bizarreville

The joint leadership of Congress declared last week the official end of bipartisanship and any pretense of both sides working together.  The exciting announcement was made together by both parties on the steps of the Capitol, after which the parties gave each other high-fives, chest bumps, then flipped each other the bird.  There was dancing in the street by all the citizens who have been sick and tired of all the mickey mouse for months.  The press corps also cheered wildly, and broke out bottles of cheap champagne to celebrate the end to the silly games of gotcha…although some reporters sadly realized that the funnest parts of their jobs may now be over, and they will have to go back to just reporting plain old boring news.

It was long overdue.  But the recent Health Care bill fiasco finally made all realize that enough is enough.  “We want to take the country into a new, exciting, changed world…a world of marxism, and they don’t,” said a Democratic senator.  “There’s no reasoning with those slobs on the right.  They just want the same old/same old…with policies of minimal government that are so passe that no one in the world subscribes to anymore.  They need to seriously join the 21st century, and get out of their 1776-vintage old fogey ways.  Time to wake up and smell the latte, boys.”

Republicans are also relieved at not having to bother with “finding common ground with skunks,” as one congressman put it.  They had become frustrated after trying for months and months to interject one lousy little idea into the Obamacare bill, but were shot down and shut out on every try.  Conservatives had gotten angry over the secret backroom deals, the Cornhusker Kickbacks, making-up new far-fetched rules on the fly if Dems didn’t like the old rules, and worst of all – using the Constitution for TP.  Finally, they said piss on it…we’ll let the voters decide in November if they want Mao and his buddies running things.  They then bought themselves a round of shots at Murphy’s Bar, and poured them down their gullets.

The party atmosphere is expected to continue through the St. Patrick’s day holiday.  Liberals will be dressed in their customary orange outfits so as to not offend non-Irish people, and naturally are prepared to be cat-called “Protestants” on Wednesday.  All are hoping to avoid confrontations like the ones last year, which unfortunately culminated in one drunken Lib yelling out, “Danny Boy was a tea bagger.”  Naturally this erupted into fisticuffs with several black eyes, before the paddywagons took the drunk and his orange buddies away.

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction.

To break the monotony of wraggling over bills, Congress has adopted a fun little internal game that they will be playing with themselves.  It’s called “I’m more bipartisan than you”.  Each congressperson will amass points between now and November whenever they do something that shows bipartisanship.  Of course the difficulty and excitement in the game is that no one there really knows what bipartisanship really means.  So it will be hilarious to see how they stumble and bumble trying to figure out how the points system works, and then conniving games on how to score points.

Now the rules of the game are as follows.  Every time a congressperson tells an opposing member “that’s a great idea”, he/she gets one point.  It can be recognizing a great idea on a landmark bill, or discovering a new way of washing his hands after going to the poddy.  It cannot be sarcasm (i.e. that’s a “great” idea), although the cleverest members may find ways to sneak some sarcasm into the dialog without the unclever, mind-numb opposing member even realizing it.

The congressperson will get 2 points if they have had a meaningful discussion with an opposing member to try to resolve a persnickety disagreement on a bill.  Points, however, will not be awarded if the person makes disparaging comments about his grandmother, makes inaccurate comments about certain body dimensions, or uses the F-word in describing what actions the opposing member can do with himself.

They will get 3 points if they actually find common ground with an opposing member.  Naturally, all feel that these points will be rarely given out.  It’s not even clear that most of these hardheads even know what common ground means, so it will be especially difficult for any of them to know it if they see it.  But points are theoretically available to the rare few who might take the time to probe and reconcile true desires of each side…or, more likely, the rare few who stumble upon common ground by sheer accident.

Finally, they will get 5 points if they actually come to a written bonefide agreement on an issue with an opposing member.  A panel will question both members to make certain that they really agree and are not just pretending to agree to get extra points.  Laughing or spit-takes during the panel questioning will put grave doubt on the authenticity of the agreement.  And if found to be faked, it will cause both players to lose 5 points, and furthermore, both members will be forced to listen to House floor speeches for 3 solid days in a row as additional punishment.

No points will be awarded for “compromise” agreements, where both sides feel like they lost in the deal.  Anyone caught compromising in this manner will be given a travelling stuffed toy duck that just quack, quack, quacks all day.  The Quacker will be required to be kept on the Quackee’s desk for the next 24 hours.

The winner of the “I’m more bipartisan than you” contest will receive an upgrade to his seat in the congressional chamber to a La-Z-Boy Sleepmaster XF…so that if he/she is going to be bored, at least it will be a comfortable boredom.  The seat has an optional vibration unit that can be energized when the House is set for a vote…or the unit can be switched off entirely to prevent sleep interruption.

The Bizarreville Skunksprays football team finished once again in last place with a pitiful 0-16 record.  There will most certainly be plenty of handwringing and February quarterbacking about why their team is sub-dysfunctional and why their performance is litterbox-ready.

But after the last game of the year, Bill “Skinny” Skurff, the retired coach from Bizarreville High School, had the whole problem figured out.  “The Offensive team does NOT like the Defensive team, and vice versa,” he said.  “I mean, they really hate each other.”  The coach went on to say that their mutual dislike prevents each side from focusing on what’s important, and ultimately stymies the Skunksprays from coming together as a team to become successful.  “That, plus the players mostly suck.”

Video tapes of the seasons lowlights confirm that Skurff is right.  In one game, after an inadvertent fumble by a runningback deep in their own zone, you can see the Defense coming onto the field flipping the bird to the Offensive players.  Later, after the Offense drove 92 yards to score a touchdown, you can see the quarterback unloading the F-bomb on the Defensive line players resting on the bench.  Then later in the game, when the score was close and the game was on the line, both sides were engaged in some “kiss my ass” banter, which ultimately resulted in a crucial Delay-of-Game penalty that became their undoing.

In another game, video tapes show both sides mooning each other during a TV timeout, while the opposition team members just watched dumbfounded in amazement.  “What’s wrong with those idiots over there?” spouted the opposition quarterback, who later threw for seven touchdowns in an 81-3 win over the Sprays.

Coach Skurff said that if both sides could show more respect and truly work together to help each other, results would certainly improve.  But they first must come down off their high horses, remove boards from certain crevices, develop a little humility, and start thinking of themselves as ONE team, not two teams.  It’s called team bipartisanship… recognizing that Defense and Offense can be adversaries and see things differently…but can also find common ground.  Each side has different roles, different skills, different ideas how to win.  But acting as one team and all players executing their roles well, supported by coaches who build and bring people together could take them out of pathetic perrenial last place dwellers up to perhaps a solid “mediocre” level.  And who knows….get rid of a few no-talent scumbuckets, replace them with skilled, smart players who don’t deficate in their own pants…and it could be conceivable that the Skunksprays could break .500, maybe not likely, but possible.

It’s hard to teach an old Skunk new tricks, so miracles are not expected.  Bookies are giving short odds on another 0-16 season next year.