The Great American Novelty

I have to admit, I was a little worried that McDougal would still be angry with me about that stunt I pulled at Mardi Gras. But when I brought it up over drinks yesterday (we were at McDougal's favorite strip club, you know, that one over by the nuclear power plant) he just dismissed it with a wave of his hand. I shouldn't have been concerned. After all, McDougal has a great sense of humor. Most people don't realize that, I think because the joke is often on them. But if you step back and look at it from an outsider's perspective, it's often quite funny. I'm sure you've all heard the one about the guy who gets drunk and goes to a hotel with a prostitute, only to wake up in a bathtub full of ice, missing his kidneys. Yeah, that was me. McDougal set the whole thing up. He gave me my kidneys back and we shared a laugh. Actually, I only got one of them back. He gave the other one to the prostitute in exchange for her services. I hope she got a fair market price for it. I wouldn't want her feeling like she was ripped off. Apparently while that little Filipino surgeon was working on me in the bathtub, McDougal was in the other room working that hooker through his version of The Aristocrats.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but McDougal used to actually run a joke shop in Santa Monica. This was after college, and the big man knew he wasn't cut out for a job in the square world, so he thought a career in novelties might be the way to go. The merchandise was all pretty standard stuff: ice cubes with real malaria-infected mosquitoes inside, spring loaded peanut cans that, when you opened them, would spray out broken glass, official-looking army stationary that could be used to send people letters indicating that a loved one had been killed in Vietnam... Like I said, the usual kind of things. The police were convinced that he was selling drugs out of the back, which of course, he was. But ever since he was a young boy McDougal has maintained an intelligence network so elaborate that it makes the NSA look like an old lady trying to listen through a door with a drinking glass. When the cops kicked in the back door all they found were a few dozen cases of rubber vomit and a prototype pair of spectacles that shot out real X-rays.

McDougal later successfully sued the police department for the damage to his property and emotional distress. He made quite a bit of money from what I understand. Combined with his drug revenue it would have been enough to keep the shop open for years, even in the face of all the lawsuits against McDougal (it turned out users of his Genuine X-Ray Specs were reporting an alarming frequency of brain cancers). But McDougal's heart really wasn't in it anymore. He felt that his greatest joke was the one he played on the local police, and that really wasn't the kind of thing you could sell.

Anyway, we had a good time at the strip club last night. What those girls lack in looks, they more than make up for in enthusiasm. I said goodnight to the big man and went home without a care in the world. I should have been a little more wary though, because that prankster McDougal got me back good. I got up early this morning to get a round of golf in and while I was gone McDougal burned down my house. That crazy-ass McDougal! Ha ha ha!

Although, now that I think about it, I don't remember telling him I would be golfing this morning...