Monday, May 31, 2004

The Oh, For God's Sake Quiz
USDA seeks WMD in SUV at the DMV


OK, kids, sharpen up your number 2 pencils - it's time for another Oh, For God's Sake Quiz!

1. Which of the following search phrases generated the most results in a recent Google search?

A) tantra pope xanax
B) they misunderestimated me
C) someone shaved my wife tonight
D) Mr. T ate my balls
E) naked lunchlady karaoke

2. A teenager was recently arrested in Clearwater, Florida, for using a slingshot to shatter office windows on which a mysterious shape had appeared. Experts said the windows had been damaged by corrosion but thousands of people believed the windows displayed what sacred image?

A) The Disney logo
B) David Beckham's penis
C) A US one dollar bill
D) The Virgin Mary's veiled head

3. True False: The US Department of Agriculture recently prohibited a Kentucky farm from testing its cattle for mad cow disease.

4. True or false: On October 7, 2002, Mary and I sent letters to US Representative Ken Lucas and US Senators Jim Bunning and Mitch McConnell respectfully opposing an Iraq war on the grounds that containing Saddam was far preferable to inspiring a new generation of terrorists. The letters concluded, "Attacking Iraq would be a disaster for America. It would also be a disaster for Iraq and the innocent Iraqi citizens whose casualties would surely be high. And it would be a disaster for future generations of Americans, who would have to deal with the fallout for decades to come. We beg you; please oppose military action in Iraq."

5. Despite our polite and diplomatic tenor, we saved the letter addressed to McConnell on our computer under which file name?

A) HonorableSenMcConnell.doc
B) Bush'sBitch.doc
C) MoneyChangesEverything.doc
D) HowdyDoody.doc

6. According to a Harris poll conducted last year, 27% of non-Christian Americans believe:

A) Elvis is alive
B) Heaven is attainable for them
C) In the Virgin birth of Jesus Christ
D) "Transubstantiation" is an automotive term

7. True or false: On November 1, 2002, Senator Jim Bunning wrote back thanking us for our letter and respectfully said, among other things, "No one wants war, and I hope the United States and our allies can address the menace of Saddam in the most diplomatic manner possible. But in the end, if he does not unconditionally reveal and surrender control of his weapons of mass murder and destruction, then we must realize that it is pointless to negotiate with a madman. And if our president determines United States military force is the last resort to secure your freedoms and mine, then I will fully support our Commander-in-Chief's efforts to protect our Republic and her people."

8. By "madman," Senator Bunning meant:

A) Happy Chandler
B) George W. Bush
C) That guy who looks like Saddam's son and is running for some office or other
D) The nice lady who brings him his medicine
E) It is impossible to tell from the evidence

9. If God decided to kill all the world's Christians by poisoning them with a bad batch of TGI Friday's Lite Peppercorn Ranch salad dressing and Allah decided to kill all the world's Muslims by poisoning them with a bad batch of Sultan's Delight's baba ganoush, which deity would have to prepare more spoiled food?

10. True or false: On December 19, 2002, Senator Mitch McConnell wrote back thanking us for our letter and respectfully said, among other things, "The attacks of September 11th clearly demonstrate that radical tyrants and terrorists throughout the world seek to harm innocent Americans. Not coincidentally, the nations that most actively support, supply, and harbor these terrorists are also the most dedicated developers of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Foremost among theses rogue nations is Iraq, which continues to develop a wide variety of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)... Unless tyrants like Hussein are disarmed, deterred, or destroyed, the use of WMD against the Unties States or our allies is not a question of if, but of when. ... Please be assured that President Bush has acted and will continue to act with the utmost caution and prudence, at all times balancing the need for circumspection with the need for national security."

11. According to a Harris poll, 2% of Americans believe that when they die they will go to:

A) The all-you-can-eat seafood and salad bar at Shoney's
B) Wal-Mart
C) The Department of Motor Vehicles
D) Hell

12. When Senator McConnell said, " Foremost among theses rogue nations is Iraq, which continues to develop a wide variety of weapons of mass destruction..." and "Unless tyrants like Hussein are disarmed, deterred, or destroyed, the use of WMD against the Unties States or our allies is not a question of if, but of when..." he was:

A) Lying
B) Repeating a lie he believed to be true
C) "Riding the Lewinski Train to Blowjobville"
D) Trying to scare the shit out of us so we would support the war

