Michael was watching CNN in the living room, and I was flipping casually through the pages of Architectural Digest left by the weekend guests. It’s not one of our usual magazines. We get The Economist and Motor Trend, so an upscale style glossy was a treat. I was sitting at the kitchen table waiting for the ravioli to come to a boil again – they have to start bobbing, and then you turn down the heat but only slightly – and the unfamiliar publication was the ideal diversion.

As I looked at ads for onyx bathtubs, floating like flotsam and jetsam through to the kitchen were Nancy Pelosi’s and Donald Trump’s disconnected words about security, home and infrastructure. I thought idly about how the prestigious, formidable and grandiloquent Architectural Digest might address a construction project on the scale of Trump’s wall.

What materials would those high-end designers use for such a bigly assignment – given that it must simultaneously make us feel cozy, intimate and exceptional while coming in at, or under, the proposed building allowance of $5.7 billion (not including tips)?

It would be a mashup of deliberately Southwestern chic and ferociously urban industrial, thereby giving the construction a glorious informality while a providing a neutral and individualized backdrop. Steel slats were advertised nowhere in Architectural Digest, so clearly they are outlandish. Perhaps a wildly playful take on the Maginot Line, employing Liberty print fabrics in a retro-ironic way, could form a series of oversized ottomans, wittily invoking the empire after which they were named.

As these elements swirled around in my mind, and as I gently placed the ravioli on the dishes, I suddenly had my revolutionary idea about the border: We should build The Great Wall of Pasta.

We must use artisanal handcrafted foodstuffs to construct a gigantic edible edifice. It would satisfy appetites, inspire new recipes and still count as a demonstrably intimidating enclosure, if only calorically.

I’m not the only one who thought that pasta would make a good wall. Renowned Italian American author of “Movieola” John Domini was, perhaps unsurprisingly, the first to suggest pasta a la Genovese when I asked, on Facebook, what my friends would use if they had to put walls up around their own dwellings.

The wall wouldn’t be made only of pasta, either. It would also include kreplach, manti, pierogi, samosas, empanadas, fufu and kartoffelknoedel. Behind the wall would be a grandmother, or grandmother proxy, holding a large wooden spoon. If you’re a sweetheart, she’ll serve you; if you’re a bum and an ingrate, or ask for stones when she’s offering you bread, she’ll chase you away.

My friends had strong opinions about what they’d use if they had to make their own enclosures. From a sampling of over 250 respondents, here are the results: 1. Chocolate; 2. Jello; 3. Silly Putty; 4. Fruitcake (“It lasts forever”; “It must be good for something!”); 5. Books; 6. Marshmallows.

There was a significant group of bamboo aficionados. As Suzanne Johnson from D.C. explains, “I want bamboo because I want all the pandas.”

“I would build a wall of awkward pauses,” said my friend Brett Shanaman. “Most people dread them and avoid them, but those that embrace them and use them for laughter are welcome.”

My editor suggested typewriters.

Finally, New Yorker Lisa Chau said that if the sole reason to build a wall was to keep people at a distance, the wall should be built entirely from her dating profiles. According to Lisa, these possess a “magical ability to scare the menfolk away.”

To each their own.

That was the catch, of course: In my game, you had to imagine putting up walls around your own place, not fencing in our country.

Fencing in, walling in, walling up or closing down our great nation is clearly a ridiculous idea.

I wouldn’t ask my friends, not even as a joke on social media, to imagine it.

 

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