Susan Collins' ridiculous talking stick is an insult to the summer camp community

Susan Collins, who is currently a senator -- not a summer camp counselor -- had a new idea for reforming our broken government on Monday.

To help ease communication during the government shutdown, Collins introduced a talking stick to bipartisan negotiations. One of the Senators in the negotiations allegedly threw the stick at Susan Collins' glass elephant, breaking it -- but take a look at that stick.

Who can blame them?

This talking stick shouldn't even call itself a stick. It's a bandaged disgrace.

Put aside, if you can, that the future of close to a million undocumented children is in the hands of a faux Native American talking stalk you can probably buy at Party City. Don't think about how senators find this all so damn funny.

Try not to think about the last time you saw a talking stick being used, which was at a insipid corporate retreat for mid-level managers you were forced to travel to on a bus in 2010.

This stick isn't even properly decorated. The color palette is tired and corny. There's some kind of trinket glued on at the top which I last saw, and rejected, at a 99 cents store.

Obviously, these are minor objections that obscure an abject moral failure. But as someone who spent three summers at camp and many more at mediocre corporate retreats, I'm appalled.

Talking stick reform, now.