Senator Susan Collins’ Ceramic Elephant Broken By Fellow Senator

When Maine's Republican Senator Susan Collins sat down in her office with her constituents to discuss ending the government shut down, she brought out her talking stick.

What's a talking stick? It's used to conduct meetings so people don't talk over one another, usually kids. Whoever has the talking stick, it's their turn to speak. That all went well for a while.

In an interview with CNN, Senator Collins said she got the walking stick from Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and it's originally from Africa and used as a method to control meetings. But let's be honest, there have been similar methods used here in schools to keep everyone quiet until it's their turn to speak.

Collins said at one point a Senator went to toss the talking stick to someone else, but it went right for a ceramic elephant she had in her office, breaking it. It's minor damage with a just a chip in it, but you can't help but see the irony in it as the elephant is the symbol of the Republican Party.

From now on, if I were the Senator, I'd make sure I handed the stick over to the next speaker myself.