Uncle Sam, the one relative I try to disown every April 15th, turned me upside down again and shook my shiny pennies into his collection plate. Normally, I wouldn't mind losing some cents, but he also took my crisp dollars, crinkly tens, crunchy twenties, and too many cringing hundreds to count. But, as he was roughing me up, I made him promise that he'd let me decide how to spend my tax dollars this year. He actually sounded relieved with the offer because he whispered, "Might as well let you decide; we've almost run out of creative ways to waste your money." So, here's what I told him.

I told him that Congress needs better uniforms. I said that it was hard to tell who was playing for which team when they're all wearing pinstriped suits from Hugo Boss.

Wrestlers wear some pretty cool togs in their line of work, so why shouldn't our elected officials do the same? It's hard to tell who's winning when they're all piled up on a spending bill or when they're slapping each other silly with ethics charges. We need official uniforms. And then you've got all those up and coming minor league players to worry about - the politicians who are practicing in our state capitols. Face it. We need some way to keep up with who's winning. We've already learned that good government is only possible if you back the right team!

Since Sam was listening, I kept going. I told him that we need to take pictures of those politicians in their new uniforms, and make up some trading cards. We could put their voting stats on the back, and we could let kids collect the cards and say it was all for education. This way, we'd teach them civics, history, math, political science, and even P.E. in one swoop.

Sam agreed to both of these ideas, but he winced when I suggested uniforms for the referees. He reminded me that they don't use referees in Congress. "Referees make you follow rules! We aren't going to allow any of that nonsense up here." He also said that referee uniforms wouldn't sit too well with some politicians. "Nope," he said, "Best not to even mention any form of black-and-white striped clothing. Some of the players - I mean ‘elected officials' - and their legal defense teams might be a bit uneasy with that image."

David McCoy, a notorious storyteller and proud Yellow Jacket, lives in Conyers and can be reached at davmccoy@bellsouth.net