Guinea Pigs And Plain Ol' Pigs

Whoops! Look like we missed a day or so of posting random thoughts. That's the life of a guinea pig for you. We were decidedly perplexed upon learning of our acceptance into the clinical trial for the experimental drug, Maraviroc, yesterday. It had been unlikely from the beginning that our particular virus would be susceptible to it. And, frankly, we're not sure just how excited one should get about swallowing pills with yet-to-be-determined effects.

Then again, we swallowed lots of pills in dark bars in the 80's that could have been anything from Certs to Cyanide. So who are we kidding?

The specialist mentioned during our consultation over The Headache of 2007 that it would take a few days for test results to come back. It's been 8 days. We still have the headache (going into month #3), and no test results. If the man stood next to Tom Cruise, we wouldn't realize Tom Cruise was in the room. He's that good looking. So rather than bitch, we've been taking our Vicodin and having inappropriate thoughts about the man who put a foot-long Q-tip in our ear.

Three years ago, we let him straighten the septum, drill out the sinuses and take out some bones that we didn't realize were Just For Show. We realized what the big deal was over nasal breathing afterward. See...we hadn't done that before. Ever. The man is a god. And a good doctor, to boot. If we had fewer scruples, we'd shove things up our nose on a weekly basis just to see him regularly. You do that sort of thing for people you like. That's called establishing rapport".

Dick Cheney was dispatched to the Middle East this week to establish rapport in that area. That's what our newspaper said, "Cheney Seeks Rapport In Iraq". We called the Editor to make sure there hadn't been a typo: "Clooney" or "Sacks" or "Report" or "Colorado Springs", maybe. Nope. Sure enough, Our Only Vice-President, charmer that he is, was sent by Our Only President on a surprise good-will mission to Iraq. The surprise is not that he went. It's that anyone thought he was capable of good will. This is the guy who bit Matt Lauer's leg off in an interview for wishing him well in his pending grandpa-hood. Good will is not in his arsenal.

We were going to write something mildly humorous and scathing about sending people who have even less good will capacity than Cheney. But Leona Helmsley and Satan were all we came up with. It's hard to stretch that into a full paragraph. Looks like Cheney is treading into guinea pig waters himself. Maybe he's trying on a new leaf in his old age: niceness. Or humanity, perhaps. This kind of thing is catching in a syrupy Pay It Forward sort of way.

Now, Lindsay Lohan has been dispatched to high schools to seek sobriety among alcoholic teens. Paris Hilton has been dispatched to Driver's Ed to help 14 year-olds learn how to beat a bum DUI rap. O.J. will be offering marriage tips. Oprah will show us how to do the Virgin Islands on $10,000 a day. And John Edwards is the new spokesperson for SuperCuts.

Sometimes irony is funny. Sometimes it just reveals stupidity. Playing around with a new gig in hopes of stumbling on solutions is admirable. Throwing gasoline on the fire in your living room is not. Throwing it on the fire in someone else's living room is less so.

See the clock at the right of this screen and pray we don't all die of "rapport".

Dear O.J.

Poor O.J.

At some point, if you can get past the beheading and the glove and the blood and the Akita and the Wrongful Death verdict..... You just have to wonder whether he'll ever get it. So we've decided to lend a decidedly Midwestern perspective to a very raw, open letter to the man. We hope it will spare him further embarrassment in the media. Unless he insists.

Dear Mr. Simpson,

Folks in Kentucky, for the most part, still aren't over the whole slavery thing. Add to that the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Brown vs. Board of Education, sharing water fountains, interracial dating and, well, that little murder thing we all watched on CNN. You will start to understand why Louisville is not the best place for you to spend the money you still owe the Goldman family for murdering their son.

We would like to take this opportunity to say that we always liked Kato. He reminded us of Gilligan with a libido and a very open view of sexuality and recreational drugs. He's our kinda guy. If you hadn't murdered anybody, we'd probably come to your house to watch him lay out in a Speedo. We also want to say that we don't like your late ex-wife's sisters much. We understand that grief makes people do and say horrible things, but come on.... That Denise chick had a head start on Bitter before you ever came along.

We think you should be in jail, but you're not and that's the way our system works. Good on you for having the money to buy the best defense team available. We're sure Johnny Cochran thinks of you often as he meanders the various levels of Hell looking for a scotch and water. We think the rest of them will probably get eye cancer or have their genitals rot for taking your money, but we can't really make that happen. Congratulations on your win.

You seem to have hit the wall when it comes to picking your way around a potential media nightmare. First there was the book that isn't a book. Then there was the TV Interview that didn't happen over the book that isn't a book (which was about the thing you didn't do, but if you had...). Now, you've been summarily dismissed from one of Louisville's finest eating establishments. So we're going to help you out a little. Mostly, this is so we don't see you on TV or the AOL homepage as much. But in a rare stab at good karma, it's also so we can help a teensy bit.

Take out a map of the U.S. Any size will do, although we know first-hand that past the age of 40, the larger the better. Amen? Now, find California. Draw a heavy black line around California and then put a large X through everything north of San Francisco. The part of California left is safe for you to golf in without suffering what you went through in Louisville.

Now, go all the way over to Florida...no, all the way... Find Miami. Draw a tiny circle around Miami. You can golf and eat in that circle. Everything else is off-limits. Don't go to Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana (except New Orleans, if they ever rebuild it), any Carolina, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Indiana...oh hell. Just stay in those two areas and you'll be good.

It is partly a race thing. So you can call Al Sharpton, if he's not busy pulling his foot out of his mouth over Mormons not being Christians (an assertion we think is theologically sound, but still a horrible thing to say into a microphone when you are the High Priest Of You Can't Say That). But mostly, it's a You Got Away With Murder Thing. We know you did it. You know you did it.

And y'all just cain't eat here no more. K? Thanks, hun.

We wish you a low handicap on the course and firsthand knowledge of how it feels to be almost beheaded.

Much Love,

The After Therapy Editorial Staff