Holiday Bonus

The cook, the help, her gift and their blather...

Before we continue with our regularly scheduled program, I’d like to welcome new subscribers. I got a real nice boost from my old Brooklyn buddy

Larissa Phillips

who restacked my Leaving the Left piece—we share similar departures—and it now has the most likes of any piece I’ve written here, the most restacks and the biggest new subscriber bump.

Thank you Larissa!

It’s great to have you all here—new and old subscribers alike.

I’d like to add a special shout-out to everyone who has paid for a subscription. All my content—114 essays and counting—remains free, which means that paying subscribers show me with their dollars that they extra-appreciate what I’m doing. And that means a lot to me. It keeps me going. So I would like to repay you with a special gift…

Her Gift

One of the most humbling experiences an author can have (unless you’re JK Rowling) is when your publisher mails you boxes of unsold books because everyone overestimated how well it would sell. Ouch.

Betcha can’t guess what I have in my basement.

It’s giving shattered dreams…

Here’s the deal—

I am offering a Christmas present exclusively to paid subscribers—my second novel. I would offer both novels but upon subterranean inspection, I can’t find any boxes of the first one.

Between now and December 20 you can grab one or two—one for you and one to give.

Each book will be autographed by me, so please include any inscription you would like.

Both my novels are considered ‘beach reads.’ They are satirical romances that probably would have benefited from an editor, or so said my father upon reading my second novel, because the man never held back.

RIP Dad.

Oh, and if you haven’t yet bought a subscription, it will take me a couple days to reach out to you, so feel free to upgrade your subscription in the meantime and you too will qualify for this Amazing Christmas Offer.

And! Don’t let me forget those of you Readers who bought me a coffee or three, which are a good bunch of you as well. You get a book, and YOU get a book!

Thank you!

All right.

Now on with the show.

My most recent piece, Tangerine Mullets and Marmalade Lies, ended in a bit of a cliffhanger.

Here is Part 2:

The Cook, the Help and their Blather

One of my side hustles is working as a party helper for a personal training client of mine who runs her own event planning business. Once or twice a month I set off to a mansion on the Main Line to help with parties, dinners and receptions. We’re talking Radnor, Gladwyne, Villanova. These neighborhoods are among the wealthiest in the United States.

And so I was dispatched to a glorious residence for a dinner party the other night.

When a house is unique or extra jumbo I like to Google the address and see how much it is worth, because, hey, why not. This one, set on six acres, was valued at 4.5 million, with over 20 rooms, a pool and a fountain, and was designed by a famous modernist architect. Striking and unusual in these parts.

Upon arrival it was clear that the house had a side hustle just like me—moonlighting as a modern art museum, bursting, mostly with photographs—enormous creepy doll heads, armless tribal chiefs, little girls with vacant stares presenting dead animals, naked bald men crouching in silver-tone. A basement corridor held a massive collection of framed black and whites taken with heads of state and former presidents. Statuary peeked from behind enormous flat-screen TVs.

Dinner is severed…

In the stainless steel kitchen, I would be working with the house chef—a French man with a French accent who wore a little white jacket with his name embroidered in script.

We shall call him Pierre.

Pierre prepared the multi-course menu for the dad who hired me, clad not in a dinner tuxedo but saggy Levis and a T-shirt, his tipsy wife, their three bulky teenage sons who wore their mullets without irony but rather a nod to ice hockey, a tiny grandmother, nipped and tucked, and an uncle who reminded me of Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons—he was my favorite because he wore a giant belt buckle that looked like this:

Click pic to purchase now!

It was to be an intimate family dinner, formally served by Pierre and me, your friendly neighborhood helper, Elise.

Pierre and I spent most of our time in the kitchen together, so we made small talk, which when I am in the room, quickly becomes large talk. Enormous talk.

It started with a remark about trans, how it’s out of control, and we both agreed.

Then...

Because I’m still new to being a capital C Conservative, I have yet to fully shed my Democrat behavior, so the tight skin of cocky assumption—that everyone is sure to agree with my views—clings like those leather pants I really should donate because they just aren’t flattering anymore.

Which is how the confession slid from my face like melted butter: “Fun fact, Pierre! I cast my first ever vote for Trump!”

I was certain he’d reply, “Mais bien sur mon ami!”

Instead the chef raised his eyebrows, his gaze trained on whatever vegetable he was chopping or dicing or slicing, and in an instant I knew—

Oh shit. He’s got TDS.

And we were trapped together—for four hours.

First it was, “He’s a populist! He doesn’t care about the country! He only cares about himself!”

The zingers he thought he was throwing—they’re almost a cartoon at this point. And in a French accent. And the guy’s not a citizen, and he can’t vote… But everybody’s got an opinion.

He warned, “You cannot ignore climate change. It’s very dangerous to do so.”

I said, “It’s funny. Climate change never came up during the Democratic campaign.”

Pierre said, “No, it did not.”

I asked him, “Did you watch the Olympic opening ceremonies?”

He said, “Oui.”

I said, “What did you think?”

He said, “I think that was good. What did you think?”

I said, “I thought it was a little heavy handed with the trans stuff.”

He said, “What do I care. People can do whatever they like with their lives. It’s none of my business!”

I said, “Yes. But it becomes your business if somebody’s privileged rights start stepping on your civil rights.”

Pierre agreed.

Then, as I always do, I said, “Have you heard of Thomas Sowell?”

He said, “No,” of course, because Thomas Sowell is the Conservatives’ best kept secret. Get the man’s name out there. He is so useful, the finest wrench to pry open the clamshell of a Democrat’s mind… And insert a pearl of wisdom.

Okay, I know I’m mixing metaphors here. Mixing mollusks. I’ll fix that in the rewrite.

Or maybe not.

