This is Dr. Laura. Welcome to the program, Handsome. Handsome? It’s OK to use fake names on my show, but isn’t Handsome a bit presumptuous?
I s’pose it is, ma’am. But that’s what my girlfriend calls me. Lip-biting pause. She also calls me the Big Schmuck, heh, heh, heh.
Well, I’d prefer to call you something else. Harsh staccato laughter from Dr. Laura.
You could call me Bubba if you’d like, ma’am.
OK Bubba. What can I do for you today?
Well, ma’am, my wife is plenty pissed off at me.
Your wife. Your wife! Wait a minute, Mr. Bubba. You have a wife and a girlfriend? I can’t believe it!
I’ve had hundreds of girlfriends, Dr. Laura. This particular girlfriend, I called her Kiddo, was causing problems around the office, showing me her thong panties, grabbing at my crotch, bombarding me with gifts, delivering pizza, delivering oral sex. But I swear I had nothing to do with it. I’d be on the phone talking and I’d look down and she was having her way with a particular part of my anatomy. She was taking advantage of me. I kept telling her I wasn’t that kind of guy.
All I ever did was take the high road and you know my dear departed Mama was a nurse and so I’ve always been interested in health care, so any fondling of that woman’s breasts or any pelvic palpations I performed were just routine procedures laid down by the American Medical Association as part of a regular physical examination, especially for a young woman of that age.
How young, Bubba?
Let’s not get mired in details. We have problems in Russia, Asia, we have the home run race, but let me say this to the American people and I want you to listen to me. That woman was past puberty.
Then I had this ol’ sexual harassment suit brought against me by a gal down home and Kiddo was gonna get subpoenaed, so I had to get my golfing buddy Vernon to find her a job so she would keep her mouth shut.
Appalled laughter from Dr. Laura. Bubba. Sexual harassment. What kind of man are you? What line of work are you in?
Bubba chortles winningly. I guess you could say I’m a CEO of a pretty darn big enterprise, heh heh heh. Seriously though, I want to make the world a better place for our children, like this little ol’ fat boy my speechwriters made up who kinda reminded me of me when I was a chubby little fella in my big boy jeans.
Now I got a lot of people trying to run me out of town on account of these false charges of perjury, witness tampering, obstruction of justice, abuse of power. All on account of this one tight-ass jackleg prosecutor who went prying into my private life.
Back up, Bubba. How did we get from your girlfriend and wife and sexual harassment to perjury and obstruction of justice?
That’s exactly what I want to know, Dr. Laura. I am my wife’s husband. I am my daughter’s daddy. I am my poor dead mama’s big ol’ baby boy. I love everybody, I feel everybody’s pain. And the Little Dicktator feels everybody’s pain too. Big Bubba starts to weep and whimper.
Oh give me a break, Handsome. So what is it? You can’t keep your pecker in your pants? By the way, who’s this little dictator?
Bubba stutters sheepishly. Here’s the way it is, ma’am. That’s the moniker Kiddo gave to my member. And let me tell you, the little guy is a dictator. Everybody’s blamin’ me for something I have absolutely no control over. The minute a gal with knockers like my dear departed mama walks into the room, the little ol’ Dicktator wants to stand up and salute.
Someone ought to give the little dictator a whack.
Well, to tell you the truth, heh heh heh, I do that when I’m on the phone with my girlfriend.
You know what Bubba, I think you’re a big butthead. I think your girlfriend is right. You are a big schmuck. So tell me, schmuckhead, why are you calling?
As I said, my wife won’t talk to me, my girlfriend’s holed up somewhere getting fat on eclairs and wieners, and the only friend I have these days is this Mormon fella who wants to go bowling and then take me out for an ice cream.
You fill me with loathing, Bubba. You want sympathy from me?
I like your energy. I like your lips. What are you doing Saturday night, sweetheart?
