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It’s oft repeated, but bears repeating, that our president is a man of perfection. From his perfectly done steaks to his perfect tweets, the guy is a stalwart example that you can, in fact, have it all. And when it comes to telephonic perfection, he resides somewhere between Carly Rae Jepsen and Hinder’s ‘Lips of An Angel’ in his communiqué with other world leaders.
So when he tweeted: ‘I JUST GOT IMPEACHED FOR MAKING A PERFECT PHONE CALL!’ — you know that the phone call was damn near perfect.
Which leads us to the quintessential question — what are the elements of a perfect phone call?
For one, finding a quiet place devoid of distractions. In this hypothetical, I like to imagine a bathroom with a high vaulted ceiling and good marble work. Across the tiles, which zigzag across the room like a mosaic wave, sits a claw foot tub perched with flecked gold-leaf monarch feet. Above the sudsy basin would sit a gold faucet with a detachable porcelain handle resting flat as if an old telephone (please recall there were once landlines).
A truly perfect call would have the tub — slightly oversized but at least 50 gallons — facing a window overlooking a pond where Spanish moss would sway as mallards paddled below. The lighting would be such that there wouldn’t be harshness to the visage but rather a gentle hue.
This means time of day is important. Of course the perfect phone call can’t take place in the morning — no phone call really should be placed until 2 or 3 p.m. if you’re a gentleman or lady. For such a fated moment, placed on April 21, 2019, the sun set at 7:51 p.m. requiring the perfect phone caller to slip into the tub no later than 6:45 p.m. Too much sun forces the eyes to perpetually squint which has the effect of channeling Clint Eastwood — a problem when speaking with a world leader as ‘go ahead, make my day’ is not an effective negotiating tool. And, I frankly won’t entertain people who call in darkness — more than half the world is sleeping and in no position to begin any sort of earnest investigation of political rivals. No, no, perfection is slipping off the robe (and hanging it on a hook or chair because we’re not savages nor Romans) and dipping into the bathtub during the golden hour.
In addition to a robe, other accoutrements are both necessary and appropriate. Since other world leaders parade around like aristocrats, it’s important to embody the language of the elites and one of the ways to do that is to have a cedar, long handle loofah and find a way to say the word ‘loofah’ on the call. Having a glass (stemless) filled with an American grown cabernet sauvignon (or super Tuscan if speaking to the Italian prime minister or the Pope) resting on the windowsill is crucial and requires taking contemplative sips — less than a glass in the system before dialing is inadvisable and not strategic (see generally The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant). A perfect pour sets the stage for a perfect call.
The final step for a nirvana-achieving call is to open the window slightly and toss the phone outside. Call me a millennial, but after discussing the elements of a perfect phone call, why would you sully that perfect moment by talking? If it’s important, there will be a text or email waiting for you when you get out of the bath.
