it's a man's life in the British Dental Association
"There, poor Flopsy's dead, and never called me mother. what do you think of that?"

Lemming. Lemming. Lemming of the BDA.
Lemming. Lemming. Lemming of the BD - Lemming of the BD - BD - BD - AEA.

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Way back when I was just a little bitty boy living in a box under the stairs in the corner of the basement of the house half a block from Jerry’s bait shop (you know the place). Well anyway, back then life was going swell and everything was just PEACHY! Except, of course, for the undeniable fact that every single morning my mother would make me a big ole’ bowl of sauerkraut for breakfast. Doooh, BIG BOWL OF SAUERKRAUT! EVERY SINGLE MORNING! It was driving me crazy. I said to my mom, I said “hey, mom! What’s up with all the sauerkraut?” And my dear, sweet mother, she just looked at me like a cow looks at an oncoming train. And she leaned down right next to me, and she said “IT’S GOOD FOR YOU!” And then she tied me to the wall and stuck a funnel in my mouth and force-fed me nothing but sauerkraut until I was twenty-six and a half years old. That’s when I swore that someday, someday I would get out of that basement and travel to a magical, faraway place where the sun is always shining, and the air smells like warm root beer, and the towels are oh-so fluffy. Where the shriners and the lepers play their ukuleles all day long, and anyone in the street will gladly shave your back for a nickel. Wakka wakka do doo, yeah! Well let me tell you people, it wasn’t long at all before my dream came true, because the very next day a local radio station had this contest to see who could correctly guess the number of molecules in Leonard Nemoy’s butt. I was off by three, but I still won the grand prize: that’s right, a first class, one-way ticket to Albuquerque! Albuquerque!

Oh yeah. You know, I’d never been on a real airplane before, and I’ve got to tell you, it was really great. Except that I had to sit between two large Albanian women with excruciatingly severe body odor, and the little kid in back of me kept throwing up the whole time. The flight attendants ran out of Dr. Pepper and salted peanuts, and the in-flight movie was Bio-Dome with Pauly Shore. And, oh yeah, three of the engines burned out, and we went into a tailspin, and crashed into a hillside, and the plane exploded in a giant fireball, and everybody died … except for me. You know why? ‘Cause I had my tray table up, and my seatback in the full upright position. Had my tray table up, and my seatback in the full upright position. Had my tray table up, and my seatback in the full upright position.

So I crawled from the twisted, burning wreckage. I crawled on my hands and knees for three full days, dragging along my big leather suitcase and my garment bag, and my tenor saxophone, and my 12-pound bowling ball, and my lucky, lucky, autographed, glow-in-the-dark snorkel. But finally I arrived at the world-famous Albuquerque holiday inn, where the towels are oh-so fluffy, and you can eat your soup right out of the ashtrays if you want to; it’s okay, they’re clean. Well, I checked into my room, and I turned down the A/C and I turned on the spectra vision, and I’m just about to eat that little chocolate mint on my pillow that I love so very, very much, when suddenly there’s a knock on the door. Well, now, who could that be? I say, “Who is it?” No answer. “Who IS it?” There’s no answer. “WHO IS IT?” They’re not saying anything. So finally, I go over and I open the door, and – just as I suspected – it’s some big fat hermaphrodite with a Flock of Seagulls haircut and only one nostril. Oh man, I hate it when I’m right. So, anyway, he bursts into my room, and he grabs my lucky snorkel, and I’m like “Hey, you can’t have that! That snorkel’s been just like a snorkel to me!” And he’s like, “Tough.” And I’m like, “Give it.” And he’s like, “Make me.” And I’m like, “… ‘Kay!” So I grabbed his leg and he grabbed my esophagus, and I bit off his ear, and he chewed off my eyebrows, and I took out his appendix, and he gave me a colonic irrigation; yes indeed, you better believe it. And somehow, in the middle of it all, the phone got knocked off the hook. And 20 seconds later I heard a familiar voice. And you know what it said? I’ll tell you what it said: it said, “If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and try again. If you need help, hang up and then dial your operator. “If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and try again. If you need help, hang up and then dial your operator.” in Albuquerque. Albuquerque.

