Poor Barbra Streisand. She’s getting fat because of President Trump. She told the New York Times that his tweets and pronouncements upset her so much that the only way she can find peace again is to eat pancakes. I thought that was quite reassuring when I first heard that statement by Babs. That’s because I do the same thing when I hear certain political or entertainment figures mouth off with something stupid.

I know that Elizabeth Warren will soon declare that she’s part Italian because she’s always adored Connie Francis. When that statement comes out, I’ll head toward the garage; open the hood of the car, disconnect the battery and just before I take a drink of the battery acid, my wife will come out with a plate of pancakes to save me.

When Hillary says virtually anything, I stomp off to the laundry room and pour myself a cup of bleach. Fortunately, my wife is there with a steaming stack of waffles and I pack them down with a pancake chaser as she discards the bleach.

Then there’s whiney Sen. Richard Blumenthal. Every time he utters something about another investigation involving Trump colluding with the Martians, I head to the garage again. There, I, with a glass in hand pouring some antifreeze to gulp down, will be stopped by my sweetie who knows the routine well. She will come through the door with a pack of blueberry pancakes. “Now, now, Nin, Danang Dick isn’t worth a stomach pump.”

¯ Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently suffered three broken ribs after a taking a bad fall. Her supporters offered ribs to replace hers or other internal organs if she needed one. Gosh, I wondered when I heard the news, what’s wrong with me? I’m not a fan of any Supreme Court judge. Are we American citizens supposed to have favorite SCOTUS judges? But then I thought, how much is not going on in a person’s life to have a favorite SCOTUS judge? Obviously, these fans don’t have any surplus brain tissue to donate.

I was never in the fan club of any judge. even though I know Village Judge Dave Prince and County Judge Dave Foley. They’re pretty good guys but I don’t know if I’d give up a rib for either one of them. I need my ribs.

There are some body parts that I would like to give to some of our esteemed national political figures. For example, I’ve got too many nose and ear hairs. I’d like to adorn Hillary a full crop to her near-miss presidential countenance. I think a 3-foot nose hair would work well. Then I wouldn’t need a weed whacker to keep them trimmed.

I wouldn’t give him a kidney but I’d like to give Congressman Adam Schiff an ingrown toenail to help remove that condescending smirk that graces his TV portrait.

Finally, there’s Donny Deutsch, a regular political pundit found on Morning Joe. He’s not a political figure but he’s annoyingly close enough with a bag of nonsense to deserve my donation of a wart on the tip of his well-tanned nose.

¯ To be totally transparent with you, my dear reader (maybe readers on a good day), I recently discovered that I’m not perfect. My wife admitted to me that she told her mahjong posse about my one shortcoming. At least it’s just one, and in my opinion, it’s one that I can easily overcome. What is my shortcoming? At dinner, I don’t put enough ice in her glass of water. That’s it. So, I recently spent hours on filling her glass with ice and I am happy to report that I passed the test. The glass was properly filled to just the right level. I am now a perfect husband.

I discovered that other guys have shortcomings, too which is no surprise. Fortunately, we men are bringing some unity back to America because of our flaws. Melania Trump was asked about her husband Donald’s faults. In her intriguing accent born from speaking 5 languages, she said in quite strong English,” Don’t get me started.”

In a similar manner, Hillary Clinton interrupted her speaking tour which is attracting tens to answer the same question about her sweetheart. Her answer rebounded with the bipartisan sentiment of, ” Don’t get me started.”

¯ I thought that I had seen about the nuttiest elements of the cultural chaos that is occurring but I was wrong. There’s a 34-year-old woman in England that “takes the cake”, as my mom used to say.

Amanda Liberty is engaged to be married to a 91-year-old — drum roll, please, German chandelier. Not an old 91-year German old man but an actual light fixture.

The words from Genesis tell us that a man shall join with a woman to become one, but I guess her scripture reads as follows. From the Book of Huh? 1: 1-2. “A dim bulb shall leave her father and mother and become one with a decorative hanging light with branches for other bulbs of greater wattage than the dim bulb who is initiating the marriage.”

The betrothed Amanda calls herself an Objectum Sexual. That’s a person who is sexually attracted to an object. Admit it ladies, aren’t all women victims of this syndrome when it comes to shoes?

Amanda is not a rookie at this object-love relationship. Her first love as a teenage girl was with a drum kit. She also developed a thing for the Statue of Liberty, which I assume developed after the drum dumped her for a tuba.

A high school weirdo friend of mine once had a crush on the Risley Street bridge in Fredonia. He would drive his car the middle of the bridge, sit there with some Johnny Mathis on the radio, and love the bridge until another car would blow the horn and end the magic. The bridge turned out to be an unrequited love so he turned his attention to the now-defunct Niagara Mohawk power plant. He’s still depressed over its decommissioning. There’s still hope for gas to rekindle the passion.

That drum kit love affair of Amanda is not so whacky. My father wanted me to fall in love with an accordion. Mom and dad actually took me into Shea’s Buffalo for an afternoon matinee. We saw the dazzling, dancing fingers of Dick Contino, America’s greatest accordionest. (Now there’s word that you’ve probably never seen before.)

Apparently, I wasn’t dazzled because I never took a lesson to learn the moves to squeeze and caress an accordion. I had my sights set on a sweet young lady from Pleasant Ave.

Can you believe this guy playing a squeezebox would attract a crowd back in the entertainment ages of Noah? Contino smiled a lot — didn’t sing — didn’t dance and didn’t tell jokes in between songs. There were no booty shakes, no fireworks, no smoke, no moon walks — and no flashing lights. He played the accordion and people like mom and dad and me sat there entertained, well, sort of. It was better than watching my uncles yell names and numbers playing morra. If you want to know about morra, ask the old Italian Joe Muscato.

If I remember correctly, Contino brought the crowd to the point of unparalleled ecstasy with the Beer Barrel Polka and the incredible Lady of Spain. When he was adorned in his muscle shirt and oiled skin glistening on stage, that was a bit of naughty for the ladies in the audience of the ’40s.

¯ Finally, here’s a bit of Merry Christmas news. Senator Warren just discovered through her daily DNA analysis that she’s 1/1024th elf. She is also 1/1024th Clausian which makes her related to Santa Claus. The DNA result causes her to be somewhat torn about the plight of elves working at the North Pole for her distant cousin Santa. She has always thought highly of the jolly old guy but if he’s exploiting her elf relatives, that creates a dilemma. Unfortunately, the DNA test shows her to be 50 percent related to Mary’s donkey.

Nin Privitera is a Fredonia resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com