|
|
Chelsea Clinton and her husband, hedge fund manager Marc Mezvinsky, are
expecting their first child. Clinton, 34, made the announcement in the exact
same way you would, in a speech she gave together with her mother at a Lower
East Side event promoting the Clinton Foundation’s effort to empower girls. The
baby is due sometime this fall.
Dear Baby Clinton-Mezvinsky:
Welcome to advanced gestation! Since you’re new around here, I thought
you’d like to know a little bit about what makes you so special. The reason is,
you’re going to live your whole life in make-believe!
Do you know the fairy stories about a princess in a castle? Well, you get
to be that real-life prince or princess, in a real-life castle where Mommy
Chelsea is also a princess, Grandma is about to be crowned Queen, and Grandpa
Bill is a retired ex-King with lots of helpful advice on ruling the kingdom, er,
monarchy. (Your other grandma and grandpa were both a kind of court vassal
called Congressmen. Oopsies, other grandpa, Edward Mezvinsky, even went to
something called “prison,” which is kind of like a big, cozy crib! Can you say
“wire fraud”? Good, you can’t! Don’t! Around here we pretend Grandpa isn’t a
criminal!)
Inside the castle towers you will find that Mommy, Mommy’s mommy and
Mommy’s daddy Bill are all really good at make-believe games. So you get to
pretend all the time! Mommy’s mommy and Mommy’s daddy even pretend to still be
married even though they’ve been living hundreds of miles apart for 14
years!
Before you were even born your mommy’s mommy pretended that it’s a
completely normal thing to announce your own grandchild’s birth to the world at
a joint press appearance with your mom, hosted on Skype and live-streamed. With
America Ferrera!
Although you will at all times pretend to be a normal baby, you actually
already have your very own career, like doctor or fireman or lobbyist! Can you
say “Campaign Asset”? Good, now let’s learn about skill sets! You only need one
talent. Ready? It’s “Soften the Candidate”! Sort of like human bubble bath。
Now, even though you have a busy life, sleeping 18 hours a day, nursing and
learning to roll over, all of this comes second to being a stage prop to the
grandma they call “Hillary” or “Madame President” or “Lady Pantsuit。” When big,
scary men with huge, glowing boxes on their shoulders come around, don’t be
afraid! They’re only here to shine blinding lights into your widdle eyes. Kind
of like a dozen suns shining at the same time! Just think of them as the
Sunshine Men. They will be accompanied by nice pretend journalists who are
actually castle-outreach people named Katie or Oprah or Diane, whose job it is
to make you and Grandma look good, so don’t cry so much, and only on cue!
(Example: When Grandma Hillary says, “That ol’ John Boehner sure gets upset when
he doesn’t get what he wants,” start wailing!)
There are a few special little things you need to know about. For instance,
if you are a girl, mean people will mail you blue Gap dresses. You don’t need to
worry about where they came from, because the castle’s shining knights will go
after them. These knights work for a castle security program called the IRS.
Those blue Gap dresses are a reference to something unfortunate that happened a
long, long time ago that we all pretend didn’t happen and anyway was all the
fault of barbarians and trolls living outside the castle. We call these twisted
creatures Republicans。
In two years or so, when most babies are just learning to crawl, you will
be hitting the road! Grandma Hillary is going to need you to smile and coo
whenever there are Sunshine Men around. So play nice and don’t projectile vomit.
Grandma is not what grown-ups call “maternal,” and was busy turning $1,000 into
$100,000 in the magical cow trading market when your mommy was a baby, so she
will have to make believe she is really “helping out” with you. No crying if she
gets the diaper on the wrong end!
When you’re a teenager, you may start getting strange invitations from
Grandpa Bill. Don’t be surprised if he asks you to invite all of your girl
friends and their bikinis over to his house for a pool party. Grandpa Bill loves
young people, especially young female people frolicking in the sunshine!
The best part of your make-believe Clinton-Mezvinsky life is that people
will pretend you’re good at things and give you gifts like high-paying
consultancy gigs when you just got out of college, jobs reporting for NBC News
when you have as much camera-awareness as a smoked flounder, and the leadership
of the free world because you “deserve it。” Learn to accept everything as your
due, baby Clinton-Mezvinsky, and maybe Mommy and you will be the third and
fourth Clintons to rule the kingdom!
|
|