It's Official

Rx for America

Eight Stories

I.

When my husband and I arrived at the automobile dealership to pick up our car, we were told the keys had been locked inside the car. We went to the service department and found a mechanic working feverishly to unlock the driver's side door. As I watched from the passenger side, I instinctively tried the door handle and discovered that it was unlocked.

"Hey!" I exclaimed to the technician, "it's open!"

"I know," he replied. "I already got that side."

This was at the Ford dealership in Canton, Missouri.

II.

We had to have the automatic garage door repaired.

The Sears repairman told us that one of our problems was that we did not have a large enough motor.

I thought for a minute, then explained that we had the largest one Sears made, a 1/2 horsepower unit.

He shook his head in weary resignation and said, "Lady, you need a 1/4 horsepower."

I responded that 1/2 was larger than 1/4.

"'I'm afraid not, ma'am. Four is larger than two."


III.

My daughter and I rolled up to the McDonald's take-out window. Our total was $4.25.

I handed the clerk a five dollar bill and a quarter.

She said, "You gave me too much money." I said, "I know, but this way you can just give me a dollar bill back."

She sighed and went to fetch the manager who approached the window and asked me to repeat my request.

I did so and he handed me back the quarter, saying "We're sorry but we do not do that kind of thing here." The clerk then handed me $1.75 in change.

IV.

I was at the airport, checking in at the gate when an airport employee inquired, "Has anyone put anything in your baggage without your knowledge?' To which I replied, "If it was without my knowledge, how would I know?'

He smiled knowingly and nodded: "That's why we ask."

V.

The stoplight on the corner buzzes when it's safe to cross the street. I was crossing with a coworker. She asked if I knew what the buzzer was for. I explained that it is a signal for blind people to indicate when the light is red. Appalled, she responded, "What are blind people doing driving automobiles?!'

She was a senior probation officer in Wichita , Kansas.

VI.

The company held a good-bye luncheon for an old and dear coworker who was leaving the company due to 'downsizing.'

Our manager rose to speak with the requisite upbeat countenance.

"Y'know, this is fun! We should do this more often!"

This was at Texas Instruments.


VII.

I work with an individual who plugged her power strip into itself. She carefully examined the wiring. She could not understand why she could not turn on her computer.

She was a deputy with the Dallas County Sheriff's office.

VIII.

It was the first day of school in Kansas City, Missouri. Getting to know her students, the kindergarten teacher inquired how to pronounce a little girl's name.

"Le-a?"

"No."

"Leah?"

"No."

"Lee-Ah?"

"No."

"Lay-a?"

"No."

"Lay-eee?"

"No."

The teacher contacted the child's mother to clear this up so as to avert any problem with socialization associated with the little girl's name.

The mother was irate. She could not understand why the school couldn't get a simple matter like the child's name right.

"It's pronounced 'LeDASHha!'" she angrily informed the teacher.

"Ledasha?" inquired the teacher.

"Yes, goddammit! Ledasha! The dash don't be silent!"

,

This Will Be My Last Correspondence

Padraic O'Cossett, pictured right in tandem with his lovely wife, Hillary Rodham O'Cossett, needs no introduction. He was inad- vertently born in an outdoor personal hygiene facility in County Cork, Ireland, whence he was exported as peat moss to another venue where it was felt he would be more comfortable--Poland. Graduating from the International School Bangkok alongside his close friend, Timothy Geithner, where both majored in Accounting Ethics, Paddy went on to study journalism at the Allan Greenspan School of Prophylactic Finance at NYU. After leaving a proof-reading position at Al-Jazeera just prior to his arraignment on what Amnesty International PLC termed a "like, totally bogus" charge of dromedarial sexual harassment, Paddy joined The Journal where his courageous work poolside at the Ramadan Inn in Gaza City garnered him the coveted Bernie Madoff Prize for Occupational Integrity.

The Editorial Waterboard was understandably eviscerated to receive the following missive this past weekend, sent by courier to the Rheum Room:

My Dear Friends and Collies,

This may well be my last communication to you.

As you may be aware, I am a registered Republican and sex offender. Owing to the election outcome and the far-left, Eastern liberace-elite outing of my good friend, Rush Limbaugh, I have decided to take my concomitant rage out on illegal immigrants, since there is no penalty attached to this.

Accordingly, I have made the decision to spend the next year as a volunteer with a guerrilla militia group on our Texas/Mexico border, fighting to protect our nation against illegal, undesirable and foreign immigrants, if there are any left after total economic collapse has worked its way through the economy of our glorious homeland.

