Act 16 A Cleverly Disguised Rant AKA: Star Bright

I don't know anyone that hasn't wished on a star at one point or another in their life. It's hard not to look up at those twinkling lights on a warm summer’s night and wish for something or someone special. To glare into the night sky and outsource all our hopes and dreams to the great unknown. Not unlike outsourcing call centers to third world countries for tech support (not as customer friendly but a great way to save a buck). Wish fulfillment can be a beautiful thing to hope for but outsourcing to those great twinkling lights in the endless sky needs to become a thing of the past. Much like having to talk to a guy who says his name is Fred on the phone but you distinctly hear someone call him Nassapeen-A’-Hapoooan in the back ground. Think about it, I mean really think about it. The closest star to our solar system is Alpha Centauri triple star system the closest star in this being Proxima Centauri which is over 4.22 light years away. Ok, that doesn't seem that far; only 4 light years. But I assure you that 4 freaking light years is an eternity. Since we can only travel like 400 miles an hour that’s like a thousand years. Also when English is your fifth language and you can’t understand even the most basic of phrases you don’t get to be customer support. Since you can’t understand the customers you claim to support and we can’t understand you through a mouthful of lamb curry and an accent so thick I am actual considering using it as a tire sealant. So when you say oh star light star bright make the wish I wish tonight. Then a thousand years later the star gets your call and sends you back your wish fulfilled you would be two thousand years older and most likely dead. Much like when you have to wait on the phone for six hours only to be finally transferred back to the person that was supposed to originally help you. So even if you wish to the closest star and it answers you post haste your wish will never be fulfilled in your life time. So I have a solution to your wishful needs. The next time you need to wish fulfilled don't outsource it (seriously the next time something gets outsourced I will kill you.) The closest star is the Sun. Now the sun is only out during the day so if you really need a wish then stare directly at the Sun without blinking and say "star light star bright make the wish I wish today." Then in lengthy and precise detail say your wish. Only one recommendation: Don't wish for better eyesight. I also recommend this method if you have to call Dell customer service since you will get better results and possibly a tan. Also sorry in advance for making you go blind.

Act 15 Third Party

I am getting pretty tired of politics and how it is invading all facets of my life. You can’t throw a proverbial stone without it rebounding off of some ridiculous story that has no real bearing on…well politics. I don’t really care about pigs and bull dogs and who put lipstick on them while playing hockey and talking about change all the while not building a bridge to nowhere that they may or may not have wanted in the first place but never got. Is anyone else reminded of a fourth grade recess showdown? It goes something like this, (I’ll make up some names so that no one gets offended, lets go with John, Sara, Brock, and Joe); John pushes Brock while they are in an argument. John gets in trouble because he is older and should know better. John starts playing with the new girl Sara and Brock gets mad because no one is playing with him anymore. So he and his less popular friend Joe call Sara a dog. This turns into a shoving match between all four and they all get sent to the principal’s office. Seriously is this what our country is coming to? If Republicans and Democrats can’t play nice together or in the least be civil with one another lets start a new party. In this new party we will focus on fairness. If at any time someone goes too far left or too far right they will be summarily executed for crimes against humanity. Everyone will be listened to in turn and if it turns out you are a nut job you will be executed for crimes against humanity. Name calling will not be tolerated. Negative ads that make no sense will not be tolerated. You get exactly one free lie in your entire political career. If you are found to have lied more than once you will be executed for crimes against humanity. It might sound cruel but that insures that those who want to run are serious about the commitment. Oh and the biggest policy will be question answering. If you are ever heard to say “let me answer that question with this question” you will be executed for crimes against humanity. If you don’t know the answer to a question or don’t want to answer then the appropriate responses will be the following; ‘I don’t know, let me get back to you on that one’. Or, ‘I am not answering that at this time,’ followed by an explanation of why you are not answering the question. By the way if you don’t get back to them you will be executed for crimes against humanity. I think this will solve most of our political problems. If I have to hear one more argument that is the mental equivalent of pulling out a large clump of nose hair with rusty needle nose pliers, I might just have to climb a clock tower with a homemade rifle that shoots milk duds and start taking people out. Just to prove a point since it makes just about as much sense as our current political phenomena.

