In the Hot Seat

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Uh-oh. Someone’s in the hot seat, and I think you know who I’m talking about.

But, if you ask me, I don’t know what the big deal is. There’s nothing strange about talking to a chair. After all, it’s not as if I’ve never done that.

Clint Eastwood talks to a chair at the Republican National Convention.

So, Clint Eastwood, I understand. You bet, I get it. Go ahead and talk to the chair as if it’s President Obama, like you did last night at the Republican convention. You were in top form, if I say so myself. Almost as menacing as you were in Dirty Harry when you went after the bad guys and refused to play by the rules. And, just about as curmudgeonly as you were in Gran Torino, after the Hmong moved into your neighborhood.

So, why talk to the hand, when you can talk to the chair? In fact, after you’re done, do me a favor and come on over to my place. I’ve got a sofa that thinks its FDR, and a coffee table that’s channeling Joe Biden.

For, the other day, my sofa, which has certainly seen better days, said to me, as I arrived home from work,

“You have nothing to fear, but fear itself.”

I turned around to see to whom he was talking to, as I didn’t think it was me. After all, I wasn’t feeling particularly fearful about anything. But, then I realized he must have known I had an important deadline approaching at work and was feeling rather fearful I wouldn’t make it.

Before I could reply, Biden, the coffee table, saw that I had in my hands a model car, a replica of a car my father once drove, that my brother had sent me (an early birthday gift) and, in no uncertain terms said,

“You didn’t build that.”

Of course, I knew that. I’m all thumbs when it comes to building anything, but my brother did build it from a kit he had purchased, gluing all the pieces together himself. And yes, I suppose, he couldn’t have built it without having the purchased parts provided by the manufacturer, so one could say, it was a group effort. It takes a village, after all.

Had I had a hand in it, I’m sure the engine would have ended up in the trunk.

Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, my footstool, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, exclaimed,

“Forward!”

I assume she was referring to President Obama’s new slogan. Still, it startled me into jumping, well, forward. And it’s a good thing too, because just then, Henry, my Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, had come from behind, aiming for my legs and I would surely have lost my footing and landed on top of Nancy, had it not been for her strategic warning.

Speaker of the House, John Boehner, the floor lamp, chuckled. “Lucky you didn’t fall and need some of that Obamacare we’re going to repeal.”

To which I replied, “I think your bulb is out.”

“Still,” he insisted, “The last thing you need is to be sidelined by a fall, not with that deadline you have at the office.”

To which Joe Biden, the coffee table, interjected,

“It’s a war on women!”

“Hey, Joe,” I responded. “I think the war on women refers to something else, not me having a collision with my dog.”

My throw rug, Sarah Palin, looked at Joe askance, and asked,

“So, how’s that hope and change stuff working for you?”

“You know I don’t appreciate your sarcasm, Sarah,” Joe replied.

“We can do better!” shouted Presidential Nominee Mitt Romney, aka, the step stool leaning against the kitchen pantry. “It is not what we were promised!”

To which, Nancy replied,  “Look at the facts, Mitt.”

At which point, a fight among all my furniture ensued and I couldn’t help but wonder where I’d left Rodney King, my ironing board, earlier that day as I was getting ready for work. Oh, that’s right. Upstairs in the linen closet, where I’m pretty sure I could hear his muffled voice give a sigh and say,

“Can’t we all just get along?”

And that was when, FDR, the sofa repeated, “You have nothing to fear but fear itself!”

And then, it hit me. The sofa was right.

47 thoughts on “In the Hot Seat”

  2. Pingback: It’s a Sweet Sunday… « One-By-One

  3. Monica, how did I miss this post? I thought I had caught them all! I’m blaming the jungle fever I seem to be battling these past few days for having missed it. Girl, I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck! I’m glad for the chuckles this post has awarded me since I feel they’ve helped boost my immune system! hee hee! I didn’t catch Clint’s speech but I did read about the aftermath. Bizarre, strange, confusing–all adjectives used to describe Mr. Eastwood’s oratory. I’m glad you gave us a different perspective and prompted us to giggle in the process! 🙂

  4. Okay, Monica, this is brilliant. Seriously. Thank God, you reminded me to check it out. What’s really funny to me is that we have a throw rug with Sara’s face woven into it. Sara lived in Afghanistan for a year after the fall of the Taliban and when she left someone actually gave it to her as a gift. I figure it gives me a chance to walk all over her.
    Hugs,
    Kathy

  6. Now why does Sarah Palin as a throw rug seem so amusing? A throw rug would never give up its elected position to become a better paid window valence. Ah but I digress. Love the post. I think we all thought poor Clint had just lost his mind. Do they run those things by anybody?

    • Jayne, my furniture knows better than to ask to be dusted. Besides, I tell them, it’s not just any kind of dust, it’s pixie dust. Maybe that’s why they’re able to channel so many politicos. Now, if I can only get my dresser to channel George Clooney. How cool would that be!

  9. You know, Monica, it’s not only furniture that talks to us….the grass screams at us when we’re about to mow it, the toilet cries in agony when we…ahum…dump a load, even the stove tells us of its discomfort if we turn the heat up too high in order to boil a simple pan of water. But then again, the voices in my head tell me I’m nutso…but what do they know? LOL

    Another great post, my dear.