I know many of you on the Editorial Waterboard will not understand, primarily due to your being passed out. But I have not made this decision lightly. These criminal border crossers must be stopped, no matter the personal toll on me or my beautiful wife, Hillary, due to possibly indefinite separation.

If this works out as planned, it's possible I will be staying on with the guerrilla militia indefinitely.

Thank you for your support in the past--which I hope will extend into my new field of patriotic endeavour, not only for the Waterboard and the readership, but also their children and their children's children. Or their grandchildren, whichever come first.

A photo of my guerrilla militia group can be viewed here.

Yours in Christ,

Padraic O'Cossett

.

The New America--Hold My Calls

The Managing Editor, on behalf of the entire Editorial Waterboard, would like to take this opportunity to congratulate its hugely influential and diverticulated readership on this first major holiday of The New America, starring Tim Russert, on the basis of the subscribership having moved its collective bowels with a few spectacularly rip-roaring exceptions on this glorious and historic date.

It is a pleasure therefore to wish one and all on this auspicious occasion a Joyous and Auspicious Fifth of July.





.

Dear Flabby

Mike Rashoff has filed a notarized affidavit to the effect he is not the author of this moving epistolary equivalent of two and half weeks worth of high colonic lavage with a fire hose.

Dear Flabby,

I am a crack dealer in Beaumont, Texas who has recently been diagnosed as a
carrier of the HIV virus. My parents live in Fort Worth. One of my sisters
lives in Pflugerville and is married to a transvestite with syphilis.

My father and mother have recently been arrested for growing and selling
marijuana. They are financially dependent on my other two sisters who are oral
prostitutes in Dallas.

I have two brothers. One is currently serving a non-parole life sentence at
Huntsville for the murder of a teenage boy in 1994. My other brother is
currently in jail awaiting charges of sexual misconduct with his three
children.

I have recently become engaged to marry a former prostitute who lives in
Longview. She is currently a part-time "working girl."

My problem is this. I love my fiancee and look forward to bringing her into the family.

I want to be totally open and honest with her.

My question is, should I tell her about my cousin who supports Hillary for
President?

Signed,

Worried About My Reputation

The Senator from New York

From Padraic O'Cossett, a patriot. Now famous for the epigram: "Don't Vote. It only encourages them."

The Senator from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton and her driver were cruising along a country road one evening when an ancient cow loomed suddenly in front of the car. The driver tried to avoid it, but it was too late. The aged bovine was struck and lay injured, panting in pain, on the side of the road.

Not unmindful of political consequences associated with events which may appear trivial at first, but grow into political if not dimensional, significance later (as several interns can verify), Hillary instructed her driver to drive up to the farmhouse, call in the vet and explain in full to the owners what had occurred--along with her complete innocence in the unfortunate accident. Just like with the cattle futures.

She remained in the car making phone calls to lobbyists. About an hour later, the driver staggered back to the car in complete disarray.

He was holding a half-empty bottle of Dom Perignon '59 in one hand, a half-smoked Cuban Montecristo in the other and was smiling from ear to ear from a face ravaged with lipstick.

"My god, what happened?" demanded Hillary.

"Well," the driver replied, "the farmer gave me the cigar, the wife gave me the wine and their beautiful twin daughters made mad, passionate love to me!"

"Good lord," exclaimed Hillary. "You must have said or done something…untoward! What happened?" she inquired nervously.

"I just stepped inside the door," the driver replied, "and told them, 'I'm Hillary Clinton's driver and I've just hit the old cow.' The rest happened so fast, I couldn't stop it."

Diplomatic Incident

Submitted in strictest kneed-to-know confidentiality by Col. Redass. Burn before reading.

The annual cocktail party at the British embassy is attended by everyone who is anyone on the diplomatic circuit. White ties and tails. The art of small talk is paramount. Drinking is watched carefully, for who knows who might be recruited for what purpose(s) and by whom?

Unfortunately, a Swiss functionary has been at the gin. He is talking to the Norwegian Ambassador.

“And what do you do at the Swiss Embassy?” inquires the Norwegian diplomat, visually treading conversational water, scanning the room for bigger fish to shmooze.

“I am the Naval Attaché, ” replies the Swiss functionary.

The Norwegian ambassador looks puzzled.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” the man from Oslo says. “You are landlocked in Switzerland. You don’t have a Navy. How could you be a Naval Attaché?”

“Norway has a Minister of Culture, doesn’t it?”