Writer & Columnist | Santa Barbara, CA
You used to be fun, they say. You used to make us titter with your escapist jaunts into the lighter side of life. What happened, a few restless readers have asked, to the ribald soccer-mom confessions and largely superficial rants about bass players and fallopian tubes?
Trump happened, you guys. He golden showered all over the fun.
I’m sorry if I’ve been weighing you down with ponderous political tirades. Now more than ever, we all need a moment’s respite from the political onslaught. And I want to offer you lighter fare; I do. But I’m just … heavier than I used to be.
See, I’ve put on a few pounds since Election Night from stress eating. And, okay, stress drinking. My husband deemed my new squishiness “Trump Plump,” and purely because I enjoy a good rhyme and a snappy hashtag, he is still among us. But I’m not alone in my plight. Though Lena Dunham claims election despondence killed her appetite and left her svelte, my friends and I have inhaled every last crumb of Lena’s untouched food and then some.
When you’re a kid, they tell you the greatest thing about this country is that absolutely anyone can grow up to be president and, even someone you’d never imagine.
And then he does.
Putting politics aside for a moment because I literally can’t even, let’s ruminate on basic human character, or the atrocious lack thereof. As a parent, the election of a pompous and petulant bully into the highest office in the land sets a tricky example for the spongy, observant little pre-people we are trying to usher thoughtfully into humanity.
We fear for immigrants and minorities, our health care, our press, and our planet, yes, yes, yes. But any parent who denies also being terrified of the long-term impact this clown’s clamorous invectives and derelict appointments will have on little Logan’s and Chloe’s psyches is telling a whopper of Trumpian proportions. I mean big league. HUGE.
I love Uber. During a recent family trip to New Orleans, we took 10 Uber rides over five days, hopping in and out of strangers’ cars, zipping anywhere we needed to go at any time of day. Our friendly, efficient drivers regaled us with Mardi Gras stories, shared jambalaya recipes, and told us where we could buy the cherry-scented air freshener that was rocking my son’s world.
Come, now. Don’t act so surprised. You didn’t really think it was going to be free, did you? You didn’t believe the extraordinary privilege of being alive and plugged in during the digital era would come without a cost — that having a handy portal to the sum of all human knowledge in your jeans pocket would be devoid of downsides.
You know how this works: Just as puppy kisses are edged with needle teeth and peanut-butter cheesecake brownies require a penance of kale and burpees, all exquisite things demand something unpleasant in return.
This isn’t how it was supposed to be. A week after the election, we were supposed to be celebrating in the streets, a jubilant, enlightened populace congratulating ourselves on having elected the most sensible, knowledgeable, and experienced candidate. Having spoken out for respect. And inclusiveness. One nation under Her, indivisible, with taco trucks and pantsuits for all.
Analysts will spend years unknotting how we got this so wrong; it may wind up in history books. What’s clear is we underestimated Americans’ dissatisfaction with the status quo — and overestimated their concern for anyone besides themselves.
So now we sit, slumped, humiliated as the rest of the world stares slack-jawed at our crude windbag of a choice. Our swaggering snake-oil salesman. Our callow narcissist. (Hi, Trump’s NSA. Are we doing this yet?)
You guys, I found my soul mates, and they’re two ballsy broads who sing about parenting, shopping, and recreational drugs.
The vulgar vixens in question are Stacie Burrows and Shannon Noel of the comedy musical duo Mommy Tonk—and if I played guitar and grew up in Arkansas singing in the church choir, then I swear to you we’d be a damned trio. Like me, these flippant females each have two sons, recognize Target as the Holy Land, and channel the myriad frustrations of motherhood into their craft with bracing honesty, in the hopes of making people laugh.
To quote one of Mommy Tonk’s own songs: “I’ve got a mom crush.”