Lipstick Luau

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, if you read the political pages these days, seems that put ting lipstick on pigs is all the rage. So what the fock, I thought I’d slap on a little lipstick and pad the bra of the retelling of a little story that some of you may be familiar with and some of you’s might not, what the fock. It goes something like this:

A man from the big town is driving around the countryside somewheres and gets lost; so he stops at a farm to ask for directions. As the farmer’s telling him where to go, our lost guy notices this pig over in a sty and sees that it’s only got one leg. So the guy says to the farmer, “Jesus H. Christ my good man, have you not perhaps considered putting that pig over there out of its misery seeing as how the poor creature has but one focking leg?”

Farmer says, “A fair question I say to you, errant emissary from the city. But I could never do such a thing. You see that there hog over yonder, he being the very one that you so keenly noticed possesses nary but one limb of a focking leg, out of the goodness of its simple hog heart has come to my aid, if not rescue, on no less yet no more than three occasions.”

Guy says, “Not only do I feel that I must quibble, grammatically, with your use of ‘nary,’ I also think you’re shitting me.”

Farmer says, “I shit you not, sir. The first time that pig came to my aid occurred some several years ago. I was dumping some chemical fertilizer into the creek that runs back of my farmhouse quaintly nes tled in that grove of wood trees ’cause I caught wind there was a guy from the DNR snooping around the vicinity and I didn’t want him to catch me with this stuff seeing as how it’s against the law to use it, the bastards. Well sir, as I was dumping the couple, ten drums of the chemical into the water, unbeknownst to me, a poisonous snake was sneaking up on me.”

“Good lord!” the guy says.

“You got that right,” farmer says. “But also unbeknownst to me was that this poisonous snake sneaking up on me was indeed beknownst to that pig presently eyeing you up and down from over there in the sty. So, to make a long story longer, that pig, she come running and stamps that poisonous snake into the kind of submission that would subsequently require proper burial if that snake was a Christian snake, and I’ve never known a snake to be of the Christian persuasion, you understand.”

The guy says, “Excuse me, my farmer friend. But am I not mistaken in believing that you previously referred to this gallant pig as ‘he’?”

Farmer says, “You are not mistaken, but when it comes to the gender of this pig, I’ll identify it any goddamn way I feel. You got a situation with that?”

Guy says, “I do not, sir. So surely your pig must’ve lost one of his/her legs during this stirring adventure with the snake.”

Farmer chuckles and says, “Baloney. Boy oh boy, what you city types don’t know about pigs I could fill one of them newspaper columns with. No sir, that pig didn’t lose any leg to a snake.

“But let me tell you about the time we had a trav eling salesman roaming these parts. One evening he stopped here and asked me if I would provide him room and board for the night. It can get a little lonely for a gentleman farmer such as myself out here and so I agreed to his request, but with two stipula tions: one, that he not reveal to me under any circumstances the identity of the murderer of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, since I was finally getting to the part in the Dostoyevsky masterpiece where the trial starts; and two, that he keep his focking hands off my beautiful daughter, by golly.

“To no avail were my stipulations. It was room and ‘broad’ he sought, and late that night, as I heard the all too familiar sounds of my beautiful daughter on the receiving end of the ol’ onesy-twosy, I marched up the stairs, shotgun in hand. Somehow he managed to wrestle the weapon from me and fired a shot. At that instant, the pig rushed into the room and knocked the gun from his hands. I regained control of the Winchester and just before I blew his head off, he yelled ‘Smerdyakov the bastard killed Fyodor Karamazov.’”

The guy says, “You shot the salesman?”

Farmer says, “Yesiree. Buried him just about where you’re standing now. Buried him right next to the DNR guy.”

“And so your courageous pig must’ve lost a leg when the salesman fired the gun,” the guy says.

Farmer says, “That is to laugh. Salesman was a crappy shot. Now I’ll tell you that there are things in the universe that mankind was not meant to know. A while back this simple yet bucolic county you find yourself lost in presently was plagued by a rash of visitations from outer-space aliens hell-bent on administering an anal probe to every focking farmer they could find. Well sir, that there pig saw that I was about to get the ol’ backside dipsy-doodle so he come running from that sty like a bat straight from hellscared the ever-living bejesus clean out of those aliens and they high-tailed it back to Uranus pronto, never to return to these parts, best to my knowledge.”

Guy says, “And somehow that pig lost a leg in his valiant effort to save you from the aforementioned heinous act?”

“Hell no,” farmer says. “Pig didn’t lose no limb chasing off those space varmints.”

Guy says, “All right mister, I’ve had enough of this bullshit. I thought you said this pig lost its legs when saving your sorry ass on three occasions.”

Farmer says, “Hell no, never said that. Sure, she come to my aid three times, and you betcha he’s only got one leg. Why? Because it be a damn shame to eat a good pig like that all at once, what the fock.”

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