Judy Patootie, a professional hack
Knows how to get on the inside track.
She learned how to climb to the top of the stack
Doing dirty belly dancing, lying on her back.
– DJ TC Delirious
I got the news on NPR while driving home to Great Falls this afternoon, so I expected the voice mail waiting for me on my unlisted POTS land line:
Tom, did you hear? They’re going to fire my little acorn, my tiny kosher gherkin, my wiggly microscopic mouse! After all he did for them! Those bastards, those overpaid useless bastards, with their bloated, tax-free salaries, doing nothing in that huge, opulent building downtown except lining their own wallets with tax dollars! Oh, yeah, they say they’re here to end world poverty. And it’s pretty damned obvious they think that job begins at home!
[Sobs] [Coughs] [Blows nose] [Sobs] [Blows nose]
It wasn’t so bad, was it Tom, what we did? You and I both know it goes on all the time here in Washington – what’s a girl supposed to do here, anyhow, right? It’s the way of the world; women have been sleeping with men for professional advantage since at least the eighteenth century, and now it’s all over the papers that I did and, guess what – got some! But what about my privacy, Tom, what about that? What about the thousands – millions – of women who do their boss like doggies and never have a single word printed about it in the papers? How come it has to be me, that’s all I want to know!
[Sobs] [Blows nose]
I mean, really, what the hell are we career women who sleep our way to the top supposed to do? Compete with guys like him? Compete with guys like you, Tom? Why do you think we have the henpecked men who work for us come into our offices during lunch and get under the desk to look for the man in the boat? Because we know we can never really do better than guys like you – or my poor, misunderstood sweetie, that’s why! We just want to justify ourselves by seeing a man do it in order to merely keep his lousy job!
[Coughs] [Sobs] [Blows nose] [Sobs] [Blows nose]
I know what you’re thinking, Tom – “With a job at that fancy futurist fund think-tank, what’s she got to complain about? There have to be loads of guys she can jump into bed with at a place like that!” Well yeah, there are, Tom – but none of them have anywhere near the power, contacts, influence or access to money that my Mister Dinky has! It would be a complete waste of time and effort! And I’m not getting any younger – thanks for that tip about collagen masks; and the one about ylang-ylang oil, too, Tom – you’re a man who truly understands women, and if you had any significant power, influence or access to money, I’d go down on you in a Beirut second!
[Laughs] [Coughs] [Sobs] [Blows nose]
It’s just that I don’t know what kind of blow-back this whole thing is going to stir up. Ha-hah – “blow-back!”
[Laughs] [Sobs] [Blows nose]
Oh, you know what I mean, Tom. Repercussions. It’s just that at this point, I do not know from whence my next highly-compensated, awesomely-titled, perk-ladened corner-office job with a big expense account is going to come! Ha-hah – “going to come!”
[Laughs] [Sobs] [Blows nose]
It’s no secret, Tom, that thanks to my extremely privileged upbringing, I speak five languages. And I just made really clever puns in three of them. If there’s anything I know, it’s that it pays to be a cunning linguist! Ha-hah – “cunning linguist!”
[Laughs] [Sobs] [Blows nose]
Okay, now I’ve made clever puns in all of them! Tom, it’s just simply criminal, what’s happened to me and my Incredible Shrinking Man! We could have been so happy together – living, laughing, loving – randomly destroying people and institutions that momentarily displeased us – we would have been like gods, Tom, like gods! Why, oh, why, didn’t the Iraqis greet the United States Army with flowers and parades in Baghdad, like the French did when the Americans marched into Paris? History would have been one hell of a lot different if that had happened, you can bet your bippy! It sure looked to me like they would do that; and to him, too; and nobody, Tom, not even you, ever dared to question our predictions, not even once! Now there’s nothing but… disgrace!
