Women Inspectors
Have you noticed anything fishy about the inspection teams who have arrived in
Iraq? They're all men! How in the name of the United Nations does anyone expect
men to find Saddam's stash? We all know that men have a blind spot when it comes
to finding things. For crying' out loud! They can't find the dirty clothes hamper.
They can't find the jar of jelly until it falls out of the cupboard and splatters
on the floor.... And these are the people we have sent into Iraq to search for hidden
weapons of mass destruction? They probably couldn't find them if they were lying
in the middle of a dusty street with a picture of Saddam aiming a rifle in the air
taped on the side.
I keep wondering why groups of women weren't sent in---preferably mothers. After
all, mothers know that their boys can't find their socks or underwear when they're
neatly folded in their dresser drawers, so how could they be expected to find hidden
biological weapons? On the other hand, mothers can sniff out secrets quicker than
a drug dog can find a gram of dope.
What we need over there are women like my mother.
My mother could find the old olive bottles filled with dimes that dad stashed in
the attic beneath the rafters. She could sniff out a diary two rooms and one floor
away. She always knew when the lid of the cookie jar had been disturbed, and I swear
she must have dusted for prints on the roll of salami that was always in the refrigerator.
She knew if a slice had been removed and by whom.
I developed her ability to stalk out criminal activity when my kids were at home.
They couldn't get away with much that I didn't know about. They still think they
got away with a lot, but actually I always knew what they were doing, and if I decided
that what they were doing was not too important or dangerous, I allowed them to
think they were getting away with it. It was important for them to think they have
an uncanny ability to pull the wool over mom's eyes occasionally.
But male inspectors? Going after Saddam?
Now I know that our country has gone mad. Those inspectors will rely on electronic
equipment to scout out hidden threats. They will try to use science to find chemicals.
These men, dressed in their pretentious jumpsuits, carrying their bulging briefcases,
will barge into palaces and hovels, look around and then officiously announce, "all
clear".
But if mothers were sent in they wouldn't need body suits, briefcases or science.
Mothers would go in, charge up to Saddam and, with their hands on their hips, demand,
"do you have any weapons of mass destruction?" And they could tell in an instant
whether he was lying or telling the truth.
And mothers would be quite capable of finding his cache no matter how cleverly he
thought it was hidden.
God help him once it was found; he would be chastised until he begged for mercy.
He wouldn't be given a "time-out"; he would get an old fashioned butt-kicking by
women who are adept at butt-kicking. And by the time these women finished with Saddam,
he would be sitting in the middle of a dusty road with a limp rifle and a stunned
look on his evil face.