G-Free C.B.

Caleb made a left out of the parking lot and headed homeward.

It was quiet in the car. After a minute or two of silence, Caleb decided to put it out there.

“So…that gluten-free Communion bread was pretty much disgusting.”

The reaction from his wife and kids was immediate, unanimous, and simultaneous:

“Yes! It was like eating Memory Foam!”
“I know–it’s STILL stuck in my teeth!”
“I’m still chewing on it–my saliva can’t break it down!”

Caleb smiled. He loved his family. They didn’t always agree on everything, but they got him. And he got them.

G. Terry, Madonna

Although Sally Bartman had never run for office–and the mere thought of doing so made her slightly nauseated–she was an out and proud policy wonk and political junkie. So going to a forum on Politics and Polling featuring G. Terry Madonna was basically a perfect Saturday night for her.

But when the lights dimmed in the auditorium and the curtain opened, sitting at the table onstage was not Dr. G. Terry Madonna, prominent pollster, political science professor, and pundit. No, flanking the evening’s moderator were Gwendolyn Terry, owner and manager of G. Terry’s Tropical Fish Emporium, and Madonna.

Yes–“Like A Virgin”, “Vogue”–that Madonna.

And while Madonna was her usual tiresome self–dressed in a black leather corset, fishnets, and knee-high black leather boots, commenting about how President Obama was “sexy” and making it abundantly clear to all in attendance that she’d give herself to him were the opportunity to ever present itself, licking a crucifix she’d inexplicably brought with her, and showing off her toned arms (we get it, Madonna–you’re in great shape!)–Ms. Terry was a revelation: Smart, eloquent, witty, and well-informed. Sally was particularly impressed with her take on the Dream Act (Madonna, on the other hand, stated she supported the Dream Act because “young Latinos are hot”, then proceeded to jump up onto the table, drop to her knees, and rub her crotch while doing a series of pelvic thrusts).

So while the evening was certainly not what Sally had expected, she did gain some insight from one of the panelists.

And a few days after that, she bought herself a half-dozen Javanese Ricefish, which are really cool-looking–shiny and kind of transparent, like living, swimming fish skeletons!

*****

This totally true story of Sally Bartman’s crazy/weird yet enlightening experience has been brought to you by G. Terry’s Tropical Fish Emporium.

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And be sure to check out our blog: tropicalfishcaretipsandalsohowiseethingsinpolitics.wordpress.com! (don’t type in the exclamation point)

His New Phone, About Thirty Seconds Earlier

The guy bundled up in his sleeping bag on the sidewalk turned to the guy next to him sitting on a lawn chair.

He glanced at his watch. “So…in about two hours we’ll both have ourselves new iPhones, huh?”

Lawn Chair Guy turned and looked at Sleeping Bag Guy. “Huh? Were you talking to me?”

“Yeah. I was just saying we’ll both have new phones soon.”

“What are you talking about?”

Sleeping Bag Guy held up his current phone (which he now found impossible not to view with utter contempt seeing as how it was going to be replaced shortly, officially rendering it a worthless piece of garbage). “New phones? We’ll have ’em soon.” He motioned towards the store.

Lawn Chair Guy craned his neck and looked at the glowing apple, then turned towards Sleeping Bag Guy, eyes wide, breathing heavily.

“Wait–you mean to tell me this” (he motioned to the crowd lined up down the block and around the corner) “ISN’T the line for Huey Lewis and the News tickets?”

“No, it’s–”

Lawn Chair Guy stood up. “SON of a–” He picked up his chair and hurled it into the street. “GOD!”

He stormed off, leaving a trail of mumbled profanity in his wake.

Sleeping Bag Guy watched him go, then snapped out of it and quickly slid up one place in line, occupying Lawn Chair Guy’s former spot.

He’d never been a big Huey Lewis and the News fan, but kind of thanks to them, he’d now be getting his new phone about thirty seconds earlier. He started humming “The Heart of Rock & Roll” to himself and smiled.

What Terry Was Thinking

“What were you THINKING, Terry?”

He pondered the question.

He wasn’t thinking about how it’s usually not a good idea to co-sign on a loan unless you explicitly trust the person you’re signing with. Or if he actually had the money to pay the debt off himself, should it be necessary.

