Suburgatory (22 page)

Now if this was Oprah hell-bent on offering a happy ending in that final ten minutes of the show, she'd be telling you to “get some therapy, figure out what's really going on, maybe sex isn't the most important thing in the world if this is your best friend.” But Dr. Drama is Old Testament all the way. Retribution, not redemption, that's
my
bible. He stole your most potent sexual years! So here's what you do. Tell your “best friend” that he can still be your best
gay
friend, but pack his bags right now and tell him to get the hell out. Don't worry about the kids, it might be hard at first, but gay dads make the greatest dads, once they're getting it up the ass, which is what they've been dreaming about the whole time. So eventually, they'll be fine. And while he's packing, you're going to put on your best tramp outfit, and you're going out, driving into the big city, getting hammered, and getting fucked by someone who loves vagina. Your vagina, and all vaginas. This is your moment. It was stolen from you. Steal it back.

“America the So-So” Campaign
Mars Fourth of July Celebration

Suburgatory, USA—A group promoting the slogan “America the So-So” caused a ruckus at the annual Fourth of July celebration on the town green, which attracts a more diverse crowd from several different towns.

Dave Sheehan runs the bipartisan advocacy group, American Realists for a Real America. “We get accused a lot of being unpatriotic, which just . . . ugh . . . makes me crazy. And I'm a Republican! So we thought putting ‘America' in twice might help.”

Sheehan's group is committed to puncturing some of the illusions Americans might have about just how “great” America really is, and he feels he was too mild for the Tea Party's hard-edge. “I won't yell at people or name-call, but I am determined to tell it like it is. A true patriot looks himself in the eye and says, ‘You can't change what you don't acknowledge!'”

Sheehan is referring to Life Law Number 4 as expounded by the inspiration behind American Realists for a Real America—Dr. Phil. Sheehan, who's been out of full-time work for eight months, took Dr. Phil's “get real” message to heart, and began to see that the true enemy of America was self-­delusion. That's why Sheehan chose the Fourth of July to roll out the group's slogan: “America the So-So.”

“I wanted something a lot stronger, but I figured I'd pull more people in, then boom! Rock 'em, sock 'em with my pamphlets,” he said.

Sheehan explains the trouble with America. “Math skills, life expectancy, roads and bridges, our debt rating, bungled wars, obesity, you name it, when you consider how rich we are, we're in a death spiral. America the Great? It's just not true. And yet the thing we come in Number 1 on over and over again? Self-regard.”

Was there anything he could think of that America does well?

Sheehan watched a man bite into a giant sausage-and-peppers hoagie, while his son pressed a sugar-coated fried dough to his face.

“Eat well? And look how great that's going!”

Sheehan had set up his booth with his “America the So-So” sign, handing out pamphlets he had prepared, a veritable library of doom. He had “Nation of the Living Dead—America's Demographic Timebomb,” “Rotting Stump: The Sugaring of America's Life-Blood,” and “War and the Military Meat-Grinder,” among others.

The same man who had just finished his hoagie looked at the sign and the pamphlets, and said, “What the fuck is this shit? You know it's the Fourth of July, right? Are you a fucking Communist? You know, I am a veteran of the Iraq war
and
I have diabetes.”

Sheehan said, “Sir, ‘America the So-So' is my own patriotic way of saying America needs to . . .” He looked at the man's stomach. “. . . shape up. That's ‘getting real.' That's loving America.”

The man was fuming. “Asswipe. It's America the
Beautiful.
Put your hand over your heart or go the fuck home. Or better yet, get a one way ticket to . . . Kenya.”

The fireworks began. Sheehan looked up at the patriotic display and said, “The cost of every one of these colorful little explosions could have fed a hungry orphan in Kenya for months. But, well, I still love you, America, you batty old broad! Happy Birthday!”

As he packed up his booth, he said, “Well, I guess that only went so-so, right?” He laughed ruefully at his own attempt at a joke. “Still if I can open only one person's mind, it's worth it.” But was he offering any solutions to these problems, beyond getting real?

“Actually I haven't had a chance to get beyond Dr. Phil's Life Law Number 4, but we'll have more time now that our big debut is over.”

In the spirit of puncturing self-delusions, this reporter was a bit suspicious and curious as to who the “we” was in American Realists for a Real America, since Sheehan was very much alone all day. It turns out that his only outlet, on Facebook, has just three Facebook fans: Sheehan, his wife, and one man with no picture named Gene Juluca. When presented with this news, Sheehan, rather than being embarrassed, said, “You just might have what it takes to be an American Realist for a Real America!”

