So picture it, the year's 2047 (and, contrary to popular myths, Social Security is still paying out benefits). It's a hot summer day and we're pulling into a swap meet in it's final hours. As we move among the tables, we realize all the important items are long gone. We're left with the dregs and, being under forty, we have no idea who those forgotten-by-history people were.
Not far from a wall size mural of Noah's Ark (illustrated with the cast of Green Acres in an obvious tribute to TV Land) we note a dusty pile of letters. What are these? The woman behind the table tells us they are the complete correspondence of former Senator Bill Frist after he stepped down from the Senate and began his brief tele-evangilist career as the host of The 700 Billionaires Club.
Dear God,
As yet you've failed to reply to my query regarding the salacious nature of nun's habits. As you know from previous correspondence (still awaiting a response), a woman's wrist can be the downfall of humanity and too often, I have observed a nun's wrist. I will not bore you here with the debasement this has led to for myself. I do think you should address the issue of a nun's wrist being completely invisible to the eye at all times. If we do not put a stop to this now, it is only a matter of time before they will be milling among the public in g-strings and tassels.
As You know, I've taken a special interest in the lives of the others. Therefore, I would also recommend that you remove from the planet (or at least the United States) all those who disagree with me. I would strongly recommend that and I think you will realize that it is for the best.
You may have heard that some people have smeared me as anti-Catholic for my latest work on the clothing of nuns. Nothing could be futher from the truth. I have also recommended that all Baptist women were burkas, that all Methodist women wear heavy Burlington Coat Factory overcoats at all time, and that intelligent women refrain from all public discourse.
As You probably knew all along, my war was not on Catholics, it was on women. And may you continue to bless us with that gift. I don't want to live in a country that refuses to declare open season on all women.
Lastly, if You could please see it to send some money my way, it would be greatly appreciated. As You no doubt know, You are all knowing, my comments on our incumbent President Chelsea Clinton have landed me in a bit of hot water. I did not realize that the Janet Reno paternity line was a joke, I swear. But who knew she was so touchy? Her father never threatened law suits and we had a field day with him!
Your humble servant,
Brother Bill First
P.S. I hate to be a bother and always make this request, but please could You do something about the kitten's cries? I still hear them every night while sleeping.
Very strange and we move on quickly to what's left of from a New Age retailer. You pick up a well worn mass paperback entitled Useful Daily Affirmations by Brit Hume:
On Size
Hey there buddy, you're looking pretty awesome today. Yeah, buddy, perk up. Come on, perk up. Who's more massive than you? Huh? I can't hear you. You are a wide and you are lengthy. Embrace your size. Grow, little buddy, grow. Don't be shy. No one can chuckle now. Grow.
On Urination
Flow, little buddy, flow. Don't by shy. This urinal was the only one available. Everyone knows their is shrinkage due to the many germs abounding in public toilets. Do not pee shy, my little buddy. Flow, flow.
At the next table, a woman tries to interest us in a book by the Bully Boy's daughter. "Jenna?" you ask. "No, the other one." Opening the book, we read this passage at random from What Kitty Kelley Didn't Tell You About My Family:
We all like Mama's new husband and didn't he look nice in those low riding tuxedo pants at the wedding? Jenna kept going "Crack kills, Phelps!" But I think the rest of us are growing quite fond of Michael. Even Jenna found a use for him at the reception when she realized she'd forgotten her purse and used Michael's butt cleavage to hide a tube of lip stick. Besides, Mama deserves a stud after so long with a dud! Cousin Noelle came up with that one! And people thought sobriety would kill her sharp wit!
We all visited Daddy after and dementia has not been kind. He insisted on calling George P. "George Pee Pee." Daddy thought that was funny and maybe it was the first twenty times but George P. looked mad and I hope he was joking when he threatened Daddy with the Texas National Guard. He could do it, George P. could, he's governor of Texas now.
Daddy's fondness for nicknames continues even as senility has set in. He quickly dubbed Jenna "Slut" and she did not take kindly to that though Mama punched him in the shoulder and said, "Hey, you finally got something right!" We laughed and laughed.
Then he told Jenna that when he said she should see his old friends in Houston about some drilling, he meant oil!
Meant oil. Oh, that's a good one. Jenna started crying and rounded up her seven rugrats and said, "Come on kids, lets go find your daddies."