He wasn’t thinking about the possibility for error, and how easy it was (as it turned out) to accidentally shoot the thing.

And he definitely wasn’t thinking about how much worse it could have been had Mrs. Oliver been home when the whole thing went down. He wasn’t thinking of it at the time, and shuddered to think of it now.

Nope, as he sat there, a blown-up neighbor’s living room later, at the pay phone down the hall from the holding cell, under the watchful gaze of the officer who’d let him out to make the call to Jeannie at work so he could explain to her what had happened, Terry realized his thought process had started with “If I co-sign the loan for Dirk and he ends up getting that bazooka, he said I could hold it”, and had ended with “That’d be so cool.”

Tiebreaker

“All right, let’s do this.”

The men dropped to the floor, lying flat on their backs next to each other, facing opposite directions.

They each placed a hand on the opposite man’s shoulder nearest to him.

“One…two…THREE!”

The others in the room watched and/or waited. A few got into it and even cheered a bit.

Andrea did not.

She didn’t make much noise at all thus far in her first term on the School Board, and as a newbie, she especially didn’t feel comfortable questioning the Board’s processes.

But she was starting to think the part of the by-laws which stated that tie votes were to be broken by a leg wrestling match was pretty dumb.

Until she got the nerve to bring that up, though, she just had to remember to always wear pants to the meetings–just in case Hanson ever picked her to wrestle. One of that guy’s thighs was like the size of her entire torso; if she was going to get herself flipped, she wasn’t going to give the rest of the Board a free peep show in the process, that was for sure.

Hydroplaning

He felt the tires leave the road.

It actually felt pretty cool, the sensation of taking off.

The only problem? The fifty-three foot trailer that had come to a stop in front of him.

As the truck’s taillights got closer, the red glow blurred by the downpour but clearly getting larger by the second, he wondered how bad it would hurt.

Maybe it’d be over fast.

Maybe he’d wake up in the hospital a few days from now in the worst pain of his life, numbed only slightly by a morphine drip. He had his seatbelt on, so it was a possibility.

But then again, he was going too fast for this to turn out OK, way too fast on a road this wet. And until he felt lift-off, he’d been distracted, not properly judging distances between vehicles and time needed to stop. What was it: One car length for every ten miles an hour, something like that?

And now, he was hydroplaning.

That was a cool term: “Hydroplaning”.

That’s what he thought about in those moments. He wasn’t sad, he wasn’t frightened. He wasn’t mad at himself for going too fast.

He was thinking about the narrative. He was hoping for “hydroplaning”. Not “Carl died in a car accident.” No: “Carl died hydroplaning.” That sounded so much more bad-ass, like an extreme sport.

You weren’t the passive victim of a tragedy. You went out Young Guns II-style: In a BLAZE OF GLORY.

He felt his stomach jump, like on a roller coaster.

He wondered if the c–

And…

“Between a rock and…”

“…a paper is a scissors because that’s the name of that game!”

“Grin and…”

“…try to make it look natural because this photo’s gonna be in the paper and you don’t want everyone to point and laugh at your picture in the paper because you look weird!”

“Ebony and…”

“…Jet are two magazines marketed to the African-American community!”

“All the king’s horses and…”

“…all of the saddles on those horses!”

“Crash and…”

“…Brokeback Mountain and Capote and Good Night, and Good Luck and Munich were the Best Picture Oscar nominees in 2005!”

“Smokey and…”

“…Drinky!”

“Gladys Knight and…”

“…Morris Day!”

“I’ve seen fire, and…”

“…it looks cool, but don’t touch it! It burns!”

“Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and…”

“…unaware of what funny monologue jokes were told on the late-night talk shows unless he sees a clip from one of them on one of the morning shows the next day!”

“Only two things in life are certain: Death, and…”

“…eternity in the Lake of Fire if you haven’t accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior!”

*****

And with that, Stuart scored the first ever ZERO out of ten in the Lightning Bonus Round on America’s favorite game show, After And…

However, he did win a BUTTload of Rice-A-Roni, and that stuff basically never goes bad, so there was that.

Babes

“Bob, you’re being a baby.”

“Am NOT!” he cried as the pacifier popped out of his mouth. “AM! NOT!”

He threw himself to the ground and commenced pounding his fists and kicking his legs as the screaming continued.

