My Chinese Balloon Nightmare

 

I had a dream last night that was so bizarre and disturbing I had to write it down so I could try to figure out what it meant before I forgot it. 

Congress had held a contest, inviting people to submit slogans to unify the American people. My elderly mother, Ruby (who died eight years ago), and I were attending the event on the grounds of the Washington Monument at which the winning slogan was to be announced. (Ruby loved coming up with slogans and name suggestions for new products and was always sure her entry would win.) Mom had submitted her slogan. I had struggled to think of a decent one myself. (“We The People?" Trite and expected — millions of people would submit that. “Aspire Higher?” No, that was the theme of a Jell-O contest I worked on in the 1980s and would almost certainly become the butt of jokes because half the people in this country are high anyway. “Come Together?” An ugly Beatles song -- they were English so that right there would have disqualified it -- and it would also be ridiculed because it implied a nation in the throes of simultaneous orgasms. I came up with slogans for a living and often have dreams about being charged with creating them for clients. Those dreams become nightmares when I’m unable to think of anything that meets my standards and I panic, knowing I’m still under the client’s deadline.) I hadn't sent in an entry.

I was in the first row, directly in front of a generic curly-haired Congresswoman who was facing the crowd from the dias above me. (I don’t know her name but this same woman seems to be front and center at every Congressional hearing. Maybe she’s a clerk, not a Congresswoman.) Ruby was also in the first row, four or five chairs away, with a smug look of anticipation on her face, She was confident her slogan was going to win.

I overheard GC (Generic Congresswoman) tell a colleague that the winning theme had to be submitted by a minority. That pissed me off. I felt the winner should be the person who submitted the best theme. Insisting the winner had to tick the right box or boxes flew in the face of the contest’s purpose. Rather than emphasizing our togetherness, it further divided us and I told her so. 

.

GC leaned over the dias and handed me a piece of paper on which someone had written “Square Deal” and whispered, “Can you believe the slogan that old lady submitted?” indicating my mom.

“‘Square Deal’” was the name of one of FDR’s programs,” I replied, realizing why mom had submitted it —  Ruby worshipped FDR. (I looked up “Square Deal” this morning and it was, indeed, a Roosevelt program, but not an FDR initiative. FDR’s “deal” was the “New Deal.” Square Deal was the name of Theodore Roosevelt’s three-pronged domestic program covering conservation, control of corporations and consumer protection. So I learned something new. Or, rather, learned something I had learned long ago in American History class but forgotten.) 

“It’s stupid,” GC said dismissively.  

“I agree it doesn't meet the objective but she’s my mother and 102 years old which makes her a minority,” I replied angrily, but GC wasn’t listening. Like everyone else in the crowd she was looking up to the sky where a gigantic Chinese weather balloon, equipped with a lighted billboard like the Goodyear blimp that flies over the Super Bowl, was hovering while flashing the winning slogan: “We Are The Stars in the Sky.” Everyone in the crowd was smiling and nodding their heads, agreeing it was the perfect theme.

“Wait one minute!” I said. “That’s the lyric from the chorus of a Chris De Burgh song, ‘Elegy in a Country Churchyard,’ from an album I owned 40 years ago.” (I always thought that chorus would make a great jingle for my airline client except the song was about a young couple who got married, lived long lives, died, and were buried side by side in the churchyard and no song equating death with an airline would have ever been appropriate.)  “That doesn’t make any sense!” I yelled. “At all!” But nobody could hear my protest — the crowd was applauding.

Then I woke up, realizing I had to hurry if I didn’t want to miss bridge class.

What the hell was my dream about?

Wanting to make sure my mother’s feelings weren’t hurt?  Worrying I’ve lost my ability to do what I did for a living? Being concerned that inept politicians think idiotic slogans will do anything to fix what’s broken with this country? Fretting that a good idea is no longer as important as the type of person who submits it? Being incredulous that a giant balloon is floating across my country while we act like nothing is wrong?  Have I gone completely nuts?

Probably all of the above. And then some.

THE EXORCISM

Phone rings. I pick it up.

TD: Hello.

Caller: This is (name garbled) from (name garbled). I'm calling to schedule Judith's exorcism.

