If I were King
With all of the king talk going around because of politics, and because of celebrating a 250 year old breakup letter with a king, I have heard several times people talk about being a king.
At meetings I have had to participate in Ice Breakers and more than once the icebreaker question was ‘What would you do if you were king?’ I’ve noticed that most of the answers express a deep seated grumpiness. And in that spirit I offer the following.
If I were king you would not be allowed to leave your house if you are wearing your pajamas. As a matter of fact you wouldn’t be allowed to leave your house if you were wearing something that resembled pajamas. I am saying that even the undertaker would have to change you into something other than your pajamas before they would be allowed to carry you out of the house.
It’s not that you wouldn’t be allowed to wear your pajamas past 10 or 11:00 in the morning it’s just that you just cannot leave your house if you’re wearing them. That would be my first official decree.
My next decree would be that you cannot complain about the price of gas if you are driving a pickup truck. You may not like the price of gas but you cannot complain about it. I might make an exception if you are among the 10% who actually use your pickup truck for work — which is what a truck is made for. But most of the people driving trucks haul nothing but themselves most of the time and it is clear that the truck has never hauled anything besides the driver.
If you are not hauling anything in your pickup truck bed because you don’t want to lower its trade-in value you probably should have bought something sleek and fast instead. If you are willing to drive a vehicle designed for work that is not by definition aerodynamic and has a big engine (designed to do work) you cannot complain if the only work you make it do is drive you around.
Similar to that would be a decree that you cannot complain about money if you smoke. If you are burning money you cannot complain about whether or not you have any. Pretty simple really.
I’m beginning to believe that ‘if I were king’ was the basis of many of George Carlin’s rants. But the truth is I have no desire to be a king because I have no desire to be that unhappy. Look at Moses: he had the advantage of an incredible number of vivid miracles that his own people saw.
These people saw the 10 plagues, they saw water parted, they saw water come from a rock, and countless other miracles and they still were a pain in the neck to lead. So the reason I wouldn’t wanna be king is because in order to enforce my decrees I’d have to be really mean. And I would be grumpy because my subjects would be grumpy because no one wants a king. No one wants someone dictating what they do.
We may not be good at being free but we’re absolutely lousy at being subjected. I think it would be lonely to be king. So I would mandate a four-day work week — four tens equals 40 hours just like five times eight does. Three day weekend and the same amount of work gets done. I’d mandate picnics and dances and potlucks. I’d want to be the fun uncle king.
Actually, I just want to worship, love my family, do my job well, bowl, and find my community to be a pleasant place to live. Which is truly what most people want (although I understand that some golf and others play video games or fish).
There are people who are not bringing the best out of us. They do so because they derive power from divided people and because deep down they are small souled bullies. When the pendulum swings away from them, like it always does, they will be relegated to the trash heap of history. I like people that help me listen to the angels of my better nature. I am more likely to get that from an incredible spouse, a beloved friend and neighbor, a dear cousin, a treasured colleague, an innocent grandchild, a mischievous grandchild, than I am from a lonely king.