So I say, “Tom Sowell is an economist. A black man, an orphan raised in the Jim Crow South, then Harlem. He used to be a Marxist, but then started working for the government and realized the whole Liberal model was a scam and that they were making policies that sounded good, but in reality resulted in terrible consequences for everyone. He went to Harvard, Columbia, University of Chicago. Wrote more than 45 books, and is NEVER celebrated during Black History Month…”

We squabbled over the pros and cons of minimum wage and then Pierre said, “Ah, but ze five star generals! They know what they are doing, and if they don’t like him, you know something must be truly wrong!”

I can’t remember the exact order of the conversation. I didn’t record it. I’m a dirty scoundrel but not that dirty. Or maybe I am. I don’t know. I do remember saying, “You remind me so much of my husband. The two of you should get together, drink whiskey and talk about what an idiot¹ I am.”

Pierre said, “Oh, I know you’re not an idiot. But besides, I don’t drink whiskey.”

While washing the salad plates I decided to walk it back to the beginning of my departure, thinking, surely Pierre would understand if I explained it like this:

My daughter never had gender dysphoria, in tenth grade her school changed her name and pronouns behind my back, completely ignored me when I fought them, their Democrat-backed policies drove a wedge through my family, I started researching “gender affirmative care,” found that detransitioners—the most informed and experienced voices on the matter—were suppressed on the left but I could find them on Fox News and Ben Shapiro, and from there I learned there are tons of fallacies on the left, so I left.

Boom.

Pierre said, “And then you became cuckoo.”

And it was so… so insulting and mean-spirited and closed-minded that I decided, I’m going to ignore you for the rest of the night. I’m not even going to taste your butternut squash soup.

Non, merci!

But then I thought, he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and I have to work with him, one-on-one, trapped like we’re in a broken elevator, while this eccentric family chomps down their veal chops and Caesar salads and chocolate soufflés. I’m going to pull out my feminine wiles and my boundless charm to win this Frenchman over, or to at least get him to see that I am not cuckoo.

Also I really wanted some of the veal chop.

In the stream of conversation he told me how informed he is. “I listen to all sides,” he said.

I thought, why do so many people with Trump Derangement Syndrome insist that they are judiciously knowledgeable, especially when they still believe that Trump said fine people on both sides?

Which Pierre of course did. He said, “I heard him say it! I saw it on the TV!”

I said, “You only saw part of it.” I told him what Trump actually said, told him the broader context.

Blah blah. Blather blather.

Pierre rolled his eyes, drizzled gravy on the chops. He remained unmoved.

I said, “What else you got for me Pierre? Lemme have it. Border? Immigration? Inflation? Affirmative Action? Bring it on.” I rolled up my black polyester sleeves and put up my dukes. Metaphorically speaking.

Pierre said, “What about vaccinations?”

I said, “I’m not anti-vax.”

Pierre offered generously, “There are a lot of people who feel very passionately about the issue.”

I said, “I’m not one of those people, but there certainly are a big enough number of mothers who insist that their children developed autism after their scheduled vaccines, who should not be ignored.”

Then he declared RFKJ cuckoo.

Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. I said, “RFKJ has been smeared relentlessly by the left. I don’t listen to that anymore. It’s not worth my time.”

I served and collected plates, forks, knives. Washed, dried, and slipped a paper towel between each thin dish as I’d been instructed, before slipping them into one or another of dozens of cabinets. Poured more water for the boys, wine for the wife, and iced mango tea—for Comic Book Guy.

Pierre said, “Have you seen Trump’s cabinet? They’re all white.”

I said, “Some of them are women.”

He said, “But not one black person.”

I said, “He just put in Kash Patel, he’s got Vivek Ramaswamy, Jay Bhattacharya…”

Pierre said, “But they’re not dark enough,” which was kind of a joke. “Brown is not black,” he smiled.

I could appreciate this, that Pierre wanted darker, wanted African descent, Jamaican, West Indian. He wanted coal black. Ebony.

So needy.

I said, “Yeah, but at the expense of merit? Do you just want a DEI hire or do you want someone who’s qualified?”

He said, “Oh, no, no, no, Zhey must be qualified.”

And so we agreed on that.

Pierre placed a fresh raspberry on one of the chocolate souffles.

I said, “I’ll tell you what, Pierre. I’ll go home, put on my tinfoil hat, signal it out to the chem-trails to alert President Trump that Elise Miller has a suggestion—and her friend Pierre—that you must put a qualified black man or woman into a position in your cabinet. How’s that sound?”

Pierre said, “That eez good, that eez good.” He laughed. Finally.

I served the soufflés. The family groaned while they ate, shouted their compliments to Pierre, and the wife complained about how fat she was getting as she spooned the last crumbs into her mouth.

Before I knew it, our time was over. I got my tip—a wad of moist bills—bid adieu to the wealthy quirky family, and Pierre and I vowed to remain friends, even though we’ll probably never talk to each other again.

As I got into my freezing car, Pierre stood in the driveway amongst the Porsches, Mercedes, Range Rovers, and other assorted luxury vehicles, smoking a cigarette because that’s what the French do. We waved bonne nuit and I drove away into the night black as skin, shedding a bit more of my own.

🐍

1. Mr Miller does not actually think I’m an idiot. For those of you who are new here, this blog began as a chronicle of the wrecking ball trans ideology smashed into my family, beginning in 2022. I’ve written extensively about my relationship with my daughter, and more recently my husband. We are in a good place as of this writing. Even the counselor we met with earlier this week believes we have a strong foundation that will not be toppled by the combination of my support for Trump and my husband’s disdain. Which is probably why this information is in a footnote instead of its own post. Good news just doesn’t sell, hon. Okay thanks for reading this far. Now back to it!