TD: Exorcism! You have the wrong number.

Caller (loudly and slowly):  I. SAID. THIS. IS. DOCTOR. (DERMATOLOGIST'S NAME). OFFICE. I'm calling to schedule Judith's "excision."

TD: I'm sorry, I don't have my hearing aids in. She's not home right now.

Caller: That's quite alright. That's the funniest thing I've heard all year. Please have her call us when she gets in.

TD: I will. 

 

Another day in technology hell

September 17, 2022:  I get an email from my insurance agent. She says my homeowner's insurance company insists that my house's breaker boxes be replaced; boxes made by the company that manufactured mine have reportedly caught fire. If the boxes aren't replaced by the end of January, the insurer will drop my coverage. She estimates the replacement boxes will cost around $1200 including labor -- that's what she paid for the same job earlier this year. I make a mental note to call an electrician later in the fall to have the boxes replaced. 

September 28:  Hurricane Ian strikes Southwest Florida. Thousands of nearby homes are destroyed. Thousands more are flooded. Luckily, our damage is minor compared to the devastation around us. But by the time our power is restored nine days later, every electrician within 100 miles is booked well into the new year. 

Mid-October: Having called more than a dozen electricians (most of whom don’t bother calling back) I email the insurance agent that I can’t find anyone. She gives me contact info for two electricians she says will definitely do the work as a favor for her because she sends a lot of referrals their way. They don’t call back either.

Mid-December:  I finally receive two estimates on the same day. The one who quoted $5800  can’t get to the job until May. The other, whose office is 30 miles away, quotes $3250 and says he can install the boxes sometime in mid-to-late January. I tell him he has the job but stretch the truth when I say the work has to be finished by January 20 instead of the end of the month. Living in the heart of Hurricane Alley, we can’t be without insurance for even a minute. 

Wednesday, January 11, 8:15 a.m.: The electrician sends me a text saying he is emailing a PDF permit form that needs to be filed with the City of Bonita Springs before he can start the job. He says I need to print it out, sign it and have it notarized, and return it to him, by mail, ASAP if I want the work complete by January 20.

8:20 a.m.: I text him that the email hasn’t arrived, and ask him to make sure he is spelling my last name correctly.

8:45:  He texts that he re-sent it.

8:57: I text him back that I still haven’t got it.

9:10:  He texts that he re-sent it again.

9:15: I text that I didn’t get it, and provide him with my other email address, which doesn't contain my last name.  

9:17: He texts that he sent the PDF to my secondary email account.

9:19: I text him I didn’t get that either and ask him to send it to my wife’s email.

9:20:  My wife receives the email and successfully forwards it to the email address that didn’t receive it in the first place.

9:21:  I send the PDF file to my inkjet printer. It prints out a blank page. Over the next five minutes I hit “print” repeatedly; it prints out blank pages repeatedly.  No owners’ manual came with the damn printer, so I have to search the internet to find out how to resolve the issue.

9:45: After scrolling through pages of useless troubleshooting information (Sample: If the printer isn’t working, make sure it is plugged in), I learn that the black ink cartridge must be empty. It isn’t — my MacBook diagnostics tool can measure the amount of ink left — but it is, indeed, running low, so I drive two miles to an Office Depot store to buy a replacement. 

10:14:  I leave the store with a cartridge the floor clerk assures me will work, even though my printer’s model number isn’t listed on the package. The clerk says they have been out of the cartridge for my printer for a while — supply chain issues — but that the one he found, after looking it up on his cell phone, will most definitely work.

10:33: The new cartridge doesn’t vaguely resemble the old one.  No way I can install this.

10:50: I return to Office Depot. The clerk I dealt with is “on break” (I’d like to break him) but the cashier acknowledges he shouldn’t have suggested the wrong cartridge and refunds my money. He says the Best Buy store down the street stocks cartridges and suggests I go there.

11:11: Best Buy doesn’t have the cartridge either.

11:22: I return to Office Depot and ask the guy behind the desk at the Business Center if I can send a PDF file from my smart phone that he can print out for me. He says that, under normal circumstances, he could, but the store’s email is down.

