I am willing to serve as president.

If I must.

A photo of me sitting at my desk in the middle of a creek by my house—evidence of my inherent professionalism.

Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.

I am willing to serve as president.

How hard can it be? Everything that challenges me at work—remembering meetings, figuring out Excel formulas, caring enough—will be no problem at all in the White House! I assume I will have a secretary.

And the mission? To shore up democracy and provide a better foundation for people to flourish via excellent schools, low taxes for small and new businesses, inescapable taxes for the ultrarich, non-crazy-ass judges, and industries regulated well enough to keep them from poisoning or fleecing us—all worth effort, it goes without saying. But I will say it a lot, I promise. One of my main goals will be to explain principles rather than just repeat them assuming everyone knows why fairness and peace are good and cheating and lying and health insurance companies are bad.

I’m willing to serve as the American President because I’m in the prime of life, and the job is made up of things I actually enjoy doing. I love to wear jackets and gowns. I’m very much looking forward to redecorating the Oval Office (I’m thinking pale green stripes, chintz curtains, white sofas, a throwback to 1930s Hollywood glamour.) And I live for hosting dinners, giving my opinion, and walking down steep airplane steps.

But how can one woman with a master’s degree in fiction writing, a woman who does not load the dishwasher right, be leader of the free world? How will I shoulder the immense responsibility of our entire executive branch, our military, our security, our reputation in the world? How can I surround myself with smart, experienced people while also retaining enough power to not be shirking my responsibilities?

Maybe by hiring my most trusted personal friends and family members to serve on my cabinet. Maybe by defending myself against the hysterical press with misdirection and secrecy. I will certainly check in with my astrologer, just in case that’s real. In a show of magnanimity, I will have Donald Trump and David Remnick over for Diet Cokes and veggie burgers. I will roam the Rose Garden barefoot at night in my robe, walking my five large dogs (shepherd and collie mixes and one black Chow Chow), as we are trailed discreetly by my Secret Service detail (beloved gals and guys, they). Upstairs, my husband and daughter will binge the Mandolorian on a large screen TV in the private quarters den. I will snip a single rose (I’ll have my shears with me in my robe pocket), its heady tea-like sweetness bringing it all back to me, my civilian childhood, thorny rosebushes with crimson blooms, white blooms, and pale pink and yellow ones (oh the innocence of a pale-yellow rose!), crowding the hot sidewalks of my neighborhood, screen doors slamming. The world is going to shit, everyone said then.

Coming Next …

How NOT to swim with dolphins.

This is Emily Writes Back, a newsletter by Emily Sanders Hopkins.