The Big Schmuck Does Dr. Laura DC75FB27-1372-FCBB-832AB1791293975F 2007-09-06 14:14:53.0 1 1 0 1998-09-24 00:00:00.0 22 0D.P. Sorensen
Before the advent of the Express Lane 10 Items Cash Only at my local grocery store, I used to enjoy the opportunity to waste a few minutes while the cashier tallied the purchases of the people ahead of me in line. I could browse through Cosmo to read the latest article on why men behave like such boobs, leaf through the National Enquirer to get the latest information on Oprah’s wild weekend in Orem with Stephen Covey, or search the baskets of my fellow shoppers for embarrassing items unsuccessfully hid under a box of Cheerios.
Now I have to prepare for a visit to Albertson’s with a double Bombay martini or a sustained session of Transcendental Meditation. (I forgot the mantra personally imparted to me by the Maharishi, so now I just repeat the phrase God Bless Frank Joklik over and over again until peace and the Olympic Spirit fill my soul.)
You know why they have those blood pressure machines next to the pharmacy? Not for hypochondriacs to test systole and diastole, but for survivors of the express lane to make sure they aren’t in imminent danger of a stroke.
As I say, before the express lane became an emblem of our accelerated age, I would shuffle through the grocery line as patiently as a tourist waiting to get into the Tabernacle. Now, however, I stand seething, crushing my potato chips or digging my fingernails into the family pack of Charmin, while some oblivious or demented shopper is transferring, item-by-item an entire year’s supply of food, toiletries and cat food from the cart to the counter. Sometimes I count along 139, 140,141 as each can, box or bottle is handled as if it were a suspicious package that might explode at any second.
It doesn’t work to mutter something like, I thought this was the express line. Even adopting a Rod Decker tone of voice and booming out You have more than 10 items doesn’t work. For one thing, a good deal of the time, the express lane violators look like convicted felons out on parole their body language sending the menacing message that if challenged, they will smash your face in with a can of Hormel’s Extra Hot Chili.
For another, violators necessarily consider themselves exempt from the rules by which we ordinary mortals are bound. If confronted, they look at you the way our Commander in Chief looked at the special prosecutors when they asked him about the cigar incident with Monica Lepinski. (By the way, the last time I talked to Monica, she said she really wants to turn her life around. She is tired of ice-skating but she is enthusiastic about her new assignment as a guide on Temple Square.)
The failure of the express lane is proof that grocery shopping, like sex, can’t be speeded up. (Though President Bubba seems expert at both speed and multi-tasking in both shopping all those presents for friends, family and interns and sex.) Soon supermarkets will abolish the express lane, though not until a few more homicides occur. (Last week in Kamas a woman was clubbed to death with a pork loin for sneaking past the 10-only limit with two packages of rawhide dog chews and a three-pack of sandal-toe nude control-top pantyhose.)
For now, the best thing to do is to take the pledge and stay away from the express lane. It helps to sing to yourself Willie Nelson’s stoned version of Slow Down now featured on that TV commercial. Another good one to hum is the Pointer Sisters’ Slow Hand song.
This past week I experimented with the regular lanes and discovered that I actually saved time. My blood pressure went down, but most important, I was able to peruse at leisure the Starr report excerpted in Newsweek (though I recommend the full text, especially footnote 209).
Sex and Shopping: Life in the Fast Lane DC75FB75-1372-FCBB-8312A59F06A3CCF5 2007-09-06 14:14:53.0 1 1 0 1998-10-01 00:00:00.0 25 0D.P. Sorensen
Just when it looked as if the furor over polygamy was fading from the front page, leaving Utah bereft of attention, Rep. Chris Shorty Cannon has nosed forward to rescue Utah from obscurity and restore its reputation as the wackiest state in the land.
Some people mistakenly assume Cannon got his nickname from his psychological affinities with H. Ross Perot, (only his family and close associates know that the H. stands for Helen) the most mentally well-adjusted man in America. Cannon in actuality got his moniker from colleagues in the House who were impressed by his resemblance to tough-guy Danny DeVito in the movie Get Shorty.
