wo hours after being promised a liver from a recently-deceased organ donor, terminal liver patient Marcy Quelode refused to accept the liver, declaring that it did not meet her standards.

"I don't think it's out of line to say this liver is unsatisfactory," Quelode told her doctors and EMTs who had brought the liver in an emergency helicopter from Illinois.

"See?" Quelode said, pointing out thin, veiny fissures in the organ as they presented it to her, per her request. "Not a top of the line model, to say the least. It's not bite marks or anything, but as far as I'm concerned it's not far from it. I'll pass."

Quelode's doctors assured the woman the surface scarring or blemishes were just cosmetic defects, but Quelode said if they didn't bother the doctors then they could have it, but she wanted a better one.

"I know you're trying to save my life, and I appreciate it and all," the ill patient told transplant surgeons, "but if I let you talk me into it right now, I'm just going to wake up and regret it tomorrow. I've been through this before—well, not this. I was never happy with my breast augmentation surgery, though."

Earlier this year Quelode was diagnosed with Primary Biliary Cirrhosis, some kind of liver disease. Without a liver transplant, it is highly probable the disease will continue to shut down her liver until she dies from liver failure. However, the immediacy of the situation, according to Quelode, is no reason to accept substandard donor organs.

"Despite the warnings of doctors and the rolling of eyes while saying, 'Oh-kay!' I believe that I can do better. All my life I have taken 'good enough' when I deserved much better. This liver is surely 'good enough'—the donation was a kind gesture by a man with a wonderful heart. Unfortunately, I need a liver and he apparently kept shoddy maintenance on that."

Her condition worsening, Quelode was put back on the waiting list for a new liver, with the hand-penciled footnote "Grade B or Better Only." Doctors, exasperated and annoyed, tossed the refused liver back in the medical cooler bowing and adding, "Certainly, your majesty. Watch us jump to it. Jesus."

Immediately the doctors and EMTs left the room and waited a couple of minutes just outside, then went back in, but Quelode recognized the cooler and told them she wanted a brand new liver, no more shenanigans. More frustrated, doctors exited again and had Quelode returned to the list.

"We gave the liver to some guy in Iowa," said transplant surgeon Yurgen Pose. "He was doing fine with it for hours, then some big-mouth on the operating team mentioned the lady rejecting it, now he's all on the phone with us everyday asking what's wrong with it. What a pain in the ass. Why did I become a doctor? I could have been a NASCAR driver. I guarantee you Jeff Gordon doesn't have to listen to shit like this all day."

As Quelode's serum bilirubin levels continue to rise, edging her closer to the end, she asks to be included in everyone's prayers and hopes that everyone will fill out their organ donor cards, especially non-drinkers who exercise but infrequently engaged in rough contact sports.

neaking up on an enduring place in music history like an albino in a snowstorm, the platinum-selling English grunge band Bush has dropped completely from public memory in record time, a study found Tuesday. Previous record holders The Escape Club could not be reached for comment, as nobody could remember who was in the band or what they looked like.

Bush rose to fame behind the success of their 1994 album Sixteen Stone, which sold over 15 million copies worldwide and settled hundreds of bets over how long it would take alternative rock to turn into Def Leppard. Bristling under the weight of overwhelmingly poor reviews and tired of not being taken seriously by anyone over the age of fourteen, Bush donned indie producer Steve Albini like a credibility hat for the release of their second album, 1996's Razorblade Suitcase. Despite sporting an title that Spinal Tap thought was artsy, the album was another critical failure, sending the band into a deep prettyboy funk. They returned in 1999 with The Science of Things, an attempt to succeed where U2 had failed, by half-heartedly aping popular trends in techno music and alienating every last one of their fans.

Bush drew massive ire from music critics and hipsters on both continents for their 2000 release We're Nirvana, then promptly dropped off the face of the planet when the record-buying public lost its taste for generic bands copying good bands and developed a passion for homogeneously generic bands and rich white teens pretending to be angry and black.

Tuesday's report included a poll of over 3,000 households, none of whom could recall the grunge quartet in any meaningful fashion. Polls of the commune staff and random yokels on the street provided similar results.

Professional man-on-the-street Rodney Brown came the closest to remembering the band with his comment "What was their big song? Crazy Train?"

Others were not so lucky. commune reporter Lil Duncan feigned memory of the band with her claim to have toured with Bush as a groupie in the mid-90's, but her stories of wild debauchery and pharmaceutical excess quickly revealed the band in question to actually have been Scottish uberdorks The Proclaimers.

Other staff members confused the band with similarly forgotten, yet not completely eclipsed pop acts such as The Crash Test Dummies, Fun Lovin' Criminals and Frente.

"I got it. They were the ones with the two drummers, and the guitar player would always get naked for the last song," convenience store clerk Rasham Levin nodded with barrel-scraping conviction.

Whoever the members of Bush were could not be reached for comment as of press time.

"You don't have to be stupid to work here, but you're never going to get workman's comp with that attitude."

I don't like mechanics. Every time my car breaks down and I take it in they asked me if I did something and they already know the answer. "Did you do the regular maintenance thingmajig we told you?" Duh, dumbass, if I did it do you think I would be back here two days later? Then they tell me I should get a road plan for towing and shit since I'm in the shop every week. Nice job, jerk-offs. You don't sell somebody something by making them feel stupid. Unless you're selling those "For Dummies" books, I guess.

I have lots of those "For Dummies" books, because they're my favorites. I've got Surfing for Dummies, Sex for Dummies, Jingoism for Dummies, Safari for Dummies, and Antidisestablishmentarianism for Dummies. I didn't even get through the cover for that one. Best of all, I got all the books for free, since I got Shoplifting for Dummies. I should have picked that one up first, but it's easy to second-guess after the arrest.

The worst one I ever got was Self-Esteem Building for Dummies. I read the whole book and only felt more like an idiot. After all, only a real shithead would finish a book for dummies.

The dummies books are real popular now. They even have people copying them. They have books for idiots, books for novices, books for attention-deficit disorder sufferers, all kinds of things. There's probably a better way to do it. I sure wouldn't want someone calling me a dummy, if I weren't such a retard. So there's a whole market out there you can tap into. I would call them "Books for Smart Dudes Who Have to Explain Things to Dummies All the Time." You just re-print the same book. The only difference is you put in stuff before it, like, "Okay, you and me already know this, but pretend this total knob asks you to put it in simple terms for him…" That way no one's feelings get hurt and you feel pretty suave and get all the same information anyway.

If I was going to do a book for dummies, I would figure out why they're dummies. I could call it, Why You're a Dummy. Or Why You Can't Buy a Regular Book. The whole thing is a huge scam. It's all the same stuff dummies wouldn't read because they were intimidated before. In fact, I'm going to make a fortune because I'm going to reprint all my columns and just put "for Dummies" on the end of the titles. And charge them, 'cause dummies will pay for anything. It will help me pay back for all that merchandise they want reimbursement for.

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