There are a lot of things I’d change in this world, if I had a position of power in the government. Unfortunately, I haven’t had any cosmetic surgery and I’ve never done anything truly shitty.

I’ve done little shitty things. I probably do at least one little shitty thing every week. But I lack ambition for the really mind-blowing shit. Throwing people off health care, starving children, setting up concentration camps, and dropping bombs indiscriminately is impressive top-drawer shittiness, and putting the wrong plastic in my recycling just doesn’t rise to that level.

I’m not a real hard worker. I had enough personal integrity to work reasonably hard for thirty years and then I sat my ass down. This probably isn’t a strike against me, position-of-power-wise. You don’t really need to have done any work to get a cabinet post these days. You just need to have work done.

Call me vain, but I don’t like the aesthetic. There are a number of procedures I would have to undergo to nail down a prominent position and I have neither the moxie nor the eyebrows for it. I would have to introduce a certain prescribed lumpiness into my face and it would look strange and off-putting immediately, and worse later on when all the lumps begin migrating around. I would have to grow my hair out again just when I’d gotten comfortable with the chopped-and-done look, and I don’t have enough natural eyelashes to glue the false ones on.

I have never in my life been able to put an entire outfit together. I’ve gotten pieces of it right but I never have appropriate shoes and I can’t rock a cowboy hat. There was a time I fit in perfectly but that was when the height of fashion was a beat-up old denim work shirt with patched jeans and bare feet. Nailed that. But even if someone else laid out the power wardrobe for me now, I’d be baffled. How high a heel goes with the Kevlar vest?

Fashion eludes me. Other women radiate insouciance with a simple French tuck. When I try it, it either looks like I forgot to tuck all the way in, or my shirt got stuck when I was pulling up my pants.

And I haven’t carried a purse in decades. No way I could accessorize with an assault rifle. Should it dangle? Should it be slung casually over the shoulder? Could I substitute a Glock as a clutch?

The right tattoo might get me access. I’m aware that “1488” is a subtle Nazi symbol with plausible deniability, but if I had it installed as a tramp stamp people might think it was a running tally of previous visitors to the site.

Also, I’m not good at lying. I’m not against it, I’m just not good at it. If my job was to stand at a podium and confabulate a rationale for why the administration was doing all these shitty things, polygraphs across the country would spontaneously burst into flame.

And there’s no way I could stomach posing with the hand of blessing on the Dear Leader as though God himself has anointed him. I don’t believe that, for one, and for two, if there is a god that weighs in on photo ops, I don’t want to be incinerated by the thunderbolt.

I just don’t have what it takes to join this administration. I will have to leave it to stronger and poofier women. And maybe the day will come that they will have to face the music, but they can always get a new face.