“Austin 911, what’s your emergency?”
“Someone has broken into my house and planted a suspicious device in my living room.”
“What sort of suspicious device?”
“Well, it’s a large box about forty inches in diameter, and there’s a box attached to it by some wires, and some of the wires have black and red leads. There’s another attachment that is a dreadful and forbidding black in hue, and it leads into a hole in the wall. It’s frightening me and I want it to go away.”
“Does it have any buttons on it?”
“Yes, it does, one big one right at the front and it’s surrounded by a glowing blue ring.”
“It sounds like you’re describing a television, sir.”
“Well, yes, I think it might be, but it is definitely a Box of Terror, because it’s made me so fucking paranoid that I am starting to think that local bits of art and colorful advertisements are terrorist devices. I need you to send the bomb squad out here to detonate it and then strut around telling everyone what Big Nuts they have for blowing up something that any 12-year-old could tell them was harmless.”
“I don’t think that’s wise use of tax monies, sir.”
“I don’t fucking care WHAT you think is a “wise use of tax money”. The police drive brand-new cruisers and have the latest equipment and gear and guns and a fucking armored car, so they may as well get some use out of them. You’re a goddamn public servant, and by the Testes of Odin I want some fucking SERVICE! I pay my taxes, and since I don’t have any children, don’t set fire to my place, and don’t commit any public mayhem (much) then I can’t get the benefit of public schools, the fire department, or the local constabulary (except when I’m speeding up the road that I paid for and one of those worthless assholes pulls me over for driving 5mph above the speed-limit and tries to give me a retarded lecture about being careful of children; hell, they should learn to be careful of ME because I’M the one driving the 3000-lb. vehicle). I either want the police department down here PRONTO with something that will make a big bang out of my little TV, or I want you to personally bring your unreasonable lips down here and put them to some better use.”
“I don’t think that’s very polite, sir.”
“Well, I’ve still got this wretched Television of Trepidation sitting like a big black toad in my den, and the only thing it ever does is spew mental anguish and war images; I can’t even see a nipple on the thing, but they can show people getting their limbs blown higher than Timothy Leary and that’s just hunky-dory. Have you experienced Hannity & Combes in High Def? Talk about anxiety via the airwaves. This thing has to GO. There is not a goddamn thing on the television worth a squirt of squirrel piss, and I am TIRED OF IT.”
“I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do, sir.”
“Well then, the hell with you. I’m going to watch some Adult Swim on Cartoon Network and pray to nonexistent gods that our educational system gets better and everyone on the Fox News Network gets re-incarnated as lamprey speculums in a marine necropsy lab.”
“Someone has broken into my house and planted a suspicious device in my living room.”
“What sort of suspicious device?”
“Well, it’s a large box about forty inches in diameter, and there’s a box attached to it by some wires, and some of the wires have black and red leads. There’s another attachment that is a dreadful and forbidding black in hue, and it leads into a hole in the wall. It’s frightening me and I want it to go away.”
“Does it have any buttons on it?”
“Yes, it does, one big one right at the front and it’s surrounded by a glowing blue ring.”
“It sounds like you’re describing a television, sir.”
“Well, yes, I think it might be, but it is definitely a Box of Terror, because it’s made me so fucking paranoid that I am starting to think that local bits of art and colorful advertisements are terrorist devices. I need you to send the bomb squad out here to detonate it and then strut around telling everyone what Big Nuts they have for blowing up something that any 12-year-old could tell them was harmless.”
“I don’t think that’s wise use of tax monies, sir.”
“I don’t fucking care WHAT you think is a “wise use of tax money”. The police drive brand-new cruisers and have the latest equipment and gear and guns and a fucking armored car, so they may as well get some use out of them. You’re a goddamn public servant, and by the Testes of Odin I want some fucking SERVICE! I pay my taxes, and since I don’t have any children, don’t set fire to my place, and don’t commit any public mayhem (much) then I can’t get the benefit of public schools, the fire department, or the local constabulary (except when I’m speeding up the road that I paid for and one of those worthless assholes pulls me over for driving 5mph above the speed-limit and tries to give me a retarded lecture about being careful of children; hell, they should learn to be careful of ME because I’M the one driving the 3000-lb. vehicle). I either want the police department down here PRONTO with something that will make a big bang out of my little TV, or I want you to personally bring your unreasonable lips down here and put them to some better use.”
“I don’t think that’s very polite, sir.”
“Well, I’ve still got this wretched Television of Trepidation sitting like a big black toad in my den, and the only thing it ever does is spew mental anguish and war images; I can’t even see a nipple on the thing, but they can show people getting their limbs blown higher than Timothy Leary and that’s just hunky-dory. Have you experienced Hannity & Combes in High Def? Talk about anxiety via the airwaves. This thing has to GO. There is not a goddamn thing on the television worth a squirt of squirrel piss, and I am TIRED OF IT.”
“I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do, sir.”
“Well then, the hell with you. I’m going to watch some Adult Swim on Cartoon Network and pray to nonexistent gods that our educational system gets better and everyone on the Fox News Network gets re-incarnated as lamprey speculums in a marine necropsy lab.”
