Published: September 12, 2008 12:17 am      

Just in case I would become president

These days you can’t help wondering what kind of a president you would be. I’ve given it a lot of thought and come up with a platform I could stand on without any fear of falling.

Here’s what I would run on, though perhaps, not as fast as I should. First I would pass a law forbidding any more commercials about the February 17, 2009, move to all digital TV. We know. WE KNOW! You’ve been telling us about it for months now. We get the message! If there’s anyone in the entire country who has not heard the news, let me know, and I personally will tell you about it. Everybody else, shut up! (Sorry, Mother, but extreme times call for extreme language.)

I would pass a law forbidding excessive emotionalism on game shows. I suppose it makes things more exciting for the contestants to act like three-year-olds when they win things. I also know that they are instructed to act like fools in front of the camera whenever possible. Finally, I know that I am definitely not in the trend of the times, to beg for a little self-control when one is appearing before the whole nation. Still, folks, will you please keep it down a little?

And I especially would like to retire that shrill “Whoo-whoo” that seems to be the only way women can express their television joy these days. (I’ve been watching a lot of Wheel of Fortune lately.) Maybe you could find a convention of owls somewhere that would welcome you.

My dislike of feminine caterwauling dates from my teenage years, when girls all around me were squealing and gasping and fainting about Frank Sinatra. Gotta admit, I looked around me with disbelief and condescension.

For one thing, I thought FS was a wispy callow teenager, not a mature man. For another thing, I liked Nelson Eddy. But I would never have dreamed of behaving so adolescently about him, or about Howard Keel who came in second in my romantic-idol sweepstakes. Anyway, if I were president, I would pass a law that all performers grow up before they appear on the public stage. (Sorry, I know that would destroy the music industry.)

If I were president, I would require all new mattresses and springs sets to reach no more than waist-high when they’re placed on your bed frame. Have I mentioned before (sometimes I forget, but if I were president I would have folks around to remind me) that I got a new set last year? On my bedframe it practically reaches up to my shoulder. Luckily it’s on my guest bed, because I wouldn’t be able to get into it even with a flying leap, which seems unlikely to begin with.

If I were president, I would outlaw square fingernails. Not to offend the most fashionable among us, but square fingernails are about as attractive as an oblong Washington Monument. Of course, after years of biting them, and then, after that, breaking them, I am just glad to have fingernails at all, some of the time. Still, I find nothing attractive in fingernails that could, if necessary, easily double for screwdrivers. When I am president, out with square fingernails!

And when I run for office, I will not point and smile! My friends, that’s a promise. Point-and-Smile, sometimes known as Smile-and-Point, is the most annoying reflex in the professional politician’s bag. With all that light in their eyes, can they really see a familiar face out there? If so, would the recipient even imagine that they could make them out in that sea of faces? Of course not. It is that universal Republican, Democratic political urge to not just stand there doing nothing in front of cheering thousands. I pledge to you, here and now, I would resist it to the death.

In my opinion, State Dinners require an update. George and Laura Bush have only had six or seven state dinners in their entire seven-and-a-half-year incumbency, and I think I know why. Too darn much hard work! (And what First Spouse wants to spend that much time in the kitchen anyway?) If I were president, I would institute the Covered Dish State Dinner. Think about all the delectable new foods one would have a chance to eat, with no trouble at all to oneself personally! Surely home-cooked treats would hit the spot, from all our Chinese (minus dog, please), and Russian and Italian and French diplomats. (French cooking, oo-la-la.) The supreme mysteries of exotic cookery like Thai, and Ethiopian and Egyptian would educate one’s palate and promote world peace and understanding besides.

How about a Covered Dish State Dinner once a week? Wednesdays work well at my church.

As I look back over these ideas, it occurs to me that putting them into place might require me to be king, or at least, queen, rather than president.

Okay, if you insist.

Maude McDaniel is a Cumberland freelance writer. Her column appears in the Times-News on alternate Sundays.