Common man deserves golden throne

The big question is, who gets the $35,000 commode?

Unless you’ve been living under a heavily mortgaged rock or standing in the newly reopened soup lines for several weeks, you’ve probably heard about Merrill Lynch’s former No. 1, John Thain, who found himself in deep No. 2 after Bank of America bought the company.

Before being told to pack his Gucci bags and hit the road, Thain signed off on billions of dollars in executive payouts and OK’d a $1.2 million renovation of his office, including a $35,000 commode.

I’m not easily shocked — as a reporter at an accident scene, I once saw a dead horse tied to the trailer hitch of a Dually pickup truck and dragged at high speed down a state highway past a long line of horrified motorists — but I was floored by the notion of a $35,000 commode. Had I been floored in Thain’s office, I would have found myself lying on an $89,000 area rug, also part of the pricey makeover.

But should I be shocked given the recent revelations of egregious behavior by some Wall Street types?

They simply do not live in the same world as you and I, a world where toilets commonly cost less than the first house I ever owned and any rug valued at $89,000 better turn out to be a magic carpet that transports me on command to the land of free-flowing beer and non-stop supermodel oil wrestling.

Thain is out, but I can find no information on the fate of the commode. Frankly, it’s a tainted toilet, and no one wants one of those around. Each time a Bank of America employee wants to freshen up, there it will sit, a reminder of a greedy and out-of-touch executive flushing money away while millions of people struggle.

The company could try to recoup its losses, but a $35,000 commode is a lot like a new car — once you buy it, have a seat and take it for a spin, it loses a lot of its resale value.

Bank of America execs could pack it away to gather dust in a vault somewhere and try to put this messy ordeal behind them, or they could do the right thing and give this golden throne to a hard-working, God-fearing, salt-of-the-earth American who deserves something nice and insanely inappropriate for a change.

Who could that be? I don’t know ... perhaps ... maybe ... oh yeah, ME!

Bank of America can restore this nation’s faith in its fiscal institutions and celebrate the common man by crating up the $35,000 commode and shipping it directly to me, whose commode is currently valued at $2.35 thanks to pesky hard-water stains.

Then I would set in motion a plan I long ago devised should I acquire an item of great value — the Mona Lisa, a crashed UFO, Bigfoot’s corpse, Teddy Roosevelt’s skull — which is loading it onto the back of a flatbed truck and touring the country, charging folks $2 a piece to “SEE THE AMAZING (FILL IN THE BLANK)! In this case, it’s a $35,000 commode.

I’ve been to enough county fairs to know that people will pay good money to see something out of the ordinary, and they almost always leave with smiles on their faces and a greater sense of purpose. Isn’t that what this nation needs in these uncertain times?

And I vow to take the money I make on the Amazing $35,000 Executive Greed Commode Tour and reinvest it in our economy, creating good-paying jobs, mainly in the convenience store, pay-per-view and honky-tonk sectors.

Soon, economic prosperity will overflow.

So, the big question remains. Who gets the $35,000 commode?

The answer should be, I do.

I do.

Scott Hollifield is editor/general manager of The McDowell News in Marion, N.C. Contact him at P.O. Box 610, Marion, N.C. 28752 or e-mail .