Two hundred and fifteen pounds!
I worked 18-hour days for eight months running my husband Funk’s campaign. My reward? I gained 30 pounds helping him get elected mayor of Kansas City. I did not overeat my way to this god-awful number, and I surely didn’t have fun arriving here with donuts and ice cream, but sadly, no naturally thin person would ever believe this.
In my 48 years on earth, I’ve learned that I have to eat nutritious meals that I prepare myself and work out on a consistent basis or the pounds come rolling on. However, during the campaign, I barely had a moment to spend with my son, much less cook, walk, go to the gym, practice yoga and take a sauna, which were my set-in-stone routines before all this madness began.
I’ve always had a difficult time keeping weight off, but two hundred and fifteen pounds?!
I didn’t know how I would find a formal dress for the inauguration to fit my new post-campaign size, much less where to purchase it. Nordstroms might have chubby dresses, but they’ll likely be a Mumu or some other hideous thing that screams “You’re fat, lady!”
After I got over the horror of the scale, I drove to the Plaza, which is home to all the high-end stores in Kansas City. Good cuts have always looked best on me, and I needed to look my best. My husband is the mayor-elect of the 30th largest city in America. Even before he decided to run, he was all over the news for decades. However, once the press got wind that a lowly wife was his campaign manager, I’d been all over the news too.
There were constant headlines that said what a devoted and loyal wife I was to be slogging away for him. The night he won, I took calls from reporters nationwide to congratulate me on winning. I tried telling them my husband won, not me, but they wouldn’t listen, “Lady, the campaign manager is always credited with the win.” More, they said, “The manager always follows the candidate into office, taking on the role of Chief of Staff.” They wanted to know if I knew that. Not only did I not know that, but there was no way in hell I would step into that role. It’s one thing to run a campaign behind the scenes and continue writing my husband’s newsletters once he’s sworn in, and quite another to be running the show in the mayor’s office. I told the reporters I wasn’t doing that, that I didn’t even like politics, both of which blew their minds.
For the past two months, it had been thrown in my face, likely on an hourly basis, that by way of my husband, as “first lady,” I represented the city as well. Whoever heard of that term being applied to a mayor’s wife? No matter. This is why I am opening the door to Hall’s, the swankiest department store on the Plaza. I’d never been in here before. I must’ve looked dazed trying to figure out where the formal fat department was located because some nice lady just came up and asked if I needed a dress for the inaugural ball. I was incredulous! How in the world did she know?
Brushing my shock aside, I said yes, and she grabbed my arm and walked me over to the “woman’s” area. It was like every salesperson knew I was on my way there. They swarmed around me and asked what type of dress I was looking for. At this size, what can you say to that? Red-faced, I just said I’d try on whatever they had that’d fit.
A saleslady came into the dressing with one dress.
A ballgown that was off the shoulders, yet had a wide curlicue mass of ribbon-like things rimming the edge. It was slimming. I maybe looked only 200 pounds, so I said I’d take it. The woman said, “You’re not getting a discount.” I said, “I don’t believe I asked for one.” Jesus! How rude!
But yes, it seems that among the hoity circles, even for those who work for the hoity, Funk was the white trash candidate who happened to slip under the radar for the win. Man, this is going to be a fun eight years.
I raced out of Hall’s and gunned the van’s accelerator to retrieve my son Andrew from high school. He graduates the next month. Grabbing him from the curb, I flew down Highway 71, headed for home. Ever since the campaign ended, I’d been making a concerted effort to put dinner on the table at 5:30, just like I always did before Funk up and ruined our lives with this thing. Pulling into the driveway, I learned dinner was the least of my problems. Andrew’s senior prom is scheduled for the same night as Funk’s inauguration. Dammit all.
Just like everything else, I ended up making both work. But first, I had to solidify the arrangements.
As promised, I called the city clerk back to discuss my vision for the inauguration. She was not happy. But honestly, why would Millie call the morning after the election to tell me the spouse of the mayor-elect plans the event if she really didn’t want the spouse to plan the event?
I guess those who came before me had given Millie the reins, but that’s not how I roll. Once I learned I had carte blanche, I went to work on creating the most magnificent inaugural ball Kansas City has ever seen.
I am to make the inauguration a city-wide gathering, instead of just the wealthy few getting to attend. This is important. It’ll be Funk’s first official act as mayor and I want to reassure citizens that he walks his campaign-promises-talk.
