Dear President Trump,

I knew as I typed it that “Dorsal” was a weird name for a ginormous country club, but it didn’t stick out enough then, or any of the five or so times I re-read yesterday’s letter before posting it, for me to catch the mistake. Sorry about that. I do try to take care and usually double-check stuff that doesn’t seem quite right. Oops.

Apparently today, though, we can all put the Doral/Dorsal thing behind us since you capitulated to the completely irrational Democrats who just don’t get you, who just don’t appreciate that you wanted to throw the best G-7 party ever, who’ve gone and ruined everything by making you do the stupid, boring thing and find some other, non-Trump venue for the event.

Do you have your lower lip out? Is it getting dry from all that air-time? What a pouty baby you are (and to be clear, babies are supposed to get pouty and so are toddlers, and on occasion it’s ok if adults get pouty, but Commander in Chiefs are patently not supposed to display their poutiness, so buck up dude). We cannot be rid of you fast enough; ideally well before June 10, 2020 when the 46^th G-7 Summit starts.

So besides accidentally using the word for animals’ backsides for your shiny-object country club, I also went to the grocery store with Laura yesterday. To get to what I want to tell you about I have to give you a bit of convoluted context, so bear with me (oh person who is not Trump who makes sure I’m not threatening his highness). It was raining by the time we got to the store and not everyone in our family was wearing a raincoat so we parked much closer to the entrance than usual – we usually park out in the hinterlands because we don’t want to subject people to our barky little dog. We went in and did the shopping and between us managed to get all the bags and leave the cart at the store door. As we were trying to navigate with kind of crazy loads we both saw the big crate full of sugar pumpkins and one or the other of us said the equivalent of “Oh, we could’ve had a V-8!” except it was about the pumpkins. I was like – ‘no biggie, we can get one next week’ but Laura thought that pumpkin custard sounded good so she deposited me and the groceries in the car and went back in to buy a pumpkin and some heavy cream. She’s a sweetheart that way :).

Ok, so by now you know what happens when I’m left alone – I see shit. We were parked right outside the Sport Clips, which is one of four small commercial venues adjacent to our grocery store, and I was reading all of the signage on the windows. There’s a lot. There’s stuff about how no appointments being necessary, how they have legendary hot steamed towels, how one can come in for a free neck trim. Well, down at the very bottom of this set of messages are the words “It’s Good To Be A Guy.” I’m not kidding. I took a picture of it. I can show you sometime. I couldn’t help it – I guffawed out loud and said “f*ck yeah, it’s good to be a guy”. Nice of them to call it out. And nice of them to remind every single guy who walks in or who walks past that this is true, and also to remind every single non-guy in the vicinity of this nugget, as if we don’t have it in our faces pretty much 24/7.

Using the handy little Google maps guy (do not try to tell me that the yellow pseudo-human is asexual), I looked at three of the other Sport Clips in the area (there are 1,800+ of them in the US and Canada in case you were wondering). While they all have the other messages I shared above neatly affixed to their windows, those three are curiously missing the “It’s Good To Be A Guy” message. Thank goodness. I’m glad it’s not a franchise-wide thing. But still, it appears to be a franchise-endorsed message because it has the “SportClips Haircuts” emblem hovering over it (i.e., it looks to be all one window sticker), so that, in a word, is troubling.

Yes, like I said a minute ago, in a way it’s nice of them to call it out – to own it. But really? How about if it said “It’s Good to Be Able-bodied”? or “It’s Good to Be White”? or “It’s Good to Be Straight”? Those are messages we’re all fed 24/7 too, but can you imagine what a fuss there would be if stores actually put any of these on their windows? Please. And I’m not buying it that it would be same thing as a haircutting place that caters to women displaying messages that are meant to empower women and girls. Nope. Shoreline Sport Clips does not get that sort of pass.

May we all be safe from demoralizing, dehumanizing messaging.
May we be willing to call this shit out.
May we recognize that our world cannot be healthy if we keep reinforcing the idea that it’s better to be a “guy.”
Now that the Doral distraction failed, may you not start a war.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson