Proverbs 11, Verse 14
"Without wise leadership, a nation is in trouble."
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CHIPPED WISDOM:
There's a tale I've heard that, in a certain Scandinavian country, if your car is too ugly, you can get pulled over and fined. I don't know what defines, exactly, an "ugly" car-- I guess it's up to the individual Scandinavian type police officer to decide-- but, if it were up to me, anyone I caught driving a Pontiac Aztek would be dragged out of their car and Tased.
Vigorously.
Fortunately for the huddled masses, I'm not a police officer, Scandinavian or otherwise. I'd make a funny looking Scandinavian police officer. But, no. I don't wear a duty-belt, or a badge. I don't have the authority to arrest and I don't sit on a throne with a golden, engraved scepter clutched in my hand either. I'm not a monarch of the sea or a modern major-general. But, if I were, if I were the king of the forrest, believe me, there would be hell to pay, of that you may be sure.
There would be a list of names you couldn't call your dog. No Fifi. No Biscuit.
Sorry.
You can't name your dog "Cat" either. I know, it's pretty clever, but not while I'm King. Or you'll get Tased.
If I were in charge of this shit, you wouldn't have to pay for postage, either. If, that is, you can draw a really cool design on the top right-hand corner of your envelopes. And it doesn't have to be Harriet fucking Tubman either-- you can draw whatever you want, as long as it's really cool. Because, really, even if you're a great artist, how many people are going to necessarily see your art work? Not that many. Why not send it out in the mail? If you're that good, why should you have to pay $0.46 or whatever the fuck a goddamn stamp costs now?
You could do whatever you wanted to people who park your car in, if I were the king by my own fireside. All you have to do is take a picture or their bumpers kissing yours to show the authorities afterwards and you're free to do anything you wish. Shit on their hood? Pinch that loaf! Pour gasoline all over their Sentra and light a match? Hey, they asked for it. What the fuck, is your car invisible? No. It isn't. It is not.
I wonder sometimes if I'd be the sort of king who'd want a jester. I can't imagine that I would. I'm a naturally insecure person, especially when it comes to my ability to be funny, and I think I would get extremely angry with a jester if he was terrible, or hilarious. "We don't know how to be happy," my eldest sister once said to me. She'd be a duchess, or a baroness, I guess. Anyway, she's right, of course. I wouldn't be happy with a jester, no matter what he wore or how he sang. I wouldn't be happy with pratfalls and banana peels, or jester jocularity, jibe and joke or quip and crank. Anyway, why should a king need a jester? He'd, I would think, have a front row seat to all his kingdom's lunacy, hypocrisy, pain and palaver. I can't imagine a need for a jester, making fun. Who'd have the time to laugh, anyway?
But, then, I think we all know I'm not king material myself. Too timid, too frightened, to swallowed up by his own anxiety and terror. Too apologetic and abashed. Too self-absorbed and self-effacing. I would make a good king's scribe; dutifully crouched over a small tablet, furiously scribbling to make sure I catch every regal word, wordlessly correcting the royal grammar. Fetching a bone for Biscuit. Tasing the jester for being too bad.
Or too good.
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