THE JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY OPINION: Existential Despair

Int. Pharmacy. Night.

Siggy: Give me three packets of ribbed, lubricated extra large condoms, bitte.

Cashier: Jawohl, Herr Doktor! Would you like that with a perfectly anonymous, plain brown paper bag?

Siggy: Not necessary. She's not that ugly.

.

TA

It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties--you know, just to loosen up. Inevitably, though, one thought led to another and soon I was more than just a social thinker. I began to think alone--"to relax" I told myself--but I knew it wasn't true.

Thinking became more and more important to me. Finally, I was thinking all the time: it had taken over my life. That was when things began to sour at home. One evening I had turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent that night at her mother's.

I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and employment don't mix, but I couldn't stop myself. I began to avoid friends at lunch time so I could read Thoreau and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, "What is it exactly we are doing here?"

One day the boss called me in. He said, "Listen, I like you, and it hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don't stop thinking on the job, I'm gonna have to let you go."

This gave me even more to think about.

I went home early after my conversation with the boss.

"Honey," I confessed, "I've been thinking--"

"I know you've been thinking!" she said, "And I want a divorce!"

"But Honey, surely it's not that serious."

"It is serious," she said, lower lip aquiver. "You think as much as unemployed intellectuals. And unemployed intellectuals are broke. So if you keep on thinking, we won't have any money!"

"That's a faulty syllogism," I said.

She exploded in tears of rage and frustration but I was in no mood at all to deal with non-Aristotelian melodrama.

"I'm going to the library," I snarled as I stomped out the door.

I headed for the library in the mood for some Nietzsche. I roared into the parking lot with Bach's Second Violin Concerto on the radio and ran up to the big glass doors: they wouldn't open. The library was closed. To this day, I believe that an a priori deist hologram was looking out for me that night.

As I sank to the ground clawing at the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Zarathustra, a poster on the wall caught my eye: "Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?"

You probably recognize that line. It comes from Thinker's Anonymous.

Which is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker. I never miss a TA meeting.

At each meeting we watch an episode of American Idol. Then we discuss the show and especially the commercials and how they help us through our travails. Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting.

I still have my job and things are a lot better at home.

Life just seemed...easier somehow as soon as I stopped thinking. I think the road to recovery is nearly complete for me. Today I registered to vote Republican.

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Metamorphosis

As David Marvin Mailer awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic Henny Youngman.

Badumpbump.

I.

What's the difference between light and hard?

You can sleep with a light on.

II.

A man walks into a petrol station and says, "Can I please have a KitKat Chunky?"

Lady behind the till fetches a KitKat Chunky and places it on the counter.

"No," says the man, "I wanted a normal KitKat, you fat bitch."

III.

My wife, being unhappy with my mood swings, bought me one of those mood rings from the Seventies so she could monitor my mood.

We discovered that when I'm in a good mood, it turns green; and when I'm in a bad mood, it leaves a great big red mark on her forehead.

IV.

I was at the ATM when a very old lady walks up, extends her Cashpoint card and asks me to check her balance.

I pushed her over.

V.

A man walks into the library and asks for a book on suicide.

"Fuck off," replies the librarian. "You'll never bring it back."

VI.

Two men in a pub and one is riding a Bucking Bronco Machine. He lasts over 10 minutes.

"Gerroff, mate! That was bloody impressive!"

"Ah, nothin' to it, I get lots o' practice. The wife's an epileptic."

VII.

An intellectual suicide bomber runs into a pet shop and yells, "You haram uncleans! You've got 30 seconds to clear off! Allahu Akbar!"

The Great Gazan Tortoise at the back of the shop shouts, "Wrong shop, ya cunt!"

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Satyam Vada Dharmam Chara

With both the Dow and S&P500 plumbing new depths, thus violating the inviolable "November Lows" market bottom of CNBC pundit fame and ushering in the third leg [Ah! My favorite leg!--Ed.] of the bear's remorseless onslaught on our sacred Lazy Fairy Free Enterprise System, a concerned and thoroughly marinated Editorial Waterboard immediately contacted its Senior Ayurvedic Full Lotus Ommmmm Bureau Chief, WisdomoftheEast, via Western Union for spiritual guidance during this time of profound Collateralized Debt Obligation.

From his retreat at Navin's Bar and Chicken Tikka Masala in Big Sur where he is currently Resident Lecturer for Financially Ruined Forfeiters of Self-Realization Fees, WisdomoftheEast sent in the uncharacteristically upbeat report, as follows:

Our communication - Wireless
Our dress - Topless
Our telephone - Cordless
Our cooking - Fireless
Our youth - Jobless
Our food - Fatless
Our labour - Effortless
Our conduct - Worthless
Our relation - Loveless
Our attitude - Careless
Our feelings - Heartless
Our politics - Shameless
Our education - Valueless
Our follies - Countless
Our arguments - Baseless
Our jobs - Thankless
Our futures - Hopeless
Our neighbours - Ruthless
Our grievances - Heedless
Our Sathyam - Truthless
Our emails - Useless

Waterboard Editorial: Eternal Verities

During this period of monetary paralysis, revived international Islamist PR campaigns, overnight evisceration of 401(¿que?)'s, penury without recourse to bankruptcy, societal implosion of vaginally reliable vacation venues, shot-down FICO scores, enhanced credit card interest charges, transexual erectile dysfunction and early onset constipation in the context of a hitherto unremarked prune crop failure, it may be well to turn once again to those eternal verities which have always sustained us during times of national trial--shopping and hard-core pornography.

Whereby we may succour one another [Looking for a nice sale/punitive leaseback on a condo in Boca? --Ed.] to take consolation from that solace which derives exclusively from a return to those great ontological Truths which yet lie just beneath the thin veneer of our civilization that must nevertheless sustain us during this time of cataclysmic national challenge to the survival of the Republic-- abandoned strip malls, E-coli laden fast food, melamine-laced yoghurt and J&J's new, improved KY™/No. 3 grit formulation, now on sale at a pharmacy near you.

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At Last--The Meaning of Life

Fauna

Pharmacodemia

Weeweechu

By copy of this posting and with reference to the appalling narrative set forth below [Not with my fucking approval.--Ed.], Hugh Jorgen is herewith bound over to Bumfuck-Presbyterian Hospital for castration and officially reprimanded by unanimous consent of the Editorial Waterboard. Jorgen is thereafter reassigned, for a period not to exceed three (5) months, as Rectal Coordination Technician at the Log Cabin Open Buffet in the Mens' Room at the Holiday Inn, starring Larry Craig.

It was a romantic full moon, when Pedro said, "Mmmm, mamacita, let's do Weeweechu."

"Dejame en paz," said Rosita. "Let's just look at the moon!"

"Pero hijo de la chingada, baby, c'mon, let's do it, let's do Weeweechu! Te quiero mucho and it's the perfect time," Pedro moaned.

"But I just wanna hold your hand and watch the moon," replied Rosita.

"Oh pretty please with ceviche on it, querida, just once do Weeweechu with me...?"

Rosita looked at the pathetic Pedro and finally said, "Oh, okay, just one time, we'll do Weeweechu."

So Pedro grabbed his guitar and they both sang: