t was another surprise ending for The Bachelor, though this one was a little more Crying Game and a little less America’s Sweethearts. The question had been hanging in the air like a flatulent eagle all week: Would bachelor Andrew Firestone choose spunky Kirsten, whose ass he’d been blatantly checking out since the beginning of the season and who jealous former contestants gossiped was carrying his baby? Or would it be Jen, the slightly less stunning drama queen favored by the show’s viewers and the 23 catty former contestants who lay slain on the battlefield of bogusly contrived romance? Oh shit, dog.

When the answer finally came, it was with the bang of 25 pancake-makeupped jaws hitting the floor in unison. In an unprecedented and possibly illegal move, Firestone passed up both Kirsten and Jen to give his final rose, and we guess a marriage proposal, to former Bachelor star Aaron Buerge.

Asked on-camera what he was thinking when he made such an unorthodox choice, Andrew smiled to the audience and beamed proudly.

“Are you kidding, all those bitches is crazy!�

At that point viewers at home went berserk, throwing chairs and Kleenex boxes around like disappointed apes. In the background, Jen and Kristen held each other’s hair back as they vomited in tandem into a bucket of champagne.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not gay. I just couldn’t handle hanging out with those crazy bitches any longer,� Firestone confided. “If I hear one more girl talk about what font she’d use on wedding invitations, I swear to God I’m going to go all American Psycho on everybody. Shit! Anyway, I met Aaron backstage one night when he was cruising for some rejected bachelorette skank, and we really hit it off. We talked about handguns and the Red Sox, and not once did he bring up floral arrangements. It was the best time I’ve had in months.

“That’s when I realized marrying any girl desperate enough to let a gameshow determine her mate for life would be a huge boner. Woo, dodged a bullet with that one!� Firestone exclaimed, exchanging a high-five with Buerge. “Talk about ‘Until me wrapping my lips around a shotgun barrel does us part’! Damn!�

Buerge, star of The Bachelor season two, ended up not getting married to that season’s winner Helene Eksterowicz, invalidating the gift certificate to Crate & Barrel that was provided courtesy of the show.

“Yeah, things with me and Helene didn’t work out. After the excitement of the show had worn off, I realized all the bright lights and pressure made her seem better than she was. Kind of like on the old Wheel of Fortune when the winner would have all that money to spend, and they’d get the bedroom set with the porcelain Dalmatians. It seems like a good idea at the time. But when you get home, what in the hell are you going to do with a set of life-sized porcelain Dalmatians?�

Irate viewers expecting to see one woman’s heart crushed on national television, not two, flooded ABC’s switchboards with complaints, but Firestone insists it was all for the best.

“Are you kidding me? Aaron saved my life back there. I felt like I was headed down a dark tunnel with no way to turn around. Then Aaron pulled up in a sweet convertible, or whatever the analogy is, and saved my ass. I could kiss that dude. Not literally though, just ‘cuz he wears my ring doesn’t mean nothing but we’re buds. I go strictly for the easy poontang, as the last six weeks should have made clear.�

he United States Presidential Warning System (or “Terra Box� as it is fondly known around the White House, a tongue-in-cheek reference to the president’s speech impediment) reached its highest level Tuesday, signifying a major presidential gaffe or screwjob is impending. This news immediately scrambled foreign government officials, environmental groups and talk-show writers nationwide, who entered their own highest states of readiness and/or dread.

The little-known Presidential Warning System has been in place since the 1960’s, but it quickly fell out of favor during the Nixon presidency. Aides kept finding the siren-like device hidden in desk drawers or crammed beneath sound-deadening mattresses in the Lincoln bedroom over the course of Nixon’s term, and records indicate it was later disconnected under questionable circumstances involving a bottle of tequila and a fire axe. Efforts were made to bring the system back on-line during former president Ronald Regan’s first term, but upon being turned on the device immediately let out an eardrum-shattering blurt before quickly overheating. It then caught fire and had to be put out with a shoe.

The nation operated without a Presidential Warning System during the Bush Sr. and Clinton administrations, as the device reminded George Bush Sr. too much of his childhood nemesis, the board game Operation, and President Clinton found it seriously hampered his social life.

