Cherie Blair

Dear Indigna,

I heard that British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s wife, Cherie, spent $13,700 of Labour Party funds in a single month on “hairstyling”! Can that possibly be legal?

Incorruptible Voter
London, England

Dear Voter,

Jeez, get with the program man! Have you seen a photo of this woman? She looks like that after spending $500 a day on a stylist! It is my understanding that the Queen Herself has issued a royal decree that Cherie Blair not be allowed to appear in public without such extensive ministrations.

Stinky Cheese

Dear Indigna,

The Associated Press has called this Swedish billionaire, Stefan Eriksson, a leader of the “Uppsala Mafia.” Do they really have organized crime in Sweden??

Doubting Stefan
Uppsala, Sweden

Dear Doubter,

Yes, indeed they do! The capo in question, known to his peers as “Fat Steve,” is infamous for forcing subordinates to subsist on nothing but fish paste, crashing the women’s sauna at various locations, and shaking down businesses to secure cushy jobs for his buds. The “family’s” strong-arm tactics include putting herring in the fountain outside the mark’s business, hiding Epoisses cheese (”so stinky that it is banned on public transportation in France”) behind the refrigerator in the lunchroom, and asking for repayment of debt without saying “Tack” (”thank you”). These gangsters have terrorized Sweden for years with their threats of charging exorbitant interest on loans to small children to buy candy, riding public transit without bathing, and crashing ridiculously expensive cars while driving drunk.

Cause of Action

Dear Indigna,

It seems a bunch of lawyers are filing a $5 billion class action lawsuit against DuPont, alleging that a chemical used in the production of teflon, when heated to 600 degrees and then consumed, is known to case cancer in rats. Although the finished product that is marketed to consumers does not contain the chemical in question, and no one has suffered harm from teflon-coated cookware, the plaintiffs are basing their claim on the company’s failure to tell consumers about the rats. Do they have a cause of action? If I join the lawsuit, how much money can I hope to score?

Professional Plaintiff
Money, MS

Dear Pro,

Let me make one thing perfectly clear. Everyone on Earth has a cause of action, if they can find a lawyer willing to file the case. That said, I think there is very little money to be had here because it is a class action. That means the lawyers take home $2.5 billion and you get a certificate for $1.00 off your next purchase of teflon products.

I highly recommend that you refuse to join the class and instead file an individual claim. Sure, no one’s been hurt, the harmful chemical is not present in the product, and few people would be willing to consume teflon at three times the temperature of boiling water. Maybe you don’t even own any teflon cookware. Who cares? The point is, rats were injured! And DuPont didn’t even have the decency to tell us about them. Plus, the publicity about this chemical has caused your teenager to melt your cookware trying to get high; someone’s gotta replace it and it sure ain’t gonna be us because DuPont concealed the true medical condition of their rats!

I must modestly confess that I am something of an expert at discovering causes of action based on ludicrous claims, as my husband is a lawyer specializing in what is technically known as “Nuisance Law.” Did you know that if you trespass on a heavily guarded government plutonium processing facility, bang your head really hard against a sensitive nuclear reactor, get scared by the shadow cast by the military policemen and find yourself suffering “emotional distress” over your potential radiation exposure, you will probably end up driving a Bentley?

The Gospel of Judas

Dear Indigna,

The discovery of this “Gospel of Judas” has me really confused. The Bible is the infallible word of God, but this new “gospel” contradicts the New Testament that I know so well. Is the Judas document actually authored by Satan?

Wondering Worshipper
Blue Goose Bucksnort, TN

Dear Wondering,

Naw, it’s just God pulling your leg a little. He loves to hide these little papyri in crockery all around the Middle East, kinda like an Easter egg hunt, to see how long it takes us to find them all. Then he gets a big belly laugh out of all the doubters who buy this shit!

That said, however, there are a number of emerging documents that in fact are true and are likely to shake the foundations of Western civilization, or at least creep us out. For example, scholars are currently authenticating a letter, found in an empty ketchup bottle washed up on a beach in Namibia, that is expected to confirm that the Rapture has already occurred, all of us still on Earth have been “Left Behind,” and Jesus is now living among us, but he has converted to Buddhism. Another crumbling manuscript, discovered in an old filing cabinet at a yard sale, is said to have proven definitively that time travel will be discovered in the next few years and that movie, “Soylent Green,” is actually a documentary from the future. The most recent discovery is an old high school term paper, which was thought “lost” but had in fact been buried by the dog in the backyard of Mortimer Sned of Monkey’s Eyebrow, AZ. According to my sources, this document provides irrefutable evidence that all human experience is nothing more than a fever dream, and we are in fact all lying in some kind of suspended animation tanks producing electricity for the Matrix.

Birth Plan

Dear Indigna,

I hear that Tom Cruise plans to eat Katie Holmes’ placenta after she gives birth. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww! What do you think he'll do next?

Disgusted
North, SD

Dear Disgusted,

Tom has it all figured out. Shortly after birth the child, hereafter known as “The Chosen One,” will be sequestered at the Scientologist monastery, rumored to be hidden above the clouds in the highest and most inaccessible reaches of the Hollywood Hills. There, he or she will begin training for the inevitable future showdown with the child of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt for absolute world domination.

As for Tom, he plans to breastfeed for up to two years, as he believes it will be “very nutritious.”

Immigration III

Dear Indigna,

President Bush has done it again! First, in a press conference on March 21 he shrugged off his responsibilities in Iraq by saying that the question of troop withdrawal “will be decided by future Presidents and future governments of Iraq.”

