I have contracted Palintitus A Serious Affliction

Dear Editor:


I have been exposed to and suffer from an extreme case of Palintitus or middle aged insanity. It started two years ago when John McCain selected Sarah Palin as his running mate for the 2008 election. For me it started with just a glazed over look of complete confusion as Sarah’s launch into the Presidential arena started to take a foothold. My catatonic state was soon replaced with a special kind of folksy warmth when the hockey mom started winking at us and stirring up emotions in all of the McCain supporters and his opponents as well. For a short moment I had started to believe that maybe John McCain had struck political gold and just maybe … he had found a perfect running mate. My violently changing symptoms of Palintitus quickly reversed course as she began her tour of interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric. As a concerned citizen I was confused, amused and a little abused all at the same time but I was starting to understand where things were headed. The awkward comments about watching the Russians from along the Alaskan border and the first few complaints about being misguided by her political handlers were starting to surface. I began to feel disappointed to know that the train wreck was soon inevitable. I asked myself “ Do we really want to have someone that is lacking the conversational intelligence or political savvy needed to be just a heartbeat away from the Presidency? What about when we had Dan Quayle as the V.P. ? He too, seemed to be lacking the political savvy for the national spotlight but it didn’t stop him from getting to be Vice President. “ My bout with Palintitus almost seemed to be cured when the Obama / Biden ticket won the election. I figured that Sarah Palin would slowly fall back into the role of Governor of Alaska and my symptoms would go away as well. They never did entirely go away as I was subject to frequent flare ups as Sarah Palin continued to appear in the spotlight of the mainstream media. These appearances included family squabbles, finger pointing, accusations, and rumors of a book deal. There was the Governor’s resignation and the launch of the book tour. I had been nervous about contracting the H1N1 virus but the potent Palintitus virus has now unleashed its fury on me and I have never been more sick to my stomach than I am today. As thousands of people continue to cling to the folksy warmth of the winking hockey mom by buying her book they continue the spread of the Palintitus virus. I am concerned that very soon it will reach pandemic proportions and corrupt the minds of our society. The anti venom for Palintitus will be created when we refocus the spotlight onto candidates with real ideas and political visions that can lead the United States of America and everything that it stands for. Excuse me but I don’t feel well at all. I am going to wash my hands, gargle and spit out the germs of this terrible virus.

Paul Bunyan hops across Minnesota

Last week in Minnesota local farmer Turlie Wipseed found this extra large work boot in his pasture while

pheasant hunting. Turlie believes that the legendary outdoorsman Paul Bunyan lost the boot while catnapping on the Wipseed farmland. "That's not the only thing I found from Mr. Bunyan's visit to the farm" Turlie commented. " We think there are a few signs that he was also accompanied by Babe his giant blue ox. I won't go into a lot of detail but it looks like Babe has been getting a lot of fiber these days. Our flat pasture

land has turned into a mountainous rolling range of aromatic splendor."

As a payback for the damage to the pasture Mr. Wipseed has been single handedly transporting the lost work boot all across Minnesota in order to gain a psychological foothold over Mr Bunyan. A replacement boot would take nearly three years to be manufactured and put the entire eastern population of Minnesota back to work at union wages. Mr. Bunyan has been hopping around the region furiously looking to find Wipseed and the lost boot. It has been recently reported that Mr. Bunyan's rage is increasing as he has now developed a serious bunion on his now naked foot. Bunyan's bunion measures 100 feet from top to bottom.

Good Luck to you Mr. Wipseed and the citizens of Minnesota as you put one foot in front of the other in resolving this issue.

Snap Crackle Drop - Bombs Away

So Halloween was not what I expected. A few kids showed up for some free candy, my neighbor fired up his chain saw a few times, and I twisted my back while lifting the bowl of candy. There was a small twinge and a small crack of the spine and it seemed pretty innocent. I decided to take the old fashioned ... "walk it off" gameplan and didnt think much of it. After about an hour of walking it off and passing out more candy I finally had to lay down. This is where things started to get interesting. The small twinge had found the perfect place to pinch the nerve in my lower back and cause me to wince and groan while muttering a few expletives. A sound sleep for the evening was not going to happen. About an hour into my tossing and turning on the bed and I realized that nature was calling me to the bathroom.

Have you ever tried to literally crawl out of bed with a pinched nerve in your back and tried to hold your bladder until you could hoist yourself over the porcelain ? The back pain was bad enough that I seriously considered just letting the bladder go and dealing with the wetness issue later. But I did not give up the fight as I crawled in agony to the bathroom and eventually took my position of relief above the pot. The adventure back to the bed was not as threatening but still caused for a lot of teeth gritting and a few verbal "f-bombs" dropped along the way. Might I add that there were "s-bombs" as well. It went something like this .....
"f-bomb, s-bomb, f-bomb, f-bomb, f-bomb ...... s-bomb, f-bomb, holy s-bomb that f-bomb hurts like a mother f-bomber. Repeat that phrase like 8 or 9 times and you get the idea of what my Halloween night was like.

I made it to work on Monday and walked around all day like Bill Buckner hobbling down the baseline. On Tuesday I was still walking like I had a corn cobb jammed up my arse but the pinched nerve pain was gone.
Today I feel better but an occassional twinge every 30 minutes or so is a small reminder that the nerve in my back is truly in charge of my destiny. At any second the nerve can send you to your knees and have you contemplating your serenade of f-bombs.

Next year my wife can pass out the Halloween candy and I will drink Martinis.