For those of you Skippy readers safely ensconced within the loving embrace of a military base, you may be unaware of a dangerous subculture that threatens our civilian way of life. That subculture, dear Skippy readers, is the Muffia.

The Muffia is a foul underworld organization, staffed by soulless Caucasian housewives so uniform in their upper-middle class mediocrity that a Stepford Husband would flinch in horror. Members of the Muffia (also known as ‘Muffiaso’) are convinced that they alone are the true paragons of femininity, espousing 1950’s rhetoric about a woman’s place being in the home while remaining totally incompetent in any of the “home arts”. They rule their families with iron fists, forcing their poor husbands to slave at the office for 60+ hours each week to support their designer label habit while reinforcing the stereotype that fathers who enjoy spending quality time with their children are secret pedophiles, and claiming that everything they do is “for the children”.

As each day passes, more harmless toys are kicked from the market, innocent television shows are ripped from the airwaves , and fathers become more confused about child-rearing. But we will not go down without a fight! Even as we speak, civilians risk their lives to take back those privileges the Muffia has claimed for itself.

My father is one such brave soul. A quiet man, he was raised to accept the status quo by humble, God-fearing Lithuanian Midwesterners. Yet even he could not stand idly by and watch the Muffia destroy all that is Wholesome and Good about America. This is his story, and I, as his beloved child, am proud to relate it here:

A few years back, I was visiting my family for Christmas. At some point, my stepmother asked my father to run to the grocery store for her. As there wasn’t a golf tournament to nap through that afternoon, he readily agreed and invited me along. Twenty minutes later, we were crawling up and down the parking lot rows, looking for a spot to park. At last, he spotted one, an ideal spot, not ten yards away from the doors to the grocery store. However, as we approached the spot, we realized that it was reserved. But, as we drew closer, we could see that it was not for the handicap, but for parents with children.

Yes, it was reserved parking for the Muffia, and, by coincidence, was on the verge of being claimed by one of its members.

With a strange glint of determination in his eye, my father gunned the engine and cut off the Muffiaso, stealing the spot from right under the nose of her minivan.

“But we can’t park here!” I protested, trembling at the thought of the Muffiaso’s wrath.

“In my day, we didn’t have special parking spaces awarded to us just because we reproduced,” he stated in a tone of voice I hadn’t heard since the Cookie Jar Incident.

I got out of the car, swallowing back a counter-argument about the substantial decrease in parking space size over the past two decades, and braced myself.

The tinted driver’s side window of the minivan rolled down, revealing the Botoxed visage of the Muffiaso.

“Excuse me, sir, but that spot has a Parent & Child Parking sign,” she whined nasally, while in the back seat we could see one tiny, innocent future victim of bad parenting gummed the lid of its Vera Wang sippy cup.

“Yes, I know. I’m a parent, and this is my child,” he explained, pointing to then-twenty-something me. The Muffiaso’s Priscilla, Queen of the Desert-inspired makeup was not thick enough to conceal her rage, and her French manicured-talons were poised to rend the flesh from his body.

“Excuse me, sir,” she hissed, “but Parent & Child Parking spots are bigger to make it easier to get children out of cars.”

“Yes, I know,” replied my father, his tone still calm, “but my child is bigger than yours, and my car doesn’t have a sliding door like yours.”

“I can’t get into a regular spot!” she shrieked. “What am I supposed to do?”

My father pointedly looked at all the minivans in the lot not parked in Parent & Child Parking spots, then just as pointedly looked at the dents and scrapes on the Muffiaso’s vehicle.

“Well, you could always learn how to drive,” he suggested.

At which point we ran for it.

This time we have a list of things that should not be done if you work for an anti-drug non-profit organization. The original author asked not to be credited, as she would like to still work for the anti-drug non-profit organization.

