Call Me Martha

  With all these decorating tips I must think I’m Martha Stewart here. I just have to tilt my head in that Aren’t-I-Adorable-and-Harmless way of hers which she does so nobody will guess that she’s this total dragon of a boss.It happens: Power corrupts, as old Lord Acton said and absolutely power corrupts absolutely.And sometime people IN power lie their faces off when there’s any threat that their more fallible side be exposed as with the dough Martha made with inside trading.She didn’t trot out the adorable look when that whole thing went down I noticed.I guess sweet as she looks with her basket of fresh eggs she's just  a mere mortal like the rest of us. And we all have a tendency to ‘work ‘ people, don’t we? I know I was trying to work people as early as First Grade. I remember studying myself in the mirror to perfect  my own special “I’m Harmless-Don’t-Hurt Me" look, which did come in handy when my big sister got a notion to  throw me to the floor,  pin my arms with her knees and practice lowering long strings of spit down onto my face, only to suck it all back up into her mouth at the very last second, which she could actually do – most of the time anyway. This was the look: But what a meanie Nan was doing that as I think back! And stealing my clothes! They fit her though she was older for that one year anyway she was still built like Peter Pan to my Gina Lollobrigida. (Well, Gina with a potato face and out-of-control hair.)  But then what a meanie I was in return as the years went by,  locking myself in the bathroom that one time she was half way through bleaching her hair. There she stood outside the bathroom begging me to open the door to the room where the neutralizer was. There I stood stubbornly refusing to let her in. Her hair stayed eerie grey-green for three days before she could lay hands on a much darker batch of Lady Clairol. That none of us is perfect is the moral of this story I guess. A good thing to keep in mind next time we reach for the National Enquirer, all set to smirk over some poor public figure's  fall from grace.