It’s a Small World, Then I Pick Up Chalupas.

The drive-thru lane that wraps around my Taco Bell is narrow with high curbs on either side.

If you filled it with water and put multi-ethnic singing midgets along its sides, you’d have the “It’s A Small World” ride at Disneyland.

So that’s what I made it after pulling up to the pick-up window at Taco Bell yesterday.

I reversed the car all the way back to the intercom where I ordered and re-drove the fifty feet at a snail’s pace, singing the “It’s A Small World Theme” as I waved robotically down the entire length of the driveway.

This would have been okay except for the fact that my thirteen year-old son Tom was in the passenger’s seat trying to cover his face.

I guess he didn’t want to be seen by the angry Taco Bell employee I left holding our food in the pick-up window.

By the look on her face, I’m guessing it’s not every day that a customer in her drive-thru window puts his car in reverse and sings the “Small World” theme.

When I got back to the window, she asked me why I backed up.

“Well,” I said, “It’s a world of hopes, and a world of fears.”

She didn’t understand.  So I continued.

“There’s so much that we share, that it’s time we’re aware, it’s a small world after all.”

She still didn’t reply.  So I kept talking.

“It was my son’s idea.”

Our Best Work Is Behind Us: A Plan To Save This Nation

The man in front of me in Starbucks was wearing sweatpants. Then he bent over.

There, on his ass, was the word “PINK.”

After thinking the obvious (Where can I get my hands on a pair of sweatpants like that?),  I had to address a few other issues.  Like…

Why was I staring at his ass?

Why he is putting words there?

And…

Maybe our country really is collapsing.

I haven’t read enough history to know, but I think this ass-writing business is the beginning of the end.

Because no great people ever became great whilst reading each other’s asses.

It surely brought down the Romans (“Pinkus Maximus”), the Brits (“Ye Olde Pink”) and the Aztecs (“Quetzalpinkal”).

Of course, there is another side to this argument.  One steeped in the wisdom of one of our Founding Fathers.

For Benjamin Franklin believed that democracy is only as strong as its people are educated.  And thus he established the first public library so that the American people would read.

But did that include the man’s ass in Starbucks?

Maybe that’s why our libraries are so empty now.  So irrelevant.

Because we have each other’s sweatpants.

Let me leave on an uplifting note.  And that is this:

If we want to strengthen this democracy, we need to start reading again.  Reading everything.  History, biography, science and great works of literature.  But not in books.

Rather, we need to print Hamlet across the rear ends of a new line of sweatpants, one word per buttocks.  And if all those people wearing all those sweatpants come into my Starbucks on the same day and in the right order, I will read Hamlet in its entirety.  And so will you.

And those visiting our public libraries will find nothing but people in sweatpants.  At one word per person, our libraries will get somewhat crowded.  But we can use the stimulus funds to expand them.  And that means jobs.

And the Republic will be saved.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some sweatpants to buy.

I’m Tapping My Heels Together Three Times and Going to Kansas (Well, Missouri actually)

I’m flying to Kansas City next week to film the follow-up to my last trip, which didn’t go well.

I’m hoping this one goes a wee bit better.  Suggestions are welcome.

By The Time I Get to Phoenix, She’ll Be Eating Zeebas

I don’t want to be arrogant.

And I think it’s rather arrogant for a cartoonist to publicly claim credit for the influence his or her strip has had upon popular culture.

But mine has.

I refer specifically to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s opening statement at the recent gubernatorial debate in Arizona, where after a 13-second brain-freeze, she said this:

“We have did what was right for Arizona.”

Yes…

Croc-speak has taken over.

While I never intended the language of Larry and the Zeeba Zeeba Eata crocs to be spoken by our elected representatives, what’s done is done.  So to Jan Brewer and any other Governor who in times of panic seek to summon their inner-Larry, I say only this:

It’s pronounced, “Areezona.”