My Resolute Desk Outbox

In 2016, the utter ickiness of Trump being elected—I acknowledge there might be some folks out there who didn’t find it utterly icky but, in something new for me, I don’t care about your feelings, at least in the matter—was ever-so-mildly blunted for me by two related but unrelated developments: 1) the day after the election we got Hamilton tickets via the lottery, and 2) we got tickets to the other hot spot on the East Coast—the National Museum of African-American History and Culture—because friends of friends were planning to go to celebrate Hillary’s inauguration and let’s just say lost their enthusiasm for the trip, so the tickets fell to us.

This time around nothing as organic as those two bright spots are on hand to lend light to our otherwise dark black tunnel, so I decided to fashion my own. And since the orange clusterfucker has promised a host of odious executive orders on day one, I thought I would, with a little help from my friends, offer an alternate slate of executive orders I would issue were the world a more just place and my perky, medium-sized butt were about to plunk down behind the Resolute Desk instead of his massive, gassive assive.

Now, it may seem to some of you upon digesting the list below that all I’ve really done is compile a bunch of things that peeve and/or delight me, and to that I plead no contest and offer that that’s really no different from Dumb Donald’s slate of execrable executive orders. He doesn’t like brown people, so no more brown people are allowed in and millions who are here have to leave. He hates children and the future, so drill, baby, drill. And he apparently thinks tech-bros are cool, so he’s going all in on cryptocurrency and deregulation, even though his level of understanding on the matters approximates that of your average English spaniel. So if it’s okay for a goose like him to enact a herd of his sacred cows, you might as well take a gander at mine.

• My first executive order as president would be to resign and install Elizabeth Warren as president. But it might not take right away, so…

• From now on it will be illegal for directors of sports broadcasts to laser focus on athletes who’ve made painful, game-threatening mistakes. Some poor guy fumbles on the one-yard line and the camera not only follows him to the sidelines but stays on him long past the point of anything resembling human compassion. It’s bad enough the guy’s going to get death threats from people who supposedly support his team without treating him like he’s a perp on an episode of Cops.

• While we’re on football, anyone who looks to the sky and thanks god and/or crosses themselves for anything less than a touchdown will be assessed a five-yard penalty, as you just can’t be going that lofty after just a first down or decent punt return. For baseball nothing less than a home run will do, and violators will be forced to wear the team’s mascot uniform backwards and stand on top of the dugout for three innings.

  Now a couple of good ones from our good friend Alex:

• The Family Circus comic strip should be immediately banned. Any copies or collections or records should be burned and a truth and healing commission must be formed to address any and all harms created by the strip.

• If you don’t pick up your dog’s poop, all toilets will be removed from your place of residence. You are then legally obligated to poop outside for a month, with regular visits from poop enforcement officers, and you get your toilet back after serving your time. People who dump their bagged poop in trash cans other than their own get two weeks of al fresco defecation.

  And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming:

• I always enjoy riding the Metro to a sporting event, because so many of my fellow passengers are wearing caps and jerseys that tell me they’re going to the game too. To extend this pleasure, every January 15, which is National Hat Day, riders on public transportation must wear a hat that reveals their specific destination.

• No more weird ass cross-promotions. For example, there should not be a Sonic the Hedgehog experience at Top Golf. Actually, I changed my mind. It sounds like fun.

• Commercials should never include sounds occasioned by the arrival of texts or phone calls. There’s one I hear every time I’m in the car and I still always initially think it’s my phone and that’s not safe. Even more dangerous are songs with sirens in them.

• Anyone who reclines their seat on an airplane at any time during a flight must spend however long their seat was reclined working at baggage claim. Passengers who insist on putting their coats and other non-overhead-bin-approved items in overhead bins must stay and clean the plane after everyone gets off.

• If you’ve never successfully skied, you are not allowed to ever say someone “got out over their skis,” and if you do, you will be forced to ski the nearest black diamond run in a Batgirl costume.

• I hereby call a permanent end to any and all greeting card glitter. It’s the definition of annoying.

• Couches with buttons may be sold to senior citizens only. They’re already always uncomfortable so it’s no biggie.

• Single-use words like “merry” and “tardy” may be used only in their lone appropriate context. Violations may be punished by having to walk around for the rest of the day with a dictionary on your head.

• The following will be required for anyone wishing to purchase a gun: 1) a one-month waiting period, during which you should really think hard about the choices you’ve made that have gotten you to this point; 2) a thorough background check, with special emphasis on your middle-school diary; and 3) a note from your mother explaining in detail why she thinks this is a good idea.

• Funeral processions must travel at speeds at least 90% of the posted limit.

• No more studies about whether alcohol, coffee, eggs or anything else is good or bad for you unless the researchers in question are able to say with near certainty that their results are dispositive in perpetuity.

• Climate control in all residences and workplaces shall be controlled by whoever has most recently undergone menopause.

• Anyone over 80 who currently holds elected office anywhere needs to get the fuck out immediately. Sorry, Bernie.

• If you ever under any circumstance have called yourself or been called either a journalist or reporter or editor, you’re not allowed to go on talk shows and yuck it up with the hosts. You’re not allowed to host televised New Year’s Eve shows, and I’m looking at you, Anderson Cooper. Violators will be sentenced to six weeks covering middle-school wrestling for small weeklies in southern Missouri.

• No more glue traps. Ever. Anyone who uses a glue trap to kill a mouse must eat mouse sushi for their next three meals.

• Arts and crafts may no longer be linked. Arts implies Picasso, Dylan, Andy Warhol. Crafts is your child’s diorama or your grandmother’s quilt. They’re very different, and this order is long overdue.

• No more video of polar bears stranded on way-too-small-for-their-size ice floes. I know their habitat is fucked, but there’s nothing I can do about it and it bums me out every time.

• An immediate ban on any and all stickers on vegetables and fruit.

• Burgers, whether beef, bison or Beyond, must come with a side. A solo burger on a plate is sad and weird looking.

I’d sign all of these, and my signature, unlike the recurring nightmare now behind the Resolute Desk, does not look like what would happen if you gave a rabid mongoose a sharpie.