11:24:  I head for the nearest Staples store, eight miles away. Then I remember that staples.com allows shoppers to check and see if their local store has the item they want in stock. I check staples.com. Good thing I didn’t drive all that way —the nearest store doesn’t have the item. Nor does the next-closest Staples. But Staples’ Ft Myers store, 12 miles away, has it. I order, pay for it online and receive an email that it will be ready for pick-up within the hour but not to leave for the store yet — I’ll get an email when the order is ready. 

1:30 p.m.: The email arrives. 

1:55: I double-park in front of the Ft. Myers Staples store, run inside, and pick up my cartridge.

2:27:  I insert the cartridge into the printer. It prints out a blank page. Again and again.

2:55: The printer online manual says that sometimes, if the three color ink cartridges are low on ink, the black cartridge won’t print either, so I’ll need to replace those, too. Why didn’t it say “Replace all four cartridges at once” in the first place?  My MacBook diagnostics tool says the color cartridges aren’t empty but are only 25 to 30 percent full— odd since I rarely print in color — but I’m running out of time, so I head back to Office Depot for replacements. 

3:11: The clerk I dealt with this morning is back on the sales floor. I swear he has a new piercing — that must be what he did on his break. After searching the shelves and back room, he says the store doesn’t have the exact color cartridges for my machine but he is 100 percent sure the ones they have in stock will work. I’m not falling for that ca-ca again. As I head to the parking lot, I text five friends asking if any of them will print out a page for me. Only one replies: He is on a plane in Connecticut that’s taxiing for take-off.

3:30: One of the neighbors calls, says he just saw my text and, of course, will be happy to print the page for me. I email it to him.

3:33: I pick up the page from my friend and tell him I’m in a hurry — I need to get it notarized before the bank closes at 4 — but will explain later. 

3:50: I hold open the door of the bank for a stooped-over elderly gent (and I don’t say that lightly, I’m 71) carrying a briefcase, and follow him into the lobby. He tells the Customer Service agent he needs a notary. I say I need one too, and am trying to get the document notarized so I can take it to the post office and put it in the mailbox before the last pick-up which I’m almost sure is 4:30. The old fuck says, “I was here first.”

4:31 The ancient sonuvabitch apparently just bought a house or Twitter or something — he had so many documents that needed notarization he was in the notary’s office for 45 minutes. The notary apologizes she kept me waiting. 

4:35:  Notarized permit in hand, I leave the bank knowing I missed the last pick-up of the day at the P.O. but I drive there anyway on the off chance I was wrong.

4:52:  Amazing. One thing today has gone right — the last pick up is at 5 p.m.! I drop the form in the mailbox, drive home, pour myself a large drink, and text the electrician that the form is on its way.

5:30: I order the three color cartridges I still need from amazon.com. I am never setting foot in an Office Depot again. 

Saturday, 7 p.m.: The amazon package arrives. 

Sunday, 11:30 a.m.:  I install the three new ink cartridges in the printer and run a test page. Which prints blank.

 

Meet your new Speaker of the House: Me.

As I write, the House of Representatives is getting ready to take a seventh vote to determine who will replace the Honorable Nancy Pelosi (D, California) as Speaker.

The media is reporting that Kevin McCarthy, who expected to be elected but has come up short six times, met overnight with the fellow Republicans whose votes he needs to put him over the top and his supporters claim they are confident he will prevail this time. As a contingency plan, in the event McCarthy loses on his seventh try, I have been approached by members of both parties to have my name placed in nomination for the position on the next ballot — the Speaker doesn’t have to be an elected member of Congress — and after much thoughtful deliberation and prayer, I have consented. If my country needs me, I'm willing to serve. Here’s why I'm perfect for the job.

1. I’ve been both a Democrat and a Republican. Multiple times. Right now I consider myself an Independent — both parties make me want to hurl. I understand what Congresspeople from both sides of the aisle want most: To leave the Capitol richer than the day they were sworn in for the first time.

2. I support the Democrats on some social issues, e.g. I’m against racism. I support the Republicans on others, e.g. prohibiting women who formerly were equipped with peni (if I remember my Latin correctly, I’m almost sure that’s the way to pluralize the word) from competing in women’s sports and earning all the trophies and scholarships. We need to keep open minds when it comes to empowering people but use common sense.  

