n American Airlines flight from San Jose to Tokyo was quarantined on the tarmac at the Tokyo airport last week when five passengers aboard showed symptoms of being obese.

"I was sitting next to one of them," claimed passenger Roger Mickle. "And he was going on and on about how he just couldn't keep the weight off and didn't want to get his fat ass laughed out of the gym. I'd heard about that kind of shit on the news and thought I should notify a stewardess. I hear it's some kind of epidemic these days."

Some observers have called the event an overreaction on the part of a Japanese government fearful of American obesity spreading to their relatively thin nation. Emergency vehicles met the plane on the runway in hopes of containing the threat, but all passengers were later released when it was discovered that the five were merely fat as hell.

"Oh yeah, they were pretty fat," said Jim Roache, a passenger in first class. "One of them was even fat as fuck. But obese? I leave that for the doctors to decide. I'd hate to call somebody obese and have them go on some kind of cake-eating rampage when it was a misunderstanding and they were just 'fucking fat'."

Tokyo officials issued a statement after the incident, explaining Japan's fear of American-style obesity. Though no conclusive scientific evidence has surfaced to suggest obesity is contagious, many researchers believe the American lifestyle and diet, major precursors for obesity, can be spread through direct exposure.

"These trans-pacific flights have to be watched very carefully," explained Japan's Health Minister Chikara Sakaguchi. "If you know what to look for, say the stain from a French fry on a blouse, or the glazed-yet-satiated look in a passenger's eye, you can spot the warning signs before this epidemic is spread across the ocean."

Asked if Japan was in danger of an obesity outbreak, US Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona scoffed.

"Japan? Obese? Please. They're way too in love with fish to really ever weigh in with the big boys. Very few countries really have what it takes, you'd be surprised. There was that scare in Toronto, of course, but it was always just media hype. I've been to Toronto, and those baloney-eaters don't know the first thing about being obese. They wouldn't know obese if it sat down at their table and ate all the potato salad. Americans, we take them to school about being just disgustingly fat."

Regardless, Minister Sakaguchi remains cautious.

"We love the Americans, and the many gifts they have bestowed upon our culture. This, however, they can keep. No thank you, so sorry. We honor you, proud Americans, your hearts exploding like Fourth of July fireworks, but people of Japan must eat vegetables sometimes. Is… is in religion. Yes. So thank you, but please keep your big rolls of blubbery fat over there like good neighbor. Sayonara."

n a move that seems designed to stun the administration’s critics into silence, President Bush announced yesterday that in recent weeks the task of rebuilding Iraq has been turned over to the cast of the popular late-70’s ABC sitcom Three’s Company. This unprecedented move drew a total blank from the nation’s political commentators, many of whom were seen checking the calendar to see if it was April 1st. The announcement also served to quell the rising tide of allegations that Bush invaded Iraq without the slightest idea of how to build the country into a democracy or even a legitimate desire to do so, as many of the allegators (Ed. note: a larger cousin of the crocodile) were seen buying tickets for the midnight train to Canada.

“Mr. Ritter, Ms. Somers and Ms. DeWitt were carefully hand-picked by the administration for their nation-building skills and their position as some of our country’s most expendable celebrities,� explained outgoing White House press secretary Ari Fleischer. “They have the skills, and more importantly, they had the time. Mr. Knotts was not chosen for this assignment, but hid in a sack of rice on the plane and has thus far refused to be sent back.�

“We’re a nation of ass-kickers, not babysitters,� explained the president during yesterday’s press conference. “I have every confidence that Jack and Mr. Furley have this situation well under control, and are delighting the Iraqi people with hilarious sexual double-enchiladas as we speak.�

When asked if by “enchiladas,� he meant “entendres,� President Bush explained that thanks, but he wasn’t in the mood for Mexican.

