Isaac: At least she never touched the Mace!

On his DBS show TALK on Thursday, Rick Wayne could not resist commenting on the beleaguered CSA president and freshman UWP senator Mary Isaac’s shocking interruption of Wednesday’s House session. He began with the straight-faced suggestion that Fish Alphonse and Cokes & Company could soon find themselves broke and unemployed, thanks to a comedy team comprising the nation’s prime minister and his ever-faithful deputy Philip J. Pierre.

The notoriously irreverent show host was clearly surprised when one of his first callers on Thursday evening turned out to be the day’s most discussed personality: Ms Mary Isaac. Their exchange went something like this:

RW: You know I’m a fan. Still I must ask: What the hell were you thinking, Mary? It seemed to me what you did was equal to a stranger walking into someone’s home uninvited. I’m saying we elect guys to discuss our nation’s business without outside interference. That’s the whole point behind the barricade.

Isaac: I know I was supposed to be in the chamber Rick, but I chose to sit in the gallery.

RW: There were the other routes out of the House but you chose to remove the barricade and do what no stranger in the House has ever done before. Why didn’t you walk outside the enclosure?

Isaac: There is not enough space around the ropes. The only other door leads to the street and I needed urgently to access the lounge, which is upstairs.

RW: What was all that stuff you told the TV reporters about your being hungry? I don’t get it. Are you saying you were so famished that you simply lost it?

Isaac: Oh, I was so hungry. It was nine minutes after three and what happened was I decided to wait. Some people got up and went upstairs to the lounge to get something to eat. But I waited to hear everyone speak. I got up from where I was sitting in the gallery only when the prime minister started closing . . .

RW: Hold on, hold on Mary, please. You are riding the wrong train here. It could turn out to be quite funny if there really is no regulation regarding what you did. Extremely funny, when you consider the prime minister’s state-of-shock demeanor. But as bad as it was, your moon-walking across the floor, the excuse you gave to the press is what really cracked me up. “I was hungry?” Mary, I mean, really!

Isaac: But Rick that’s the truth; I needed food.

RW: The menu up there must be pretty enticing.

Isaac: It doesn’t matter what they had available. At that point, crackers would’ve been all right. I had been sitting there from ten in the morning . . .

RW: I suspect we’ll be hearing a lot more about this.

Isaac: I don’t think so, because there is no rule. It’s all  just convention and protocol. It is not written anywhere that I was not free to open the barricade and walk past the MPs on my way to the door that leads the food upstairs.

RW: You saying you don’t you respect protocol?

Isaac: You have to, but if you do not know it exists or that it is there . . .

RW: Why didn’t you sit in the area provided for senators, near the door behind the Speaker?

Isaac: Because nobody was sitting there and when I came in. I saw [Allen] Chastanet and some of the other people already in the gallery, and I went to say hello. When I got there it felt comfortable.

RW: I am saying this thing was really quite funny and precedent-setting. Then again I suppose we’re going to find out soon enough if there is a rule or law or a protocol that prevents regular people from walking around the House. If there isn’t, how funny that all these years we’ve imagined MPs alone could do this and that when the House is in session. Why didn’t Allen advise you?

Isaac: Because I was supposed to be in the inner gallery.

RW: Chastanet must know there are special seats for current and former senators.

Isaac: No, I don’t think so. I don’t think so.

Too soon, the host ended the call. But not before saying he fully expected at carnival time to hear a number of calypsos entitled “Is Hunger Dat Do Me Dat.” As for me, I can just see the placards at the next protest march: “I Mad Wid Hunger!”

But what if it should turn out that Mary Isaac, when she did her moon-walk, was temporarily insane with hunger? What if it should turn out the CSA prez-senator is nuts . . . period? On the other, she never tried to pick up the Mace, let alone toss it out the nearest window! By the way, those who missed Thursday TALK  should tune to DBS at midday tomorrow (Sunday February 15.)