If her life was a musical, I don’t think Melania Trump would spring out of bed merrily dancing down the street while belting an ebullient “Good morning, Washington!” like Tracy Turnblad in “Hairspray.” No, no. I picture her awaking to something more on the order of “West Side Story’s” achingly sad “Somewhere,” a reliable gut-punch to anyone who has ever wanted to belong. Which is pretty much all of us.
Maybe Mel greets the day simply dreading what kettle of fish-kies must now be dealt with. Life with HIM must remind her of that book about a bear hunt she surely read to her son in one of the many thousands of languages she is said to have mastered.
“Vee are going on a bear hunt…” she must have read, turning the beautifully illustrated pages in the children’s classic with her waxen hands. But, as we all know, the hunt is complicated. Troubles are encountered, decisions must be made.
“Can’t go over it, can’t go under it…vee must go through it!”
It’s Groundhog Day for Melania. What in God’s name is HE going to do today? Can’t go around it, can’t go under it or over it. We have to go through it.
The problem is, we’re all on this bear hunt and at least half of us don’t want anything to do with it. Can’t HE just go away, content to eat pudding and lie about his golf scores and business acumen? Why must he remind us how grateful we should all be he’s in charge? Of the missiles and the military and …OK, now I’m going to need a paper bag to breathe in.
You know that dinner party question where you are asked if you could spend 30 minutes with anyone—living or dead—who would it be? And how everybody always says either Jesus or Dolly Parton? While those are solid picks, I think I’d say “Melania Trump.” But not mannequin Melania, who sits silently beside HIM while the letters spell out HELP ME in little blisters on her stomach.
Kidding! She knows what she’s doing. She has shrewdly chosen this life. But what a fascinating chat if you could connect with the real person who must surely be in there somewhere. Knock knock. KNOCK KNOCK.
I wonder if Melania ever thinks about escaping. Especially if HE wins again. Another four years would surely make her pine for the life chosen by those rapscallion royals Harry and Megan, who just made a spectacularly public run for it. Is some part of Melania thinking, “I didn’t even know you could do that!” Does she also want to leave the land of constant scrutiny and mandated semi-sheer pantyhose?
Maybe she could escape to Canada, too! Wait. That won’t work. Not after those pictures of her gazing at Justin Trudeau like he was the last Popeye’s Chicken Sandwich on earth.
There’s a place for her, somewhere a place for her. Find it, Mel, and call me.