Fun With Play-Dough

I heard on Lou Dobbs that everyone in America should be outraged that the Air Force is commissioning refueling planes from France.

I don’t know, what’s the big deal? I assume they did their research, and the planes in France must be better, if that’s where they’re going to get them. If I were an Air Force pilot, I certainly wouldn’t want an iffy refueling plane hovering besides me in Afghani airspace. Now, don’t get mad; you know I’m right.  All this talk about buying locally made stuff is all good and well, but I’m sure the Chinese don’t want their tykes playing with Thomas the Train toys either, even if they were made in the factory where mommy has been making $0.15 an hour for the past ten years.

Maybe there is another reason: The planes in France must be prettier. After all, this is the home of Coco Chanel, and Yves Saint Laurent.  A French woman won the Best Actress Oscar this year.  France was right about the war in Iraq.  France has been able to do what some of us in America can only dream of: elect a Jewish President.  France has the Louvre, and the Centre Pompidou; it has castles and palaces, it has history and culture. Granted, they also have the Eiffel tower, but we can forgive them for that.

Remember Freedom fries? Anybody who wants to get upset over this whole Air Force non-scandal should protest, not by giving them a snarky nickname, but by not eating them at all. That way, at least the French can’t make fun of you for being fat.

Comparing the Candidates; how things will change in the White House.

Bill & Hillary:  Cherry Poppin’ Daddies Shake Your Lovemaker will be the official theme song. Bill will beg for Fast Food Fridays; Hillary will give in once he pouts his way through three separate White House dinners, and refuses to talk to the French President.  All staff will be required to watch all back episodes of Dexter; weekends will be canceled to increase work ethic in the Senate. To prove that she can be fiscally conservative, she will cut congressional salaries in half and force Bill to do his own laundry.  All members of the press will have to sign a waiver before press conferences to not write about the little blue dress ever again; three journalists will break their promise and be publicly spanked. Hillary will manage to pull all the troops out of Iraq by March of 2010; leaving only a small army of advisors behind, but the United States will immediately become embroiled in an armed conflict with Belgium. U.S. troops will prove incapable of functioning when faced with so much beer.

The Obama’s: Texas BBQ will be officially outlawed; Nina Simone’s It Don’t Mean a Thing if it ain’t got that Swing becomes the official theme song. Obama will admit –in private- that he doesn’t really like Oprah all that much; of course the press will get wind of this and a mob of angry housewives will camp out on the White House lawn for three weeks. Barack will make a public apology, but continue to watch Celebrity Rehab in secret.  He will realize that the problems in Iraq can’t be solved without a lot of hard work and tries to make people forget by giving them ever greater tax cuts. The country will go officially bankrupt, and part of it will be sold to Mexico,  (Texas, Arizona, Nevada, and California, and funny enough, Idaho) on the condition that we not let Carlos Mencia cross the border. We agree on the condition that they will take Bill Cunningham, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill O’Reilly off our hands.

McCain: The truth will come out about his age when a diligent New York Times reporter discovers documents that show McCain was actually born in 1921; his inaugural speech will be two minutes long, and consist of McCain yelling: “Yippi Ka-Yea, Motherfuckers!” He will then spend his time golfing on the White House lawn, and refuse to talk to anyone, including his VP. Hillary and Obama will sneak into the White House after calling several nights at 3 am and getting no response. They will take over in a bloodless coup; White House staff is relieved. McCain won’t notice. Lorne Michaels becomes Secretary of State. Nothing will happen in the area of Social Security or Health Care because all funds will go towards cleaning up the thousands of golf balls McCain left lying around. 

I have to rant.

If Hillary wins the election, we will, for the first time in history, have a First Gentleman rather than a First Lady.  Considering the “job description” we currently have for the First Ladies, this would be a very interesting development. Many of you might wonder; what is it that a First Lady does, really?

She hires a full staff, including but not limited to, a Press Secretary, a Chief Floral Designer, a White House Social Secretary, and an Executive Chef. We can assume that all these people get paid. However, the First Lady herself does not get a salary, and there are no official duties attached to her position.

Be that as it may, she is expected to fulfill certain obligations, such as fundraising, entertaining all those very important guests, hosting dinners, press conferences, travel, etcetera, but it is tradition she doesn’t hold a job outside of her First Lady duties.

Wait a minute. If I understand this right, she can’t have a job, and is expected to work her ass off, without getting paid.  I’m sorry, I know no First Lady ever went hungry, and we don’t need to pity her as long as there are starving children, but this still stinks.