And who is Gene Juluca? “Oh, that's the Facebook page for my kid's stuffed monkey.”

PAID ADVERTISER CONTENT

The Following Is a Paid Political Announcement

Vote Billie Carson for Mayor

As a longstanding exercise bulimic, I know your community better than most. Whether it's the dangerous rocks that need rearranging on the Brook Path or dismantling that deadly Rotary on Atwood Road, I don't need to get up to speed on the issues facing our town. Oh, I'm up to speed—on high speed, a speed like you wouldn't believe possible by a menopausal woman.

I am also one of the best-known, and surely one of the best-loved faces in this great little patch of America. In fact, one time, I even heard a boy shout out of his car, “Look, Mommy, there's the flying skeleton with the big head!” Well, son, that comment meant the world to this flying skeleton. My name is Billie Carson, and I'm asking for your mom and dad's vote for Mayor November 3rd. Come to the police station this Saturday, where we'll have a wonderful lunch of bread-free lettuce and mustard sandwiches and pickles. I'll even take a break to stationary jog, all to hear my constituents' most pressing concerns!

So Vote Billie Carson. I simply won't stop pounding the pavement on your behalf.

Dad and Hot Nanny
Really Just Good Friends

Suburgatory, USA—A local dad and a hot nanny are “really just good friends.”

“Hi, Mr. H!” said vivacious and buxom Mandy Mistrall, eighteen, a nanny wearing daisy dukes and high-heeled sneakers and licking a large lollipop.

“Mandy! I know you're planning to wash the car, but it's so hot out; why don't we get you out of that shirt?” said Rock Hardt, a father of two who hired Mistrall days after she turned eighteen.

“Mandy's had a bit of a rocky road in her path to becoming a nanny. Her father walked out on her and now she has what I think they call ‘daddy issues.' Good thing I found her. Now she has someone strong and nurturing attending to all her needs.”

Was she experienced? “No, she was a completely fresh, unspoiled virgin to the job at hand. We decided to overlook some trouble she had fallen into at the Reform School for Wayward Girls. Let's just say our Mandy is innocent, but a bit of a vixen. We know now after much more experience with the issue that Mandy was just getting in touch with her emerging bisexuality. The tickle fights in the girls' shower area at the school got a little out of control. That's how she ended up on the side of the road that fateful night.”

Mistrall, sudsing up the car with long methodical strokes while sprawled out on the hood of the car, describes meeting Mr. H. “It's a really funny story. It was a stormy night and I was stranded on the side of the road. I was soaking wet. Good thing Mr. H had an extra shirt with him. It was really big and that worked out well, of course, because he didn't have extra pants. We were stuck in the car for many hours and really had some special intimate time getting to know each other better.”

Now Mistrall is part of the family and, as Rock Hardt put it, “up for anything,” which is really important in the freewheeling Hardt household.

“With my wife now confined to a wheelchair, Mandy is so nice to oil up my sore muscles when I need it, which is to say, often,” said Hardt.

Mistrall finished the car and came in to change. She emerged an hour later in thigh-high boots and a micro-mini. “Don't you look just good enough to eat, Mandy!” said Hardt.

Two other similarly attired and similarly vivacious and buxom girls arrived. “Enjoy your three-way!” Hardt said.

Three-way? “Three-way date. What did you think I meant?”

This reporter wondered if having such an attractive nanny, along with an infirm wife, presented Hardt with perhaps too much temptation.

Rock Hardt was aghast. “First of all this is a
barely legal
girl you are talking about. And second, that is such a silly cliché from, well, I think you must be watching pornography! It appears that
someone
here, not me, has a very dirty mind. What kind of journalism school did you go to, anyway?”

Heartwarming Herpes Tale
Brings a Family Together

Suburgatory, USA—In a heartwarming tale of first-lust, untreatable sores, and eventual redemption, a four-year-old has discovered how the two people he calls “Mommy” and “Daddy” became a family. And in the telling, they all learned what really matters in life.

It began when Devon Corrie spotted the so-called “tramp stamp” tattoo on “Mommy”—Eve Corrie—which became visible when Corrie was fumbling with the attachments on the vacuum.

As she bent over, Devon saw a strange picture on Corrie's lower back. “Mommy, what is that? There's a picture of a naked lady on your back! She's in a garden and there's, there's, there's . . . a snake! Mommy, it has the letters E-V-E.” It was a tattoo of a sexed-up Eve with metalhead hair in the Garden of Eden.