13. True or false: Democratic Rep. Ken Lucas completely blew us off.

14. True or false: Upon complementing its traditional industries of bourbon and cigarettes with a firearms museum, the city of Louisville recently announced plans to formally change its name to The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

15. Now that the war in Iraq has indeed been a complete disaster, Ken Lucas, Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning blame:

A) Themselves
B) The Commander-in-Chief
C) Ryan Seacrest
D) The Massachusetts Supreme Court
E) None of the above

16. Opinions are like:

A) SUVs: Everybody's got one and yours is the only one that's not offensive
B) Oral sex: They're what distinguish us from the animals
C) Religion: Heartfelt to the point of lunacy
D) Your co-workers: A little dumber and less attractive than you'd like

_____

Answers:

1 (B). Here's what Google found: tantra pope xanax (3), they misunderestimated me (3490), someone shaved my wife tonight (79), mr. t ate my balls (979), naked lunchlady karaoke (21).

2. (D)

3. True. Our government forbids mad cow testing. It reasoned that if Campbellsburg, Kentucky's Creekstone Farm tested its cattle, it would create the impression that beef from other farms was not safe. The USDA threatened to jail the farmer if he tested his cattle.

4. True

5. (D)

6. (C)

7. True

8. (E)

9. God would have to whip up more salad dressing. There are approximately 2 billion Christians in the world and approximately 1.2 billion Muslims. Given current population projections, Islam will surpass Christianity around 2025 as the world's largest religion. Depending, of course, on what God and Allah decide.

10. True

11. (D)

12. (D) for sure and probably (B).

13. True

14. False

15. (E)

16. (A)

Monday, May 24, 2004

Six and a Half Billion O'Clock - Time For a New Slogan
Here's something to try not to think about next time you're having sex: According to the United Nations, it took all of human history until 1804 for the earth's population to reach one billion. Today it takes about twelve years to add a billion people. Are we a bunch of adorable, overachieving little fuckmonkeys or what?

After that first billion, it took only another 123 years -- until about 1927 -- to reach 2 billion. Just 47 years later, in 1974, world population had again doubled, to 4 billion. We hit 5 billion in 1987 and 6 billion in 1999. Today, there are roughly six and a half billion people on the planet and that's just the ones currently standing in the checkout lines at Wal-Mart.

Here's something else hard to believe: one tenth of all people ever born are alive today. Of course, that's just the pessimist's view. The optimist would say 9/10 of all people ever born are dead today. And dying IS one way the world seems to be dealing with the problem.

OK, here is one of the few completely serious remarks you'll ever hear me make: Today, approximately 19,000 people will die from starvation. Nineteen Thousand. Most of them children. That's how many people starve to death Every. Single. Day. Overpopulation is one of the reasons for this. Other consequences of overpopulation include depletion of drinking water, rising temperatures, collapsing fisheries, increased extinction of plant and animal species, increases in disease epidemics, famine, unemployment, black-market economies, and (OK, back to the wisecracks) people willing to eat reindeer testicles on Fear Factor.

But oops, guess what? Now comes news that half of the world's people are starving, while the other half are obese. Perhaps as a solution, one half could simply eat the other! But which half? Dammit! Why are there never easy solutions?

Another major bummer of overpopulation is the inverse relationship between quantity and quality. Back before we hit the Big One Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh, we had Buddha, Confucius, Plato, Jesus, Copernicus, Leonardo, Galileo, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, and Newton. Now, we've got George W. Bush, Ashton Kutcher, that Arby's oven mitt, and ten million people watching plastic surgery on television. Call me a worry wart, but it seems like we've got a wee problem on our hands.

Here's another mindbender: even though the birth *rate* has actually started to decline, the population explosion is still going on. That's because there are so many people out there from the last couple of centuries' MTV-spring-break-like, nonstop orgy that it will take until at least 2050 for the world's population to stabilize, even if we go forward with plans to wrap R. Kelly in cellophane.

And what if world population doesn't stabilize? One trillion people by 2300! If the quantity/quality rule holds, that oven mitt will be 2300's Stephen Hawking.

But here's the real kick in the 'nads: no matter what we do, we're hosed. If we keep growing, we'll run out of water, destroy the planet, and make it harder than ever to find a good parking space. If we shrink too fast, we'll end up with a population aging so rapidly that entire societies will collapse and four out of every five drivers will forget to turn off their turn signals.

