I have a friend who’s in jail. Oh, you’re judging me now, aren’t you? Fair enough. Here’s what I have to say about his incarceration. The thugs who arrested him, denied him his constitutional rights, perjured themselves in court, falsely tried him, and now conspire to delay the proceedings that would see him released are all criminals who ought to be behind bars themselves. In fact I’m starting to rethink the whole capital punishment thing, and I say we start with “law enforcement” officials and ex-presidents. I’ll tell you this: Third World regimes have nothing on Suffolk County. And God bless America.
My friend is taking it all with remarkable equanimity, to the extent that in a fit of frivolity he recently sent me a list of ten things that would make life “on the inside” more tolerable. They included such chuckles as the request for a PETA-type organization that would watch out for the wellbeing of inmates with the same level of concern humans reserve for feral cats. I particularly like the one about being given only a fork on soup day and a spoon on spaghetti day. There is nothing so American as fucking with a man’s head.
Unless it’s whining. Which is why I responded with my own list for those of us on the outside, to give my friend some healthy perspective…
The List Of Ten Things That Would Make Me Quit Whining Maybe Just A Little:
Thing #10: Eliminate Sexy Billboards – These abominations must be made illegal. I’m a pathetic old goober and I do not wish to exit this world while ogling a poster of a seventeen-year old nymphet spilling out of her push-up bra. Let me rephrase that. I do not wish in my last moments on earth to consider that my loving wife, whom I’ve known longer than the age of the cleavage towering over me at the entrance to the Midtown Tunnel, will be receiving a visit from the State Police informing her that her husband impaled himself on a lane divider while staring at an ad for women’s undergarments. How did they determine this? From the calcified woody the county coroner had to fend off with forceps while determining cause of death.
Thing #9: Eliminate Handicapped Parking Places – 97% of them anyway. I mean, Jesus! They take up half the lot and are always empty. Actually, I’m lying. They do get used. When they’re in use, they’re generally commandeered by obese suburbanites who’d have healthy knees if they didn’t snort bacon and cheesecake for their four daily meals. The actual people these spaces were intended for are reasonable, responsible humans. They stay at home and die without fanfare.
Thing #8: Eliminate Television – The last thing worth watching on TV ended when Mr. Ed the talking horse became Elmer the glue stick. Everything since then has been a steaming pile of cattle turd. There is nothing worthwhile on television now except for the show I’m presently working on. And if they fired me, something they’d do if they knew what they were doing, that show would be worthless too.
Thing #7: Eliminate Cell Phones. They never worked, and they never will. They were invented by Nazis bent on ruling the world by keeping the populace preoccupied with the search for a useable signal. There never was a signal, and there never will be. There are only signal strength icons, which are randomly flashing bars inserted by a graphics program. Want to get some real work done? Head to Toys R Us and get an Etch-A-Sketch. With it you can design a useable stairway to heaven.
Thing #6: Heaven – Forget about it. There isn’t one. Just listen to all the believers out there. Add up all their half-baked hopes and fears and what do you get? An IHop with no wait on Sunday mornings. Certainly there must be one of those in Idaho. And right now real estate is cheap everywhere. You can probably own your own Waffle House franchise for the price of a short stack of buttermilk pancakes.
Thing #5: Eliminate Four-Way Stop Signs: There are so many of them in my town that I literally cannot get anywhere in a car. In fact I am not here right now typing on my computer. I’m at the corner of Mackey and Murray attempting to move along some old biddy who came to a complete stop two minutes before I did, but insists on waving me through. No, that isn’t the way it works, Enid, because see, you got to the intersection first. Look: now she’s waving at me again, and so I’m inching forward, but she’s inching forward, because she’s a stupid, pathetic old biddy and she’s buggered the system. And you will never hear about it because I’ll never make it home to expose this common American atrocity.
Thing #4: Eliminate Old Biddies – And hey, I’m not sexist. Get rid of the old goobers too. They really don’t want to be alive in the first place. I know because they tell me this every time I bother to give them the time of day. “Why am I alive?” they always ask me. “I should never have lived this long,” they moan. I’d agree with them, but that’s considered bad decorum. What I want to say is, “You are so right, you petrified pile of dinosaur droppings. You totally should be dead. You are a waste of oxygen. You are a toxic carbon Bigfootprint. Stop slobbering to me and go raid your medicine cabinet of all those prescriptions I’ve co-paid for with my tax dollars, and down them with a bottle of Kaopectate, you wrinkly old bag of distressed leather, you.
Thing #3: Eliminate Planes – They never actually go anywhere anyway. More specifically, you never get to go where you wish to, because if you time out all the things you must do in order to board the plane (this includes passing through the infinite number of four-way stop signs on the way to the airport) you never actually make it. And soon the TSA will have such ridiculous requirements in order for you to be able to fly, you will be better off building your own covered wagon and raising a team of oxen to drag you to your destination. Remember to pack a snakebite kit.
We can all thank the shoe and underwear bombers, not to mention our own irrational national mindset, for our present security mess. Personally, I’m expectng the day when some douchebag attempts to become the first anal sphincter bomber. After that it’ll be the “special wand” line at security checkpoints till the end of days.
Thing #2: Eliminate the Red Light Cameras – And I am so totally serious about this one. Forget what I said about Nazis before. This is Hitler’s crowning achievement. This is Satan’s Swirly. This is the most anti-American piece of technology since the voting machine. These are automated cameras that photograph you going through a stoplight a nanosecond too late. They take a picture of your license plate and send a copy to you along with a fifty-dollar fine. I tell you what: if they privatize this industry, I want in!
It’s argued that these devices reduce the number of accidents. It’s a diabolical lie. They increase accidents. Why? Because there are two kinds of drivers out there: the kind who know that the light they are approaching is guarded by one of these monstrosities, and the kind who don’t. And I damn well can tell you that when I know I’m approaching one I’m primed to pile on the brakes in a big way the instant that yellow light pops on. And one of these days, just as sure as there are lawyers, I’m going to get rear-ended by the guy behind me who’s hell-bent on making the light because that’s how people have driven since the aforementioned dinosaurs were blended into asphalt. And that’s the day I’ll sue my town for everything we’re worth, if I survive the impact.
Thing #1: Eliminate Me: What an incredibly noxious windbag I am. But then I think you’ve already come to that conclusion on the merits of the previous nine observations. So you know what? You’re next on my list.