(Submitted by I.M. Employed)
1. When working for an anti-drug association, refrain from making “Cheech and Chong” references.
2. When working for the above, don’t “Talk shop” with those seeking help.
3. Refrain from judging people by “where they get their shit”.
4. Do not give people “better guys” to get “shit” from.
5. Do not refer to the “War on Drugs” as “Vietnam for Society at large”
6. When viewing a slideshow about drug references in media, do not say “That movie’s fucking awesome!”
7. Especially when they show the “bat country” monologue from Fear and Loathing.
8. No matter how you supervisor may act, do not make allusions to the fact that they may be the only person in America who would benefit drug and alcohol use.
9. When hearing a presentation about the state of the drug trade in the United States, try to avoid “correcting” the nomenclature used for street drugs (i.e., “No one calls it “dope” anymore!”).
10. Refrain from mentioning that your friends find your work “ironic” given your past.
11. Attempt to not discuss favorite drinks and new concoctions with your superiors.
12. Especially if they mention they’re in recovery.
13. If one of your superiors is a “stage parent”, do not mention that many child stars fall into substance abuse and ill ends.
14. Even if it is apparent that the kid is pretty much doomed to Dana Plato territory.
15. Never under any circumstances mention that your superiors “drive you to drink”.
16. Especially if the Alcohol Board of Control is in town.
17. When viewing a Powepoint presentation on drug references in the media, avoid laughing at the drug and alcohol jokes when the room is full of drug counselors who will sooner be shocked than funny.
18. If they show Dazed and Confused, Half Baked, Superbad, or Beerfest, just leave the room. Despite how strong you think you are, you will not last.
19. When discussing music with co-workers, never talk about how “Dark Side of the Moon *totally* synchs up with Wizard of Oz”, or how “The Wall movie totally changed my worldview”.
20. Y’know what, just follow the guidelines that Robin Williams gets in “Good Morning Vietnam” from Lt. Haupt regarding musical tastes.
21. Never offer tired-looking co-workers “hair of the dog that bit ‘em’ ” on Monday mornings. It just looks bad for everyone involved.
22. “OSHA would have a field day with what I know about this building” is not a good bargaining chip in any circumstance.
23. Especially when your supervisor is on a first-name basis with the people at OSHA.
24. Try to avoid mentioning that your superior might just remind you of a certain character from Rain Man, no matter how compulsively they may repeat some of the same words, over and over again.
25. Never mention that you own any, and especially not all, of the movies mentioned in number 18.
26. Don’t talk about how much you, your cousins, uncles, aunts, siblings, parents and friends are able to drink in a single sitting without passing out; especially if the aforementioned are all together, with what can only be described as an “alcohol topiary”.
27. Taking naps when you’re four years old is okay; taking naps at work on your lunch break will get a piss cup handed to you.
28. Being the only person in the office who knows how to work the big screen in the conference room will bite you in the ass when you come back from lunch and leave “The Marijuanalogues” on.
29. When working for an anti-drug organization, your thoughts on drug legalization are moot.
30. If you are tired and someone offers you a cup of coffee, the proper response is “Yes, please”, not “Put it in my veins!!”, “Can I just snort the grounds?” or any references to a “caffeine speedball”.
30. Cigarettes are apparently a drug, regardless of legality. Therefore “I was nic-fitting like crazy” is no excuse to leave work for a “cancer run”.
31. Incidentally, if a co-worker has a family member they’ve lost or who has recovered from some form of cancer, calling it a “cancer run” will not win you any favors.
32. If a co-worker levels baseless and just untrue accusations against another co-worker who isn’t you, and they really are just ludicrous accusations, you are still not allowed to openly laugh at the concept.

This time I want to talk about in-game inflation. So its a discussion about economics, as applied to an imaginary fantasy kingdom. I’m such a huge nerd.

In a real economy, the government prints money, ideally with some sort of backing to it. And if they just start printing more money then all of the money becomes less valuable.

In an online game, players are constantly creating more money in the game world. They’re solving quests, and killing monsters, and looting dungeons. All of this is going to cause new money to be created out of thin air and handed to the players. And if the game has any sort of auction house, or trading going on between the players, this will cause prices to start skyrocket.

The time where this starts becoming really evident, is when a new player comes into the game. The low level monsters and quests aren’t keeping up with the rapid inflation. The 5 silver coins that was a good reward last year is basically worthless now.