The current siren-less incarnation of the device, consisting of a black box covered in lighted rectangles that are color-coordinated to the various levels of presidential “terra,� was brought online at the start of the latest Bush presidency. The new system was even praised by the president himself early in his term, when he said of the device: “I made it to the fourth level last night. Take that, Simon.�

Tuesday the system registered an alert status of red, which according to the device’s manual translates to “Holy Shit� written next to a picture of a little stick man with a gun in his mouth. However, officials cannot say for certain how many times Bush has “bagged a red� since being elected, since Tuesday was also the day a White House staffer discovered the device holding up a candle in the presidential bathroom and no one was certain how long it had been missing.

“While this may seem like an opportune time to panic, it is important to point out that the red bulb on the device appears to be nearly burnt out,� explained system designer Elwood Bond. “This is a good sign that we’ve been on red alert for most of the last two years, so this is more a ‘business-as-usual’ kind of doom than anything.�

Asked if the system might be calibrated too sensitively, given that highest level of impending doom was continuously lit, Bond answered that the system really wasn’t designed with a Bush-caliber president in mind.

“I set up the system so it would go red only in dire circumstances, like when Bush Sr. approved the CDC sending samples of anthrax, botulism and West Nile to Iraq in the early 90’s, or when we gave them the helicopters they used to gas the Kurds in 1988. Or really any time after the Shah fell in Iran and we were providing Saddam and the Iraqis with arms, intelligence and free money to help them invade Iran. All those are red-level events. Maybe orange. But Bush Jr. goes red just taking a piss.�

But is there any way to tweak the system so that Bush isn’t consistently in the red?

“I dunno,� replied Bond, scratching his head. “It does have an ‘off’ switch.�

I definitely need to hire out as a Fourth of July consultant. If you think you don't need a Fourth of July consultant, you've never experienced a Bricks Fourth of July, end of story.

It's about a month away, I know, but when you want to make it a memorable good time, you've got to plan well in advance. It's just not smart to put a houseful of fireworks and a truckload of Miller Genuine Draft together without more than a little planning. Now usually I'm a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of guy, even if the ass of the pants rips out and you get kicked out of the kid's birthday party, but hey, it's not like I knew the kid anyway—nothing ventured, nothing gained; but when it comes to Fourth of July, Omar Bricks turns into a rocket scientist of event planning.

It's more than just explosions and drunken fight after drunken fight—shit, if I didn't have that on a daily basis I'd hang up my hat and go home already. The way I see it, Fourth of July is the world's celebration of pure, uncut freedom, and for me there's nothing better worth celebrating. Hanging out with buddies, sipping beers, and trading swimming pool-building tips is like a fart in freedom's face. Omar Bricks don't fart in anyone's face unless they personally asked for it or take out those little opera glasses in public, which is the same as the former in my book.

It takes more than a month just to save up enough money to rent the arena. Why go through the trouble and expense of renting an arena? Well, you might as well ask what's the point in having a demolition derby—you can't hold it in your backyard, don't argue with that because I've tried. And the demolition derby is the big part of the Bricks Fourth of July gathering, and in the tight-money times I haven't been able to rent an arena I find an unguarded farmer field is a fantastic substitute. If you check with your friends who fake crop circles on the weekends they can probably tell you which places are frequently unsupervised and have the best tire traction.

Then you have to select the special car, I like to nickname it the "doom buggy". The best way, I've discovered, is to hold a little private lottery the night before—if you have one hundred ping pong balls, a giant hamster ball, and a tuxedo, have a little fun with it, it's like a party in itself. Then whatever number wins that's your car, since they'll all have numbers painted on them at the derby. I would recommend keeping it something only you know. Sure, you can let everybody in on the secret, but when most people find out the car's trunk is full of fireworks the volunteers to drive it dry up real fast.

No demolition derby is complete without a lot of beer, whether you're a spectator or a driver. Still, with luck you'll get flipped over by the car with the bulldozer prod welded on the front early and can get a seat right up front in time for the first explosion to hit the doom buggy. Man, that's Fourth of July. Our founding fathers would have been proud enough to piss themselves.

That's just my favorite part, of course. Some Bricks partygoers love shaving the heads of the derby losers. Others love the swimming pool full of Thunderbird, throwing flammable things on the bonfire, or the wrestle Lil Duncan contest. I'm not complaining, I love every part of it, even the swarming of S.W.A.T. team members to close the whole thing down gets me kind of misty-eyed. Like America, there's a little something for everyone. Bricks out.

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