3. I grew up in a tiny extremely conservative town in America's heartland. I spent most of my adult life in Manhattan and its suburbs, the epicenters of liberalism. I know how to get along with people from all walks of life and, more importantly, how to get them to work together. By the time I leave office, Marjorie Taylor Green and Adam Schiff will be BFFs. 

4. Having no party affiliation, I’ll be free to allow bills that actually benefit the majority of Americans into committee and on to the floor for a final vote. What a concept. 

5. Because I won't be campaigning for myself or my fellow party members, I promise to be a one-term Speaker, after which I’ll write a book, land a deal from Netflix, give highly paid speeches to both liberal and conservative groups, and start my own lobbying firm. These are rewards I’ll deserve after living for two years in Washington, D.C., a town so mired in useless laws that I was asked for my I.D. when I ordered a drink in a restaurant last week. The waiter explained local law requires him to ask everyone.

Please call your Congressperson — this very minute, there's no time to waste — and tell him, her or them to vote for Thomas (Tom) Dryden on the eighth ballot. 

Thank you, and God bless America. And, of course, me. And you. 

The triumph of George Santos is the failure of America's media

 

I am sure you have read or heard about George Santos, a Republican who last month won a seat representing New York's 3rd Congressional District. On second thought, maybe you haven't because you, like millions of Americans, no longer consume news "reported" by the mainstream media.

During his campaign, Santos, a native of Brazil where he is wanted for elder fraud and check forgery, told voters he held multiple degrees and had been an executive at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup before leaving to start his own successful business. He said he was Jewish and that his grandparents were Holocaust survivors, that several of his employees died in the Pulse nightclub shooting, that he had attended the prestigious Horace Mann prep school but had to drop out because of family financial woes, and that his mother died of cancer as an indirect result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks which she somehow survived when the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed. 

The New York Times last week revealed that none of those claims, and many others Santos has made, are true.

My question is this: Where the hell was The New York Times when this clown was running for office? The answer: Publishing story after story about the incompetence of, and lies told by, a former president it fears and despises while ignoring the incompetence of, and lies told by, the current president whose political party it worships. If Santos were a Democrat and the NYT discovered his lies post-election, I doubt that any of them would have been published and that Santos would be sworn in next month with his hand on a Gutenberg Bible (the earliest of which, by the way, I recently purchased from a private dealer). 

Santos’ election was a triumph for him but represents everything that’s wrong with The New York Times and, by extension, America’s media which considers the Times to be the gold standard in journalism. Not. One. Single. Reporter from the Times or any other mainstream media ever took it upon himself/herself/themself to investigate Santos while he was running around making claims that were patently untrue.  

As the former managing editor of the Associated Press, a position I assumed after I sold to Elon Musk the plans I had drawn up for the first mass-produced electric car, I know a thing or two about journalistic integrity and am outraged at the arrogance and laziness of The New York Times and the rest of the media who apparently sit on their duff eating bon-bons while obsessing about Trump who has been out of office for nearly two years. My advice for them: Get over Trump. He’s yesterday’s news. Do your job and report news that’s relevant today. Be advised that doing so may require you to actually log off the internet and make a few phone calls.

When I was working on my PhD in journalism at Harvard, whose journalism school was endowed by, and named after, my Iranian-born grandfather who made his fortune mining diamonds, my professors instilled in me the importance of reporters actually getting out in the field and digging out stories that help readers make informed decisions.

The New York Times, as it has repeatedly in the last few years as it has obsessed about Trump, has once again failed its readers and its mission. Which is why I am today announcing my intention to make an offer to purchase substantially all of its voting stock. I have hired Goldman Sachs (disclosure: Goldman is run by my wife) to handle the deal and while I am constrained from revealing details at this point, suffice it to say the NYT’s shareholders won’t be able to refuse the price I’m willing to pay. 

I assure you that once I’m in charge, The New York Times’ credibility will be restored because I intend to fire its entire staff of TDS-addled editors and reporters and hire honest-to-God journalists. 

Assuming that in today’s America, I can find any.

Tommy can you hear me?

