Dear Closet Republican
Have a Drink. A good stiff Republican drink, like a whisky straight-up, no chaser. Don’t order one of those frou-frou Democrat drinks like Sex on the Beach or Screaming Orgasm. No! Drink like an American! Yeah! That’s the spirits! And while you and I are at it, here’s a wee bit of advice for everyone: Arguing about politics is like arguing about Coke versus Pepsi. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, I know … If we had elected ourselves a different Prez for the last 8 years, then we surely would be better off right now. I agree with that. But the problem with President Junior is not that he’s a Republican, it’s that he’s an idiot. (Note to some Democrats: it’s not the same thing. And therein lies the problem.) You need to have a little fun with this: invent your own political party, and swear absolute fealty to it. Here’s a suggestion: the ELDERANIAN PARTY. Our platform: All beaches are nude. No tax on beer. Government subsidies for plastic surgery on ugly people. Women make all foreign policy decisions, and in return, sports programming on cable TV is free. Public Schools are required to teach fashion sense, etiquette (Prudence just signed up), personal hygiene, golf, fishing, cocktail mixing, and advanced flirting. Now the good stuff: the work week is now only 4 days, 32 hours, and NO MORE THAN THAT. Thus, we are mandated to work efficiently, and every weekend is a 3-day weekend! Every Friday, by law, must be spent outdoors playing with kids. (Indoors only when the weather is bad.)
OK, you get the idea. Now make up some truly great platform planks of your own. Next, join THAT party. The next time your Democrat or Republican friends get on their high-horse about the opposing party, give 'em a big fat dose of what *YOU* now believe in. And don’t back down! Hammer them hard with it! Argue your newfound positions with passion and authority! Load and long! Interrupt their every point with some dumb slogan, like “Nude Beaches Now!” or “Mixology in the Schools!” Give ‘em the works!
I guarantee you, in no time at all the last subject you will ever hear out of their mouths again is politics.
Dear Jealous Fiancee
Have a drink. It’s OK, I know I’m a male (ie, uncontrollable sex addict, louse, and all-around pig), but I promise you on what’s left of my honor that, hard as it may be, I won’t even think once about having sex with you, even though we happen to be together here having an actual conversation. And while we are at that, here’s a wee bit of advice for everybody: Stop it already with the sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex thing. Please! Just … STOP it. Guys: you don’t have to get laid every day. And you’re not getting hardly any anyway, so stop pretending you are or you can. Fact is, you aren’t, and you can’t. Gals: Not every friendly gesture from a guy is some come-on fraught with deep personal meanings to be deciphered and decoded ad infinitum. I know you need so much to believe you’re this devastatingly alluring creature and so therfore obviously we poor chaps just can’t help ourselves when we are in your presence. But trust me – we’ve got more self-control than you realize. Especially around YOU.
Can’t we just be friends? Unless I’m Brad and you’re Angelina, chances are pretty good you and I are both a couple of mutts. We’re lucky to be alive, frankly. We’re lucky enough anyone is willing to be friends with us, given the insanely high regard we have for ourselves. You see, it’s all just ego. The planet earth is this very tiny, nearly invisible speck in the universe, and we are even tinier little bitty specks crawling around on it.
Half the sex we have, we wind up regretting. The memory of the other half we wouldn’t trade for the world. So, I wonder: Just what would happen if we all finally got over ourselves…. Yeah. I wonder now … Hmm…. I think I need a refill…..
Dear Almost an Alum
Have a drink. Yes, I can only imagine how irritating it must be that somebody actually likes your old throw-aways. The nerve of her! I am reminded of the time when my cousin Francina (not really my cousin, but never mind) … Anyway, she decided to completely overthrow her old wardrobe and thus intended to throw out most of her old clothes. She spoke up about it at Tommy’s Grill that night. “If anybody’s wife or grilfriend wants any of my old things,” she told us, “Just stop by the front yard and pick through the stuff in the boxes there.” Well, we all knew that none of our wives or girlfriends would ever be caught dead in any of Francina’s old frocks – my god, but they were ugly. But Francina was a welcome addition down at Tommy’s and we didn’t want her feelings hurt when nobody showed up. So, Micky Reagan suggested we all stop by on our way home and grab something, just to be polite. Well, it so happened that on that very night, Eddie Fagin’s wife was waiting up for him to come home, and when he walked in with Francina’s pale blue blouse with the orange poppies slung over his shoulder, well … bless me, the whole neighborhood got treated to an earful about the state of their relationship. As for myself, for years afterward I wore a pair of Francina’s old coveralls to dig around in the beet patch – nobody ever mentioned anything to me.
Is there any moral to this? Ummm…. I don’t think so …. Or maybe yes, how about this: you never know how doing a good deed will actually work out. So don’t try. Just do it and hope for the best.
