Blonde on Blonde: Ducks, Vanity Sizing, and Global Warming

Before getting into the nitty-gritty of Blonde on Blonde today, Imus challenged Deirdre Imus and Lis Wiehl to decide which version of the new Aflac duck “quack” they liked better: the one performed by winner, or the one submitted by Warner Wolf’s wife. That is, if Warner would comply.
 
“You can’t play it while we’re talking, because then you can’t hear it,” Imus instructed Warner, after a few failed attempts to play the audio. He added, “I’ve never worked with dumber people in my life.”
 
Having set the tone, Imus and the Blondes listened carefully as the two “Aflac!” clips played. The second one, in Deirdre’s view, sounded more like a duck, but Lis disagreed. “They second one is annoying,” she said. Then, because it was totally irrelevant, Deirdre declared that there should, in fact, be two Aflac ducks because “ducks are always in pairs.”
 
Finally, a consensus was reached that the first “Aflac!” was the better “Aflac!” Sadly, Warner reported that his wife’s had been the second one, and in typical, tactful fashion, Imus replied, “Your wife’s was not good at all.”
 
Moving on to less consequential matters, Imus asked Deirdre and Lis about “vanity sizing,” a practice increasingly undertaken by clothing manufacturers in which, for example, a size 12 is called a size 10 to make women feel better about their figures.
 
“Good for them,” Lis said. “What’s the problem?”
 
Wrong move. “The problem is the sizing is all over the place,” Deirdre said. “You used to know, I’m a solid 2, or 4, or 6, or 10. Now it’s depending on the designer or the store. You could be 3 or 4 different sizes.”
 
As a result, some malls are installing scanners that instantly take a woman’s measurements, and tell her what size she’d be in which stores. Imus doubted his petite wife would be so outraged about this issue if she were a size 12, and then accused her of exaggerating or minimizing stuff as it suited her argument.
 
“You know what I exaggerate?” she shot back. “How much I love you.”
 
Women, she insisted, need to “own up” to the truth about their bodies. Likewise, humanity should own up to the truth about global warming, an issue that, according to a recent Gallup poll, only 42 percent of people worldwide considers a serious threat.
 
Count Lis among the unbelievers. “Remember the snow that was so high in New York?” she said, and was then accused of being ignorant.
 
Climate change, Deirdre explained, does not mean that every place on the planet is going to become warm. “It means extreme weather patterns,” she said. “Places might be colder longer.”
 
Lis chalked people’s disinterest in global warming up to their concern about more pressing problems in their lives, like how to put food on the table in the midst of an economic crisis. Or having to come on a nationally syndicated radio and television program one hour earlier, as Deirdre and Lis will do next week.
 
“You’re disgusting,” Deirdre told her husband, annoyed that Rob Lowe will appear in her slot next week, which is not meant to sound disgusting even though it kind of does. Then, she paid tribute to the late singer Phoebe Snow, who died yesterday and whose sick, disabled daughter was helped out immensely by the SKIP organization until her own death four years ago.
 
“Alright, thanks,” Imus said, tenderly. “Now, get out.”
 
-Julie Kanfer