Look, it doesn't take a Java programmer to tell that there are simply too many people in the world. In the time it will take you to read this page, 23 new babies will be born in America and 750 will be born worldwide. (If you move your lips while you read, the numbers could be as high as 46 and 1500.) So let's do the math: This means that by the end of this OFGS, there will be 23 new Americans and 727 new people who HATE America. This can lead to only one conclusion: America needs more guns.

No, just kidding. Ha ha ha. Clearly, we are at the moment in history when birth control is a moral imperative (and I don't just mean for NASCAR fans). Gone are the halcyon days of unchecked, wanton reproduction. The world's most dangerous marketing slogan -- "Be Fruitful and Multiply" (edging out "Just Do It") -- obviously no longer applies to our world. Currently, scientists estimate that by 2025 the Catholic Church's official policy will be "Be Not So Damn Fruitful and Enough With the Multiplying Already!" and by 2100 it will be "Please Just Try Not To Step On Anyone's Face." What will things be like with 25 billion people? Why not e-mail the pope? He's infallible; he'll know.

Of course, the church still officially forbids birth control, stem-cell research and voting for John Kerry. But Catholic voters won't rule out Kerry. In America, Catholics don't vote "Catholic." Maybe a voting booth looks similar to a confessional, but most Catholics can tell when they're not in church. (And after all, it wasn't until 1979 that the church officially admitted the earth revolves around the sun. "Oops," they said. "Our bad." I just hope they saved the apology template.)

Of course, some people believe technology will save us from overpopulation. To which I say, ha. Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Oh, hold on for a minute so I can wipe my eyes. Whew. That was a good one. When technology can figure out how to make an ink jet printer cartridge last longer than a week, talk to me about global overpopulation.

But actually, that's not fair to technology. The truth is, technology CAN save us from overpopulation: it's called a condom. Slap one on, Mister Right Wing Think Tank. See also: pill, patch, vasectomy.

And you "pro-life" zealots who oppose contraception: If you are concerned about abortion -- truly concerned, not just reciting the literature and thumping your chests -- it is 6 and a half BILLION o'clock. Time to wake up and support contraceptive efforts. How can you be against abortion while also being against birth control? If you are really pro-life, hop on the birth-control doinkwagon. It's a rockin' good fuckfest and it's heading out of town without you.

I say it's time to send our horny youngsters a new message before the planet flames out in an all-out spermageddon. The old one-two punch of abstinence/fruitfulness has been thoroughly dopeslapped by the glorious, God-given libidinous splashogasm. So, young horny people of the world, if abstinence works for you, great! Glad to hear it! By all means, please accept my sincere congratulations and gratitude for not making any new people. But when you can no longer purge your urge to merge, please don't listen to the mixed message of self-denying abstinence and self-indulgent fruitfulness. Come up with a birth control plan and a safe-sex plan that make sense for you and get out there and schtup your nash-tay little brains out!

OK, it's too long for a bumper sticker, but there's a slogan in there somewhere!

Monday, May 17, 2004

Spel Like A Spamer
Can you believe the sorry state of e-mail today? What used to be the Internet's one, true killer app is now little more than a cesspool of spam, viruses, and porno nasty enough to make Pamela and Tommy blush. The bad guys have taken a nearly perfect technological innovation and turned it into an experience more evil and annoying than the creature that would emerge if Celine Dion and Eminem procreated. (By the way, I have no idea what those last two sentences mean, but I have high hopes for the Google ads that are sure to appear at the top of this page.)

It's enough to make you yearn for the good old days when the only irritating, unwanted e-mail messages you got were work related. Nowadays when I open my e-mail I have to press the Delete key in such a repetitive motion that I probably look like a teenaged boy enjoying his Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. But far more disturbing than the avalanche of spam is the worry that real messages are not getting through. Suddenly, e-mail delivery is about as reliable as a promise from a President of the United States of America.

Sadly, the spammers -- like the terrorists (who might well be the same people) -- have succeeded mostly in turning us against ourselves. Necessity being the mutha of invention, network nerds are furiously scrambling to shelter us from spam by blocking any mail that contains offensive keywords, such as Viagra, Rogaine and penis. Unfortunately, the filters are also blocking perfectly good words used in everyday conversation, such as motherfucker and cocksucker, not to mention Viagra, Rogaine and penis. (Yo, ACLU, are you on this? After all those years of heroic efforts to protect the first amendment, we're putting fuckin' Todd over on the network team in charge of the constitution?)

