Eggshell or Pearl? Trump has Mexi-Fence™ options
Pick a wall, any wall. President Trump has been offered eight little bits of barrier to look at for that nine-metre-high border fence he says Mexico will be paying for. They’re being respectfully referred to as “prototypes,” but who’s kidding whom. They’re wall samples.
They come in books like the fancier paint chips whose surfaces you can stroke. “I do like the Eggshell,” you say, “but perhaps we need Pearl for washability.”
You can get tile samples too. “I do want subway tile but in a glossy finish to bring light into the kitchen. And call me crazy but I’m looking at a white grout, what are your thoughts?”
When you have eight contractors bidding for your teardown and reno as Trump does, they have to listen to you blue-sky out loud for hours, about polished chrome vs. nickel.
“Would you say brushed metal is really at the end of its cycle?” you ask.
CBC foreign correspondent Paul Hunter has done fine work on this ludicrous story, visiting Trump’s little Lego test cases in the California desert, showing us what’s on offer while keeping a straight face.
The walls are made of various combinations of concrete and steel. Doesn’t anyone know that the world sand shortage will make concrete as prohibitively expensive as those copper drawer knobs I had my eye on?
As well, some of the samples include prisonlike metal bars rather than solid wall.
I’m thinking that bad hombres — they’ve been throwing bags of drugs over the wall hitting passing Americans on the head, Trump says — will simply slip the goods between the bars. They probably won’t even have to bag them first.
As for the wall topped with a slanted edge, that’s where I would throw my grappling hook if I were tossing bulk fentanyl at Mexico.
Excuse me? It’s the other way around, you say? Good to know.
So the problem is not Mexican as such. The demand is American.
The uncontainable appetite that Americans have for druggy brain vacations makes the wall not necessary, but still attractive to Trump voters, many of whom puzzlingly appear to be drugged themselves.
If Americans cannot be persuaded to Just Say No to drugs, a whacking huge West Bank wall is not the answer.
Here’s my idea. Run an electric wire underground all along the Mexican border, as you do for unruly pets when a fence would ruin a vista. Then make every Mexican and American within 100 km of the border wear an electronic receiver collar. No worries, it is unobtrusive and will offend no one’s fashion sense.
And as any good contractor might suggest, why not go the wireless route and avoid all that expensive digging along 3,100 km of “varying terrain?”
A smart president would use Mexican labour because those people have the work ethic that Americans somehow misplaced.
On one side, it’s a Mexi-Fence™ and on the other, a Yanqui-Fence™. Don’t thank me — my reward is having brought peace to warring nations — but yeah, I’ll have a taste.
Here’s my second idea. Teach Americans that instant gratification is the wrong path and delayed gratification is their friend.
I would start off in preschool with the famous Marshmallow Test. It’s hard waiting for that damn marshmallow, so cushy and sweet, a puff of fun.
But the reward for waiting toddlers is a munificence of marshmallows!
Ah, I see the American kids — little Donny, Steve-o and Baby Louise — have eaten every marshmallow in sight and the experiment is over. The Canadian kids happily waited for the marshmallows, saying they had already brushed their teeth, but Louise Linton had stowed them in her purse anyway, #tomford sunnies #hermesscarf #valentinorockstudheels #marshmallows.
So. Back to choosing a wall that will contain American desires. Good luck with that.
But I’m afraid we are too busy ringfencing the Arctic to keep out Russian ships. You know Russians.
If flagless Russian athletes are allowed to compete in the possible Calgary 2026 Winter Olympics, Putin agents may be throwing bags of bromentan, phenylpropanolamine, and furosemide over the wall, as well as bags of urine.
Note: the wall has to be too high to pee over. You’d be amazed. hmallick@thestar.ca
If Americans cannot be persuaded to Just Say No to drugs, a whacking huge West Bank wall is not the answer