of american politics and the defenestration of panties

A greeting card from my sister, aka she who aspired to be a mermaid. Annotated.






The Text:

(canned hallmark copy) When I'm President, I'm gonna settle all disputes with a dance-off. // You're gonna be Vice President, so work on your moves.

(deb copy) But you know, I'll probably be impeached after only a month in office for throwing your underpants off the White House balcony [1] into the Rose Garden 500 times [2]. You'll tap Johnny Whitaker [3] for your Veep & usher in a new era where everyone is nice to everyone, they all have enough money, and cars run on grape juice [4] -- which is very, very cheap. And pollution free. [5] Plus they'll put your face on all the stamps even while you're still in office. So let's just forget the whole thing & hope Barack wins. [6]

The Annotations:
[1] The author alludes to the defenestration of panties of our childhood, in which she, the older sister, tormented me, the younger sister, by dropping my underwear through our open second-story bedroom window into the flower bed below. Repeatedly.

She did this publicly and in broad daylight, and frequently when her friends were over, to demonstrate her mastery over me. I, in my horror, would run down the stairs and out to the flowerbed to retrieve the panties, mortified that the cute boys playing hockey in the street would have witnessed the incident and known they were mine. They only knew they were mine, of course, because I was the only one rushing down to the flowerbed in horror. Had I stayed inside no one would have noticed the brief whisper of white that floated down and settled into the soil.

Almost without fail Deb would be waiting for me, on my return, with another pair of panties poised and ready to drop through the open window. She would release them as soon as she saw that I saw what was about to occur.

And so it would begin again.

[2] And again. And again. And again.

[3] Johnny Whitaker, you may remember, stared alongside Sigmund in the Saturday morning live action show Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. Deb had a thing for Johnny, and daydreamed about writing love letters to the budding young star, which she would sign "Love, Debby" with a generously flourished cursive "L".

[4] We were sometimes broke growing up, sometimes not, depending upon my parents' immediate fortunes. Broke times were powered by much grape juice because yes: it is very very cheap.

[5] Nothing if not environmentally virtuous, my sister.

[6] This would be the political part.


(The only thing more surreal than coming off two weeks on the road covering both coasts late late late on a Friday night, is coming home to something like this.

Which, of course, made my day.)