The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I don’t want to appear misogynistic. Of course a runway model can be intelligent or possess extraordinary attributes that would give Customs Folks reason to allow her into the United States of America on an Einstein Visa! Nobody is insinuating that the Donald pulled strings to have the immigration folks slip her through their incredibly complex security measures just because she was his squeeze. Certainly America doesn’t work that way. We’re the land of equal opportunity. You can be ugly even and be allowed in. I think. Well, maybe not if you’re getting the Einstein option. Then you need to be glamorous, beautiful, a model. With, of course, a very high IQ. Or specialized skills, like, oh, hugging a plastic blow-up whale in a Sports Illustrated swimsuit layout.

Not! that I’m saying you couldn’t have an affair with Donald and still have a high IQ. Certainly you could. It’s just, well, it’s sort of highly unlikely is all I’m saying. No offense, Melania. You seem like a perfectly nice person. The kind who would, if she ever got to be First Lady and had to pick a Cause, might pick Cyber-Bullying. It’s a great cause, really, but geez, wouldn’t Einstein have cautioned picking one that pretty much sums up yer Old Man?? I think he would have.

No, I’m not the kind of guy who would begrudge a person the right to come into our country with fantastic modeling skills. I just find it troubling that she’s married to an anti-immigration blowhard who games the system to his own advantage while at the same time denigrating those rapists and killers coming across our borders, those terrorists sneaking in on Lottery Visas, all those family members getting in via Chain Immigration where moms and dads and kids can join the newly assimilated émigré here in the Land of the Free. Melania’s folks came in that way recently, but … well, no buts, just another exception that proves Trumps rules. Consistency, after all, is the hobgoblin of little minds. The Trumps obviously do not have little minds.

I do think, however, we need to reword the inscription at the base of the Statue of Liberty, a little update for these hobgoblin times we live in, something along the lines of ‘Give me your runway models, your photogenic, your privileged masses yearning to be TV reality show stars, Send these, the swim-suited, tempest free, to me, I lift my camera beside the gold coin door.’ The rest of you, get a tummy tuck or stay home.

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While I was queued up at the long lines of the South End International Airport two days ago pushing my duffle bag by footkick the two miles to the patdowns and X-rays, a nice TSA lady asked us if we had any pets. “Dogs, birds, snakes … peacocks? Yes,” she laughed, we’ve had peacocks.” I was seriously glad I’d left my chickens home to roost. No telling what the airlines demand for pet fees if they get $25 per piece of luggage one way.

Maybe it’s less for chickens or turtles or small reptiles, I wouldn’t know. I’ve ridden with small dogs in carrying cases their owners stuffed under their seats. No charge back then in the Friendly Skies, but I’m betting now there’s a price plus proof of rabies shots. The overhead bins are totally crammed so good luck stuffing little Woofsie up there. A snake, sure, always room for a coiled serpent. They can curl right up and snooze for hours, but they’re probably surly when they get disturbed. I’m sure, though, they’re defanged.

‘Comfort pets’, I guess we call these critters, what used to be ‘service animals.’ If you were blind, you had a trained dog to safeguard you crossing streets. I don’t know if a parrot is really trainable for that. Just does the talking, maybe, for the mute. Or a boa constrictor. Comfort? Well, that’s a tougher call. I had peacocks way back. No way were they a comfort, not with that scream of theirs like a kid being hit with a red hot branding iron. Pretty though. Be quite a show to spread a six foot iridescent fan and shake it in the aisles. But not comforting, sorry, not at 35,000 feet.

Who knows where this all ends? Noah’s Ark Airlines, maybe a niche in the industry where, for a small fee, they provide a flying kennel. Leash free areas even. Just one huge comfort zone. At least til the terrorists start using Cockapoodles to attack the flight crew. Then those pet fees are going through the roof….

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