"Any troubles?" My dentist asked as she thumbed through my records at my semi-annual check-up.
"Well," I answered, gazing thoughtfully at the ceiling, "last night I dreamt that Xena was giving me a colonscopy while my mother watched. I don't know what it means, but it's been giving me the heebie jeebies all day."
She shot me an odd look and said, "I mean are you having any troubles with your teeth?"
"Oh! No, not really," I replied. "Aside from that annoying whistling sound whenever I talk."
"Well, let's have a look, then, shall we?"
For the next hour, she picked and scraped, gouged and sanded, until my gums were raw and my teeth felt like I'd been chewing on refried gravel. When she was finally finished, she took off her welding mask and sighed deeply.
"Most of your front teeth are suffering from severe chemical damage, which would account for the whistling," she said. "I've seen it before, but usually not to such an extent. Typically, it's either the result of habitual methamphetamine use..."
"Or?" I asked suspiciously.
"Or excessive vomitting," she concluded.
"I CAN'T HELP IT!" I cried, leaping to my feet. "Every time I see that SMIRKING CHIMP on the cover of Time Magazine, I puke like Mary-Kate Olsen in the ladies room at Tony Roma's!"
"Mr. Chomstein..." my dentist tried to interrupt.
I tore off my bib and threw it on the ground.
"Person of the Year!" I spat. "Person of the FEAR is more like it! Red Alert! Orange Alert! Green Alert! Nipple Alert! Between the phony terror warnings and the FCC thought police monitoring everything I say, I'm afraid to crawl out from under my sink in the mornings anymore. And that ain't the half of it, sister! On Bush's watch, 150 million people lost either their lives, their jobs, or both. Half the country is being outsourced to Pakistan, and the other half has been brainwashed by cross-burning Jesus freaks. As we speak, little children - helpless little children - are being marched into religious gulags posing as public schools, where they're forced to say "under God" in the pledge, or even encouraged to practic abstinence against the very laws of nature. The air is unbreathable, the drinking water is full of arsenic, the Bill of Rights no longer exists, and two normal, law-abiding gay guys can't even walk down the street hand-in-hand without an inbred Repug making fun of their leather chaps and sequined cowboy hats."
"Mr. Chomstein, please."
"And the hegemony...oh, the hegemony!" I continued. "The whole world hates us, our allies despise us, and we're on the brink of nuclear armageddon because Bush and his red state church maggots waged an imperialist war for oil in order to pave the way for their "Messiah" to return, surfing on a tidal wave of AIDS victims and Enron pink slips! Meanwhile, innocent women and children are stripped naked and forced to play leapfrog across Gitmo by leering, chain-smoking midgets with no gaydar, as Donald Rumsfeld sits proudly upon huge pile of Halliburton loot, humvee armor, and crudely written form letters to the families of retarded jocks. The streets have turned to rivers of blood, the whole world hates us, Clinton's record budget surplus has vanished, squirrel numbers are declining, women are sacrificing their careers for their "family", and Jerry Falwell is drilling in ANWR. Peaceblossom is gone, Yassir Arafat is dead, Kirstie Alley is fat, and Mom's eating dog food right out of the can because Bush took away her social security in order to give tax cuts to the wealthiest one percent! If that's what it takes to become Time Magazine's "Person of the Year", then job well done, Dubya! MISSION A-F**KING COMPLISHED!!!!"
Having concluded my eloquent soliloquy, I took a deep breath and sat back down.
"Mr. Chomstein," my dentist commented politely from behind a large metal partition. "I thought we agreed not to discuss politics during your visits."
"I'm sorry," I apologized. "I got a little carried away. It must be the gas."
"I didn't give you any gas," she mumbled.
It was then that I realized that my dentist and the Shrub were in cahoots. I slapped myself on the forehead. How could I have been so naive? I should have known she was one of THEM when I spotted that copy of Time in the waiting room. I guess with the projectile vomitting, and the bubbleheaded receptionist's inconsiderate screaming, I must have somehow become distracted. The whole "Person of the Year" scam was obviously a plot to fill the pockets of Bush's big dentistry buddies!
I slowly backed out of the office, hopped into an elevator, and made my escape. Tomorrow, I'll thumb through the yellow pages and try to find a new dentist who isn't one of the pod people. Preferably, one who can discuss politics in a rational manner and doesn't pepper his office with right-wing propaganda.