I’m glad no one is opposing Cannon in the next election. If it were up to me, I would appoint him Congressman-for-all-time-and-eternity. He exemplifies Utah’s quirky determination to march to a different drummer. I refer to Shorty Cannon’s ingenious and innovative new plan to save our republic from our commander in chief’s sweaty embarrassments and prevarications.
Shorty Cannon proposes that Newt the Knife Gingrich take a powder while the House of Representatives elects a consensus president-in-waiting who has the moral authority to lead us out of Sodom and Grunge on the Potomac. Then Bubba and Gore will get the galosh, thus elevating the moral authority to the highest office in the land. Meanwhile, Newt the Knife, refreshed from his sojourn in the powder room, will resume leadership in Congress.
Shorty contends that Gore must also go because he is as stained as Monica’s cocktail dress by Clinton’s lubrications. You impeach Gore for being associated with a willful president. But Shorty has more substantial grounds for impeaching both Clinton and Gore.
Gore’s been shoved in a closet or has been hiding behind the president’s skirts for the last seven or eight months, says Shorty, as quoted in The Salt Lake Tribune, the Official Newspaper of the 2002 Games. Clinton’s proclivity for lounging around the Oval Office in neatly tailored wool skirts, sexy silken teddies, and various styles of lace lingerie has been generally overshadowed by his episodes of fellatio interruptus with Olympic gold medalist Tara Lewinsky in the White House pantry. I, for one, am happy that Shorty has reminded us of Clinton’s cross-dressing. [For Clinton’s delight in drag, see the Starr Report, narrative VI, p. 79.]
The commander in chief might get by wearing skirts and pantyhose with world leaders like Yassar Arafat who favor caftans, but for the most part, Clinton’s Liz Claiborne’s outfits would probably undermine serious negotiations with other foreign leaders.
Shorty’s allegation of Vice President Gore hiding in the closet is disturbing. The upright member of Utah’s 3rd Congressional District didn’t go into detail in the newspaper interview, but I have it on good authority from the boyish gossip and gadabout Bud Weed, who helps Shorty pick out socks at Nordstrom, that Shorty caught the vice president in flagrante delicto during one of his, the upright member’s, visits to fellowship the president in the Oval Office. This episode did not appear in the Starr Report, but is apparently contained in the 2 million pages of additional documents released last week by the special prosecutor.
While Shorty was chatting with Betty Currie and some chubby intern from Beverly Hills wearing a beret, the president escorted Eleanor Mondale, looking disheveled, from the Oval Office. No sooner had Shorty settled down on one of the plush blue-velvet sofas in the Oval Office than a closet door swung open and a disheveled-but-elated Walter Mondale emerged, casting meaningful glances at a disheveled-but-elated Al Gore, who emerged a step behind the former vice president and father of the leggy and voluptuous Eleanor.
Given such undignified behavior, it is only right that both Gore and Clinton be excommunicated from the White House. The question now is who should take over? Shorty was typically cagey about whom he has in mind, but students from the massage workshop he conducts every Tuesday with Merrill Cook in a Capitol Building basement hideaway have revealed that Shorty will shortly send to the House Judiciary Committee a plan to abolish the presidency and establish a triumvirate, like them ancient Romans. Who shall the three worthies be? Who among us possesses the requisite moral authority?
Current candidates include confirmed bachelor Steve Young, TV evangelist Oprah Winfrey, and aromatherapist Jazz Bear. Please e-mail your own choices to www.shorty.com, or call him directly at 801-379-2500. Ask for Shorty.
Get Shorty DC75FBC4-1372-FCBB-8364D401090AD5D1 2007-09-06 14:14:53.0 1 1 0 1998-10-08 00:00:00.0 24 0D.P. Sorensen
McDonalds will shortly announce it has signed Christopher Fink, alleged kidnapper and prophet, as its principal spokesman for the new Did Somebody Say McDonalds? advertising campaign.