[Sobs] [Coughs] [Blows nose]
The thought of loss… the agony of separation… the existential emptiness that fills me when I think that I might lose all my cushy, sweet, no-brainer, totally tit jobs – jobs that I committed whoredoms worthy of the best bordellos and courtesans in all of human history to get! Tom, it’s unbearable, I tell you – unbearable!
[Sobs]
That sallow, slinky, flaccid, reeking, rancid, sweaty half-pint Napoleon! I hate him! I hate him! The stuff he’d demand – just because he was such a big shot – and I did it, Tom, I did it all; I did everything – it was the Curse of the West Wing! The rusty trombone, the dirty Sanchez, the Caracas rope trick, the Sara Lee, the Aunt Jemima, the Howdy Doody coffee table, the black bottom, the diddy-wah-diddy, the real McCoy, the Little Orphan Annie… my God, the Daddy Warbucks… oh, Christ… the Sandy! The Sandy, Tom – “arf, arf, arf!” The Dusenberg! Can you imagine? I thought the Dusenberg went out with spats! But that’s what he wanted – a Dusenberg – with spats and a bass clarinet, no less! There was this thing he got from an ex-Nazi scientist at NASA called “rings around Uranus,” Tom! He loved that! I had to do it twice a month until he got tired of it! Catch the monkey, ring the bell, penny for the loo, golden sherbet, Tarzan’s chandelier – with a total Brazilian wax and whipped cream, no less – then an inverted strawberry Kissinger swing! Full banana split with melted marshmallow and a cherry on top – you have any idea how long I was in the shower, getting that crap off me so I could brief the minor Pentagon brass with his stupid shtick on weapons of mass destruction? I’ll show you a weapon of mass destruction, Tom – melted marshmallow stuck to the hairs in a butt crack! And he gave me, what – forty minutes? The Daisy Duck, Tom – can you imagine, he made me do a Daisy Duck? And a YMCA, Tom, he wanted that too, constantly; and the Frito Bandito, the caramel corn hole, the Winky-Dink, the Speed Racer, the Brady Bunch, junk in the trunk, the backhoe, Rice Krispies, mashed potatoes with white gravy, the cricket, the queen bee and the earwig! I gave that SOB the Spider Man, the Green Lantern; hell, I delivered the entire Justice League of America! And lemme tell ya, Collins, at my age, doing a Wonder Woman is no picnic! Okay, so when he said he wanted Animaniacs, I tried to talk him into a Tweety Bird instead, but in the end – or perhaps I should say in my end – he got them both! I could not say “no” to that man – the employment prospects were just too damn awesome! The Tasmanian Devil, Tom, I gave him that – I even gave him a Yosemite Sam! He got Around the World, the Stonewall Jackson, the Belgian waffle, pink champagne, Charge of the Light Brigade, Catherine the Great, the sorority squeeze, Pakistani post office, little boy Blew, the slippery Rembrandt, the Jack Daniels, the mohito, the long sloe screw up against the wall, snakes and ladders, curds and whey, the pig and whistle, the Tom and Jerry, the Mutt and Jeff, the Smith and Wesson, bangers and mash, Funk and Wagnall, Sears and Roebuck, Lerner and Lowe, the Rogers and Hammerstein, the Newton and Leibnitz, the Washington and Lee, the Lee and Perrins, the Elton John and Bernie Taupin, the Oscar Wilde, the John Waters, the Mae West, the Ma Barker, the Bonnie Parker, the Juan Valdez, the Baron Munchausen – the Baron Munchausen by proxy, for God’s sake – the Elvis sandwich – with bacon and jelly – the Tippacanoe and a Tyler, too; I even did a Dutch oven for him, right after they captured Saddam Hussein! The Roger Rabbit, the Porky Pig, the Tin Man, the Sea Biscuit, a Flying Wallenda – Three Mustafas Three, Tom – I gave him Three Mustafas Three, at the White House, in a presidential bathroom, no less, with Fox Television not fifteen feet away, covering the invasion! How could he have been such a fool? How could he have gotten caught? All that stuff I did, and for what? He’s useless to me now! Men! I hate them! Present company excepted, of course, Tom – you know what I mean.
