A week after the state attorney general found he sexually harassed multiple women, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in his resignation speech that he takes “full responsibility” for his actions.
For some women’s rights advocates, however, his remarks seemed to suggest the opposite. —CNN, 08/10/21
As your leader, I was elected to look after all of you. And I have. And I will. I love you. But I also love carrying around a box full of venomous scorpions. And for some reason, people have started screaming about it and those screams are distracting and so I guess now I have to resign.
These claims of targeted harassment are ridiculous. I carry my box of venomous scorpions around everyone. Young, old, Black, white, the browns in between. Everyone I know is exposed to the unsealed box that contains an unverified amount of poisonous scorpions. If you’re in a room with me, it’s normal for me to try and introduce you to some of my scorpions. And I guess that’s making some of you uncomfortable, so I’m being forced to step down from my position and take my feeble box of scorpions with me.
Much of the distraction comes from bad-faith questions like, “Who taught you that it was normal to shove a palmful of venomous scorpions down your aide’s blouse?” Well, the answer is my mommy. How do you like that?
In my family, a scorpion down the small of a woman’s back or placed delicately on the coffee table is how we say hello. I’ve been carrying this shoddily-built paper tub of scorpions ever since my pops gave it to me as a San Gennaro’s Feast present. After all, San Gennaro is the patron saint of scorpions. I’ve been doing it for so long, my handprints are on the bottom of the box and my fingers have worn little holes on the sides. And I guess that makes some of you feel like I’m putting the people who work for me in danger. Um, no. All I want is to watch my assistant try to escape the swarm of lil pincers that I’ve released upon her. How else will she know she’s like family to me? But I guess political correctness has to come for all traditions, even my definitely real tradition of carrying eight-legged, lethal critters everywhere I go.
I never meant for anyone to feel threatened by my easily escapable vessel of fatal arachnids. In fact, I have always been an advocate for arachnophobic people everywhere. And I hear, I mean really hear, the voices that say that it’s wrong for a man who is supposed to protect, respect, and lead arachnophobes to carry around a slightly torn, haphazardly duct-taped cardboard box of deadly scorpions. I hear those voices. I hear them because they are too loud. And their whining and complaining has drawn too much attention in the wrong direction and made it impossible for me to do my job.
I make it my policy to always believe arachnophobes when they come forward. But in this case, my scorpions absolutely did not scare, maim, or otherwise inappropriately skeev out those particular eleven arachnophobes. And unfortunately, the stories of REAL arachnophobes are being overshadowed by the crowds of people performatively running away from my flimsy, misshapen container of scorpions.
The real problem here is everyone who is acting as if a powerful man parading around with a dripping wet Payless Shoes box of exoskeletal stinging machines is somehow using his position to threaten and manipulate those who disagree with him. No one ever even asked me to put away the scorpions! And now people are saying that I should have just known that carrying murderous predators with me wherever I went was somehow predatory. Literally, how would I have known that? I guess the line has been redrawn.
In short, there is nothing wrong with my box of scorpions, but the disproportionate response of fear, anger, betrayal, and general overreaction has led me to the difficult decision to resign in total innocence.
So I suppose this is adieu. To be honest, I’m glad you’re all freaking out unnecessarily about the scorpions. I can’t imagine how distracting it would be if you all started needlessly losing your shit about how I killed your grandpas.