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Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, seems I just futzed-up big-time my shot at living out my final days, brief as they may be, comfortably resided on fabled Easy Street, where “Life is sweet for folks…/ No weekly payments you must meet/ That makes your hair turn gray.” And, “When opportunity comes knockin / You just keep on with your rockin’ / Cause you know your fortune's made.”

Sounds good to me, what the fock.

But here’s what happened:

To belabor the event, I’m the kind of guy you could call technologically challenged—cripes, back in school over by Our Lady in Pain ’Cause You Kids Are Going Straight To Hell But Not Soon Enough, as a contestant strong-armed into a class spelling bee and the word “technologically” came by me to decipher, I know I’d nail the first and last letters OK, but the in-between would be a ferkakta fiasco, I kid you not.

So, about this t-e-c-k-n-e-e-o-w-l-o-l-g-y:

Anyways, I was awakened by the ringing on my land-line phone the other very early morning at 12:05 a.m, interrupting a recurrent dream of nailing silver-screen siren Rita Hayworth right there on-top 2nd-base at old Milwaukee County. In my dream, the crowd appreciated the long ball, as many do to this day.

I stumbled to my phone, there was a message a’waiting I could see a’blipping. Probably an asshole bill collector calling, they can be persistent and disrespectful of a guy’s need for rest. I figured to check the message sometime in the future.

And so I reconnoitered the message later that day, and after seconds of frantic voice-static what-the-fock, what I heard was from an English-speaking youngish woman informing me of something like this:

Congratulations, we’re officially pleased to inform that you’ve been selected as winner of the Golden Harbor sweepstakes give-away from the Publisher Clearing House Company (and what do they clear anyways, ain’a). You are awarded $18.5 million and $7,000 dollars a week for the rest of your life and a brand-new 2024 Mercedes Benz with a color of your choice (burnt sienna, please). Your claim code is 1…

AND, goddamn it. Somehow, I must’ve errantly pressed some kind of a button on my AT&T landline handheld phone next to my ear that deleted the message intended to wonderfully lead me to a lifetime of flipping dollars around from a bottomless pile so’s to keep me cool, calm and collected within a lush life-style I had always imagined, what the fock.

So, I got to cut this essay short as I wait nervously if not expectantly beside my prehistoric phone for a return call from who-knows-who to re-confirm that soon I will be as rich as Croesus, but with a private jet for transportation rather than a hunky-dory camel, for christ sakes.

Also, time to get my bottle rockets organized for my 4th of July blast-off. I’ve got Jim Beam, Early Times, Kentucky Tavern and I know Old Grand-Dad’s hanging around here somewheres. But to tell the truth, I like to make Independence Day each and every day of the year, god bless America, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.