Tracy walked away and didn’t look back. She and Bob were through.

And she decided that was the LAST time she was going to date someone she met on menwhoarebabes.com. That Web site was false advertising, is what that was.

In fact, she decided the only thing she was going to do online any time soon was put a for sale posting on craigslist for the case and a half of adult men’s diapers she still had at home.

Happy First Day Of Fall

Sam told everyone his broken nose happened during a particularly intense flag football game.

But what really happened was, he was at home sitting on the couch, watching TV, half-way through a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Mint Chocolate Cookie when Carrie walked in front of him while she was attempting to dust their living room.

Sam put his leg out at just the right moment to send Carrie tumbling over it, and when she turned around to look at him, hoping for some sort of reasonable explanation for what had just taken place, he smiled at her and said “Happy first day of FALL!”

Sam had thought she was in a playful mood. He had thought she’d find his pun witty and his idea to trip her, some inspired silliness.

But it turned out she found his idea to trip her to be inexplicable rudeness and found his pun stupid. But she was in a playful mood, if by “playful”, you mean “nose-punching”.

And after it had all gone down and Sam was sitting there holding a tea towel full of ice to his face, he came up with the flag football story because at that point he saw things from Carrie’s point of view and was embarrassed he’d acted that way.

The only explanation he had for his actions was that the ice cream had made him do it. And that is how Ben & Jerry’s ended up being sued by Sam for $55 million, plus pain and suffering.

And that might seem like a lot, but I forgot to tell you this: Sam was a world-famous nose model whose career was ruined by the incident. And what was he going to do, sue his girlfriend? Sue himself?

See, it makes sense now, right?

Anyway, the point is: Don’t eat Ben & Jerry’s ice cream if you’re a world-famous nose model.

And also: Tort reform, I guess?

William Shatner’s Kama Sutra

Phil began sifting through the box’s musty contents. It appeared to be mostly old magazines. And not even good ones. AND, they were in terrible condition, anyway–damp and wrinkled. He’d only paid fifty cents for the entire box at the auction, but Phil was beginning to suspect even that was too much.

But then he pulled away a tattered old People magazine (cover story: AMERICA LOVES MORK & MINDY!), and underneath was the book. It took him a few seconds to process what he was seeing, and then, realizing what it was–or what he thought it was–he quickly and carefully retrieved it from the box.

It was what he thought it was: A hardcover copy of William Shatner’s Kama Sutra, a lushly (and explicitly) illustrated early 1970s edition of the famous ancient sex manual and guide to virtuous living featuring notes and commentary by the former Captain Kirk. (Luckily, Shatner himself did not illustrate the erotic poses, although an even rarer version of the book featuring just that was rumored to exist; Phil had his doubts).

He flipped through the pages, in shock. He had never seen the book before, not even pictures of it on a computer screen–he had only heard of its legend. It was the Holy Grail of collectibles in the worlds of both rare books and Star Trek (and Trek-related) memorabilia. And aside from a faint mildewy smell (probably from the items packed in the box with the book more so than from the book itself), it was in mint condition–not a stain on it or tear in it anywhere. The dust jacket was even perfectly intact.

Phil was armed with acid-free plastic bags for just such an occasion, and he went to his desk drawer, threw it open, pulled one out, and carefully slipped the book inside. He pitched the rest of the box in the trash straightaway and then made some calls. This was too good an item for eBay or craigslist. He needed a real auction house to be involved.

Eventually–after much hassle, not the least of which was the threat of legal action by Shatner (who, rumor had it, was rightly embarrassed by the book and had spent years, much like George Lucas had with The Star Wars Holiday Special, working in vain to obliterate any evidence of its existence)–the book finally went up for auction.

The bids didn’t even meet the reserve.

Apparently, despite the book’s legend, no one–not even the most sexually liberated Trekkie–was interested in William Shatner’s musings on sex positions.

To this day, Phil has still not found a buyer willing to pay what he wants. Oh, Shatner made all kinds of offers, but Phil knew he just wanted the book so he could destroy it, and after all the court dates and lawyer fees, the last thing Phil wanted to give William Shatner was what he wanted.

And that, friends, is where the commonly-used saying “William Shatner–and the sex/life guide books with which he’s affiliated–are more trouble than they’re worth”, comes from.