If you're a pottymouth like me or if you simply like to discuss prescription medications, baldness, working from home or genital enhancement in your e-mail messages, you've probably had some e-mail blocked by an over-aggressive spam filter. I don't know about you, but I've had a ton of mail turn up missing in recent months and most of the time it's because of my tendency (and my correspondents' -- you know who you are) to cuss like a pre-teen Wu-Tang Clan fan.

And, naturally, filtering has failed to stop spam because the spammers have fought back by simply misspelling the keywords. Have you gotten offers for "viagfra," "roggane" or "peniz enhanzer?" You might have thought that those spams simply originated in Indiana, but no: those words were spelled wrong on purpose to foil the filter.

(...We interrupt this OFGS for a Homeland Security Brainsprinkle (TM)... Speaking of terrorists and nerds, did you know al Qaeda means "the base?" But it doesn't mean "base" as in military base or base of operations, it means DATAbase. The name comes from Osama bin Laden's first and most important ability: to organize and motivate thousands of jihadists and, you know, sort their names in Microsoft Access. Yes, the guy is a nerd. He probably knows how to run envelopes through a fucking inkjet printer and get the addresses to look right. We don't need Rummy and Condi and fighter jets and tanks and humvees and troops and bombs to fight this guy. We need Bill Gates! Bill Gates and maybe that guy from Oracle who's worth more on paper than God and Allah combined. Let them recruit all those lowlife worm- and virus-writers and those billionaire 20-something Google dudes and that rotund Help Guy in your IS department with the oily hair and the Milky Way Dark candy goo in his teeth whose e-mail signature lists 27 ways to get in touch with him even though he's never available. Get them all to go after Osama and his fuckin' base. Just an idea. OK, back to our regularly scheduled OFGS...)

Because fetuses and homosexuals are not involved, we clearly cannot look to our government for help with the e-mail problem. So we're just going to have to take matters into our own hands. One option would be to use this opportunity to bring some civility back into our discourse by simply retraining ourselves not to curse. Nah. That seems drastic.

Instead, I think we should steal the spammers' approach and intentionally misspell offensive words. That way the mail will have a better chance of getting through and you'll still be able to cuss like the little fuckerpants you are, albeit with creative spelling. Have fun with it! For example, say bastid instead of bastard and sheit for shit and Cheneybrainy for dickhead. For pussy say Rush. Spell fuck feck. For motherfucker: mickeyfickey! Want to say, "my boss is the putrid pus popped from a thousand bloody zits? Ha ha - it's a trick: no cusswords!

For those of you who find misspelling unacceptable, how about substituting foreign words and phrases? They should get past the filters, at least in the US. Plus, you'll sound sophisticated. Shit can be scheiss and bastard can be merde and pussy can be bichano. For jackoff? Wanker! I've always been fond of the German expression, "Lechen mein arsch." I'm not sure how you spell it, so it's a double whammy: foreign AND spelled wrong! What filter could catch that? Want to tell someone that in your opinion he or she is a fucking moron? How about the Irish "You're a right feckin eejit." Gets the point across while being somehow endearing.

Of course, I can't do this alone. If I intentionally misspell profanity or use foreign expressions, my email will get past YOUR spam filter. But you're going to have to join me if your messages are going to get past MY filter. This is a team effort, people. Remember, there's no "I" in "team." (Come to think of it, there's no "I" in "masturbate," either...) But there CAN be an "I" in "fuck" if you want there to be.

So remember: spel like a spamer! I'm looking forward to hearing from yeh, yeh brilliant feckin' bastids.

Monday, May 10, 2004

Do Nothing and Go to Hell
Out on the edge of town, there's a mile-long stretch of road that's home to a lot of houses of superstition or, as they are known in some circles, "churches." Business is booming. There's Grace Fellowship, First Baptist, Second Baptist, Baptist 3.0, The Church of Discomfiture and Dissonance, The Abundant Moralization Christian Center, the Church of Ascension, the Church of Descension, the Church of Dissension, The Cathedral of Unmerited Divine Intervention, Our Lady of Unremitting Virginity, Just Snakes, and The Church of No Strong Opinions. Now don't get me wrong. While I find religion totally overrated, I also believe superstition is underrated. For instance, when I wear my lucky lounge trousers, the Sox always win. Also, I NEVER step on a crack. (Hi Mom!) So it all works out. Plus, I love the church signs.

In the old days, it was hard to tell at a glance what these churches professed. But thanks to the invention of the portable yellow sign, their views are now more glaringly obvious than a goth kid at an Amish barn raising. Each church has a yellow sign out front and each sign has an important message for passersby. I often take solace in these messages. Other times they are a source of inspiration and spiritual rebirth.