Now he’s come out in favor of outsourcing border security to the lowest private-sector bidder! Will this Administration take responsibility for anything? How much you want to bet it’ll go to Halliburton?

Cynical Citizen
Embarrass, WI

Dear Cynical,

Actually, I’m betting on Dubai Ports World, or perhaps Hezbollah.

Just kidding. Actually, I have my own eye on this prize. I propose we breed thousands of deadly pit vipers, grow them to fantastic proportions through the magic of radiation, and then place them, disgruntled and starving, in flimsily constructed cages crammed cheek by jowl along the border. I think the elegance of my solution is self-evident. I await your call, Mr. President!

Faith

Dear Indigna,

You seem to think President Bush can do no wrong! Some people think you actually worship the guy! True?

Democrat
Burlingame, VT

Dear Democrat,

On the contrary, I am a Cavist. President Bush is only a minor prophet in our religion. Cavism, a relatively low-key and little-understood faith, worships Cavy, the noumenon or Platonic Ideal of the guinea pig--its Kantian “Ding an sich,” if you will. Cavy is incarnate in all Cavia porcellus and hence members of our faith are prohibited from using guinea pigs for food, fur, or transportation. Cavy’s divinity is immanent in the inscrutable, depthless, vacant gaze of the beady eye, the eternal twitching of the nose, and the infinite patience of the holy rodent. Our liturgy is celebrated in a joyous cacaphony of chirps, whistles, squeals and chatter. Cavist monks commit their lives to a diet of kibble, hay and water, abject boredom bereft of companionship, and sleeping in cramped, seldom-cleaned cages soiled by their own urine and feces.

School

Dear Indigna,

I volunteer forty hours a week at my child’s school, yet no matter how much I do, they ask for more. Not only that, but I get complaints about how a job was done! I also work two paying jobs to afford the tuition, leaving me only 48 hours a week in which to care for my child, shop, cook, clean and sleep.

Now, I feel perfectly awake because of my amphetamine intake, but my question is, does my perception of alertness mean it is safe for me to drive my child around on 7-14 hours’ sleep a week?

Sir Speedy
Santa Cruz, CA

Dear Sir,

I think the bigger question is, why are you getting complaints about the quality of your volunteer work at school? Have you committed to things that are ill-suited to your skills? Are you leaving things to the last minute? Have you overestimated the level of your abilities? Are you sure your speed dosage is adequate to your needs? Be honest here; perhaps you’re just a loser who wants to show off by volunteering for everything but isn’t really qualified to take on more than the pledge of allegiance, if that. No offense, but your slacker attempts to “contribute” probably do your charity-case child more harm than good, reinforcing the stereotype that there is a reason why folks like you have to work two jobs while the rest of us pay tuition out of pocket change.

History

Dear Indigna,

The Bush administration continues to insist that Iraq is not engaged in a civil war. Surely they can’t be serious!

Realist
Washington, D.C.

Dear “Realist,”

It depends on what the meaning of “is” is. Just kidding!

Seriously, get “real.” There is no civil war there. So Shiites and Sunnis are killing each other, well, far more people are killed on our highways and interstates every day! Does that mean we are in a civil war?

Now, the folks saying these things about Iraq are probably the same folks who would have you believe that our country--the U.S.A.--actually was engaged in a so-called “Civil War” sometime in the 19th century! Now, that’s just hogwash. We all know how a few bad seeds, some low-ranking, poorly trained troops and a handful of high-spirited college boys sometimes let a prank get out of control. Antietam, Gettysburg, they really didn’t mean for those things to happen. Who are you gonna believe, me or some ancient manuscript probably written in hopes that the writer would get famous or a medal or something, or be elected President?

And that "French Revolution" rumor, puh-leeze! Who on earth would rise up against a monarch that recommended brioche, a delicate cake-like pastry made with sugar, eggs and white flour, instead of your usual diet of thistles, tree bark and rats, spit-roasted and thinly sliced using a sharp kitchen implement called a “guillotine”?

Immigration I

Dear Indigna,

Why can’t the government do something about the immigration problem?

Vexed
San Antonio, TX

Dear Vexed,

Despite what you might have heard about a “stalled” immigration bill in Congress, President Bush has already launched a pilot program in Florida that, if successful, could be rolled out across the Southwest within the year. It is a two-pronged effort.

The first prong involves releasing vast quantities of iguanas and Burmese pythons into the populated areas. The tactic has several goals. First, these animals will show illegal immigrants what it’s like to be displaced by those who are not supposed to be there! Second, they should scare the bejesus out of everyone, forcing them to flee, probably to Mexico or Haiti (see goal #1). Third, you know how everyone complains that illegals have a higher birth rate than citizens? A Burmese python is capable of eating small children.

The second prong of this effort takes place at Walt Disney World, a place sure to be visited by everyone at least once as well as being the seat of the super-secret shadow government run by Dick Cheney and Michael Eisner (his leaving the company was only a ruse to throw off suspicion; Robert Iger is really a muppet). You may have read recently about two deaths in the past year on WDW’s “Mission: Space” ride. This “attraction” features a “centrifuge” that is supposed to simulate increased G-forces experienced by astronauts. Actually, the true purpose of the centrifuge is to extract DNA from participants to be used to clone embryos for spare parts (to be sold to the highest bidder on the free market), stem cells and a secret cybernetically-enhanced army. This army will be used by the INS to round up and deport illegal immigrants and create an armed, impenetrable humanoid “wall” along the barrier to prevent future immigration. The irony of this approach is that no doubt many of the humanoids will be clones of the very people they are programmed to keep out.