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Joni Ernst Says She Used to Wear Bucket on Head for No Apparent Reason

By Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker

22 January 15

The article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column, "The Borowitz Report."

enator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) shared more folksy stories of her childhood on Wednesday, telling reporters that she used to wear a bucket on her head for no apparent reason.

“I’d be walking outside our house and see a bucket lying there, and I’d say to myself, ‘That’s a perfectly good bucket, I think I’ll put it on my head,’ ” she said. “It wasn’t because I needed a hat or anything. I must have had, oh gosh, a half-dozen hats or so. I just wanted to wear a bucket.”

Ernst said that during her youth, she was known for poking a hole in a large piece of corrugated cardboard and wearing it as a poncho.

“I can’t for the life of me tell you why I did that,” she said. “I just liked the look of it, I guess. Nobody paid much attention to it. People sure don’t notice your cardboard poncho when you’re wearing a bucket on your head.”

When asked why she was sharing these stories, Sen. Ernst considered her answer carefully. “I think people like to get to know their representatives in Washington as people,” she said. “And it helps to know that one of them used to wear buckets on her head, corrugated cardboard ponchos, and scuba flippers instead of gloves. Did I tell you I used to wear scuba flippers instead of gloves? To this day I’ll be darned if I know why I did that.”