 

Lab assistant, reviewing a checklist at radiology center where I am about to have an MRI: Do you have a pacemaker?

TD: No

Lab assistant:  Any other electronic implants or devices?

TD: No.

Lab assistant: Stents?

TD: No.

Lab assistant: Shunts?

TD: No.

Lab assistant: Body piercings?

TD: Nope. 

Lab assistant: Hand grenades?

TD: Hand grenades? Do I look like a terrorist? I'm a grandfather. I have white hair for Chrissakes!

Lab assistant: I said "hearing aids."

TD: Oh. I'm sorry I raised my voice. Yes, I do ... but I'm not wearing them today.

Clerk: Obviously.

An important message from your insurance company

Dear Valued Policyholder: 

As you may be aware, Tropical Storm Ian is predicted to impact the Florida peninsula as a major hurricane sometime over the next few days. As your homeowner’s insurance provider, our first concern is the safety of our policyholders and their loved ones — the $20 billion or so we might have to pay out to cover damage claims is barely on our radar at this point. 

Accordingly, here are some tips to help you prepare for the storm:

• Turn off Netflix, and switch to your local TV station. No, not the one that shows reruns of Gunsmoke and Murder She Wrote 24/7, choose one that has “live” news and weather forecasters. If you speak English, choose a station that broadcasts in English. Si hablas español, elige una estación que transmita en español. IF YOU ARE HARD OF HEARING, TURN ON THE CLOSED CAPTIONS. 

• Secure your property. Bring in outside furniture, plastic flamingoes, your "Biden/Harris '24" and “Hate Has No Place Here” yard signs and anything else that could become a projectile in high winds. 

• Top off your vehicle’s gasoline tank. While there are only two ways out of the Florida peninsula — I-95 on the east coast and I-75 on the west — and both will be parking lots packed with millions of hysterical residents trying to flee so you’re unlikely to be able to travel more than a few miles before you give up and return home, at least your last thought as the storm surge washes you out to sea will be that you tried to escape.

• Keep your cell phone fully charged, so you can take videos of trees bending to the ground, your neighbor’s roof being blown away and the water that will flood into your home at the height of the storm and text them to your friends up north. (Tip: Do not stand in front of picture window to shoot video if wind is gusting at more than 100 mph.)

• Because the power is sure to go out — it always goes out on your street, even for hurricanes that hit Texas 1,000 miles west of you — eat all the food in your freezer because it will spoil. Be sure to thaw and cook meat products before you eat them. 

• Stock up with water, beer, Pop-Tarts, batteries and anything else you and your family will need to survive the coming days. (Note: Batteries are not intended for human consumption.)

• Purchase enough baby formula to last a week. If, due to the current shortage, you can’t find any, feed your baby beer which will at least keep him/her/them hydrated and asleep. If you do not have a baby, feel free to ignore this tip.

• Don’t forget to bring any pets inside before the storm hits. As a reminder, your homeowner’s policy does not cover the cost of replacing pets who blow away, drown or are eaten by hungry alligators displaced from their ponds due to the storm.

Tomorrow we will be sending you an email containing tips for surviving in what's left of your home during the weeks and months after the hurricane while you wait for your check from us which may be delayed due to the U.S. Post Office which no longer cares about delivering anything but Amazon and eBay packages. Provided, of course, your home withstands the winds and/or that giant tree hanging over your house doesn’t come crashing down to destroy it and you. 

Stay safe. Together, we will survive this storm. At least we will — this message is being sent from our headquarters in Illinois. 

Sincerely,

Your insurance company

Living on bread, mashed potatoes and Tootsie Roll Pops

Almost everyone I know has had COVID except for me and my wife and I haven't understood why. While COVID is nothing I've ever aspired to, I'd like to know if I'm one of those people who is apparently immune. I've read that folks with O-negative blood -- my type -- are less likely to get it. And that men with full heads of hair are more resistant than balding men. (Thank you, grandpa, for that gene.) This may sound weird but in ways I have been feeling left out, like the last kid picked for the dodgeball team. 

We were vaccinated in February and March, 2021, and received our first booster in November. My doctor told me to put off having the second booster, and I was glad I followed his advice after friends came down with COVID within weeks after receiving it.

