Michelle doesn’t want to go to Barack’s Work Thing

No constitutional scholar or judge has ever questioned the American right to skip over a spouse’s irksome work. Has anyone ever had a good time at one of these horrible events? You grab your little plastic cup of wine (Sheila knows so much about wine!) as you get mixed up like an oddity – look, it’s Mike’s wife! Nobody wants to talk to you and you don’t want to talk to them. They will drink wine and talk about work, and you will drink wine and watch Resignation.

Sometimes it’s a minefield because you have to pretend you don’t already know a whole lot about these people. You would gladly remove a few of them if you could be your authentic self. But you must be like a Rose Bowl float, wheeled around in mild weather and exuding impersonal goodwill. Don’t ever make me do it againyou say in the car on the way home.

So when Michelle Obama announced that she would be skipping Donald Trump’s inauguration today, I thought, Good move. I bet Barack isn’t crazy about going either, but he’s on the doily and getting a pension, so he’ll probably play ball. The corner of the internet occupied by inadequately hinged Michelle Obama haters thought they had some red meat. The standards! The traditions! Government continuity! But they were robbed of a victory when they were reminded that neither Donald nor Melania Trump attended the last inauguration.

There had to be a way for the brain trust to work this to its advantage. But how? And just such a theory, a possibility – no, one probability— arose: Because Michelle had also not attended Jimmy Carter’s funeral, she must try to avoid … her own husband. What are the chances of the two running into each other elsewhere? The pieces quickly fell into place. Carter’s body was at the funeral but won’t be at the dedication, so that can’t be what she’s trying to avoid. George W. Bush was at the funeral and will be at the inauguration, but Michelle and W. like each other. Pete Hegseth and Pam Bondi will definitely be at the dedication, but they weren’t at the funeral – are you seeing a pattern? The Daily Mail even suggested that someone had come between husband and wife: Jennifer Aniston.

I guess Obama’s marriage is fine and Michelle Obama can’t stand Donald Trump and doesn’t want to be around him. She went to his first initiation because she had to, but if your spouse has been at another company for the past eight years, you’re definitely not obligated to show up for the goddamn old home week. To respect her right to stay home is to respect your own right not to spend your Saturday playing miniature golf with your own Pete Hegseth when you could be going to Costco or sleeping in a pile of warm blankets. Let it enter the work-life lexicon: The next time you’re approached with one of these creepy invitations, tell your buddy you’re going to have to pull a Michelle Obama, and then put your feet up, enjoy your normal blood pressure. and fill three hours of your life as you see fit.