If you really want to see how out of whack it gets, take a look at any item that players want for sale from an NPC vendor, vs how much for the exact same thing from an auction. Its not uncommon for players to purchase things from an NPC vendor and sell them for several thousand times what they paid.

My proposed solution to this problem is to set the game up in such a way that it can adjust itself to take inflation into account.

My idea is that the game tracks the sale of certain staple items that the players tend to trade a lot. In WOW, a good staple item might be copper ore. Lots of players need it, and piles of it are always trading hands through the auction house.

So every now and then, maybe once a week or some such time, the game tallies up the average price of a stack of copper ore. For the first week lets say this price is 1 gold coin on average. And on the next week the price has creeped up to 2 gold coins on average. At this point the game will have determined that all money is now worth 50% less than it used to be. So it will now double the quest rewards and the treasure from monsters.

I know that is won’t actually prevent the inflation problems. But it might mitigate them a little. Plus it might help to make the world feel a bit more alive and dynamic to the players.

Any gamers or economists have any thoughts on this?

No shit there I was, Ramadi, Iraq. We got the call for additional support from one of our OPs (observation posts). My outfit was on the hook to lead EOD to outpost in case of need.

Just south of our outpost was a section of palm trees and reeds (along the banks of the Euphrates river). We had taken small arms, mortar, and RPG fire from that area in the past. We had taken to posting signs in that area that stated locals were not allowed there and could be shot on sight.

On this particular afternoon there was an Iraqi Military Aged Male (MAM) walking through the reeds of “no-mans land”. The OP tried to get the MAM to come to the OP through their loudspeaker, but the MAM wouldn’t come closer and he wouldn’t leave. So the SFC on site raised his M4 and shot the MAM in the side. The MAM then laid down just on the outskirts of reeds.

With EOD now on site, and our outfit also having robots, we sent our robots out to inspect the MAM, to insure that he was not strapped with explosives. When the robots got to the MAM he got up and started kicking them. We brought our robots back to keep them from getting damaged.

The next thing that we did was take EOD’s IED clearing/blast-proof vehicle: The Buffalo (they had one in the film Transformers) and we proceeded to put a large stick in the Buffalo’s retractable arm, so as to lift up the MAM’s man-skirt and see if he was packing explosives. When the Buffalo got to the man and started to lift his skirt the MAM got up, took the stick off of the Buffalo and started beating the Buffalo with the stick.

My First sergeant, who you may or may not remember from the Backscratcher story, suggested that we set up a Pop and Drop (A block of C-4 primed with a remote detonated electronic blasting cap) and have the robot lay it down by the MAM. As the SFC on site started to set up the Pop and Drop, our gunner Young Specialist Janelle started yelling, “I don’t think that’s legal, I don’t think that’s legal”, and therefore Top dropped that idea.

That is when the young E-5 EOD tech said, “this guy ain’t packing, I’m gonna drag his ass back here before he bleeds out.” Before any one could stop him he ran at the MAM, the MAM got up and started to run, The EOD tech tackled him, and subdued him.

Upon closer inspection it turned out that the MAM was Corky from Life Goes On retarded.

The SIGACT the following day read “The ___ Engineers shot a MAM around OP ___. The ___ EN and ___ EOD sent robots to check on the MAM’s status, the MAM fought off the robots. The ___ EOD sent their buffalo to check the MAM’s status, the MAM beat the Buffalo with a stick. The ___ EOD tackled and subdued the MAM. The MAM was questioned, treated, and released.”

This poor retarded bastard was just walking through the reeds and gets yelled at, shot, attacked with robots, poked with a stick from a Buffalo, almost blown to bits, and then tackled.

You just can’t make this shit up.

Everything sucks.

Don’t believe me? Read this.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080621/ap_on_re_us/out_of_control

A third of the country is underwater and tomatoes will make you vomit your own poop. Man, it’s high-time to get the hell out of here.

(Voice of Satan): “You can’t afford to fill your gas tank, and you will sit for days at the airport with not so much as a bottle of water, because security will take it away from you. But go ahead and try to leave. Kill time by shopping at that shitty overpriced bookstore that only sells People magazines and Tony Robbins motivational cassettes. Hungry? Have a six-dollar muffin! There is no escape! Bwahahahahahaha!”

