“This would be more fun if all of us didn’t have sticks up our keisters…”/Image: AP, Mike Semansky.
The picture everyone was talking about this weekend was of Mike Pence seated just one or two feet from North Korean dignitaries at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, as seen here in an article by the good folks at Reuters. We don’t know about you readers, but we here at Spread Your Right Wings (SYRW) had to get our winter coats out to look at it, because the long-standing cold relationship between the U.S. and North Korea, which has gone from chilly to deep freeze since Trump took office, entered frostbite territory with that picture!
Given what seasoned travelers many of us at SYRW are, we thought we’d humbly offer our favorite hard-right politician, Mike Pence, some tips on making people you meet on an international trip warm up to you–and maybe even vice versa. After all, the fate of the world could rest on if these the cold shoulders of these two nuclear nations!
Related: See what dishes Gen. John Kelly concocted to help him deal with the drama at the WH!
Grin and Bare Your Soul
The first go-to relationship-ice-melting method we respectfully propose to Vice President Mike Pence is an act so basic to being a human it happens automatically. Of course, Pence seems even more zipped up, rigid, and unmovable than your average Evangelical Christian guy, so it might behoove him to be reminded of it in any event. That is: smile!
For some reason, in the rest of the mammalian world, a display of one’s teeth is taken as an act of aggression, or at least self-defense. Not so for humans, as we all know. A Mike Pence frown is just a Mike Pence smile turned upside down. In fact, Pence could even stand on his head to take the friendship-making to the next level.
Breaking Bread
Next on our list of relationship-thawing methods for Pence to use with the North Koreans is food. When you go to someone’s house, especially for the first time, isn’t it customary in so many cultures to bring a bottle of wine, a pie, or some other demonstrative victual with you? Who can say no to this? Now, we hear from one of our SYRW staffers that a dish that’s oh-so-popular in Pence’s native Indiana is Jell-O. As odd as the idea may strike some for the Veep to whip out a bowl of that oddly-quivering gelatin-based dessert between himself and Korean officials, they say in situations like this to go with what you know.
Of course, Pence could go an entirely different route and bust out a bowl of kimchee, the pickled cabbage favored on the Korean peninsula. This dish isn’t for everyone, and may be a particularly bad choice for someone who looks like he has the culinary tastes of a Ken doll., we can only assume. But we’re talking about preventing a nuclear armageddon here, so pretty much all options need to be on the table, we say.
And: Get the deets on the new children’s book Trump and Rep. Devin Nunes are working on.
The Pence Is Mightier Than the Sword
Or in this case, the vocal chords. Perhaps the current Vice President could learn to say, “Hello” in Korean and charm his North Korean counterparts with the use of that phrase next time he sees them over in Pyeongchang. This little YouTube video offers a fun little training in managing “hi,” in Korean, which can be challenging as the language is part of the Koreanic family of human tongues. Those are tonal languages, which can be difficult for Indo-European language speakers to grasp (and English belongs, after all, to the Indo-European family of languages). According to Google Translate, the familiar Korean greeting is ” anneyong. ”
A nice, “Howdy,” accompanied by a tip of a coyboy hat wouldn’t be a bad choice either.
Or Pence could get really creative and do a Dirty Harry, “Go ahead: make my day,” with a finger gun. Of course, that’s too easily misinterpreted as fightin’ words, so it’s probably best to avoid that.
I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing
A song is so basic to the human experience, and the act of singing establishes a willingness to be vulnerable with someone, that we really think Pence’s next go-to ice-melter during the Olympics might be to wow the North Korean officials with a little ditty he belts out himself. Perhaps his wife, Karen Pence, could even sing back up, Yes–two-part diplomatic harmony. Ideas for songs: “I Say a Little Prayer,” “Amazing Grace,” or the universally-loved Friends theme song, “I’ll Be There for You.”
We can feel the icy conditions thawing as we type!
May I Have This Detente?
And finally, we really can’t see how our next suggestion could fail, so Pence may want to just to cut to the chase and open with this one: dance! Honestly, whose pants wouldn’t be charmed off by Mike Pence tripping the light fantastic. And imagine this: Mike Pence doing Gangnam Style! Are you kidding us–he jumps up and down frantically as his limbs flail about in pop-song glee? Come one–there ain’t no one who could resist that!
Other cut-a-rug classics he could try include the Electric Slide, the Macarena, or Voguing. As the legendary choreographer, Martha Graham, said about it: “The body says what words cannot.” In fact Pence might even want to challenge Kim Jong Un to the American teen-movie tradition: a dance-off. Of course, that may escalate tensions, so maybe not…
Also: See what our resident advice columnist said about managing problems in the workplace.
Tick Tock
The clocks, both on Pence’s visit and nuclear war, are ticking. If Pence doesn’t find a way to get the diplomatic wheels turning, human civilization as we know it may be annihilated in the fallout. Of course, with Trump it may be only a matter of time before a second American civil war or the ravages of climate change see to it that that happens, anyway! However, being a believer in the afterlife, we’re sure Pence would want to know that he did all he could to see humanity survive into the twenty-second century.
Last Thought
Nothing bonds people like going through adversity together, so perhaps Pence could hire someone to pretend-mug him and the Korean dignitaries? Going too far?
We at Spread Your Right Wings generally don’t like people, the Internet, or interacting with people on the Internet. Seek out someone—in person—to talk to and laugh with about this article. Check back with us as we continue to mock the right wing. Follow us on Twitter at @worstaltlife join our Facebook group, and follow us on Instagram at @worstaltlife. If you simply must get in touch with us, DM us through our Facebook group. Also, please, please see the disclaimer in our About section.
© 2018 Akbar Khan
