Colin McEnroe (opinion): Take it from a chameleon, this political season is no time to blend in

'Her demands could be unusual, such as requiring aides to feed live crickets to her family's pet chameleon, Meatball.' From a Sept. 24 New York Times article about stress among the staff of former congresswoman Mary Peltola, the Democratic U.S. Senate nominee in Alaska. ' 'This is worse than an orchid. This is an orchid that hates you.' Chameleons, I learned, do not suffer fools.' From the novel 'Fallow' by Sarah Anderson, published Sept. 15. OK, this is me, Meatball. I never expected my life — which is not a great life — to have any impact on the future composition of the United States Senate. And the future composition of the Senate, from what I can tell while lying here in my tank, is the future of the United States of America. Because somehow you people have allowed a guy who makes me look housebroken (and I poop pretty much everywhere) to take over the world's mightiest nation or whatever this is. And now you're looking for anything that might stop him. From my tank I can see the TV. I watch him fall asleep at his desk. I can see him fall asleep onstage at solemn ceremonies and sports events. This who you put in charge. Yes, I sleep a lot too. I'm aware that I live, literally, in a glass house and that there's a saying about that. Here's the thing. I do sleep 12 hours. I need total darkness for that. If I can get my 12, I'm razor sharp for the other 12. I'm alert. I'm ready to take on any challenges anybody wants to throw at me, although it would be preferable if one of those challenges was a cricket. Speaking of which — and the last thing I want to do is introduce another problematic element into this hard-fought political campaign — they're supposed to be feeding me more than just crickets. I need discoid roaches (high in protein), silkworms (easy to digest) and black soldier fly larva, which sounds disgusting and maybe even racist but is an essential source of bone-building calcium. If you've ever seen a chameleon with osteoporosis … well, you probably wouldn't even notice. But we'd notice. Do you know who is running against the Peltola woman? Dan S. Sullivan. Do you know who else is? Dan J. Sullivan. That's right. There are two men named Dan Sullivan on the ballot. The only way to remember the difference is the middle initial. From the looks of them, Dan S. stands for 'Sinister guy in one of the latter seasons of '24' who has to keep reminding the weak, sniveling president to stick to the evil plot hatched by a cabal of depraved businessmen.' Dan J. stands for 'Just woke up and pulled the nearest hoodie over his head and is so desperate to get to a coffee shop that he skipped brushing his hair. Also has auditioned for every single Tolkien movie or TV adaptation without ever landing a hobbit role.' I watch a lot of television. Twelve hours a day, pretty much. Would I vote for the Boss Lady? It's tough to say. She's not a very nice person. But the way I understand this, the mightiest nation on Earth has been taken over by bullies and would-be dictators and conscience-free barbarians. You keep sending sensitive New Age pronoun-aware people out to do battle with them, and then you wonder why they get sent home with their heads on pikes. It's like you're fighting Jabba the Hutt, and your only strategy is to send C3PO out there to reason with him. I gotta cut back on TV. The Boss Lady is smart in certain ways. I watched a show where she said college professors keep scolding her for calling herself Yup'ik Eskimo, even though that's what her people call themselves. She said 'Inuit' is like 'Latinx,' meaning a term normal people don't really use. People like being told they don't have to work on being more polite. Who do I really admire? As a chameleon, I find J.D. Vance hard to resist. When I watch him change his coloration to blend in with his surroundings, I want to date him. One thing I forgot to mention about my diet is that the insects I eat should also have a varied diet. There's even a thing called 'gut-loading' where you make sure the insect has a full stomach right before I eat it. That may seem like a lot of time and effort. What can I say? I'm high maintenance. People watch that unfunny lizard with the fake working-class British accent, and they get the wrong idea. They think that we're self-regulating, and that the biggest challenge they're going to face is how to keep from screaming during that never-ending cyclone of middle school attempts at comedy. Not that I would turn down an offer to do meatball-themed ads for — I'm just spitballing this — Olive Garden. Just don't have me do them with Boss Lady. By the time she's done calling everybody horrible names and describing the manner in which she hopes they die, Olive Garden will be paying people to eat their meatballs. Here's the reality. You can plan a campaign to help save a nation of 343 million people from a demented power-thirsty narcissistic goon. Or you can own a chameleon. But you can't do both. Colin McEnroe's column appears every weekend and you can hear his radio show every weekday on WNPR 90.5 or podcast any time at ctpublic.org/colin. Email him at colin@ctpublic.org.