I've Fallen, and I'm Missing Survivor!

Help me!

Oh sweet lord, please help me up!

I'm old and I've fallen down and I'm afraid I may have shattered my pelvis on the cold, unforgiving tile of this floor! And I'm missing the beginning of Survivor!

No doubt they'll find me here in a few days, stuck to this floor like a squashed bug, once the smell grows strong enough to overpower my neighbor Gladys and her hellish brood of cats. Then some nice orderlies will come in and roll me onto a stretcher, my pissed pant-suit long since gone bitterly dry and packed with the pea-green product of my evacuated bowels. And they'll have a good laugh at poor old me, lying dead on the floor with no idea how this season's exciting Survivor midseason finale shaped up, the cold glint of unknowing flecked within my glassy eyes!

How cruel to live a life with no finale! Eighty-seven years and Edith Walker is cancelled to make way for a midseason replacement. How sad to live such an anticlimactic life. If only I could have waited another fifty-four minutes before taking my catastrophic tumble, I could have died a fulfilled woman!

I'm afraid I'll never get to see which of those nice young men ate the rat testicles.

Alas, I keep beating my cane on the floor, hoping to thwart my Survivor-missing fate, but I don't think Mr. Humphreys downstairs has even noticed. Probably too busy watching Survivor, absorbed in its midseason-ending magnificence. I can just imagine it. Eliza dancing a celebratory dance as Twila is voted off the island. Oh, no sense in torturing myself; the show's nearly half-over now. But by some cruel fate I've fallen within view of the bathroom clock, so I know by the minute just how much of my precious Survivor has ticked away.

Maybe if I press my ear closer against the floor I can overhear some of the show on Mr. Humphreys' television. Hmm. Nothing but muffled voices. It doesn't even sound like Survivor. Hard to be certain, but this isn't much like how the show sounded the episode after I'd dropped my hearing aid in the toilet. What could that old fool be watching? I bet it's Murder, She Wrote. I'm afraid I've long overestimated Mr. Humphreys, that tasteless old fart.

If only I'd thought to set up a series of mirrors in the hallway so I could see the television from the bedroom floor! That oversight seems foolish in retrospect. As well as ever turning off the TV in the first place. You never know what can happen right before Survivor, putting the TV knob cruelly out of reach! I should have thought to just turn my hearing aid off—that's like having a remote control with me all the time, and one that works through walls and around corners even if you're laid out on the bedroom floor like a pancake on the griddle.

Oh, how foolish I've been. What a foolish, wasted life. Hopefully the next old bag that takes my place in this apartment will learn from my cautionary tale and never turn off the television, lest she pick an inconvenient time to be voted off the island of life!

Oh, my. Is that a rat? Well, at least I won't starve to death.

Christmas is Cancelled Due to Lack of Interest
I know this is going to hit some of you hard, like little Ruby Gilcrest of Foley Hills, West Virginia, and George W. Bush, but Christmas is cancelled this year. Dump it all on me if you want, but you brought it on yourselves. At least you adults... (12/20/04)

Man, That Clown Kicked My Ass
Talk about your shitty weekends. I've heard of Tijuana coke mule vacations that went better than this. What can go wrong at a parade, right? Try everything. It all started out well enough. Nice day, sun's out, chicks in majorette outfits, right?... (12/13/04)

All She Wants to Do is Dance
Exhibit A: Don Henley's 1984 hit "All She Wants to Do Is Dance" Alternate-Universe Song Titles: "The Way," "She's Oblivious to Her Surroundings," or "Bitch Snorted All My Traveler's Cheques Up Her Nose" Separated at... (9/20/04)

Your Candor is Sickening
Please, George, watch that disgusting mouth of yours. Nobody cares if it's the truth, they don't want to hear it anyway. The truth is not always beautiful, George, and in this case, it's positively sickening. Do you really think anybody wants to... (6/28/04)