Cardboard Cathy

The other day I was driving along and I saw a life-sized Cardboard Cathy. At first I thought it was a Halloween display meant to scare the snot out of Mission Viejo Children. After all, Cathy’s Cardboard Self is grinning like a Jack-O-Lantern. Then I thought of something even more scary: what if by some fluke Schlicht is re-elected and doesn’t send her Cardboard Clone to the council meetings?

In the four short years Schlicht has been on the council, she has opened the city up to potential litigation on numerous occasions. She’s done this by voting and by spouting proclamations the city attorney warned her repeatedly not to make. If she did, in fact, send her Cutout Clone the city wouldn’t be put at risk by her ramblings and arrogance. Mr. Curly could rest more easy, he would have fewer new gray hairs, and he could focus on more important stuff for the city without the constant distractions from the mind of Schlicht.

Cardboard Cathy would end up contributing the same amount of positive ideas as Schlicht has in the last four years, and we wouldn’t have to consider things like demolishing the Church of the Master in order to put a roundabout on Oso and Marguerite. That would save the city something like $50,000. Plus I doubt a cardboard clone would sue the city like the real Cathy, so that’s another $40,000 plus saved. And there is no danger of a Cathy Clone organizing a recall; thus another $385,000 in savings. Toss in no more ballot initiatives like Measure D, and who knows how much we’d save; certainly at least the $250,000 Measure D cost the voters.

That’s an easy $725,000 in savings to the city’s budget. Minimum. In other words, it’s a dog park and then some, because I haven’t factored in cost overruns to city projects caused by Schlicht’s posturing.

The more I considered Cardboard Cathy, the more I realized Schlicht might truly be onto something new in American Politics. Cardboard Clones could actually help people like Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, and that legitimate rape idiot. Cardboard Candidates would never say anything remotely as moronic as comparing the devastation of a hurricane to picking up litter on a private college’s football field. Let alone the truly repugnant comments about women’s bodies shutting down in cases of rape, or even those comments about God condoning rape. And without comments like that no one would ever call someone as intellectually challenged as Michelle Bachmann or Paul Ryan “the thinking man’s Cathy Schlicht.”

Schlicht should just forget about the City Council and patent her cardboard idea. But then she runs the risk of someone like Desi Kiss wandering along and stealing it outright. Such is life here in Mission Viejo politics. Which is precisely why I stand in the long shadows with Lazlo and merely comment. I mean who would be stupid enough to steal anything I wrote?