That is the buzz in the ad industry, according to boyish account exec. Arthur Bud Weed.
We couldn’t believe our good fortune when we heard that fugitive Fink had been spotted at a McDonalds, and soon thereafter was apprehended by law enforcement officers. We think Mr. Fink is someone the public can relate to. We believe the Finkster exemplifies everything that’s fun about ground beef, said the ever-enthusiastic Mr. Weed.
Picture this, said Weed, warming to his scenario. Snow falling on pine trees. It’s the middle of nowhere. Mother and new-born baby and cute little malnourished David, the future savior. It’s been days since he’s had his favorite meal of watermelon and lettuce. Kyndra is shivering. She’s hungry. To distract David, Kyndra starts singing, ’Old McDonald had a farm, ee-eye-ee-eye-o.’
Christopher Fink has been scribbling revelations in his spiral notebook, but he stops to listen to Kyndra. It’s like those cartoons where a light bulb goes on over a character’s head. Christopher smiles beatifically and says, ’Did somebody say McDonalds?’ We can almost hear his stomach grumble.
The scene shifts, and now we see Christopher running through the pines. Cut to a close-up, his chest heaving as he trudges through the snow. He’s really huffing and puffing. His stomach is really grumbling now. Cut to Kyndra and the kids building a snowman. Cut to Christopher spying the Golden Arches on the horizon. Music swells. Cut to Christopher squeezing himself into a booth his tray piled high with Big Macs, three orders of family-sized fries, four chocolate shakes, and at least 12 of those little sacrament cups filled with catsup.
Cut to Kyndra and kids now lapsing into hypothermia. Cut to Christopher stuffing an entire Big Mac into his piehole. He tries to strike up a conversation with his fellow McDonalds aficionados. The portly patrons look suspiciously like Shorty The Crusader Cannon and Merrill The Masseur Cook.
Christopher manages to gulp down a half-chewed bolus of burger meat. He informs his McDonalds mates that he has to eat for four. ’I can’t get my kids to eat anything but watermelon and lettuce. I’ve tried Arby’s Spicy Chicken with ranch sauce, KFC Extra Crispy, Taco Bell Mexican Pizza. Nothing works!’
Christopher gets a wistful far-away look in his eyes. ’Someday I’ll bring my son the savior here, to this very place. It will be a holy site.’ Fade out, as Christopher runs in slow motion through the snow, determined to see his loved ones after his sacrament of several Special Value Meals.
Bud Weed pauses to extract a bit of brie from his mustache. You know, it was the luckiest thing in the world that we had that video of little David looking so emaciated. The TV stations milked that visual for all it was worth. I’m close friends with all the news directors, and I know they wouldn’t mind me telling you that they wish the story could go on forever! It could have been the lead story until the Olympics. Even if the toddler had died, we’d still have those dramatic and heart-rending pictures.
Without pictures, the story would have been one of those garden-variety cases of child neglect or abuse. But that video was so pathetic, the whimpering so unbearable, the tyke so tortured with hunger that the station led with the story night after night. Isn’t home video fantastic? TV never had it so good. Videos like the Fink production not only provide emotion, emotion, emotion, but they are a wonderful repository of product tie-ins. Right now I’m working on the diaper angle.
It just tickles me that some good can come out of this tragedy. As soon as we can get little David out of the clutches of the people at Primary Children’s Hospital, we plan to embark on a national tour of McDonalds franchises, with little David packing on the pounds as he engorges himself with McDonald’s Special Value Meals. And Frank is eager to make the kid an Olympic mascot.
This Fink story came along at the perfect time. The news directors at all the local stations were getting tired of Monica. (Though not my wife I tell her she must be a sex addict!) What really made the story a grabber, as we say in the ad business, is that the kid is white! Our demographics here can’t relate all that well to a starving black kid somewhere in Africa.
And do you know the best thing about this? The couple’s name! The Finks!
Don’t you just love it?