To start off, Collins stood with a straight face and heard Texas Senator Ted Cruz talking to the teevee news …

“Look, we shouldn’t be shutting the government down. I have consistently opposed shutdowns. In 2013, I said we shouldn’t be shutting the government down,” Cruz told reporters on Monday.”I went to the Senate floor repeatedly asking unanimous consent to reopen the government.”

Being as how most senators lay the blame for the shutdown directly at Cruz’s feet (Remember Green Eggs and Ham?), and Cruz was one of the 18 senators who opposed stopping the 2013 shutdown, Collins was … well …

“You’ve rendered me speechless,” she said, then paused. “2013. 2013.”

Then, truly bless her heart, she tried to get a group of bipartisan senators together in her office to negotiate during the shutdown. She tried a schoolteacher idea, a talking stick. Only the person holding the stick gets to talk, everyone else has to listen until they get the stick.

It worked fine until … (You know what’s coming, right?)

At one point, Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee forcefully tossed the stick toward Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia after Warner interrupted him, nearly shattering a glass elephant belonging to Collins, according to two people briefed on the throw. Collins reportedly decided to switch to a ball after the dustup, presumably assuming it would be a little less destructive.

Yes, because grown Republican men cannot be trusted with a stick.

Thanks to everybody for the heads up.