progressive, snapped some pictures and wrote down what he saw.

Yes, it’s true that you took me by the hand and led me around the room. You smelled of gin. When we sat down to talk, I kept my face in my notebook because — I’m sorry, I can’t go on. I’m getting emotional. They say you fondled me, but, honestly, I was too nervous to form the memory. For the whole story, or at least for Elliott’s version, just google my name and Katherine Harris’s together. Together.

Note: If only it really had been Laura Dern, instead.

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