Ring. Ring.
Before answering, I checked the caller ID. You can't be too careful these days: the telecommunications ether is filled to the brim with teeth shattering annoyances.
The called ID screen brought happy news - my friend M was calling. I picked up.
"Is this an emergency?" I asked. "No" she said, with a hint of a smile in her voice. She was smiling, I'm sure, because I nearly always ask this question when old friends call. I ask because if it is an emergency - perhaps Grandma has suffered a setback or there's been an accident or Chase Manhattan has dispatched its P-90 armed shock troops to collect on an old debt - I don't want to joke, to jab, to spin like a dervish.
Wouldn't be appropriate.
But it wasn't an emergency, just a friendly call so I could say: "you know M, I've reviewed my research at The Institute and concluded that of all the talking monkey races of earth, you lesbians are the most troublesome."
"Oh?"
"Yes. The evidence is completely fabricated yet irrefutable in that special way."
"Special way?"
"Mais oui and don't interrupt. I cite your relentless yelling about Subarus, tendency towards leg-tastic hairiness, inexplicably enthusiastic viewing of 'The L Word' and fondness for films featuring women sitting in dark bars talking about u hauls."
"I love you."
"Your friendship powers are useless for I am lono, I am he and I am come to rock your monkey world, troublesome lesbian! But enough about me and my shocking research. Why'd you call?"
"Okay so I'm talking to this guy and we're getting into a good groove about the Iraq war and how criminal it is and all that and I'm thinking, right, people aren't so deluded they're breaking through, red pill, and so on. And then we get to Iran and I say something like, 'those fuckers better not start shit with Iran cause that would set things O.F.F. off and he says 'oh, I don't know about that, I think Iran is the real threat. And D, this really throws me cause all along I'm believing I'm talking with a fellow traveler only to find out he's selectively traveling. He's all for "answering the threat of Iran" - that's the phrase he used..."
"Directly from the CNN or FOX News 'war room' play set vocabulary."
"Right. Like he's a fucking pundit or the press secretary. This really disgusted me - and I mean really turned my stomach cause I realized that the shitstorm is so thick that even when we free ourselves of one downpour we're caught in another."
"It's a feedback loop my love."
"Yeah. Alright, I have a headache and I'm going to hang up now."
"To watch more 'L Word' re-runs and plot hairy world domination?"
"Fu-oh-uck you!" She said with a laugh and hung up.
Oh sweet aliens, armed with your anti-proton canons and "intellects vast, cool and unsympathetic to our concerns", won't you come and smash us into sense?
.d.