Like most people, we stayed close to home during the early months of the pandemic. But by mid-summer 2020, we were venturing out, selectively, to restaurants and social events. Until a month after our second shot, we wore masks everywhere but as requirements eased, we stopped. I hadn’t worn a mask in months until week before last when I went to DC where Uber and Lyft passengers were required to mask up. (That requirement has since been lifted.)

This year almost everyone in our social circle — all of them vaccinated, many having had their second booster shots — has gotten COVID.  I haven’t understood how Judy and I somehow missed it.

Turns out I didn’t. 

Early this summer, I ran out of Irish Spring in the middle of a shower. I asked my wife to hand me a fresh bar. I love the scent of a brand new bar of soap but couldn’t smell it. To my amazement, I realized I couldn’t smell anything — her perfume, the dogs’ stinky breath, coffee, gasoline when I filled my tank, fresh bread baking in the oven. (Disclosure:  We’ve never made bread but if we had, I couldn’t have smelled it.) Cigars were the only scent I could detect and I smelled them everywhere — at home, at the gym, in the supermarket, at the dentist’s office. Neither I nor anybody I know smokes cigars. 

Around the same time, food began to taste odd. I made a pot of my famous beef vegetable soup and threw it out — it was disgusting. I hadn’t deviated from the recipe so I assumed I’d used spoiled ingredients. We ordered a pizza and I couldn’t finish the first piece. You name it — cheese, meat (especially bacon), eggs, milk, cereal, vegetables, ice cream, basically anything and everything — either tasted gross or had no taste at all. The one exception was fruit-flavored hard candy. Even chocolate tasted awful. 

In early July I visited an ENT (Ear, Nose, Throat) practice. Naturally, I didn’t get to see the doctor — apparently one gets to see a new doctor these days only if a major appendage has been sawed off and is spurting blood like Old Faithful —  I saw a Nurse Practitioner. She asked if I was aware my symptoms were consistent with COVID. I said of course I was but, to the best of my knowledge, I hadn’t had it. She asked if I had allergies. I said yes. She asked when I had last been tested for allergies. I said four or five years ago. She ordered a CAT scan of my sinuses. It revealed inflammation but nothing alarming. She then ordered new allergy tests. It took a month to get tested because the front office screwed up the preparation instructions. By this point, I was finding food repulsive and was subsisting on mashed potatoes, bread and Tootsie Roll Pops. I couldn’t taste the first two but they didn’t leave a bad taste in my mouth like everything else did. The Tootsie Roll Pops tasted pretty much as they had back when they cost two cents each rather than a quarter. 

Once the allergy test results confirmed I wasn’t severely allergic to anything that could be causing my problem, the Nurse Practitioner ordered an MRI of my brain. She said my symptoms might be caused by brain cancer, Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s. Swell. But the front office screwed that up, too. I waited two weeks for the radiology center to call to schedule the MRI, as she said they would. I finally called them and learned they had never gotten the order. Nor had the pharmacy to which the nurse said she had sent my allergy prescriptions. 

Disgusted with the idiot ENT practice, I did what I should have done in the first place and went to my regular GP this past Friday. He drew blood for a COVID Antibody Test and sent it to a testing center. Yesterday I learned that I apparently had asymptomatic COVID. The doctor estimates that, based on the strength of my antibodies, I had it sometime between three and four months ago. Last week, I read in the WSJ that up to 40 percent of those who get COVID have no symptoms at all. I was one of the 40 percent, and was enormously relieved to learn my loss of taste and smell is likely the result of COVID rather than one of the insidious alternatives. Lucky me. The doctor said I should wait a month or more before I get my second booster shot since I still have a high degree of immunity.

A question for my readers who’ve read this far: If you had COVID and lost your smell/taste senses, how long did it take for them to return? Did they, in fact, return?  And if so, did you recover them fully or only partially? I would really appreciate hearing from you so I can manage my own expectations. I'm not complaining about my loss of smell and taste. I know too many people struggling with life-threatening illnesses to complain about something that picayune and I'm grateful I didn't know I had COVID at the time I had it, but I haven’t been able to find reliable statistics about the 20 percent or so of COVID patients who lose their taste/smell and how quickly they recover. If you’re reading this via a Facebook link, you can reply on Facebook. Otherwise, please email me at tom.dryden@gmail.com.