I put a gallon of gas in the car last week. Payday was still 10 days away so I only had five bucks. As I went to put the gas cap back on, I accidentally made eye contact with another guy who was fueling up.

“This used to be a good place to buy gas,” he sighed. We exchanged a look that’s usually reserved for the funeral of a distant relative — dejected resignation. “It’s really sad, but what are you going to do?”

You know that bumper sticker, “Grass, Gas, or Ass. No One Rides For Free”? You know things have gotten bad when you’re sitting behind that guy in traffic and instead of thinking, “douchebag,” you’re thinking, “Well, that makes sense. What do his friends expect? That he’s going to just drive them all over town willy nilly? Buncha freeloaders.”

Eight years ago, when that guy went to pick up his date, the girl would receive a long lecture from her father on the order of, “I don’t want you seeing that boy. He’s no good. He has no respect for anybody, and he obviously doesn’t respect you.”

Now the girl’s dad’s saying, “That kid has a good head on his shoulders. Excellent business sense. I think he’s a keeper. See if you can talk him down to a handy. He’s going places.”

One of those ginormous monster SUVs cut me off in traffic the other day, setting off one of the most artistic, eloquent, and deeply-rooted-in-high-school-economics barrages of obscenity I’ve ever mustered. The gist was something like, “You selfish fucker! It’s bad enough you can’t use your turn signal, but you’re driving one of those unnecessary, wasteful machines that’s increasing the demand and lowering the supply, thus driving up the price! Cocksucker!”

Then I saw the “Iraq veteran” sticker on his bumper and shrugged. “Well, at least he fought for it.”

I think Iraqi war veterans should get free gas for life and it should be paid for out of the personal bank accounts of key Bush administration members.

I suppose the upcoming election should make me hopeful, but none of the candidates are using the words “George W. Bush” and “guillotine” in the same sentence yet.

(Note to Secret Service: I’M ONLY KIDDING! I have deep philosophical convictions against killing people, whether the killing is legally sanctioned by the fall of a gavel or otherwise. It’s just that “guillotine” was less ambiguous than “the stocks” because stocks can refer to those things sold on Wall Street, which a presidential candidate might actually mention, but what I really would have meant are those two boards where you put the prisoner’s head and hands through and lock him in, so the general public has the opportunity to walk by and shout curses at him, throw rotten eggs and salmonella tomatoes, or give him a good swift kick in the ass. That would be more fun anyway, come to think of it. Right there on the National Mall, in the shadow of the Washington Monument, or maybe over by the reflecting pool near the Vietnam War Memorial. Poetic, indeed, but see how many more words that took? Suffice it to say, if that happened I’d sit on the tarmac for up to a full week to take my vacation to D.C. Besides, they have pandas at the National Zoo, and my daughter would just love that. The point is, I do NOT actually wish the president death or even permanent disablement. I just want to give him a titty twister.)

Even when Bush leaves office it won’t be the last we’ve heard of him. Traditionally, every president gets his memoir published. It’s just too bad the title, “If I Did It, Here’s What Happened,” is already taken.

Sorry if all that sounds bitter. I’m trying to look at the bright side of it all, and here’s what I’ve come up with:

Four dollars a gallon is just a free-market solution to global warming. Recent reports my father-in-law claimed to have heard on the news show that Americans have collectively reduced their travel by some 40 billion miles.

Come back, polar bears! Everything’s going to work out!

Why hasn’t the White House and Fox News started sharing this wonderful new perspective on things? Why isn’t there a sign on every gas pump explaining this, like the signs at IKEA that explain that they only hire a handful of unhelpful assholes so they can keep prices low?

My guess is for the neo-cons and oil companies to take on that perspective, they’d have to acknowledge that global warming exists.

Here’s another ray of optimism for you: I wouldn’t be surprised to find out people are starting to find their proverbial last straw broken. For a lot of people, it’s starting to feel like they’re just going to work to buy gas so they can go back to work. Once that feeling catches on and spreads like a virus, people will quit going, and when their boss calls to see where they are, the reasons are going to sound absurd.

