Hi! My name is ELIOT

I used to have a wind-up toy store, and I have quite a few wind-ups in my home now. I also have the big battery-operated cars, fire truck and others like that. But the smaller wind-ups are my favorites. The one that I really cherish is the one in the picture. He’s a wind-up (you can see the key sticking out of his suitcase) and it shows him trying to go from my kitchen to my living room, but the rug is stopping him and he’s just sitting there, spinning his wheels . . . I mean legs. I say he’s either leaving home to go to work to provide for his wife and kiddies . . . or he’s leaving home permanently to get away from his wife and kiddies. Up until now, I never named him. But after reading the article about Eliot Spitzer in my last “Time” magazine, I decided to name him Eliot. The author of the Spitzer piece in “Time” was incorrect when she said Spitzer was now like “one of those windup cars stuck on the edge of the carpet, its motor grinding away, threatening to flip over.” Wind-up toys don’t have motors – they have keys to wind them up. Possibly she never had a wind-up toy which is very sad.

Eliot Spitzer, the former governor of New York, resigned in disgrace after being found to be a perpetrator, a patron of an illegal prostitution ring and was wiring money to shell corporations as a way to pay for his transactions with prostitutes. He had been very effective for the eight years he spent as attorney general of New York and was known for going after Wall Street. He was even known as the “Sheriff of Wall Street.” His success pushed him into the governor’s office where he lasted for a year until he resigned in disgrace. Now Governor Paterson, who took his place, has similar problems. What’s going on back there anyway?

It seems that Eliot now wants to get back into the swing of things, but how to do it? He thinks he’s “done his penance” as “Time”states. But does that change anything? He apparently would like to run for office – any office. He did do marriage counseling and therapy at the insistence of his wife. But that doesn’t change anything, because it seems that any man who has strayed heads for rehab or therapy. Big deal! I think his wife should have kicked him to the curb, but she obviously didn’t. I wonder if he watches “The Good Wife” on CBS. Julianna Margulise plays the wife of the District Attorney who did some bad things while on the job and also patronized prostitutes. He was arrested and thrown in jail, but now is out, awaiting a new trial. His wife didn’t leave him and he’s now coming home to live with his family . . . but in the guest room. I don’t know why she didn’t leave him, but Chris Noth, who plays her husband, is cuter than Eliot so maybe that’s reason enough. Eliot is certainly not cute.

So now Silda has her Eliot who’s a mess and concerned about his future, and I have my Eliot who will always be with me. I know that for a fact as he could never get down the steps of my condo!