An M&M's Chance In Hell

For some reason in this wondrous age of information I can't seem to get straight on the news. Most of the the big headlines come courtesy of my wife's translation and that's where it all goes bung. Take for example this M&M guy. "Did you hear, the guy who found the golden M&M is a prisoner--they locked him up for cooking crack in his house." How ironic I thought, you wind up in the Penal System for committing a crack violation--and then spend your sentence worrying about "crack-violations" being committed on you. Believe me the cheap crack jokes were coming fast and furious, but then I found out it wasn't crack at all, it was Meth, (not the rich comic soil, that Crack is) --screw it, jokes don't grow on trees--meth, crack, paddywhack, give the Bone a break.

Then, whaddaya know, I find out that the M&M Millionaire is right here in our "local" pokey. So much for the rest of the killer M&M jokes--I had a million of Ôem. You see, I'm all the hard-boiled rebel journalist when it comes to taking potshots at OJ or John Rocker, but when the target is right down the street, I'm more of what you might call a "wuss." This guy watched a million dollars turn into a 16 ounce bag of bupkus--I don't want to rile him. The sound of laughter is not worth a sound beating.

Another bizarre example of this kind of home broadcast came a few weeks back. The wife hollers from upstairs, "hurry and turn to channel 4." I found the remote and flipped over just in time to hear "we'll have more on the frightening story as more details become available." "What was the terrifying story?" I hollered back. "The Plague." "What?" "Didn't you hear? They found the Plague' in Washington." "Washington D.C.?" "No--Washington Dixie." "Whaddaya mean they found the Plague? What kind of Plague?" "The Bubonic Plague," she said condescendingly, like it should have been perfectly obvious. "It's going around in Washington," she went on, "I think some guy died." Hmm, the Bubonic Plague, I thought to myself, picturing swarms of infected rats advancing like the black shadow of doom across the Walmart parking lot. "We got any of that Vitamin C left?"

I spent the rest of the evening desperately surfing the channels for more information about the terrifying story and was rewarded by an amazing amount of "Diddley." After a restless night of rat-related nightmares, I stole through the early dawn light and stole my next-door-neighbor's copy of the Spectrum. (They're snowbirds--they're almost never home.) I thrashed it cover to cover and was rewarded by an equally amazing amount of "Squat." (You'd think a local outbreak of the Bubonic Plague would make the paper). After her standard lecture about the evils of theft, my wife took a closer look at the paper. Nothing.

Plagued by this paucity of plague-related info I grilled her about the news report. "I told you, they found the Plague in Washington and it's being spread by fleas and mosquitoes." At this point I really wished I'd never read Albert Camus' book "The Plague." The upshot of the book is that the Plague is really, really bad and that the people who don't die, leave town on a dead run. Confused, I turned once again to the tube, flipped around the Salt Lake stations, CNN--not a word. For the love of God, somebody tell me something about the damn "Plague." I have children.

As the day wore on, the whole terrible thing faded from my mind, but it was all brought back with frightening urgency when later that evening I found a dead bird in my driveway. This was the first time I'd encountered a dead "anything" in my driveway, and the timing couldn't have been worse. I made sure the kids were safely in the house and cautiously approached the unfortunate critter to find it surrounded by ants and flying bugs--Oh my God, this is where my babies play--I've got to do something. I informed my wife of my discovery and naturally she freaked. She ran in the house and grabbed everything from Raid to Windex. After I'd nuked the area with an arsenal of sprays and squirts, I soon learned of the rest of my wife's plan.

It was kind of like that great scene from "To Kill A Mockingbird," where Atticus shoots the rabid dog in the street, except instead of Gregory Peck with a rifle, it was me with both arms wrapped in hefty bags, wearing a mask my wife had constructed out of dental floss and a maxi-pad. I put up a fuss about dressing up like a freak, but to be honest, the plague is something I really don't have time for in my life right now. "Honey, do you have any of those maxi-pads with wings?" Fortunately, as it turned out, that night was "garbage" night. So I double checked my anti-plague gear, waited for nightfall and then crept out to the curb and deposited the bubonic bird in the can that belongs to my least favorite neighbor. This guy's a miserable old pain in the ass--I'm tellin' ya. President of my "home-owner's association." Our "association privileges" include cable and a guy with a leaf-blower and this guy thinks he's George Patton. About the time I was checking the paper to find out something about the M&M guy, there was a story on the plague--the "septicemic" plague. I was all set to make terrible fun of my wife, when I read that Bubonic and Septicemic are pretty much the same old plague--she's off the hook and thankfully the guy who died is also doing much better.

Wives aren't the only newscasters to watch out for. I was waiting for my friend Dave to show up to a rehearsal and when I finally called, he told me he was late because he was watching a news special about an incredible scientific breakthrough that was going to change the face of medicine as we know it. "Didn't you hear the President talking about it?" he was incredulous. "He said something like--the day will soon come when our children will think of cancer, the same way our generation thinks about bell-bottoms."

Wow, I thought, so what's the deal, now? "Oh my hell," he said, "it's going to revolutionize everything. I guess they've identified some gene that works wonders. It'll be possible to do anything now--they can collect the genetic information necessary to grow you a whole new head, from a small sample of your stool. It's limitless--they can now clone a sheep by scraping a little wax off a dixie cup. We're on the threshold of a glorious new age." "Wow, you're kidding that's great." The next morning I eagerly snapped up my neighbor's newspaper to read all about it. Not a word.