Well, to cut a long story short, he got away with my snorkel. But I made a solemn vow right then and there that I would not rest; I would not sleep for an instant until the one nostriled man was brought to justice. But first I decided to go buy some donuts. So I got in my car, and I drove over to the donut shop, and I walked on up to the guy behind the counter, and he said, “Yeah, what do you want?” I said, “You got any glazed donuts?” He said, “No, we’re out of glazed donuts.” I said, “You got any jelly donuts?” And he said, “No, we’re out of jelly donuts!” I said, “You got any bavarian cream filled donuts?” He said, “No, we’re out of bavarian cream filled donuts!” I said, “You got any cinnamon rolls?” He said, “No, we’re out of cinnamon rolls.” I said, “You got any apple fritters?” He said, “No, we’re out of apple fritters!” I said, “You got any bear claws?” He said, “Wait a minute, I’ll go check.” --------- “No, we’re out of bear claws.” I said, “Well, in that case … in that case, what do you have?” He says, “All I got right now is this box of one dozen starving, crazed weasels.” I said, “Okay, I’ll take that.” So he hands me the box, and I open up the lid, and the weasels jump out and they immediately latch on to my face and start biting me all over. Oh man, they were just going nuts. They were tearing me apart. You know, I think it was just about that time that a little ditty started going through my head; I believe it went a little something like this: “DAAAH, GET ‘EM OFF ME, GET ‘EM OFF ME, OH, OH GET EM OFF, GET EM OFF, AHH, AHH, OH GOD, OH MY GOD, GET EM OFF, AHHH!” I ran out into the street with these flesh-eating weasels all over my face, waving my arms all around, and just runnin’, runnin’, runnin’, like a constipated wiener dog. And as luck would have it, that’s exactly when I ran into the girl of my dreams. Her name was Zelda. She was a calligraphy enthusiast with a slight overbite and hair the color of strained peaches. I’ll never forget the very first thing she said to me. She said, “Hey, you’ve got weasels on your face.” That’s when I knew it was true love. We were inseparable after that. We ate together, we bathed together; we even shared the same piece of mint-flavored dental floss. The world was our burrito. So we got married, and we bought us a house, and had two beautiful children: Nathaniel and Superfly. Oh we were so very, very, very happy, oh yeah. But then one fateful night, Zelda said to me, she said, “Sweetie pumpkin, do you want to join the Columbia record club?” I said, “Whoa! Hold on now baby, I’m just not ready for that kind of a commitment.” So we broke up, and I never saw her again, but that’s just the way things go, in Albuquerque. Albuquerque.

Anyway, things started really looking up for me, because about a week later, I finally achieved my lifelong dream. That’s right, I got me a part time job at The Sizzler. I even made employee of the month, after I put out that grease fire with my face. Oh yeah, everyone was pretty jealous of me after that. I was getting a lot of attitude. Okay, like one time I was out in the parking lot trying to remove my excess earwax with a golf pencil, when I see this guy, Marty, trying to carry a big old sofa up the stairs all by himself. So I say to him, I say, “Hey, you want me to help you with that?” And Marty, he just rolls his eyes and goes, “Nooo, I want you to cut off my arms and legs with a chainsaw.” So I did. And then he gets all indignant on me. He’s like, “Hey, man, I was just being sarcastic!” Well that’s just great, how was I supposed to know that? I’m not a mind reader, for crying out loud. Besides, now he’s got a really cute nickname: Torso Boy, So what’s he complaining about. Say, that reminds me of another amusing anecdote. This guy comes up to me in the street and he tells me he hasn’t had a bite in three days. Well, I knew what he meant, but just to be funny I took a big bite out of his jugular vein. And he’s yelling and screaming and bleeding all over, and I’m like, “Hey, c’mon, don’t you get it?” But he just kept rolling around on the sidewalk, bleeding and screaming. You know, completely missing the irony of the whole situation. Man, some people just can’t take a joke, you know? Anyway, um … um, where was I? … I kind of lost my train of thought. … Well, okay anyway, I know it’s kind of a roundabout way of saying it, but, I guess the whole point I’m trying to make is: I … HATE … SAUERKRAUT! That’s all I’m really trying to say. And, by the way, if one day, you happen to wake up and find yourself in an existential quandary, full of loathing and self-doubt, and racked with the pain and isolation of your pitiful, meaningless existence, at least you can take a small bit of comfort in knowing that somewhere out there in this crazy ole’ mixed up universe of ours, there’s still a little place called Albuquerque. Albuquerque.

Albuquerque. Albuquerque. Albuquerque. Albuquerque. Albuquerque. Albuquerque. Albuquerque. Albuquerque. I said A, A … L, L … B, B … U, U … … … … QUERQUE.

1 Albuquerque. Albuquerque. 2 Albuquerque. Albuquerque.

3 Albuquerque. Albuquerque. 4 Albuquerque. Albuquerque.

5 Albuquerque. Albuquerque. 6 Albuquerque. Albuquerque.

7 Albuquerque. Albuquerque. 8 Albuquerque. Albuquerque.

9 Albuquerque. Albuquerque. 10 Albuquerque. Albuquerque.

A l b u q u e r q u e … …

p.s.