Mayor Kay Barnes has a few more weeks to round out her term in office. She had a message filter down to me that she wants Funk’s inauguration hosted at her newly renovated Bartle Hall. According to my husband, the enormous cost of that project was taxpayer funded, which is a no-no in his book. Back when he was the City Auditor he opposed Mayor Barne’s plan to use city money for a glorified ballroom that mostly high rollers would get to enjoy. As you can see, Funk lost that fight, but it is one more thing that Barnes hates him for. As such, I didn’t even consider her idea.
Instead, I chose Kansas City’s iconic Union Station for the event.
Once the venue was secure, I had ticket stations set up in neighborhoods across the city, especially in the economically challenged areas, as those residents have historically been included in oogots—that’s Italian lingo for absolutely fucking nothing. More, I made the tickets free of charge. They would be given out on a first come, first serve basis, with each person standing in line only allotted four tickets. I believe the entire 2,400 lot were gone within 24 hours. I can’t wait to see the elite’s faces when they realize they have to mingle with folks from all walks of life, possibly for the first time ever!
If shaking things up like that weren’t enough, instead of the typical go-to jazz chosen for every major event in Kansas City, I planned music that reflects the variety of people living here. I scheduled our favorite guy from Funk’s campaign, Slick Ballanger, to sing the blues, bagpipers—because that music speaks to my husband’s soul, and African drummers and Hispanic dancers to represent the cultural diversity in our city. I know it’s not the beloved jazz that people will expect, but how could anyone have a problem with that lineup?
The election produced what’s probably the city’s first non-millionaire mayor, and even better, or worse, depending on who you are, a mayor who will account for the entire population when it comes to creating policy. Likewise, it brought the first majority female council. Both happenings are a big deal. Funk and I want everyone acknowledged. So, instead of just the mayor on stage, I arranged for the incoming council and their families to be seated there too.
After the swearing in and Funk’s speech, the party will get underway.
And rather than the typical glitzy sit-down dinner, there will be free food stations and entertainment throughout the venue. An outdoor Fireworks show will round out the evening, which is my way of ushering in the big changes Funk plans to make. Specifically, a city that works for regular folks. Of course, it will also be a city for the wealthy, even if most of them don’t even live in Kansas City.
When Funk’s large donors got wind of my plans, they kicked up a major fuss about tradition going out the window. I know, including regular folks in a city event is a major travesty! Still, to appease them, I scheduled a pre-inauguration party in the basement of Union Station just for those supporters. In keeping with the theme of including the council in everything, I arranged a pre-party for them so they too could say thank you to their big-money donors.
Funk and I decided against taking the 30k in taxpayer dollars given us to fund the event. Opting instead to use a portion of the boatload of campaign donations that came in AFTER he was elected to pay for both the inauguration and the pre-party—even those of the council members.
The political hacks let it be known that it was sheer madness on my part to spend what should be saved for Funk’s next election cycle. Throughout our marriage, Funk and I have always discussed everything, big and small. Regarding his upcoming inauguration, we both feel that city money should be spent on the desperate backlog of items needed most—police and infrastructure—and that every citizen should be allowed to celebrate the massive changes he promised to make during his campaign. Like Funk has said a hundred times over, he didn’t run for the title, he ran to get things done. And because that is the only reason I okayed his candidacy, this is how it will go, no matter how much the hacks make fun of me.
So, that is a wrap on the details concerning the coming inauguration.
But there is one thing I’d like to know.
What happened to the press and the politicos thinking everything I did was wonderful? It’s like they’re viewing me post-election as a completely different person than the one they wrote about during the campaign. And yet I’m still me, doing the same things I did before. The only difference between now and then is that I’m doing them from two hundred and fifteen pounds! Ugh. How embarrassing.
P.S. I’ve alluded to the “big blow” that occurred in September 2020, which is why I haven’t released the third and final book in the C’mon Funk series. I’m happy to say that I’ve got my wits back about me. Like this essay, I’ll continue posting scenes from the third installment, titled, “Hiding Behind Nice. They Can Throw Her Out, But They Can’t Shut Her Up!”
The Photo. Funk and I at the pre-inauguration party. I arrived two hours late so I could do all the normal “mom” things for my son’s senior prom.