Saint John — Starting with his vastly unpopular ban on all jokes at his expense, and ending with the failure of his recently launched satire website, The Diamond, it has been an eventful day for Mayor Don Darling.
Despite all of these effort to protect himself from scorn and ridicule, Darling now says that he is ready to accept that he “might be less than perfect.”
“I’ve done a lot of soul-searching today,” said Darling, “Asking myself some really tough questions.”
He explained that it was after he was first elected to the position that his ego began to get a “little out of control,” in his estimation.
“I mean, it all happened so fast,” he said. “All of a sudden I was mayor, then I was written up on BuzzFeed, people started listening to what I had to say — Everyone was telling me that I was important…that I was perfect. After a time, I even started to believe it.”
Darling’s snobbish attitude has not been serving him well, as of late. His popularity among the Saint John population has continued to dip, and even his credibility among his peers has been questioned, as he is frequently left out of major discussions with other provincial leaders.
Despite his previous rancour, Darling says that he is now thankful to online commenters and satire websites for “taking him to task,” ensuring that he remains both humble and grounded.
He scrolled through the comments on his Facebook page to show what he meant, stopping at one posted this morning by local construction worker Micheal Ferrreo, which read, “Don Darling? More like Don Ding-a-Ling! What a joke!”
“Hey, that’s pretty funny,” he said, forcing a small chuckle. “That’s a good one. Ding-a-ling. Ha!”
After looking over a few more comments, he made his way to the window of his office, his eyes glistening as he watched the sun go down over the city he loves so much.
“You know what?” he said, suddenly, as if the thought had just occurred to him. “This place does stink.
“And that’s OK,” he added, nodding thoughtfully. “That’s OK.”