If I Were King!

Every man at some time or another has thought about what it would be like to have supreme power, to do whatever they wanted to do, to get done whatever they thought needed done, to have everyone around them answer to their every beck and call and to fear their wrath ... yes, they have thought what it would be like to be a woman ... Just kidding(sort of) ... of course what I meant to say was all men have at some point thought about what it would be like if they were in charge; if they were indeed — THE KING.

You know Donald Trump must have dreamt about it every night! Probably still does!

And yes, you ladies have desires to be the Queen. For my 2 cents worth you are a lot closer to achieving that than us men are to being a King, but we’ll leave that subject alone for a while. But you know that’s true!

But being The King would bring with it some huge responsibilities. You would have the power to make everything right. You just have to know which decision is the right one. But I guess it really doesn’t matter if it is THE right decision for everyone; just the right decision for The King.

So here is a short list of the most important subjects I would tackle if I was King. These are only the most important ones, the topics having the most effect on the most people. The topics that dominate our daily lives and our nightly dreams and our water cooler discussions. You know, the big stuff. So here we go:

EDICT NUMBER 1. All cats must have identification documentation attached to them at all times. No papers? Then no freedom. We have to tackle head on the undocumented, or described another way, the illegal feline epidemic. After I am King for a while and get my personal bodyguard force in place I’ll tell you what will happen to the undocumented cats. MeOwwwwccchhh!

EDICT NUMBER 2. Women that cannot easily be ascertained as being women (come on, you should get paid like men, but you don’t need to dress like men) by the most casual observance of a normal red blooded male (meaning when viewed from at least 2 of the 4 key positions) will have to go to Texas for a month of training by the local debutants of almost any small Texas town. In Texas you can tell the sexes apart.

EDICT NUMBER 3. The King’s brother’s construction company (Pad Our Pockets Inc.) will have the exclusive rights to install ... then remove ... then replace ... all of the guard rails on Rt. 50. And the sidewalks. We need sidewalks all the way to the ocean. And yes, weeding the guard rails will also be handled by the King’s cousin and his cohorts, called W. B. Slimey and Company. In addition anyone caught spraying Roundup on the Royal weeds will be locked up in a room watching Oprah reruns over ... and over ... and over! Those weeds gotta grow!

EDICT NUMBER 4. We will not import anything. Nothing. Nadda, zippo. The price of our goods and services will be based on what Americans can afford to pay, on what salaries Americans need to sustain an acceptable life, and on what labor practices are acceptable here in the USA. I know, not as important as the cat issue but it needs mentioning. We can’t pay ourselves good wages when we import C.R.A.P. (C.R.A.P.; Cars, Radios, and Plastic stuff) made overseas using people making $5 a day.

EDICT NUMBER 5. Football will be played 12 months a year with a 30-day break in the middle. Baseball will be limited to 60 games a season (and games limited to 2 hours), basketball to the 30-day football break, and golf can be played anytime but it can only be shown on TV between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. when some people may need something to help them sleep. Soccer? I may have to suspend soccer until I have time to settle on some new rules to make it more interesting; the current thought is to make them play with 2 balls, have kicking the other players legal (and encouraged, maybe give points for the best kick) and to allow tackling your opponents from behind (when your team is behind in the score). If that doesn’t help we may just get rid of the goalie position. Then we can hear more GOOOOAAAALLLL!

This is taking too long, I’ll go to speed up mode to hit on some other key decisions.

EDICT NUMBER 6. All federal department heads must turn in a balanced budget ... or be shot. Okay, we can talk about the shooting part. Or maybe where they get shot. Maybe the foot for the first offense? If that was the case there would not be any 2nd offenders.

EDICT NUMBER 7. We will not get our troops involved in any foreign country without the support of the United Nations. Why are we the world’s police force?

EDICT NUMBER 8. Health care will be provided at no charge to anyone that tries to live a healthy life (good diet and exercise), and that gets a physical annually ... and does what the doctor says to do. Simple. There really has to be some accountability ... people should at least tend to their own bodies as well as they do their cars.

EDICT NUMBER 9. Decisions to remove statues or monuments that depict past heroes (they were obviously thought of as heroes when they were erected if not today) of any state can only be removed by a vote of the people of that state. No knee jerk reactions by politicians.

EDICT NUMBER 1O. Conspiring to overthrow the King is punishable by death (or bybeing locked out of Facebook, whichever hurts you the most). Also turning in a conspirator to the King’s police is rewarded with a lifetime free of income taxes, and bribing the King is allowed if kept in good taste. Keep in mind that The King has simple tastes. I can give you a list if you are so inclined. So, there you have it. The starting points of a new Kingdom.

Don’t like the edicts? Well you don’t have to ... you can come up with your own list. No 2 people will have the same list. Heck, mine would be totally (almost totally, those cats have got to be controlled!) different tomorrow.

But this is all a dream. Having supreme power is something that men today have only in their minds ... and maybe in their own homes.

Well, of course not in the WHOLE house ... just in their man cave.

I mean they can’t do whatever they want to there but they can decide how it’s decorated, and who can come over and play cards there, and maybe how late the guests can stay ... how loud they can be. Stuff like that. Well maybe you really can’t have over your loud cousin who once pinched your wife at a Christmas party ... and there is that 10 p.m. curfew your wife “recommends” weekly ... and somehow your poster of the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders has been missing for months now ... but I am sure if you asked in the correct apologetic tone you could get permission to turn the TV on to watch the football game if you kept it turned down ... to about level 2.

Yeah!

Really the best we men can hope for is for women to let us think we are in control. Which is pretty much where we are at today.

I most certainly want to believe it was my decision to go shop for a new couch rather than play golf yesterday.

It was, wasn’t it? ... agree with me, even if you have to lie. You know that we can’t handle the truth.

Editor’s note: Mr. Jones writes from his home in East New Market.