Postcards from The Pug Bus

Lifting a satirical leg on popular culture

Persons in the Ether

Question of the Week

Passion or stability?

MD

Mavis Drouk, emotional escrow officer

Believed to be near Harrisburg, PA

Stability. Passion is what people choose when they still believe a staircase can be made entirely of sparks. Stability may not sing outside your window, but it does remember where the insurance cards are.

RC

Rufus Clenn, freelance thunder consultant

Last reported west of Tulsa, OK

Passion, obviously. Stability is just boredom wearing shoes with arch support. I want life to arrive late, smell faintly of lightning, and explain nothing until several lamps have been broken.

NV

Nora Vell, deputy curator of small regrets

Possibly sheltering in Eugene, OR

Passion is useful for beginnings, stability for the paperwork afterward. I prefer both in moderation, which is another way of saying I would like to be ruined briefly and then driven home safely.

Celebrity Shockers

Jennifer Lopez Introduces Combination Grill and Small Animal Crematorium

20 years philmaggitti

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MALIBU – Jennifer Lopez, whom People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has attempted to make the butt of its anti-fur campaign, responded by announcing the intro-
duction of the Jennifer Lopez Combination Grill and Small Animal Crematorium.

“Each year the bodies of hundreds of thousands of perfectly healthy small animals harvested for the fashion industry go to waste,” said Ms. Lopez in a prepared statement. “The Jennifer Lopez Combination Grill and Small Animal Crematorium addresses this issue humanely.”

According to Ms. Lopez, small-animal breeders, who previously disposed of harvested stock as best they could, can now enjoy an extra income stream from the sale of chinchilla, mink, and other fur-bearing animals for human consumption. Her combination grill and small animal crematorium also allows breeders to dispose of excess harvest on premise without having to burden local landfills.

What’s more, the bone particles that remain after this self-cleaning product has consumed the harvested animals make an excellent mulch for the garden.

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“At a time when mad cow disease and avian flu have consumers worried about our food supply,” said Ms. Lopez, “mink, chinchilla, and other fur-bearing animals offer a safe alternative to meat lovers. Not only can you look good wearing mink, you can feel good about eating it, too.”

Available at Home Depot and other family centres, the electric-powered Jennifer Lopez Combination Grill and Small Animal Crematorium retails for $1,199 as a complete unit. The grill can also be purchased separately for $699. Each grill is accompanied by The Jennifer Lopez Fur-Is-Fun Cookbook, which contains dozens of handy recipes—from mink kabobs to marinated chinchilla burgers.

In other news, Representative Patrick J. Kennedy (D-R.I.) has been asked to play himself in director Dean Lachiusa’s Night of the Ambien Zombies.

The preceding is satire. Straight up, Skippy. No warranties are expressed or implied. For life advice, try a professional. For investment tips, try a dart board. For salvation, the gentleman in the robe has been handling that portfolio for 2,000 years.

The Pug Bus Breaking News

The Pug Bus Breaking News requires no email address, no mother's maiden name, no first pet's nickname, and no DNA sample. You simply mash the link below and read.

Deliver It

⚡ Scholars at the Royal Institute for the Advancement of Obvious Things have concluded, after eleven years of exhaustive inquiry, that people who speak at great length in meetings do not thereby become more correct. The findings have been submitted to a committee for review.

⚡ It has been determined by authorities in several jurisdictions that the phrase "I just want to be honest with you" reliably precedes the portion of the conversation one would most prefer not to have. Legislation is pending.

⚡ The Bureau of Perpetual Reassessment has announced that this is not, in fact, the most divided the nation has ever been, a distinction that continues to belong to a prior era when the disagreements concerned rather more consequential matters and people occasionally died over them.

Adverse Effects

The following lines of prose cleverly arranged as poetry may induce brief clarity, misplaced certainty, and the sense that something has already been decided without your approval ...

By seventy you know which doors you walked past without opening,
can name the rooms you never entered,
hear the echoes anyway.

Read It All

By seventy you know which doors you walked past without opening,
can name the rooms you never entered,
hear the echoes anyway.

The years do not accuse.
They simply pile up like newspapers you meant to read,
each one carrying news that is no longer news.

You think: I should have said that differently.
I should have stayed. I should have gone.
The mind is efficient this way,
filing the same cases under the same wrong headings,
finding them again at 3 a.m. in perfect order.

What surprises is not the weight of it
but the patience —
how regret waits,
how it has nowhere else to be,
how it sits across from you at breakfast
and asks for nothing,
knowing you will offer it everything
on your own.

The body slows.
The catalog does not.
You carry the unlived lives
the way old houses carry
the smell of people who are gone —
not haunting exactly,
just present,
just there,
just refusing
the simple courtesy
of leaving.