Like, out of the almost 300 million people living in America today, at least one guy really liked tomatoes. Like, that was his way of treating himself for working so hard — every Sunday, he would sit down with a ripe, red, round, succulent, juicy tomato and he would savor it. It wasn’t much, but it was the thing that kept him going.

And a couple weeks ago he went to the store and, “What the fuck do you mean there’s no tomatoes today!? Why do I even bother! Fuck it! I’m staying home! You got any tomato seeds?”

And after three days of no one at the office hearing from him, his boss called.

“Oh, no. I’m fine. I just decided to stay home and work in my garden. Yeah, forever. Should be a pretty good crop. All organic. Hey listen, do you have any butter you can trade me? I’ve fallen way behind in my churning.”

And that’s how we’ll all become Amish again, but we’ll be the most technologically advanced Amish people the world has ever seen. You’ll spend four hours churning butter to take to the guy who shod your mule, but before you ride your bicycle all the way over there, you’ll text him to make sure he’s home.

That actually excites me — like we’ll renew our vows with ole Mother Earth.

(This is why you don’t mix metaphors, kids. See that last sentence, I have us married to our mother. Yuck.)

I’m taking up a couple new hobbies in preparation for this new technoprimitive society. Today, I started my garden. For now, it is but a lonely, potted jalapeño pepper plant, but I have dreams of expanding so it takes up my whole back yard and has a miniature golf course through the middle of it, so I can pick and play.

If only I hadn’t started so late in the season.

Also, I intend to start practicing with a boomerang so I can hunt small game. Why not a rifle? Because in a pinch, I don’t know how to make bullets. But I have a pretty good idea how to make sandpaper. Plus, I’m pretty sure the game warden’s not checking for boomerang hunting licenses. I’ll have to check, but I’m pretty sure the guy at Cabela’s is going to answer me with a weird look when I ask to buy one. So there’s, like, $20 I just saved, which will keep me going back to work for half a week.

Todd Merriman is a standup comedian. He lives just outside Austin, TX, with his daughter Ava and his babymama Erin. Todd will be opening for Brian Posehn (Just Shoot Me, Mr. Show, Comedians of Comedy) at Cap City Comedy Club in Austin, TX, on Aug. 7, 8 and 9. Call (512) 467-2333 for details.

This is to clarify my thoughts on a variety of subjects.

First the guest writers thing.

Guest writers, even regular ones, like Michiel and Lt. Roland, do not always represent my opinions. I pretty much let anyone who writes funny material post stuff up. So just because I let someone make a post that covers the subject of, say, global warming, doesn’t mean that I believe global warming is a fact. Heck I don’t even think most readers thought that. But in the interests of equal time, if someone has a funny bit against global warming, I’ll run it.

Heck maybe we can convince this other writer to hold a comedic debate of the subject. Almost like a trial by funny.

Some people might think this sounds an awful lot like that TV show “The Root of All Evil”. To those people I eloquently respond, “Nuh uh! Shut up! I hate you!”

Now I know with the amount of people I get reading this site, and people being what they are, folks are going to assume that everything expressed on here is my opinion. And being that I am both shallow and tremendously insecure, I care very deeply about what strangers on the Internet think about me.

And so I am going to clarify several of my beliefs real fast to avoid any such problems in the future.

My opinions on-

1) Global warming: The jury is out, as far as I’m concerned. There is peer reviewed data supporting both sides of the argument. The Earth is warmer. Some scientists think the evidence supports green-house issues. Others think its part of the suns natural fluctuations. In order for me to believe that someone knows for sure exactly how much different the earth’s current temperature is from around a two hundred years ago, I’d have to believe that someone had accurate global data from that time.

I suspect its worse than the heads of industry would have you believe, but better than the companies that stand to benefit from it claim. That’s because I think that people will lie to you if they can get something out of it.