For instance, one church recently posted this message:

LOVE GOOD AND HATE EVIL

Most churches aren't so honest about their pro-hate agendas. I was so heartened by this particular church's admission that I resisted the impulse to rearrange the letters to spell

VIOLENT DEAD HOG LOVE

Another sign had advice for the teens:

DON'T PUT A QUESTION MARK WHERE GOD PUT A PERIOD

It's nice to know that young women can get friendly advice AND punctuation puns in one sign. And I'm sure the girls appreciated the menstruation reference, in case any passersby weren't thinking about it at the moment.

Now, a lot of your portable yellow church signs borrow from modern American marketing. Some of the lazier sign writers post messages like, "Got Jesus?" or "Just Worship." I mean, every writer has a bad day, but those are just totally lame. But the Simpsonville Church of Christ really nailed it when they said:

FOR ALL YOU DO, HIS BLOOD'S FOR YOU

I really took that message to heart. For one thing, it reminded me of beer, so I bought some and drank it. And I got the jingle stuck in my head from the old Budweiser commercial but instead of "Bud" I sang "blood:"

"When you say blood you've said a lot of things nobody else can say.
When you say blood you've gone as far as you can go to get the very best."

Remember that? Sing with me!

"There is no other one;
There's only something less
Because the King of Beers
Is leading all the rest

When you say Bloodweiser, you've said it all!"

Further inspired by that church sign, I tried substituting "blood" in other jingles, such as:

Candy-coated popcorn, peanuts and a some blood
I'd like to buy the world some blood
Blood-a-roni the San Francisco treat
The blood kids love to bite
When you're out of Schlitz you're out of blood
You can trust your car to the man who wears the blood
Little dab o' blood'll do ya
Nobody doesn't like blood, and
Blood blood fizz fizz oh what a relief it is.

So as you can see, these signs not only offer spiritual inspiration but also rockin' good American entertainment. Another moving sign I saw was:

JESUS IS A ROCK BY THE STILL WATER - QUIT SKIPPING HIM!

I thought of poor Jesus being skipped, his body flying across the water's surface, sending up tiny splashes again and again, while someone whistled the theme from Andy of Mayberry in the background. I had to agree with this sign: Jesus has suffered enough. Quit skipping him! (Plus, let's not give Mel Gibson any ideas.)

A good one I saw at Easter time said this:

THE EASTER BUNNY DIDN'T RISE FROM THE DEAD!

Well, I had no idea the Easter Bunny was dead! The kids weren't with me, so I made up a song to break the news to them gently. It goes like this:

Easter on the Watterson Expressway

Here comes Peter Cottontail
Hoppin' down the bunny...
Vrrrrrrr thump thump vrrrrrrr.

They liked it. But sometimes church signs are more than just fun; they're life-changing. For instance, the other day I saw one that said,

DO NOTHING AND GO TO HELL

(This advice I found to be much more stirring than the sign at the Sonic drive-in across the street: "Eat Shit and Die." OK, it really said "5 Hamburgers for $5" but sometimes you have to read between the lines.)

First of all, who among us doesn't relish the thought of doing nothing? Most religions were founded on the premise of avoiding an action another religion demanded, whether it was circumcision, indulgences, belief in the supernatural, or gold bathroom fixtures in the televangelist's home. So why not take this to the extreme and base a religion on doing nothing at all? I don't know about you, but I could go for a little down time. And hell sounds kind of nice, too. I have a friend who's fond of the expression, "See you in hell" and each time she says it I look forward to someday doing it. Besides, all my heroes are there. And most of my friends (you know who you are) are bound to show up there eventually.

Gosh, kicking back with my friends and my heroes, sippin' on a nice cold Bloodweiser in hell? Sounds like heaven to me.

So that's my new motto: Do Nothing and Go to Hell.

Won't you join me? We could probably make a pretty decent religion out of it.

Monday, May 03, 2004

I Think I'm Going to Warm Up this Slice of Pizza in the Microwave
I think I'm going to warm up this slice of pizza in the microwave. It's not really what I want, but it would be wasteful to just throw it away. What I'm really hungry for is some pad kee mow from Thai Smile but that would be really extravagant, what with this leftover pizza here in the fridge. I mean, what if I have to face my German ancestors in the afterlife? How would I explain getting carryout Thai food when I had a perfectly good slice of leftover pizza in the refrigerator?

