Because I Said So

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Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, as our Republican state legislature extends its ceaselessly egregious efforts to make America’s Dairyland the Mississ-focking-ippi of the North, so as to rank near or at the foggy bottom in every measurable category from your soup to your nuts, I’m reminded of a little story:

On Friday afternoon, the entire state legislature of a state located not-even-close to either coast was aboard the official state bus touring a remote rural area when the driver lost control and crashed the bus into a ditch. Sometime later, a local farmer sauntered by and upon finding the politicians lying in the road, buried them.

It was reported that county sheriffs then arrived on the scene just as the farmer finished tamping the dirt down over the last member of this state’s legislature. Upon questioning the farmer about the wreck, a sheriff asked, “So you buried ALL the politicians? Were they all dead?”

The farmer reportedly answered: “Well sir, some said they weren’t, but you know how them politicians lie.” Ba-ding!

And speaking ’bout politics, I’ve heard it’s never too early to fire up a campaign for elected office and with Our Town in need of a new mayor soon down the pike, I figure I may as well get my sorry ass in gear, what the fock.

And I’m guessing a prudent first step might be to secure some kind of voting base. I’m thinking of going after that bloc of voters that don’t have any kind of family to speak of. I’ll call for a re-examination of the highfalutin emphasis placed these days on kids and the family, and families and kids. Cripes, it’s kids this, kids that, family this, family that, ’til I could just about puke myself blue. Not everybody’s got a family, like that’s supposed to be some kind of carnally cardinal sin for crying out loud. Hey, I don’t hear the sound of tiny red-bootied little Pope’s feet pitter-pattering ’round his sanctum sanctorum, and nobody looks at him like he’s some kind of solipsistic narcissist, so bite me.

Seems these days you can’t find a single thing to do that doesn’t scream “FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY.” Every time I read or hear a commercial about some deal promising “fun for the whole family,” I say “Go to hell,” except I doubt even hell’s going to be able to withstand this family fanaticism much longer. I’ll bet already Satan’s working on a new slogan: Go to Hell—Fun for the Whole Family!

Focking-A, I tell you, when I was a lad, lo those many years ago, “fun for the whole family” was kid code for “suck, and suck big,” and I believe it’s important for me to get my message out to an uncourted constituency, the message being that if we allow these neo-family fetishists to acquire the necessary judicial juju to turn our kids into quivering, boring dorky dipsticks like neo-Mom and neo-Pop, I say we may as well blow up the ozone right here and now and get this whole charade over with once and for all, what the fock.

OK, I got to calm down. Speaking of families, how ’bout this one, past courtesy of my nine-years-now late longtime always pal, Jay U., missed by all, and I remember:

A married couple went to the hospital to have their baby delivered. The doctor said he’d invented a new machine that would transfer a portion of the mother's labor pain to the father. He asked if they were willing to try it out, and they agreed they would. The doctor set the pain transfer to 10%, explaining that even 10% was probably more pain than the father had ever experienced. But as the labor progressed, the husband felt fine and asked the doctor to bump it up a notch. The doctor dialed up the machine to 20%, and the husband still felt fine; so the doctor checked the husband’s blood pressure and was amazed at how well he was doing. They decided to try for 50%, and the husband continued to feel quite well. Since the pain transfer was obviously helping the wife considerably, the husband encouraged the doctor to transfer ALL the pain to him.

The wife delivered a healthy baby with virtually no pain. She and her husband were ecstatic. And when they got home, the mailman was dead on the porch. Ba-ding!

Or this one:

A newlywed couple had only been married for two weeks. The husband, although very much in love, couldn’t wait to go out on the town and party with his old buddies. So he says to his new wife, “Honey, I’ll be right back...”

“Where are you going, coochy-cooh?” the wife asks. “I’m going to the bar, pretty face. I’m going to have a beer.” The wife says, “You want a beer, my love?” She opens the refrigerator and shows him 25 different kinds of beer, brands from 12 different countries: Germany, Holland, Japan, India, etc. The husband doesn’t know what to do, and the only thing he could think of saying was, “Yes, lollipop, but at the bar, you know, uh, they have frozen glasses.”

The wife interrupts him and says, “You want a frozen glass, puppy face?” She takes a huge beer mug out of the freezer, so frozen that she was getting chills just holding it. The husband, a bit nervous, says, “Yes, tootsie-roll, but at the bar they have those great hors d’oeuvres. I won’t be long. I promise. OK?”

The wife says, “You want hors d’oeuvres, poochy-pooh?” She opens the oven and takes out 15 dishes of different hors d’oeuvres: chicken wings, pigs in blankets, sausage-stuffed mushroom caps, pork strips. “But my sweet honey, at the bar, you know, there’s swearing, dirty words and all that guy stuff.”

The wife says, “Oh. You want dirty words, cutie pie? THEN LISTEN UP, DICKHEAD! DRINK YOUR FOCKING BEER IN YOUR GODDAMN FROZEN MUG AND EAT YOUR MOTHER-FOCKING SNACKS, BECAUSE YOU AREN’T GOING ANYWHERE! GOT IT, ASSHOLE?’”

...and, they lived happily ever after.

Ba-ding-ding-ding! ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.