Vegetarian Tabernacle

…and then we came in.



Woke up and looked out the window and up into the sky.

Storm clouds of jet fighter after jet fighter flying miles high.

They sent parachutes down onto the Earth. Female companions for the day as the psi ops took place.

I fell in love with a beautiful operative, while my friends complained about the loss of teeth, marching salt shakers, and compromising generals.

The operative left me and I took my anger out on one of the generals.

Fucking psi ops.

The new facsimile army will consist of thousands of live-action Mario bros. The damage to brick and mushrooms will be remarkable. You’ll wish to God Italians were never born. Especially those that plumb.



Addington and Cheney threw a pool party the other night and I was invited. I was especially pleased to see my nameless psi op lover. She had left me for Luigi or some strange animal that looked like



Ferrets explode out of the wall and I look up from my 12th drink of the night and decide that I’m no longer among the living.

I was expecting rats.

Rats!

It’s time for reviews again and I have to review my progress from the past year.

Sirens.

I try to explain, in prose, what I’ve accomplished while simultaneously putting up with psi ops, Mario, and the ferrets. I know how it looks; but, how else am I supposed to explain everything? I can’t very well say that I only have 35 hours of time logged for the year when I can’t say I keep staring at the wall for another ghastly attack of salt shakers and psychotic generals.



“We’ve acquired some information you might find useful.” Cheney twists his Gin and jism cocktail in his hand.

“What information is that? I’m having trouble processing much, what with the ferret attacks and problems associated with general weirdness.”

“Your lover is a robot.” Cheney grins.

“That comes as a relief.”

“That you made love to a robot?”

I light a cigarette and say “No love lost.”

Cheney laughs at this and introduces me to Addington who is fellating Bill Clinton in a deck chair.

Addington wipes his mouth and shakes my hand. I would feel nauseous, if that feeling hadn’t been just so fucking used up. “It’s a pleasure. I generally don’t like giving people the authority to do anything while a war is at hand and executive power is under attack from the liberal left. If you wanted to impress me, you would stay at home and hang yourself from meat hooks until we can get a bead on this Iran thing.”

“Meat hooks aren’t cheap these days.” I say, and they all laugh and Bill makes an “Oh” face as a ferret climbs out of his asshole.



“Mr. Larrington, welcome. You have been selected to put an end to the evil Red Falcon – a disastrous psi ops program that George Tenet created in 2000.” It’s former FBI main man Paul O’Neil.

“What’s the nature of this program?” I ask Paul.

I’m drunk again. I can’t explain it. I don’t even feel good when I’m drunk anymore.

“Mr. Larrington, your new codename is Raggedy Andy. Your assignment, should you accept it, is to annihilate ferocious aliens on a tropical island. The codename of the assignment is Contra.”

This all sounds quite compelling, but I’m thinking about all the food that’s going to rot in my fridge while I’m gone. “But, what about my fridge?”

“Fuck your fridge, these are terrorist aliens and I’m not going to let you or the CIA foul this one up!” O’Neil is visibly enraged, so I accept the assignment.

Weeks later, I’ll figure out that if I push up, up, down, down, left, right, then select, I have no worries and the aliens are nothing to my immortal “blue guy.”

O’Neil’s such a flake.



The pool party has degenerated into a drunken orgy and I leave. I’m depressed. I buy some Subway and watch a documentary on the making of “Family Ties.”

The apartment next door is a brothel front. I’m sure of it. No one lives there, but every so often I’ll hear lovemaking and see three different girls on the porch of the small studio on different days. I’m so sure it’s a brothel that I called my good friend Tipper Gore to report the obscenity.

It seems Tipper has decided to let the whole “Vaginas and Penises are Evil” campaign die, so that her husband comes off as a forealz liberal. I find this Liebermanish.

“You cunt! This is full frontal sex for money! What became of your vicious morals? You were the first woman to try and give Prince the death penalty! You skunk!”

It’s an answering machine, so I receive no satisfaction.