Act 14 Life's Lemons

There is an old saying, "when life gives you lemons make lemonade." So I have been trying to put this little saying into action in my own life. But life has given me a lot of lemons lately but has failed to give me sugar or water. So I have been trying to figure out how on earth I am going to make lemonade. I ran into this fiscal conundrum: The price of purified drinking water on the scales that I need is going to be roughly $10,000 because of the damned dirty hippies running up water costs (see act 11.) I also need sugar about 4 tons should do it at 6.50 per 1lbs bag that runs at about $26,000.00 dollars. So I did what every good American does I took out a loan went to a trade school for 11 months and got my food handlers permit and started pumping out lemonade at an astounding rate. With marketing for Syden’s life Lemonade and all of the employees I have had to hire I am in dept at around 3 million dollars. When I came to a heart stopping, climb a tower with a sniper rifle, gouge your eyes out conclusion. Life gives everyone lemons! So that drove down the demand of my products with so many "free" lemons on the market people start asking the question. "Why do I need to buy your lemonade I have my own lemons right here?" So Syden’s life Lemonade has unfortunately had to shut its doors due to bankruptcy mainly on the premise that people no longer want lemonade. So to sum up LIFE STOP GIVING ME SO MANY FREAKING LEMONS!!!!!

Act 13 The great Tomato Catastrophe

So I was meandering around the web the other day and came across an interesting fact. Tomatoes are the leading selling fruit in the whole world. Bananas came second followed by apples. But this raised an interesting question; is a tomato really a fruit? Yes, by definition it is not an underground blah, blah, blah but facts don’t interest me as much as fruit salad. So the question is, could you put a tomato in a fruit salad? NO that would be hypocrisy and it would sully the name of the salad. People would gag and say ‘is that a tomato with those grapes and strawberries!?’ And then the world as we know it (being my barbeque) would come to a disgusting end, dessert ruined all due to that damned tomato not knowing its place. Like a country star trying to cross over into hard rock the tomato is a catastrophic failure. Not that the tomato doesn’t have its uses. It is good when put in its place with all the other vegetables. It can be quite delectable in some sauces and vegetable salads. You can even kick it up and notch and make a spicy salsa. But stop trying to add yourself to my ice cream Sunday tomato! That’s a job for the number one fruit. Welcome back to the top banana my trusted old friend. But the definition makes it a fruit you say? Well I live in America and in America I can do whatever I want to secure the safety of my barbeque. So I turned to the Supreme Court for help. They did not disappoint. It turns out in April 24, 1893 the Supreme Court ruled that tomatoes where a vegetable and subject to all the laws and regulations of a vegetable, like not being in my fruit salad. So take that tomatoes and welcome to the land of the free and the home of the brave. Now somebody pass the ketchup.

Act 12 Phantom of the Burn Ward

I have been asked many times in my life how to tell if ‘that guy’ over there is the Phantom of the Opera or if I am just in my hospital’s local burn ward. Let me tell you it is not always easy. But I have come up with a few things to look for to help narrow down the possibilities. First thing you need to do is look around, are you surrounded by Doctors and nurses? If the answer is yes don’t be fooled since Doctors go to the theater too. What you need to look for is rubber gloves, white coats, and scrubs. If they are wearing all these then odds are you are in a hospital. The second sign would be if everyone lying in bed is dressed up like a mummy and it is not Halloween (this tip has helped me a lot). Next listen, is anyone saying things like “this is why we don’t drink lighter fluid,” and “We can fix that with skin from your butt.” Also ask yourself these questions. Did they make me wash my hands for ten minutes before I entered? Are there machines helping people breath and eat? Are you in a hospital? If the answer to any of the aforementioned is yes the guy you are looking at is not the Phantom of the Opera and probably doesn’t like being stared at.

To identify the true Phantom you should see things like young girls in low cut dresses with heaving bosoms. Well dressed sophisticates standing around looking haughty and a guy in a porcelain mask with a flowing cape (if it’s not flowing sorry that’s just not the guy). If you see him don’t get your hopes up; you still have to look for a few identifiers. Take a look around. Is the man in the mask looking longingly at a pretty girl or vindictively glaring at a guy talking to a pretty girl? Are people around you holding their hands up at the level of their eyes so as not to be strangled to death by a length of rope? If they are that’s a great sign. Now you can approach and start up a conversation. Look for some clues when talking to him before blurting out ‘are you the Phantom!’ Does he seem slightly psychotic from years of oppression and bitter loneliness? Does he call you his angel and make you sing for him? Or will he only speak to you if you do so in the right octave while standing in melodramatic poses? Are you in an opera house, theater, or in France ? Are you in a musical? If the answer is yes then congratulations the guy you’re talking to is probably the real Phantom of the Opera and you are not in the burn ward of your local hospital. Bad news is that you are an unimportant character and will probably be crushed by a falling chandelier very soon, so try and get an autograph before you die.

