So before you go accusing me of being a super boring politics nerd, I have to tell you that I don’t watch C-SPAN all that often. I mean, sure. Sometimes I tune in to the morning show where the obviously sedated extremely calm host takes calls from both right and left as they discuss the topics of the day.

But I rarely watch actual Congressional hearings.

Today, however, my close friend told me that her daughter-in-law would be giving testimony, and would be on the live coverage. That sounded pretty exciting to me, so I tuned in right at 10AM to see her give her professional and well respected opinion on issues of national security.

I clicked on the set and was both surprised and nauseated to find myself listening to the brain melting drone of Mitch McConnell as he scolded the Democrats for not passing a spending bill.

Oh, the hypocrisy.

I switched over to C-SPAN2, where I was forced to endure a series of Congressmen moaning and gnashing their teeth over the terrible danger that vaping is posing to our youth. One after the other, they got up to declare (with surprisingly straight faces) that they will NOT stand by and simply DO NOTHING while the health and safety of our youth are at risk!

Each one sounded more sincere then the one before. If you didn’t know any better, you would have thought that this was group of national leaders who would do just about anything to stop a classroom full of six years old from being shredded into bits by a crazed gunman.

I kept flipping the channels back and forth, hoping to see my friend’s smart and articulate DIL.

Instead I was treated to a bunch of wrinkly old white men complaining and whining about the other wrinkly old white men who weren’t playing fair. “They won’t follow the rules!” was followed by “THEY won’t follow the rules!”

The language was most likely more sophisticated than what I am offering here, but this old retired elementary school teacher knew exactly what she was hearing.

Having mediated at least 1,000 recess and classroom disputes in my career, I know that what I was hearing was this:

“I want to play it MY way!”

“But I want to play MY way!”

“No, me!” “No, me!”

“You’re a doody pants!”

“He called me a doody pants! YOUR a doody poopy pants!!!!”

It was…..ridiculous. It was absurd. It was disgusting and demoralizing and it was validating.

It was proof positive that this country absolutely must move beyond the two entrenched, corporate parties.

Otherwise I fear that no one will ever have a chance to listen to the wisdom of those who actually run things every day. Instead we will be left with the choice of tuning out completely or subjecting ourselves to the worst juvenile behavior that any fifth grader could even imagine.