It reeks of sexism. Basically, the First Lady is a Hausfrau on steroids.  Like so many other women, she is expected to do all this extra stuff without salary because that’s how it’s always been; and this is supposed to be a free and democratic country?  What example does this set for the rest of us?

I’m curious whether Bill will make some changes, so that future First Ladies can keep their self-esteem intact.  I know, for instance, that he gives a lot of speeches and he doesn’t do that for free; can he keep doing that once he has been demoted to First Gentleman? Or would that count as “a job”? What about the royalties for his book? (Speaking of, I love Bill, but did anybody else find that an impossibly boring read, or is it just me?)

If the position of First Lady comes with strings attached, she should get paid.  The duties should be in writing; what is this nonsense about “no official duties”? Like she can choose to just do nothing; it would cause scandal and prevent re-election, for sure. Then they’d use words like spoiled and lazy. They’d have to hire someone else to do it, that’s right, hire; meaning they would have to pay to get crap done.

I think whoever the next First whatever is, he or she should refuse to do all this work for free, demand to either be allowed a job outside the house, or draw a salary. Set a good example, and get rid of this unpopular belief that certain tasks traditionally fall to the woman and don’t need compensation.  I sure as hell wouldn’t want to host a White House dinner for free.

On another note, there is an interesting article in the NY Times today:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/nyregion/09jews.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

Pregnant women need to do massive amounts of shopping. Some of this is due to frustration, the so-called ‘therapeutic shopping’, but a serious part of it is for stuff you actually need. It is important that you shop every day; if you’re in your third month and haven’t really gotten started, you need to get your act together. Stop puking and get your comfy shoes; there’s onesies to purchase, you slowpoke.

You will need baby bottles, and a breast pump, and ever-bigger clothes; you need shoes in a size larger than you normally wear, in case your feet start swelling.

You need fifty water bottles to leave lying all over the house, a body pillow and three extra regular pillows or you won’t sleep. You need the bigger underwear, and you need to purchase every obscure over-the-counter medicine for nausea even though you know that none of hem will work, and you have to have those gel in-soles to ease your back pain. Extra lotion needs to be bought to fight stretch marks and you need the expensive make-up just in case you develop allergies to the cheap crap that you’ve been getting away with.

You’ll need to do groceries every day because you’ll have weird cravings; you’ll throw half the food away as soon as you get home, but that’s okay. Nobody needs to know.

You need Tums, and folic acid. A crib, crib pad, sheets, blankies, a million little suits,  (about six to ten without a bottom for the first week when the cord stump’s still there) and little socks, little hats, powder, diapers, an atrocious amount of trash bags, wipes, rubbing alcohol, special baby-laundry-detergent, tons of cleaning products in case your baby is a puker, air freshener, and of course, toys and teddy bears for your child to ignore. You’ll need burp cloths, a diaper bag, baby soap, a little bathtub, a thermometer, and the smallest nail clippers you’ve ever seen. Then there is the stroller, the car seat, and the commode with changing pad, washcloths and tub toys. And don’t forget your First Aid kit. Also, it might be wise to buy slipcovers for all your furniture, and you need to invest in all those extra locks on your kitchen cabinets now; you won’t have time to take care of that once baby has arrived. You need to buy paint and wallpaper for the nursery, shop for scrap booking material, and make sure you have the newest digital camera on the market. If you currently live in a two-bedroom apartment, you’ll need to buy a bigger house just to fit all the stuff baby needs. Also, the house needs to be large so you can pretend to not be the first one to hear baby cry when another diaper change is necessary. (Newborns have been known to poop three to four times a day.)

You will need to pick out a hospital, and I recommend you visit every available one within a fifty mile radius; don’t just blindly pick the one your best friend used. Once you have your baby you will get visitors while still in the hospital, so you need cute designer pajamas, warm socks, and a robe. Special really ugly bras plus nursing pads. Birth announcements. Bottle liners and extra nipples.  Ibuprofen for your husband. A baby monitor, one of those handy covers for the car seat, and a good book in case labor is longer than expected.

Spending this much time and energy on buying things for baby seems fun at first, but you get thoroughly fed up by month 7 or so. This is why it’s important to intersperse it with plenty of shopping for yourself: get to the spa, get a manicure, a wax, and have your hair done at least twice a month. Buy a large bottle of Chanel, decide not to like it, and buy a different kind. Don’t wear the same outfit more that twice, period.

Your husband needs to see this type of behavior, because he might think that, since a baby is coming, there is no money left for frivolous spending.  It is absolutely essential that you stop him from ever reaching that conclusion.

You need things. Stuff. Nothing perks up a pregnant woman like a good old fashioned shopping spree that doesn’t include a stop in the damn baby aisle.