“Ms. Somers has already quelled several attempted uprisings by the Shiites and Kurds, and her iron abs and hellcat personality have proved to be a more-than-adequate replacement for Saddam’s iron fist in keeping Iraq under control,� noted Fleischer. “Let’s just say Saddam wasn’t the only one who knew how to bury his problems out in the desert. In addition, thanks to Suzanne’s program of mandatory daily abdominal exercises, the people of Iraq have never looked Tripper. I mean trimmer!�

The press secretary’s clever Three’s Company-themed pun elicited guffaws among the press corps and several non-English-speaking Iraqi bystanders who hate to feel left out on a joke.

“It’s really too bad Norman Fell died back in 1998, because Mr. Roper really would have been the perfect post-Saddam leader for Iraq. I’m sure even the Iraqis would have loved him. That guy was the cat’s ass,� skylarked diehard Three’s Company fan and collectable tumbler collector Sidney Torres.

The interim government was tested last week when a local villager, whose daughter had been shot in the neck with a harpoon gun during the lawlessness that followed the fall of Baghdad, came to Ritter and DeWitt for help.

“John, this is just like the episode where you broke your tailbone teaching Chrissy the hula but you couldn’t ask Mr. Furley for a ride to the hospital because he’d think you got hurt being gay!� offered DeWitt with her trademark spunk.

“Are you saying we wrap a scarf around the harpoon and tell people it’s a new fashion craze?� questioned Ritter.

DeWitt responded with an affirmative wink and gun-cocking gesture that had the audience of Iraqi bystanders rolling with laughter, all except for the farmer and his harpooned daughter.

Ms. Somers refused to be interviewed for this story, as she had retired to a secret underground bunker with her inner circle of advisors to discuss the “rebuilding� of neighboring Iran.

I guess I'm not top dog here at the commune anymore. They got a new dog. Which sucks for me 'cause those chicken livers were about the only source of protein I get in a week. Dry, chewy, but good.

That's sort of the explanation for why I haven't been writing as much lately as I used to. That and I got fired from my regular toilet brush job. That big gay Bagel Gay Bagel told everyone to cut some of the deadweight around here and everyone thought of me first. Which is nice in a way. But that way doesn't help me any, since I'm out of a job. It worked out nicely for them because Gay got a real plastic toilet brush as a gift for Christmas from people who didn't like him, so the office has one of their own. Two people doing the same job, one doesn't ask for any pay and doesn't short out the office electricity trying to build his own lightsaber, so you do the math on who gets fired. Me, I mean.

Not like it's the first job I've been fired from. That was helping my dad fix the car. I wasn't working for real pay there either, even though I tried to hold out for a hug or something, but you could never hardball dad. I would stand by him while he put the lugnuts in my hand, at least that's what he said they were. Then he heaped on more work, making me look for a 9/16th wrench out of the toolbox and then yelling at me when I told him he didn't own a toolbox. He said it was a trick question, just to see if I could think independently. And I could, and he didn't need that in his employees. Then he was attacked by a lemur and I never found out if he got that car fixed or not.

It doesn't bother me to get fired from a job if I screwed it up somehow. It doesn't even bother me to get fired from a job I was doing really good. I imagine—hard to prove that one, I guess. What really steams my beans is getting fired from a job I didn't even have. I slept in a McDonald's for three weeks one time and they finally found me when they cleaned out the grease trap, and I got yelled at real bad and they fired me and I didn't even work there. I would have told the guy so, but you know. The grease in my mouth and all.

But besides all of that, I suppose I'll still talk to you all once in a while. I got woke up one day by a call at the Long John Silver's grease trap and it was Red Bagel, asking me where my column was, it was a month overdue. I told him I didn't work for him anymore and he called me a slacker. If I knew what one was I would have argued with him, but he gets away with insulting people by thinking up big words for insults. So he said it was no excuse for not doing my column. Sampson L. Hartwig has to write one still and he's been dead for more than a year, is the story. Well, no one's going to compare me in a bad way with a dead person. So I'll get that column done and turned into Red Bagel, Mr. Smart Insult Ass, as soon as I can think of something to write. If you come up with anything, let me know here at the commune.

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