Control Top Party Hats

We now return you to "The Nation's Most Non-Mundane-est Monitored AND Recorded Customer Service Phone Calls" already in progress. When you hear the chain-smoking elf wheeze, turn the page and wash your hands, young lady.

No. Listen, I ordered the mighty gazelle.
Hello?
Yes, I'm sure.
I'm telling you, this is an ibex and it's stinking up my office.
Yeah, I'll hold.
Yes?
Well, no, no I've GOT an ibex.
The problem? The problem is I didn't order an ibex! Nor a gnu, antelope or wily mountain billy goat (out of my price range).
So... ASK your supervisor, just get it out of here.
I don't care that it's named Hershel, I don't want it!
What?
Fine, I don't want "Hershel!"
No, that doesn't make me rethink it.
Look, fax me a llama and we'll call it even.

Join us next week when the National Delicious Griddled Treat Machines Corp. telexes a quesadilla maker to a woman who mistakenly received an anchovy press!

Repo ATVs & Electric Scooters

As the cellist's (2nd chair) fist crescendoed against my chin, I had a freeze frame rough cut flashback to my last real fight. It had been 15 years since my sophomore year(s) of college, when some clarinetist (1st chair) (!) insulted my then girlfriend with a snide comment about intransitive verbs. I was drunk at the time -- 6 beers and a pint of varnish -- but I was a Medievel Latin major and honor (4th chair) had to be defended. We both deposited some blood on that dancefloor (or rather, blood was allowed to become deposited), and ultimately the brawl was judged a draw, though I received high marks for the initial tackle (sans ropes and pulleys for a change -- huzzah!). But that was college stuff(s). Tonight was the culmination of a very simple question posed a few weeks before: “Are we here to play poker, or create an instituiton that is insubstantial, shaky, and in constant danger of collapse?"

You Take the One Wearing Blinkers, I'll Take the One on Lasix

For those of you keeping score at home, that's
Donna Karan 1, A dozen rabid bats 4;
Jim Crow Law 3, Jim Croce 2;
Ladies Home Journal 1, Louis Pasteur 1;
Oragami swans 5, 'Cutthroat Island' marketing campaign 2;
Avalanche of glue 4, Jim Croce 1;
Motor Voter Bill 6, Salma Hayek couldn't find her blouse 7;
Chili Colorado 3, Jim Croce couldn't find Salma Hayek's blouse 5;
Can of paint 2, Slightly larger can of paint 2 [RAIN DELAY];
Heavenly flan 1, Quality drapes at affordable prices 3;

For up to the minute European Football scores, stick your head in the toilet and whistle.

From "Talk Sick! A Celebration of Outstanding Oratory in the Service and Manufacturing Industries"

Speech delivered at the Fourth Annual Pastry Chef Global Summit focusing on “Expanding the Market Share of Bear Claws and Other Advanced Bakery Goods.” The summit took place on December 4 – 7, 1984 and was sponsored by the Otis Elevator Company.

SPEAKER: Robert "Maple Jim" Thorpe, Overnight Custodian, Fram Oil Filter Corp.

Fellow passengers and litigants:
Allow me to elucidate an idear that I had for brand-new, self-sustaining, multi-cellular organism. I've named him Rosie. I believe he would be adept at spewing wil"d" and wa"ck"y self-help advice at supportive participants (absurd emphasis on "PANTS" and a silent "zzyzx") like so much feces (pronounced: horkcrank) from a perturbed primate and her life partner, a deflated inner tube (known casually as "Senator Galbraith"). Rosie's superiority at celebrity roasts would so far exceed his contemporaries, that he would single-handled (though he has three) crush the aspirations of any who sought to gallop astride him, who I've named Rosie. So... got a hundy on ya? I'm yanking your chain, small bills work just fine. I'll submit the paper work to the Huntsville Institute for Criminal Justice and Neo-Natal Pottery Barn. Thank you for listening. An usher will be by shortly to unlock your manacles and bus your table.

Act I, Francine II

A dicey-lookin' castle in the South of French Polynesia. Enter Yancy wearing a-- holy crap, is that guy wearing a funnel cake on his head? Good God, man! It‘s matin season for the wily marmoset! They don't take kindly to cranially donned deep-fried pastry treats when's the time to "get down" as O. Henry was fond of saying at the local barbershop, waving a sabre and stinking of gin (and I don't mean the alcoholic beverage, if ya know what I mean? Know what I mean? You don't? Grab a Kelly Blue Book and turn to the Dodges, das boot!).

Yancy tumbles into the great hall and quickly inflates a Pilates ball (Lord, I hope it's a Pilates ball). The shortness of breath triggers a violent deja vu of his days as a farmhand for the mob. "Free range, my ass!" thinks Yancy completely within the confines of the stage directions. A quarter hour passes before our hero comes to, slathered in brown mustard. The cotillion has begun and poor Yancy has spent all his time taking an extension course on Inland Oceanography. Oh, Yancy... will you ever learn (anything other than Inland Oceanography)?

YANCY (Bellowing, as he whispers)
I am called hither at the pleasure of the king!

GUARD (at least that's what he tells his parents)
Speak up, knave! And for Pete's sake put down those bellows. The fire is well-stoked... uh, anon? I guess?

YANCY
I am called hither at the pleasure of the king!

GUARD
Too late. His majesty has just finished a disappointing foot massage. I told him Alvin wasn't a woman's name but OH NO-- He's just gotta get ALL kingy on me. On the bright side, those bunions ain't coming back any time soon.

YANCY
Well then, my good fellow man-child, where might a traveling barrister find a locksmith? Honestly, am I the only jackass in this county still driving a Yugo?

Yancy titters and juts out his hand. The Guard reluctantly slips him a franc and honest appraisal of his performance in the form of a well-tempered raspberry.

GUARD
Y'know, you look just like my cousin in Dorchester...

YANCY
Don't tell me.... Marjorie? Damn her and her love affair with cheap wine and cheaper plastic surgery! No offense.

GUARD
Not until Thursday.

The gents burst into a fevered game of backgammon. The curtain falls taking out the first two rows. Next time, hire union stagehands, dumbass.

THE END OF LIVE THEATER IN NORWAY