Daddy's nicknamed me "what's her name." I said to him, "Daddy, you named me after your mama." Daddy goes, "My mama?"
Then he grabbed a pillow case and put it on top of his head and started barking, "Don't leave that there! If you weren't going to drink it all, why did you open it! Where's my husband the wimp!"
All of us laughed so hard except Uncle Neilsie who was always fond of Grandma. By the end of the evening, when Michael bent over and Daddy poked his face in Michael's crack and screamed, "Osama, are you in there!" we were all feeling like your typical American family.
Later in the stretch limo, while Uncle Jebbie was ordering an air strike on London and Mama and Michael were dry humping, and George P. climbed up on the sun roof, unzipped and began pissing on the people we passed (George Pee Pee, ha ha, Daddy's so funny), I took a moment to reflect and thought, "This is what Kitty Kelley didn't tell you, that we are truly the typical American family."
Moving on to another table we found a few CDs. That's what people used to listen to recordings on. The man was packing up but he offered to give away one disc for free: a books on disc audio recording by Cokie Roberts of We Are Our Husbands Penises. We listened to the last track:
And just as in late middle age when they become limp and scrawny, so do we. I believe it was Abigal Adams who told her husband, "Don't forget the ladies." Truly, we are our husbands' penises.
Who was Cokie Roberts? We have no idea. We're still trying to figure out who Brother Bill Frist was. We say that aloud and a man waves us over to his table and points to a post-it, preserved via lamination, by "one of the biggest stars of her day, Britney Spears. The post-it was dated July 1, 2008:
Fuck the world, I want to get off!
In 1998, I owned the universe. Today who wants to lick the sweat off my pot belly?
Yesterday, my mama was over and she done drunk up all the Thunderbird.
She started making all my little ones sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and was asking "which one of you's gonna be Granny's next cash cow?"
I got so mad I done burned the Frito pie casserole.
I told her, "Mama, I can still sing."
Mama said, "Child, you could never sing."
I said, "Well Mama, I can still be sexy."
Mama said, "Child, sexy is what you're not sure you can have, not what everone's done had."
Today, I look around the trailer and scream, "Fuck the world, I want to get off!"
We passed on that as well as on an autographed photo of General Judith Miller in full military drag, lovingly autographed, "I was proved fucking right, Get the fuck out of here, Judy."
Finally, we came across a tattered pink "My First Diary" with broken lock and no key. Diary's condition was used. Reading it, we felt so sorry for the pathetic indivdual whose random musings it contained that we offered to pay for it. But the woman behind the table took one look at it, told us it belonged to her crazy uncle who died in a mysterious clusterfuck and to just take it for free. Here's a sample entry by someone known only as Candy Perfume Boy:
Dearest Diary,
Why can't life come with bumper music? Today at work, we were all talking about the hot issue of the day: Is Demi Moore pregnant? Tommy offered that she must be because she wouldn't have so many covers if she wasn't. Suzie Q. reminded us that we shouldn't fall for any rumor that hadn't been confirmed by our bible -- Teen People.
Wanting to keep the conversation going, I tossed out, "Man, I bet Ashton is hung big time! Anybody else fantasize about that?"
Smiling, I looked around and saw that the conversation had stopped. Why can't life come with bumper music? It would surely put an end to awkward pauses.
And why did I use a dopey expression like "big time?" No wondered they all stared at me. I'm such a cheese doodle! I'm such a cheese doodle, I should come in a bag! "With an expiration date!" Suzie Q. would no doubt add.I feel like such a fake. Like I should just rip off my candy necklace and head on back to the farms where the cows never mocked me. I bet Bessie misses me. Sometimes, on a cold night, I miss Bessie too. Big city living ain't all it's cut out to be. I've even lost my passion for clusterfucks. Although I did agree to try participating in one on top of the Chrysler Buidling tomorrow night. I guess, most of all, I regret the lack of bumper music in daily life.
Bumper music? Candy Perfume Boy wants bumper music? Hit it, Jess:
You better think about your legacy
That you want to leave behind
It's all getting burnt out, used up
Bought and sold to the bottom line
That ain't the way it's gotta be
You can leave a better world than you find
You can look down, turn aside, run away
But you can't get it out of your mind
'cause it's your legacy
