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13th March 2019
06:25pm GMT
Mitt Romney's team pile into his office, led by their ringleader, a woman who is visibly unsure about the structural integrity of the cake not resulting in a devastating fire hazard. 'Happy Birthday to you...', they sing off key and at varying tempos, excited to honour their leader in the traditional office way - mortifying him and then watching on as he uses his literal breath to put an end to proceedings. Everyone is happy, evidenced by their extremely American smiles. Presumably, those that despise Mitt Romney have stayed at their desks, using WhatsApp's web client to message their friends something like "Ugh he doesn't even deserve cake" or "I hate my job and/or life" or "More like Shitt Romney", if such enemies even exist.
2. Faking Surprise
Mitt emits a laugh so fake, you can hear the words 'ha ha' over and over again as if he's reading them or you've gotten Siri to convert text to speech. He knew this was coming. Everyone knows what happens on their birthday at work. There was a woman filming in his office before the cake parade even started. Everyone would've unsubtly upped sticks from their desks mere moments ago to assemble for their assault into his office. Mitt Romney is not surprised. His laughter is fake. His smile is pained. A space on his desk had preemptively been cleared for the cake. This is a very blatant setup.
3. The Photo Op
After his performative laughter runs dry, Mitt gives his knees a quick slap and then hops up out of his presumably ergonomically sound seat to invite a photo opportunity to the already filming cameras. At this exact point, we also get to hear his staff try to shoehorn 'Senator Romney' into a song which was very clearly designed for two-syllable names, or three at an absolute push. Try it yourself. Sing 'Happy birthday dear SENATORROMNEY, happy birthday to you' and weep at its awkwardness. Besides, surely his staff are on a level of a familiarity where they can just call him Mitt by now? I've been doing it since the intro and it hasn't impeded our relationship yet.
4. Wavering Enthusiasm
As the song continues to be poorly sung by his team, Mitt grows slightly tired of the event. He's smiled, he's acted surprised, he's even forced some laughter out of his tiny little all-American mouth. Now he'd like things to wrap up so he can get back to whatever work a US Senator does, possibly emailing Al Gore saying 'Damn bro u were right'. To fend off his increasing impatience, Mitt adopts the stance of a small child that's being told off for refusing to share the Lego with his classmates. He stares blankly at the cake, wondering how they've managed to stack so many Twinkies and keep them upright and waiting for the heinous singsong to finish.
5. "Holy Cow"
As the song ends, Mitt follows his cue to speak. He breaks the uncomfortable silence with "Oh my goodness, what I've always wanted", then adds a hearty "Look at that. Holy cow". Everyone laughs and then he peppers his performance with "That's fantastic. Wow!" to really hammer home his appreciation for this mandatory act. Either his dialogue comes straight out of a Nickelodeon G-rated show, or Mitt Romney really is an all-American guy. Not only does he forego the temptation to say "You bastards" or "Fuck sake", but he does it with such conviction that it honestly seems as though "Holy cow" is a legitimate part of his everyday vernacular. Sure, he's been media trained to within an inch of his precious life, but this seems too authentic to question. Ergo, the man belongs in an Enid Blyton novel.
6. A Quick Jape
As he positions himself close to the cake, Mitt decides to share a joke so painfully obvious it did well not to catch fire with all flames nearby. He says "What are you guys going to have?" which is funny for two reasons. Firstly, it alludes to the fact that he will be consuming the entire cake himself, but also, it suggests that he is unwilling to share, even if his appetite could lead to him consuming it all. What a jester. Not only is he a man with a rumoured net worth of $250 million, he is also a guy who likes to have a bit of a laugh, even at work. Perhaps he should run for president again because as this video proves, he enjoys both working hard and playing hard. And he likes cake!
7. The Incident
Having exchanged all mandatory pleasantries, Mitt sets to work on getting these plebs the hell out of his office. He slowly approaches the cake, with all sane persons present expecting the Senator to blow out the candles and invite everyone to gorge themselves on the product of his 72nd year on Earth. But that simply isn't what transpires, and we must all take a moment to thank the anonymous camera-wielder for capturing and subsequently sharing this publicly for all to see. Mitt Romney takes a candle from the cake and raises it to his mouth and in the physical embodiment of 'Weird flex but okay', he then blows it out. Furthermore, nobody says 'What the fuck are you doing, Mitt?', which suggests that he is surrounded by a team of weak and submissive yes men and women.
8. The Insanity Continues
Like an alien that's utterly fucking its job of trying to blend in with humans to obtain any and all information about our habits, Mitt doubles down on his batshit procedure, methodically making his way around the cake, dropping a newly-quenched candle in the process. He lets out a quick "It's never gonna work, is it?" when he starts to notice some of the attendees beginning to laugh at his method. They're not in any way correcting his madness, merely confusing the subject who is at present in deeper than anyone ever expected. The wax is dripping everywhere, he's losing viable fingerprints by the second and most of all, Mitt Romney looks like a fool.
9. Outside Interference, Finally
As a heavy silence befalls the room, one of the staffers quietly warns Mitt "Don't burn yourself", which is a redundant statement because the larger danger here is that Mitt is going to expose himself as an absolute predator when it comes to standard birthday customs. What she should have said is "Just blow them out all at once you absolute degenerate, this is going on Twitter and someone is going to write an excruciating 1,700 word piece on this nonsense". But she didn't, and that's Romney's loss and my personal gain. This anonymous woman, I am sorry to say, is a buffoon. She sugarcoated her sentiments and allowed the man to bury himself. This is like warning the captain of the Titanic that it's getting rather chilly, rather than saying 'HEY WATCH OUT FOR THE MASSIVE FUCKEN ICEBERG OVER THERE, BUDDY'.
10. Volunteering Logic
Finally, we get a glimpse into Romney's psyche as he continues his descent into lunacy. As he blows out what has to bee his half-dozenth candle, he says "These are all wishes I'm getting" and in that very moment, a number of things become clear:
To cut the tension with a metaphorical knife that the cake clearly won't need, an unidentified male says "Paige made it. Paige designed it", and the camerawoman says, "It's beautiful". What they're doing here is trying to distract themselves from the unsightly situation that is unfolding, whereby a man who has lived through 72 birthdays is incorrectly blowing out the candles on his cake. In what can only be described as stellar comedy writing, Mitt Romney says "You are sick" to Paige, presumably mocking the admittedly rather strange cake that she has put together. This is like a sewer telling an expired carton of milk that is smells bad. The lack of self-awareness is staggering but also fascinating. Mitt Romney, a man who blows out cake candles one-by-one after manually removing them, thinks Paige, a woman who made a cake comprised of approximately 30 Twinkies, is sick. Lol.
12. The Resolve
In the final seconds of the video, Mitt Romney informs us that he hasn't had breakfast yet and at long last, clarity, albeit a small amount, is gained. The man is hungry. His brain isn't working right. His actions are in this instance completely understood. Who among us hasn't done something legally insane while under the influence of malnourishment? Mitt Romney was probably employing this bananas candle-blowing-out process to prevent any wayward spit from landing on the Twinkies. He will now eat every last one of them, safe in the knowledge that the only saliva they come in contact with is internal. I have no doubt that after the video stopped recording, Mitt's staff continued not to berate him for his indiscretions. They will support him through anything, that much is evident. After he removed every candle, he probably made a cup of coffee using cold water, then sliced the cake using a spoon and ate it off a sponge. God bless you Mitt Romney, you colourful little weirdo.
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