The odds-on favorite

I saw the opportunity from across the patio, and I had planned to ignore it.  

My husband was talking to a nice man, and together they firmly planted a small-talk flag in what would ordinarily be my talking-point quicksand. 

But with the blessing of slight anonymity, liquid refreshment, and the desire to keep politics on mute, I was determined to stay on solid ground. 

For the first time in I-can't-even-recall-another-time, instead of taking the bait, I was going to just smile, nod in agreement, and ask the host for "a little more of this amazing salad."

I was so ready to just enjoy the evening and the company. It didn't even matter that just minutes before, a well-meaning stranger dropped into my lap the most dreaded of all getting-to-know-a-person questions: "So what do you do?" 

I didn't even flinch. I just said with a creepy wink: "I mostly make trouble," then stood up and asked if anyone needed any refreshments from the snack table. 

But just as I reached the food, my husband looked at me and, with the wave of an arm in my direction, announced: "you should talk to my wife - she has a more interesting take on this topic than I do." 

I withdrew my hand, which had been hovering over a platter, trying to decide which delicate morsel to select as if it had burned me. My appetite was suddenly gone.  

I hadn't been to a party in 18 months, yet, somehow, all the stomach-twirling discomfort of being a social misfit rocketed back as if it had never spent the last year and a half in semi-isolation. I was ready to enjoy the company of other humans without having to be diametrically opposed to everything they had to say, especially when we mostly agree. 

Of course, having heard only three words -- Gillibrand, Franken, and forced-resignation -- I knew what the consternation was and why it had resurfaced. 

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand -- one of the most prominent Democrats who had called for the resignation of popular Minnesota Senator and former SNL Comedic star Al Franken after several women raised allegations of sexual misconduct -- had missed a vote to bring a law on equal pay to the senate floor. It doesn't matter that Republicans announced they would filibuster equal pay so there would be no football to snatch away at the last minute. It certainly didn't matter that Franken chose to step down instead of wait for the outcome of an investigation. "She made him do it."

This perceived "Fauxmality-Pas" was just another reminder that liberal-minded Democrats prefer a tow-headed jokester with sophomoric antics to a career politician who wouldn't take one for the team.

It didn't seem to matter that Franken's charm, in Congress, wasn't nearly as effective as it was entertaining. (We still got Kavanaugh.) It also doesn't seem to matter that Tina Smith, a capable and qualified politician, took his seat and has been re-elected, twice.

I suppose it's just difficult to resist the gravitational pull of personality. 

I wished I could stand up for the funny man, too. I have fond memories of prank calling local bookstores in 1996 to ask if they could tell me the title of Al Franken's new book? My only goal was to giggle uproariously when the person on the end of the line obliged and then repeated: "Rush Limbaugh is Big Fat Idiot" for all to hear.

But the credible allegations against Franken made it difficult for me, if not impossible, to accept that such behavior toward women should be just buried for the sake of solidarity by the party that aims for higher ground.

And when people tell me the man is innocent until proven guilty, I tell them when women are the victims it's usually the other way around. Fairness is not something we have come to expect as much as recrimination. 

I mean, a man claims he was swallowed by a whale and spit back out, and we just marvel in amazement. A woman says she was groped during a photo op, and we ask her how much she'd been drinking.