[Sobs] [Coughs] [Blows nose]
Tom, I no spring chicken anymore… I’m… it’s no secret, I’m over fifty. But I’m still hot! I can out-fornicate any career woman who thinks she can screw her way to the top – here in Washington or anywhere else, I don’t care if she’s nineteen, has a doctorate from Cambridge, just climbed Mount Everest and looks like Claudia Schiffer or Angelina Jolie or whoever! I’ve been having sex with powerful, well-connected men since I was old enough to get away with it, which was pretty damn young, if I do say so myself! And I’ve gotten what I wanted, too! And I’m going to keep on doing that! What does some chippy like that know about real, world-class erotic technique? Only time and experience can give a woman, such as myself, that kind of leverage! Ha-hah; another multi-lingual pun.
[Laughs] [Sobs]
My point, is, there’s still plenty of miles left on this Lamborghini, and if it turns out his His Micro Majesty can’t buy the gas anymore, I’m going to find me a new driver!
[Sobs] [Blows nose]
Tom, you’re a friend, the kind of person I know I can talk to sincerely and intimately, even if he’s a man; and usually that would be a gay man, and I know you’re not, but actually my gay men friends aren’t as smart or as empathetic as you, not to mention as insightful. So that’s why I called…
[Sobs] [Coughs] [Blows nose]
Frankly, I need some stuff, and I want you to help me. First, I need some Valium, or Xanax, or something like that, because I’m a nervous wreck. Then I need a new hairstylist, because I’ve been looking at the pictures of me in the newspapers and TV and the Web sites and so forth and it’s just ridiculously obvious. So, could you please recommend someone who can do a decent job on this stupid mop I’m walking around with on my head? I think I know why The Little Tiny Wolf liked it like that, too – I recently saw some pictures of his mother, and that’s the way she wore it, all the time, for what looks like forty years. And I want you to find me a very discrete and very good plastic surgeon, because I’ve been looking in the mirror, and I don’t like what I see. I definitely need eyelid work, a chin tuck, and maybe a half-lift – we’ll know more after the initial consultation, I guess. And oh yeah, I need a personal trainer – my posture is shot and I got fat overeating after doing all that stuff for Mr. Gerbil Package. Probably should hold off on the plastic surgery until I’ve done the personal trainer for a few months. Also, can you get me in touch with the hosts on that cable show “What Not to Wear?” Not that I’d want to be on the show, but my son has convinced me that I need somebody’s advice, since I’ve spent years running around in a wardrobe that excites Mr. Nano Tool, and, according to my psychiatrists, my psychotherapist and my son, the way he likes me dressed indicates that I’m his adolescent fantasy of sex with Golda Meier right after she joined her high school Zionist Club in Milwaukee, Wisconsin back in 1916. That’s weird, sick, perverted stuff, Tom, and I don’t see any reason to deal with it anymore if I’m not going to get appropriate compensation.
[Sobs] [Blows nose]
Okay, and uh, yeah, I also need you to give me some advice on how not to end up in prison if this whole Iraq thing collapses with impeachment proceedings or whatever. I’ll pay you whatever your usual hourly rate is, God knows I pay lawyers and CPAs and private detectives and plumbers what they say – so why not you? After all the places I put my face to get the jobs I got, I’m not about to put it between some bull dyke’s legs just because Mr. Subatomic Particle Putz could not, in the final analysis, at the end of the day, ultimately keep his role in an elaborate Executive Branch conspiracy amounting to high treason from being revealed to Congress, the press, the public, God and everybody else. And since you were part of that conspiracy, Tom, I know I can count on you.
[Sobs] [Coughs] [Sobs] [Blows nose]
It’s really good to know a girl can have a friend like you, Tom; someone she can depend on at a time like this. Call me.