Schmear Tactics

 

For those of you with a passing knowledge of the Watergate scandal and a single admiring portrait of Richard Milhous Nixon gracing your mood-lit powder room, you’re extremely familiar with the following statement: the cover-up, they say, is worse than the crime. Unless the crime is a stolen bagel and the cover-up is homemade cream cheese prepared with freshly picked scallions evenly distributed throughout the spread. In that case, the cover-up is much, much better than the crime. Tastier, too.

New Yorkers are feeling besieged by the sheer volume of mayoral advertisements. Bombarded by them wherever they go. The flailing promises of serial prevaricators are everywhere. You can’t hide from them, even if you wanted to. I’ll probably get more digital pop-ups just for writing this. Lucky me. 

The tactics of each campaign are what worry me immensely. This city, like all cities, could use more cover-ups. For starters, each candidate could pick a minor city celebrity to shroud in a thicker material. The tidy whitey Times Square troubadour still irritating tourists with his constant stream of unwanted ditties is on my wish list. Where’s his cover-up? How about a large poncho or one of those gigantic rainbow parachutes from the gym class games of our collective youth? 

If this pandemic has taught you anything, besides the simple joy of a not-too-firm handshake, it’s the pleasure you get from covering things up. Our mouths and noses are just two more spaces fit for modesty. It’s not as if people were sauntering through life unencumbered by social conventions and clothes before that. We haven’t been a fully nude and proud species for coming up on several millennia. And that’s a good thing. Especially when one takes a quick look at the mayor’s race.

But there isn’t enough bagel talk during election season. It’s all pizza and education. Crime and healthcare. Where are the discussions on toasting and “no toasting?” When any problem can be solved by cream cheese. Crack in the sidewalk? Schmear it. Not lox spread though. The fish smell will begin to funkify after a few hours in the sultry city sun.