  11. Oh your tangled web never fails to delight me . . . I must admit, though, that reading an essay by Oliver Sacks re: visitations he got while on hallucinogens had me wondering about your very lively furnishings. 😉 Seriously , I will say this about the RNC — Clint Eastwood (much as he offended me) was clearly the highlight.

  12. Thanks for the laughs, Monica. You have turned a groan into rip roaring LOLs with your well timed humor. Palin as a throw rug? I love your imagination.

  13. I wish I didn’t miss Clint talking to that chair Monica, and I wish I could show you the photo a friend had posted of Bill Clinton and President Obama on either side of an empty chair- Clint Eastwood of course – while they seemed to be splitting their sides laughing. It was so appropriate. I don’t want to make fun of Clint. He is an icon after all and he is 82 or something like it, also he’s a local hero, How very Dirty Harry, right? Here’s the thing, I just didn’t understand the point of putting him through that. Poor man.
    Um, as for talking to furniture, well, I have insane conversations with my ironing boad and book shelves, constantly. It doesn’t stop there, I talk to my books a lot too. I love that Joe Biden is a coffee table and John Boehner, er, a lamp …. you had me in fits of laughter as always.

    • MM, I saw that photo! Someone posted it on Facebook and I got to see it. Too funny!

      Putting him through what? He chose to do it. He asked for a chair on the stage and the Romney team assumed he wanted it to use to sit down (because of his age). So they gave him a chair. He also told them ahead of time that he doesn’t like using a teleprompter. He, being such a great actor and director, they let him have his way and once again, assumed he’d stay on message. They had no idea, nor seemed to have asked him what he planned to do. From the looks of it, he didn’t plan it out, either. So, I don’t feel sorry for either of them, Eastwood or Romney’s people.

      Plus, I must confess, I didn’t appreciate his somewhat racist remark, when he told the (mostly white) crowd that “we own” this country and plan to take it back. Back from whom? An African-American president, perhaps? He also said he doesn’t believe attorneys should be president. That we need a businessman in the White House. True, Obama went to Harvard Law school. But then, so did Romney. 😉

      • What? He said what? Oh I wish I had seen it, here I was feeling sorry for Clint. I cannot believe he said we have to take the country back, What is it about a colored man that brings out the worst in human beings? What threatens them? I personally think our President is too smart for this country, he has such vision. It isn’t only about money, it is about being progressive and educated. Having a businessman and his band of merry elitist friends with a steady cash supply, in the White House will never get the economy to bounce back, how delusional do you have to be?
        By the way, Isn’t Clint married to a beautiful Latin American lady?
        I also didn’t know he had asked for that chair… seriously? Well, that backfired, didn’t it?

      • I am actually worried that money may prove to be the magic ticket to the White House. Super PACS are the scariest of all in this year’s election. If the one with the most money wins, then I’m heading for the hills. We shall see.

  16. Where is FDR when we need him?

    “We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country’s interest and concern.” 1937

    ” …there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people’s money.” 1933

    “We are beginning to abandon our tolerance of the abuse of power by those who betray for profit the elementary decencies of life.” 1937

    Where is FDR when we need him ?

    • Carl, I’m with you. I wish he was still around. He wasn’t just a president; he brought our country together during extremely trying times. He pulled us through a dark and difficult period. What would he say about us now?

  17. I’d never thought of Clint as “comic relief,” but perhaps that’s what he was shooting for. Anyway, nice tongue-in-cheek post, but frankly, I don’t know how you stand all the noise from your furniture!!

  18. Your furnishings have great character. Very entertaining.

    Clint was really talking to the chair? I missed his speech and will catch it on YouTube. Why didn’t someone stop him, I wonder. And I don’t reckon hairspray would’ve held down the windblown look? Tsk tsk, Clint.

    Politics has become such a circus.

  19. Talking (and listening) to furniture might sound crazy, but that’s how I feel right now. Politics is nuts! I’m wishing for a little logic and reason but I don’t think I’ll get it. I might as well just let myself be entertained by the absurd.

  21. …nice piece Monica.
    I couldn’t help letting my imagination play the conversation out and I almost could see us (you and I) making money from a cartoon called the house of talking furniture or something more catchy – that you are as of now charged with coming up with <<<<< Do you think this concept has been done already? If not, well here is our chance to stardom. :-)…

  22. Another entertaining post Monica.

    I thought I would get a comment in before I received another message from Cook!!!

    When I saw the report and a picture of Clint and the chair my first thought was isn’t he looking old!! Then I realised of course he is old, because old age is terribly democratic.

    Nothing wrong with talking to a chair, after all I talk to my computer, the computer even has a name it’s called Fred. No honest it’s called Fred, it stands for “Fed Rubbish Emits Drivel” So if I can talk to my computer and I must admit at odd times swear at it in frustration then Clint can talk to a chair!

    We had coverage on our Parliament channel of the convention over your side of the pond and I caught some of it. They do get terribly excited waving banners and cheering almost every word before they have heard them. Here they my do a gentle clap of the hands and a wave of the convention programme and that will normally be it, with discussion left until they are sitting in the bar afterwards. All terribly British!!!

    I must get some more crisps in and sit back and observe, I think your election is going to be entertaining. Whether it’s going to be more entertaining that your posts on the subject is another question of course and my money is on your posts winning!!

    Have a great weekend, I am off again playing with the steam trains. Plus I need to get my head round Sarah Palin as a throw rug!!!

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