Act 11 Hippie Gate

I believe I just figured out why my soda costs me so much money. It's not because it’s a delicious concoction with a dash of joy bottled and shipped for my pleasure. It’s not that I’m so hopelessly addicted that I can’t conceive of a day without just one cool sip of forbidden ambrosia. It’s not even the fact that the soda company has outsourced its marketing department to third world drug dealers that might just kill you if you stop. So why then does enriched hydrogenated phosphoric acid, corn syrup, caffeine, and water with tiny bubbles that do the dance of unadulterated joy cost me so much money? It is all waters fault! You see back in the early 1900’s a group of devious misfits (that will henceforth be known as "hippies" or if you prefer "damned dirty hippies") decided that water needed to be improved upon. That's right they said something like, “hey water is good and all but I guess it could be like better somehow.” I call this conglomeration of slackers and naredowells Hippie Gate for their participation in this catastrophe. But I digress. So they got together with their friends at Berkley (home of the Hippie) and started developing water. THAT'S RIGHT FREAKING WATER. They told people that regular tap water was not good enough. In order to taste really good water people needed to hike into nature and drink from the fresh springs of the mountain tops were fish pooh and bears bathe and that that would be considered "pure water." The Hippies then went for a nap or a joint or something because they are lazy dirty hippies and relished in a job well done for destroying society as we know it. Well something had to be done, because for some stupid reason we believed the dirty hippies in the fact that our water the source of all goodness was not good enough anymore. So corporate America did the noblest thing it could think of. It took the mountain water filled with fish pooh and bear hair and bottled it into non-biodegradable bottles and sold it for a buck and a half to the populace who of course bought it. Arrowhead became a Multimillion dollar industry and the hippies started protesting about gay squirrels or something that nobody cared about. So it's not Cokes fault that they charge so much for morbidly tantalizing goodies of joy and happiness. After all it is not like they could charge 50 cents for bottled crack when regular water is going for a buck and a half. It is Arrowheads fault for making the Coke Corporation compete because after all Coke does have water in it. So it was only fair that it costs more for the extra added joys like caffeine and distilled sunshine. So shame on you Arrowhead for ruining my day and lets all remember to take a moment to hate the hippie because lets face it if they didn’t feel like they where being oppressed in some way they might come up with new ways to annoy me.

Act 10 Sock Puppets

Many of you know that in the wee hours of the morning when I wile away the time staring at the alarm clock through blood shot eyes. That slowly clicks away the seconds of my eternal torment. That I sometimes like to do private puppet shows which I have named The Midnight Marionette Puppet Theater. I know it sounds crazy to put sometimes dirty socks on your hands (it’s hard to tell in the dark) and make them talk to each other. But I dare you to stay awake for three straight days and try not put on a puppet show of your own (it's only natural.) But I stray from my point. I have noticed that recently some of my favorite sock performers have been disappearing. I have called the authorities and even written to my congressman (another of my favorite pastimes at 4 o'clock in the morning) but to no avail! They don't seem to care that miscellaneous socks are being abducted from their homes. So I have done some investigation of my own and every single person I have interrogated has named the culprit: the dryer. Yes the lint hording sock steeling dryer. But this investigation did not stop there. You see it was too perfect a crime for one dryer to accomplish it never takes pairs of socks only one sock at a time and always my favorite pair at that. It was too clever a plan for the dryer to be working alone. Then it came to me Dirty Hippies. That right tree hugging bottled, water drinking no shoe wearing, dirty Hippies. In a new invasion attempt to turn the average Joe worker, into a lazy lay about. The Hippies are systematically stealing our socks making us drink bottled water and playing their loud hippy music in our malls. This devious plan to take our socks will turn us into a no shoe wearing society. Which we all know is the first signs of hippy-Titus. So guard your socks keep your feet clean and remember don't blame the dryer for the hippies evil plans. As always I say place blame where blame is do on the Dammed dirty Hippies!!!