Frumpy Mom: When I’m elected queen of the world

When I’m elected queen, I already have my list of proclamations ready to go.

I’ve been watching “Sisi: Austrian Empress,” a series on PBS about the famed ruler, so I’m getting some excellent tips about how to be royal. (Although she got up at 6 a.m. to exercise like a fiend and ate almost nothing. I definitely won’t be getting that royal.)

And the nice thing is that as you get older, you no longer give a rat’s behind what people think about your behavior.

This can really add to your stint as royalty, since royals only occasionally have to obey the public. And they can wear ugly clothes and carry no cash, both of which I already have down to a fine art.

I’m still fine-tuning my list of proclamations upon my accession to the throne, but here’s what I have so far. If I’ve forgotten anything important, feel free to let me know. (Except, no, I’m not chopping down all the jacaranda trees. I don’t care how messy they are.)

So you know what to expect when I’m elected, here’s the list I have now:

1. All motorcycles, especially those known as “hogs,” will have working mufflers at all times, by law. Owners who defy this edict will be tied down and forced to watch their machines being destroyed during a demolition derby that will be free for the public to watch.
2. Dresses and pants for women will have usable pockets or they can’t be sold. Dresses for men will be pocket-optional.
3. Hold a yearly festival on my birthday for everyone that includes a costumed pet parade, public dancing to ’70s hits, a masquerade ball inside the Library of Congress and a giant red velvet birthday cake with cream cheese frosting.
4. Immediately dissolve all the toll road agencies and give the roads back to the people. To drive on for free.
5. Establish Ye Olde Royal Torture Chamber. People who will be sent there include those who let their poor unhappy doggies bark endlessly, those who throw trash on the beach and those who hunt exotic animals for sport.
6. Immediately ban all leaf blowers unless they have mufflers attached.
7. Establish a Mobile Phone Civil Patrol that goes around the planet and confiscates the phones of anyone found to be violating rules of common courtesy: for example, sitting in a doctor’s office and talking on a phone underneath the sign that says “No talking on mobile phones.”
8. Keep a gallows and executioner on hand and immediately execute anyone wearing a “No fat chicks” T-shirt.
9. Make all medical care free and accessible to everyone, except executives of existing health insurance and HMO companies, who must pay full price for everything, including the $16 tab of aspirin. According to ProPublica, Kaiser CEO Gregory Adams earned 12.5 million in 2023, while total compensation for Andrew Witty, UnitedHealth Group, was $20.8 million, according to Insurance Business magazine.
10. Publish my next book and make it mandatory for all my subjects to buy it. In hardcover.
11. Host a state dinner and have George Clooney sit on one side of me, and Idris  Elba on the other.  Their wives can sit at the other end of the table.
12. Have a live-in chef like Oprah and lose weight by eating healthy delicious meals that I don’t have to cook. He or she could live next door to my squadron of live-in housekeepers.
13.  Hire an assistant to follow me around with a purse full of money and a suitcase full of dark chocolate bars, to be handed over as needed.
14. Close Disneyland to the public one day a year, so I can enjoy it with my friends.
15. Charter a plane with a veteran pilot to help me pay royal visits to all my subjects around the world. Especially those who live near luxury hot spring resorts.
16. Build myself a palace in some glamorous scenic location that can’t be disclosed for security reasons.
17. Issue a royal decree that my young adult children actually have to listen to me and take my advice at least 78% of the time.
18. Hand out knighthoods to people who adopt older foster children.
19. Pass a law that old British rockers cannot be called “Sir” in the United States, even though they were knighted in the U.K. Sorry, Sirs Elton John and Paul McCartney. Here, you’re just Elton and Paul.
20. Anyone who brags excessively about his or her offspring on social media will immediately be incarcerated for at least a week. I don’t care that your kid is having a hard time choosing between Harvard and MIT.

So, friends, that’s the list I’ve come up with so far. I figure it will probably be at least a year before I become a royal, so I’ve got time to refine this. If you have suggestions, you can email me at mfisher@scng.com. And join my Facebook page at facebook.com/FrumpyMiddleagedMom. We have fun on there.