While I’ll never get tired of good bread, I never much liked mashed potatoes. And my teeth are going to rot away if I keep eating a dozen Tootsie Roll Pops a day. 

Thanks, and have a good day. 

My disappointing year

Taken last week, in front of my next residence.

 

This has been a year of disappointments — my own anus horribilis. (Or is it annus horribilis? I only took one year of high school Latin, so I’ve never been quite sure.)

It started in early February, when I was stunned to learn I had been passed over to become CEO of CNN. Unlike me, Chris Licht, who got the job, didn’t go to the prestigious Missouri School of Journalism, he only went to Syracuse whose J-school, back when I graduated in 1973, was considered second-tier. Take a look at the slogan under my name at the top of this blog page -- America’s Only Objective Journalist. It has been there since my very first post in 2012, back when CNN still had a modicum of journalistic credibility. If you are one of my thousands of loyal readers, you know that I, unlike CNN, have never failed to report accurately and fairly. CNN needed me, but it wasn’t to be.

Later that month, I was gobsmacked when President Biden, without even as much as a courtesy call to tell me I was out of the running, announced that the new Supreme Court justice would be an African-American woman, something I am not and didn’t have time to become before Ketanji Brown’s confirmation hearings began. Having watched every episode of the original Perry Mason … read (nearly) every John Grisham and Scott Turow novel … and served on the board of my community association where I was instrumental in helping adjudicate important disputes among residents about roof colors, landscaping decisions and other life-and-death matters … I was more than qualified. Plus I live just a few miles from Judge Judy who, I’m sure, would have gladly made herself available for consultation when I needed advice.  I’m even the father, son-in-law, uncle and brother-in-law of attorneys.  

This week was, hands-down, the most disappointing of all, when I learned I will not be devoting the rest of the years God grants me to the service of the United Kingdom and its Commonwealth. While I extend both condolences and congratulations to King Charles III, his new job should have been mine. I have more British blood coursing through my veins than he (though mine remains stubbornly red instead of blue). Every single one of my direct ancestors who came to America was born in England, Scotland or Ireland. More than half his direct ancestors are German. And I am younger than Charles III which means I would most likely have more years to dedicate to the service of the realm before passing the crown on to my eldest son who, like the King’s youngest son, has red hair but unlike Harry, wed someone likable.

 

My beloved wife, who would have become Judith I upon my ascension, is also bitterly disappointed. While I am fairly knowledgeable about British history — I subscribe to both the PBS/Masterpiece and BritBox streaming services— I’m a rank amateur compared to Judy, who can recite all the English monarchs, in order, beginning with William the Conqueror. Knowing the Queen was in failing health, she had already commissioned Lilly Pulitzer, whose clothes she wears almost exclusively, to create a gown for our coronation and it was near completion. I heard her on the phone, shortly after we got the news the Accession Council had named Charles the new monarch. She was choking back tears as she told the factory to stop work on her dress. As Queen Consort, Judith would have made sure the Crown Jewels were displayed in places where the world could see them — atop her head, around her neck and wrists, pinned to her bosom, and on her fingers — rather than behind shatterproof glass in the Tower of London where people have to wait in line to see them.

So yes, it has been a tough year. Frankly, I haven’t felt this discouraged since 2003 when I was passed over for superintendent of the Wilton (Conn.) public schools, a job I wanted despite the fact that, with rare exceptions, I don’t like children much, but was looking forward to writing a witty and engaging “Superintendent’s Corner” column for the local newspaper. 

That said, I remain optimistic because that’s the kind of guy I am. When life gives me a sucker-punch, I pick myself up and soldier on, looking forward to the next opportunity.  Speaking of which, the above photo was taken last week in front of the residence to which I hope to move on January 20, 2025. I’m planning my campaign as we speak. 

And for Judith, two words: Have faith. The gown you had intended to wear at our coronation will someday look great displayed in the Smithsonian Museum of American History next to dresses worn by Dolly Madison, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Melania Trump and other first ladies. 

Call Lilly Pulitzer and tell her to get back to work.