Things that Make You Go Boom

Well congratulations, Nancy Pelosi. Much to Colbert’s despair, you’ve managed to be elected the first female Speaker of the House. This entitles you wield power, wield influence, wield majority opinions, and most importantly, wield a big honkin’ hammer.

I give thee: GAVEL!

Yes, aside from the whole two steps from the Presidency, there’s not that much to get excited about when it comes to the Speakership other than your new tool. You don’t actually speak that often, what with the rotating moderation for debates and all. And there’s more procedural and administrative tasks that one realizes they’ve signed up for. But you do get underlings – and damn, if they weren’t some seriously cool underlings at that. There’s the Clerk, who isn’t even supposed to be here today. There’s the Sergeant-at-Arms, who we envision being a cross between this guy and this guy. Also, there’s the CAO (not Awesome, but Administrative – dagger.), and the Chaplain. At any time, Pelosi my dismiss any of these people, save the chaplain. Only God can dismiss a chaplain, and our guess is if that happens, they’ll never work in this town (or any town) again. Damn the icy scythe of Death.

But let’s get back to the reason Nancy Pelosi wanted this job. Her new gavel.

Right now, she’s in one of four professions that allow her to literally strike her desk as hard as she can with an implement of distinguished force without “Human Resources” bringing you a “jacket” so that you can go “on a vacation” and never come back. The others?

• Judge: The man behind the bench works in an office where at least one the other people in the room very well be a criminal. Yeah, I’d carry a hammer for protection, too.
• Auctioneer: He uses his gavel to ruin people’s lives. Everyone is in good spirits prior to the final big bang, but once he lays the gavel down, he’s not only sold you this nice yacht, he’s thrown in the bonus prize of “buyer’s remorse.” Good luck explaining that purchase to your wife, Mr. Richpants.
• And the third? The less-celebrated but equally powerful “youth sports association commissioner.” Pay attention to him, or he’ll make sure your kid ends up playing little league for the team sponsored by Rita’s Beauty Salon or some crap like that.

Now it’s a good thing that previous Gavelbangers like Gingrich and Hastert don’t get to keep their special toy at the end of their run, since judging from the fledgling gavel industry, there’s not many cool replacements for the House of Representatives to purchase (with your tax dollars.) (Fun note by the way, Rep. Sam Rayburn served as Speaker of the House for a record 17 different years. Now, he plays football.)

Regardless, Madam Speaker, if you would like it, YAB wouldn’t mind going into the petty cash and purchasing you this way cool crystal gavel and base.

(WE promise that Christina Toms will erase the name from the sample and put yours on it, okay? Sound good, Toms?)