EJ Montini

opinion columnist





We need to lighten up, at least a little bit.

All week long I’ve been getting notes and phone calls from men and women overwrought by the impending inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.

There was this guy, who wrote, “I feel as if it’s the 1950s all over again and I should be in my basement digging a shelter to protect my loved ones from the Trump inaugur-apocalpyse.”

Yikes. That's a mouthful.

Another local reader pledged to hang a black wreath on the front door of his home on the morning Trump is sworn in as president and to not take it down until he is out of office.

It goes on.

One woman plans to stay in a closet

A man wrote to say that his wife actually cried when Trump had accumulated enough electoral votes to win the election. He told me he couldn’t talk to his wife about this, but he believed that during President Obama’s eight years in office a lot of people had gotten “soft.”

He said, “Even though there was a Republican Congress and they were able to stonewall just about everything, people took it for granted that Obama had their back. They stopped paying attention. They thought that Hillary would protect them, like Obama did. Well, guess what? You’re on your own, now. … Although, I’d never tell that to my wife. Not yet. … Maybe never.”

MONTINI: Trump could channel Lincoln at the inauguration (no, really)

One woman actually told me she was going to spend the entire inauguration ceremony inside a closet. She said she would give me her cell phone number if I promised to call her when it was over. I think she was kidding. But, honestly, I’m not sure.

As The Arizona Republic's Clay Thompson – the last beloved journalist in America -- would say: People, people, people.

Relax.

Here's a better idea: Get a dog (or 2)

The late-great novelist Kurt Vonnegut, who lived through last century's darkest days, understood how to put such things into perspective. In one of his last public statements, back in 2007, he said this:

And how should we behave during this Apocalypse? We should be unusually kind to one another, certainly. But we should also stop being so serious. Jokes help a lot. And get a dog, if you don’t already have one.

Or be like me. Get two.