2) The War: I’m sure everyone knows which one. I think that our country shouldn’t have started it, and that people in charge deliberately mishandled information as a justification for it. That said, it doesn’t matter why we went into Iraq. We’re there now, and we’ve leveled a big chunk of their country. Its our responsibility to stabilize it. Our government did it, and we elected our government. So its our fault. Even if you voted for the other guy. Because you clearly didn’t try hard enough to defeat the guy in office now.

3) War protesters: Its okay to dislike the war. Heck you can hate it. You can even actively campaign to end it. All of those things are just fine with me. Furthermore, doing these things has no intrinsic effect on the status of your loyalty to this country, or the level of support you have for our troops. You can simultaneously respect our soldiers and protest how the government uses them.
That said, many anti-war protesters don’t bother trying to be respectful. That’s their right I guess. But I think less of them for it.

4) Politics In General: Politicians are bad people. Just in case anyone reading this is slow:

POLITICIANS…….ARE…..BAD….PEOPLE.

The way our system works is that a company, or a special interest group, bribe the politician to change, or enforce a law, and then everyone pretends that isn’t what just happened. All pretense of morality, justice, fair play, or decency is just the most superficial of veneers. A cunning disguise to better help them prey upon you. They don’t care about you, they don’t like you, and they would probably be willing to murder you in your sleep for less money than you make in a month.

The only difference between Republicans and Democrats is which half of the Bill of Rights they want to ignore. Republicans seems to hate the odd numbered ones, while Democrats don’t appear to be too fond of the even ones. That said, I dislike the current crop of folks in power because they can’t even be bothered to lie convincingly.

And to all people that act as if their particular candidate is above all this: you’re being stupid. They’re just pretending because they think it will fool you into supporting them. And evidently they were right.

5) Small Yappy Dogs That Wear Sweaters: I know that these are not particularly controversial. But I just fucking hate those things. Unless they are being used as “feeder dogs” by someone that has a pet Python. That would be awsome. “Yo quiero ser comido por una serpiente!”

Did I forget anything?

Oops, I forgot to assign the correct author on this. This is Casey’s story, not mine. Corrected now.

You know it’s a good party when everyone shows up to work the next day and nobody except the base commander really knows what happened.

This was one of those times.

The Air Force had determined my Dad had spent enough time at Misawa AFB, Japan, and gave orders for him and our family to return stateside. As usual, there was the attached, unspoken order that my father would throw a party for everyone he served with on base.

Turns out that this was quite a few people.

So the night of the party comes around, and people start showing up.

And then more people.

And then even MORE people.

At 11pm, the party began running low on beer, so people started raiding the liquor cabinets. By midnight, that was all gone as well.

But the party wasn’t over, as nobody wanted to go home. So someone suggested they find more alcohol. But who would accept a bunch of drunks at 1am into their home?

Luckily, as the drunks were piling into their cars, my older brother, who was fifteen at the time, was able to kick them out of the driver’s seat and take over. So a bunch of drunks, doing 25mph make it from one side of the base to the other side where the officers lived. Then everyone unloads, and staggers up to the lawn of one house, sitting off by itself.

They begin to sing the little white mouse song. Those that still had beers in their hands rattled and tapped them accordingly.

After they were done, the front porch light comes on, and out steps a man. An older man. A man whom I remember my father once introducing as THE Base Colonel.

He stares everyone down, sweeping from left to right and back at the faces being presented to him.

He then smiles, and invites them all in for shots.

After another hour of doing shots with the highest ranking officer on base, it was determined that the XO should join in on the fun.

So they stagger through the woods behind the base colonel’s home, by this point us kids are holding the majority of the party goers up simply so they can walk, and arrive at the front porch of the XO. They begin singing the little white mouse. The XO steps out side, and is about to berate everyone, when he sees the Colonel.

He then invites everyone in, reluctantly.

After almost knocking over their fish tank, and several book shelves, it was determined that it was time to call it a night, and everyone loaded up back into their cars and went home.

The next day, my Dad asked us what happened. He didn’t believe us when we told him.
In fact, he didn’t believe us until the XO asked him to never, ever bring drunk people to serenade his house at 3am again.

Ever.