The New President Will Have to Move
Moving into a new house is never easy…
President elect Barrack Obama will soon be moving his family halfway across the country to Washington, DC. He and his loved ones will occupy the most desirable address in the free world: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, known more commonly as the White house.
As the new president, Mr. Obama’s going to have his hands full. The economy is in turmoil, jobless rates are skyrocketing, unpopular wars are draining already waning resources, global warming, and so on and so on. I can’t even imagine what all he’ll be facing the first week of running the country. But I have moved my family, and I am concerned that Mr. Obama won’t have time to attend to all of the move-in details.
The new president will have a hectic first few days. If he’s like me, he’ll first want to know the name of the closest pizza delivery restaurant. It takes days for a woman to get the kitchen ready for meal preparation – and get it stocked with the necessary foodstuffs. Carry-out is a newly moved family’s friend, to be sure.
Of course he’ll have to file change of address cards with the post office, and change the name on the mailbox. Hand-in-hand with these tasks comes ordering new stationery.
One of the first things my wife insisted on was that I install new toilet seats – in every bathroom. That’s at least one trip to the hardware store, and then the installation time itself. With 35 bathrooms to deal with, he better set a full day or so aside. And if during this task he should find that one of the commodes won’t stop running, well, there’s another hardware store run – and a half a day of messy work. This is also a good time to put in the new shower curtains. Hopefully, Mrs. Obama will already have them on hand.
Perhaps his wife will call and make all the necessary changes for the utilities, phone and cable TV. This one would be critical. Wouldn’t want the new president to be without phone service or water.
Of course one of the most important things to do is change all the locks. I’ll assume he’ll have a locksmith come and do it, but if he does it himself it could take, well, gee, I don’t know how many doors there are in the White House. This is a good time to change the codes on electric garage door openers, too. I am assuming the White House has electric garage doors.
He’ll just have to plan to spend some face time with the local Welcome Wagon folks. He doesn’t want to appear rude or uppity. This is a good time for him to find out about how he can join the neighborhood Watch program, and get the latest gossip on his new neighbors.
I’m assuming his charming wife will take the kids to their respective schools and register them. If the new president is lucky, his wife will also be able to sign him up for the PTA. But he will have to go to his new church and meet the pastor.
I understand the Obamas will be getting a new puppy, and I’m sure Mrs. Obama, with the eager assistance of the kids, will take on the chores of getting a new dog bed, dog house, treats, vitamins and food. But my guess is Barrack will be the one spreading the newspaper on the floors for the housebreaking period. As he’s going through the tens of thousands of square feet of his new digs laying out old newspapers, he could save a lot of time by going ahead and removing all the “No Smoking” signs.
Of course he’ll have to change the telephone answering machine message, but maybe he can save some time by having his speech writers come up with a brief, friendly message.
I guess one of the things I hated most about moving into my new home was going around, ladder and 9-volt batteries in hand, testing all of the smoke alarms and replacing batteries as needed. That would have to be a daunting task in a house with 55,000 square feet and 132 rooms!
Having followed much of Barrack’s campaign, I can only assume he’ll be having a hybrid engine installed in his new limousine. So he’ll need to get down to the car rental place and make the necessary arrangements. A copy of the local bus schedule would also be helpful while his car is in the shop.
Looking at and listening to Mr. Obama, I imagine that he likes to keep his family’s home environmentally friendly, energy efficient and in tip-top shape. That means spraying for bugs, checking the weather stripping around doors and windows, resetting the water heater, fertilizing the White House Rose Garden, sweeping the front porch and just too many more things to mention. It could be weeks before he’s able to clean out the attic, check the roof for leaks or consider re-painting the helipad – and we all know how that can be.
Hopefully, President and Mrs. Bush won’t leave piles of trash in the basement, dirty floors and carpets, broken appliances, nail holes in the walls, bad food in the fridge, a cluttered attic and an unkempt lawn. That would make the president elect’s moving tasks much simpler. After all, when all is said and done – no matter the scope of his moving chores – he does have to make time to try and save the country.
Leave a Reply