Johnny America

 

Ap­plied Con­tem­po­rary Thinking

by

Don’t just stand there. Whiten your teeth. What’s the mat­ter? Don’t you want a daz­zling smile? Every­one knows hap­pi­ness comes from lu­mi­nous teeth. So get on it. Or else no one will love you. And see a den­tist about cap­ping those crooked in­cisors be­fore some­one gets hurt. In this bub­ble-gum-glossy, self-re­flex­ive so­ci­ety, your smile should suck on-look­ers in­to a vor­tex of white obliv­ion they can nev­er hope to es­cape from. Be­sides, you de­serve a classier set of chop­pers than that buck­toothed bitch, Wan­da Er­ick­son, down in payroll.

The con­se­quences of your in­ac­tion may be ir­re­versible. Look in the mir­ror. Time and grav­i­ty are up­ping their pay­ments. Con­sid­er your breasts. They must be perky in or­der for you to sur­vive. Like Dar­win says. “Or­gan­isms best suit­ed to their en­vi­ron­ment ex­hib­it de­sir­able char­ac­ter­is­tics.” Today’s young hip­sters equate droop­ing breasts with dy­ing alone, unloved, in a house over­run with cats.

Here’s a sim­ple test. Take a pen­cil. Set it at the base of your breast. A pen­cil held in place in­di­cates un­ac­cept­able sag. A falling pen­cil means ad­e­quate perk, al­though your breasts are prob­a­bly too small to at­tract any­thing bet­ter than mi­grant steel work­ers. Ei­ther way, you’re go­ing to want to do some­thing. Don’t wor­ry. Breast aug­men­ta­tion is a sim­ple pro­ce­dure where­by saline sacks are crammed through your bel­ly but­ton and moved en­do­scop­i­cal­ly in­to place. Don’t look so aghast, sug­ar-pie. Hard­ly any­one dies.

Why aren’t you thumb­ing through the yel­low pages yet? What’s the mat­ter? If you con­sult with your tele­vi­sion or any num­ber of lifestyle mag­a­zines, you’ll find ev­i­dence con­firm­ing your sub­stan­dard looks and un­hap­pi­ness. What do you think those un­sight­ly bulge de­fects on your thighs and hips mean? Means you’re fat and mis­er­able, honey.

Here are some op­tions. Eat right and ex­er­cise. With this tra­di­tion­al­ly ac­cept­ed weight loss method, re­sults de­pend on stol­id com­mit­ment, in­verse­ly pro­por­tion­al to dai­ly com­fort food re­quire­ments and re­cur­rence of phrase, “Oh, what’s the point?” But let’s face it. You lack the ded­i­ca­tion to fol­low through. So how about drugs? Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal ther­a­py can fix your life with an easy-to-swal­low pill-style caplet that per­haps won’t give you can­cer. Here’s what Eu­phoridra says. “No more ex­cus­es for be­ing fat, ladies. With our patent­ed for­mu­la, Eu­phoridra is clin­i­cal­ly proven (state­ment un­ver­i­fied) to flush nu­tri­ents past ab­sorp­tion zones while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly pro­vid­ing sub­ject with light caf­feine-style buzz.” Side ef­fects in­clude man­ic episodes, lethar­gy, shakes, ex­plo­sive di­ar­rhea, and “edgi­ness.” Not for you, sug­ar-lump? How about sur­gi­cal re­fit­ting? This quicker-fixer-upper’s re­sults de­pend on the skill and so­bri­ety of your sur­gi­cal team. Avoid “re­fresh­ment” va­ca­tions in Kat­man­du. Shed thir­ty pounds in five min­utes to be­come the en­vy of that con­tentious bitch, Wan­da, down in pay­roll (we’ve seen the way she sizes you up). Draw­backs: some bruis­ing and death.

So now you know.

Lis­ten, time and grav­i­ty are un­der­cut­ting your foun­da­tion, sweet­ie-pie, mak­ing a fleshy land­slide of your once ap­peal­ing fig­ure. In today’s hope­less­ly nar­cis­sis­tic, im­age-dri­ven cityscape, your sur­vival de­pends en­tire­ly on your abil­i­ty to look “doable.” The mere sight of your body should dri­ve men to tears and acts of bru­tal­i­ty. Re­mem­ber, if men are not scram­bling over their cowork­ers just to stand be­side you in the el­e­va­tor, you’re prob­a­bly due for some old-fash­ioned knife time. Don’t over­do it. Celebri­ty is re­quired to en­dure liv­ing as a full-size porce­lain doll. Keep in mind that be­neath a shal­low façade of knuck­le-bit­ing beau­ty lingers a woman with­out need of per­son­al­i­ty. Doesn’t that make things easier?

Well, don’t just stand there. You know what to do.

Se­ri­ous­ly, how do you ex­pect our species to car­ry on if you don’t make an ef­fort? Maybe we should we speak to Wan­da Er­ick­son down in pay­roll, tell her you’re an out­mod­ed prude bent on hu­man extinction.

Now stop wast­ing everybody’s time and pol­ish up your ba­by-mak­er. What do you mean why? Be­cause Dar­win says so, that’s why. What do you think look­ing so good it hurts is for, sweet­heart? Of course prop­a­ga­tion of the species. Don’t say, “Well, maybe I’m not ready to have a child.” Lis­ten, none of us is ever ready. This is your du­ty. Sort of like vot­ing, but more like movie the­atre hand-jobs.

We can’t help but no­tice you’re still stand­ing there. What’s the mat­ter? Don’t feel pret­ty? Don’t feel fresh? Don’t feel ad­e­quate? A wide range of prod­ucts is avail­able to help you cope, and well, sure, many of them “ad­just” your per­son­al­i­ty be­yond recog­ni­tion, but most sim­ply cause cot­ton-mouth, blood clots and headaches too soul-crush­ing to bear sober. A small price to pay to hedge nat­ur­al se­lec­tion, Charles Dar­win might suggest.

Fine. Be that way.

We can­not be held ac­count­able for your fail­ure to act. Con­se­quences of your in­ac­tion may in­clude chron­ic weep­ing, loss of will, pas­sion­ate and over­whelm­ing jeal­ousy to­ward Wan­da Er­ick­son down in pay­roll who ap­par­ent­ly “has it all” and un­told hours stand­ing be­fore a mir­ror, lift­ing, al­ways lift­ing, all the parts fall­en to gravity’s hand.

Cheer up, but­ter­cup. In the fu­ture women will live in an­ti-grav­i­ty en­vi­ron­ments suit­able for non­stop swim­suit wear and frol­ick­ing. These “women of the bub­ble” will pave the way for a so­ci­ety so im­age-con­scious that fail­ure to bathe in Oil of Olay three times a day con­sti­tutes self-hate crimes.

See. Things aren’t so bad. So give us a smile. Show us those pearly whites.

Filed under Fiction on April 13th, 2006

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