You know what? It looks kind of gross, really. The "cheese" looks plastic. It looks like the sort of thing that will still be in my arteries a thousand years after I die, even if I decide to go with cremation. It will probably be OK once I microwave it, though. And maybe I can spice it up with some sliced jalapenos.

It's just sitting there on a plate, wrapped in Saran Wrap, waiting to be microwaved. I could be eating pizza in thirty seconds. Maybe even less.

I guess I should take off the Saran Wrap. They say you shouldn't microwave that shit. They say the microwave breaks down the film into little carcinogenic molecules that land you in the cancer ward. No pizza is worth that -- not even gourmet pizza, made in a brick oven. And this triangular glob of glue sure ain't gourmet. I'll just throw away that Saran Wrap and place a paper towel over the pizza.

That seems kind of wasteful, though. Why should some poor tree have to die just for me to waste a perfectly good paper-towel square on a piece of leftover pizza? On the other hand, I don't want to make a mess of exploded "cheese" and tomato sauce inside the microwave, which would result in the use of several paper towel squares and maybe even harsh cleansers.

(I don't even like cheese. It's not that I'm lactose intolerant or anything. I just feel better when I stay away from cheese. All dairy, in fact. Soy, now that's the way to go. That stuff's miracle food, if you ask me. Couldn't pay the kids to eat it, though. Which is why I have this leftover Papa John's crap in the fridge in the first place.)

I guess I'll go ahead and do it. I wonder how long it will take. 30 seconds should be plenty. But I'll keep an eye on it through the window to make sure it doesn't overcook. Otherwise, the crust gets all yucky. Let's see... 3- 0 - Start. Round and round it goes. You know, I don't like the sound of that humming. That humming practically screams "cancer." You know what? I'm going to stop it. Stop. Clear. Oops. Now I'm not sure how long it cooked. I shouldn't have been so hasty to press Clear. It doesn't look like it cooked much, though. I guess I'll just start over. How much harm could 30 seconds of humming do?

You know what's good sometimes? Cold pizza, right out of the fridge. But no, not now. The "cheese." It really looks like it's made from fossil fuel. Ah, screw this pizza. You know what sounds good? Soup. Some Vietnamese pho would be awesome right now. No longer than the pizza cooked, I could probably just stick it back in the fridge and it would be fine later.

But no. If I don't eat it now, I'll never eat it. I guess I could warm it up in the oven. But firing up the oven for just one slice of pizza? That would waste a lot of electricity. Plus, it would make the house warm, which would probably make the air conditioner kick on, which would destroy the earth's ozone layer, causing global warming and, ultimately, extinction.

Man, that pizza is looking really gross now. What IS that "cheese," anyway?

Ya know, come to think of it, Papa John's is one of those really fast-growing companies. I wonder if they're one of those corporate predators, putting local mom-and-pop restaurants out of business. There's probably a guy named Luigi -- a real craftsman -- out in Kansas somewhere inside the restaurant that's been in his family for three generations looking forlornly out the window at the new Papa John's franchise being framed across the street and going, "Merda! 'Formaggio!'"

And I sure hope they aren't trying to cram their junk pizza down the throats of the international community, like McDonald's and KFC. I hope they're not over in Asia, going, "Hey, put down that rice and fish and try some of this meat-lover's "cheese"-in-the-crust pizza and oh, if you like that, we've also got Britney Spears' navel and the one, true God!"

I wonder how Papa John's treats it workers. Do they have a 401k plan? I wonder if they get dental insurance. And accidental death and dismemberment insurance. I bet pizza workers would sleep better at night knowing they had AD&D. We office workers get AD&D and what are the odds we'll get dismembered? The only dismemberment I'll probably ever experience will be self-inflicted, during a meeting. Meanwhile, pizza workers? Hot ovens. Those dented-up home-delivery cars. I'll bet those circular pizza knives are really sharp. Dismemberment city.

And Papa John's probably exploits the vegetable workers. Those poor vegetable pickers. Picking vegetables all day long in the hot sun for meager wages, just so I, body completely intact, can blithely cement the eventual demise of the planet by warming up a slice of pizza. You'd think if Papa John could build a giant football stadium for U of L and a personal Italian-style villa to live in, he could come up with an AD&D plan for those poor workers. But maybe they DO have AD&D. And it's certainly not going to help anybody if I just toss this pizza in the garbage.

I think I'm going to warm up this slice of pizza in the microwave.