Meanwhile, in the Vatican…

“It’s very important that we excommunicate the rape victim for her heinous act of aborting a human life!” It’s Ratzy and he’s E’d out of his mind and has forbidden the word “children” to be uttered in his presence.

I’m agent Raggedy Andy, again. I hate these assignments. “Look, we’ll excommunicate her and try her as an adult.”

“She’s not an adult?”

“No, sir.” I’m a Bishop or some such nonsense in this new role. I’m sick of Rumsfeldt sending me on these PR jobs. “She’s eleven.”

“An eleven-year-old had the balls to get raped and then abort a child! And yet, they want me to excommunicate 50-year-old men for raping children? What is wrong with the world? Are they anti-Catholic? Is that the word on the street? Is Jesus out? Should I take heed of the prophecies? Am I truly the last Pope!?”

“Sir, you’re not the last Pope, there’s millions of fascist pussies that couldn’t say no to the Nazis to take your place.”

“Good. I’m sorry. I’m just frustrated with this game. I keep getting the wrong princess. It seems she’s in another castle. It makes me furious.”

“Sir, my handlers have asked that you look for the princess on the 8th level.”

“I see – it’s all coming together now. And the rape victim?”

“We will make certain that she hangs from meat hooks, provided you can afford them – the demand is outstanding.”

The Pope looks me in the eyes and licks his lips “The Catholic church has always had a monopoly on meat hooks, good sir.”

“We’re very pleased.” I leave out the window.



My next assignment takes me to the desk at work. They’ve planted me at my old job, the one before Dick Cheney and Bill Clinton pool parties.

I’ve been assigned to debate N. Rosen on the current war in Lebanon.

Let me explain: I’ve been ordered to debate in order to find out how long anyone can debate a non-biased opinion of Israel before they are labeled an anti-Semite (a misnomer, by the way, as most Arabs are Semitic as well).



- But, the Lebanese have lost a disproportionate amount of civilians as compared to the Israelis. Israel should have the right to protect itself, especially with the mounting Hezbollah arsenal, but an all out war over two hostages?

- In war you can’t play tit for tat.

- That’s not even an argument.

- Anti-Semite!

- You win.



I report back to the lab at Washington and they send an additional billion dollars to Israel for debate.



It’s Wednesday and it’s time to report to my superior. I find the Vice President knocking on my window. The window is six stories up, but because of the Vice President’s mad vampiric skillz, he’s able to hover outside my sliding glass window. I see the blood on his mouth and recognize the fragile state of mind he must be in.

“Mr. Vice President?” I ask as I open the slider.

“Call me Lono.”

“Lono?”

“Good, I’m glad we could get passed that. Now then, the Pope?”

“His authority over child enslavement is total.”

“Good. And, N. Rosen of Toledo Springs?”

“He won yet another debate.”

“Good. How many talking points?”

“One.”

“You mean he let you finish a sentence?”

“Yes.”

“We’re getting soft. Look, the Christians are up in arms about bringing about the end of the world, and the Israelis and Iranians are helping us all we can, but we need some sort of quantifier as to how it’s coming along. Is there any way you can come up with some sort of spreadsheet, flowchart, or graph that will give me and the President a good idea when we need to leave for Mars?”

“Um…I’m not sure. I have Microsoft office, but Visio is currently a wish list item.”

“Visio?”

“It’s a flowcharting program. It’s pretty great. See, you have every tool you have from Microsoft PowerPoint, but it’s called Visio.”

“That’s amazing. How much?”

“I believe around 200.”

“Billion?”

“Dollars.”

“Billion dollars?”

“No, just dollars.”

“I don’t understand.”

“When you have an amount that’s not a billion or a million at the end, you drop the modifier and you have dollars.”

“Amazing. Can you flowchart that as well?”

“Only poor people and the middle class would understand it.”

“Oh, so it’s a Ted Kennedy thing?”

“I guess.”

“His father was a great -.”

“His father was an anti-Semite.” I say.

“Bingo – we’re back in business!” And with that, Cheney is off for more blood lust.



Next week: Charts and graphs the likes you cannot fathom with even the most advanced shitty programs that don’t work correctly – and its ladies night!