Trump, Greenland and Bathroom Sinks

08 Jan, 2025

To the Editor,

I write today with a mind tangled like the shower curtain in a gale, grappling with two profoundly puzzling matters. First, the news that President-elect Donald Trump is once again toying with grand territorial ambitions — this time setting his sights on Greenland and the Panama Canal. And second, my increasingly desperate search for a bathroom sink plug that actually fits. Though seemingly unrelated, I cannot help but feel there’s a thread tying these two conundrums together, like a rogue strand of dental floss clogging the basin.

Let’s begin with Greenland, a land of ice, mystery, and apparently untapped real estate potential. Why Mr. Trump believes he should acquire it is a question for greater minds than mine, but I must admit the mental image of him setting up shop in Nuuk, issuing executive orders from a snowmobile, is strangely delightful. As for the Panama Canal — what could his intentions possibly be? Does he plan to install golden gates at both ends and rename it Trump’s Waterway? Or is he simply hoping for a shortcut to transport the leftover Greenland snow back to Mar-a-Lago?

Now, onto my own dilemma, which, while smaller in scale, feels no less significant. My bathroom sink has been without a working plug for weeks. The old one vanished during a late-night drain-clearing incident involving a misplaced toothbrush and a very stubborn hairball. Since then, I’ve scoured the shops for a replacement, only to find that no plug seems to fit. They’re either too small, too large, or shaped like they belong in a medieval torture device.

Naturally, I can’t help but draw a parallel between Trump’s plans and my plug predicament. Both involve an almost obsessive determination to take control of something that doesn’t quite fit. Trump, it seems, wants to “plug” strategic gaps in the American empire, while I just want to stop water from escaping my sink. His ambitions involve ice caps and shipping lanes; mine involve soap scum and toothpaste residue. Yet somehow, we both find ourselves baffled by the challenge of possession.

Perhaps the real solution is compromise. Could I offer my sink to Trump as an alternative conquest? It’s smaller than Greenland and less strategically valuable than the Panama Canal, but at least he wouldn’t have to deal with the Danish government or the Panamanian authorities. In return, perhaps he could help me locate a universal sink plug—one that works regardless of basin size, water pressure, or political affiliation.

Until then, I remain adrift, much like Greenland’s glaciers, wondering if a sink without a plug is still a sink, and whether Trump’s ambitions will eventually extend to my kitchen tap.

Yours, lost in territorial and plumbing confusion,
Harold Drainworthy
(Defender of sinks, observer of geopolitical absurdity)