David Jaggard's
Quorum of One
Issue
number 24
November 21, 1999
Wet humor on the Web since 1999
an on-line warning system for the benefit of readers who happen to be my mother
WARNING! This article has been found to contain the following:
|
Bad words: |
Substance abuse: |
Naked consenting adults: |
If you are easily shocked or my eight-year-old niece, get out of here.
Otherwise, read on . . .
This issue:
THE ASSHOLES' BILL OF RIGHTS
Following the groundbreaking legislation
enacted by the Wisconsin legislature last year to protect the rights of state
residents who through no fault of their own happen to be unbearable jerks (see QOO Number 2, June 1998), the subhuman rights
organization American Society of Shit-Heads Obviously Lacking Equal Status has
proposed an amendment to the United States Constitution to safeguard the rights
of the "personality challenged" at the federal level.
As a public service, This Publication has agreed to reproduce the text of
the latest draft of this amendment.
******************************************
I. Congress shall pass no law limiting the right of the people to
complain, carp, gripe, grouse, grouch, whine or bellyache about any and all
topics of their own choosing, at any level of volume and for any length of time
as they might see fit.
In particular, the people of the United States shall have the express right to
bitch at will about things that they are unwilling or unable to change,
including but not limited to the weather, their own health and finances, other
people's religious or sexual orientations, the current socio-economic context,
acts of Congress, kids today, avant-garde art and the quality of popular music.
II. Any citizen who attempts to cut to the front of a
line, consume tobacco products in a legally designated no-smoking area, use
express checkout lanes to purchase more than the posted maximum number of
items, circumvent traffic jams by driving in the emergency lane, park without
authorization in a handicapped parking space or across two spaces in a crowded
lot, or in any other way seeks to defy and evade the established rules and
regulations of a well-ordered society, is entitled to special preferential
treatment over the rest of mankind upon simple demand.
III. The right of the people to tease,
taunt, bait, badger, deride, rib, razz and needle their friends, relatives and
co-workers shall not be impinged.
IIIa) In
particular, every citizen has the right to invent and repeat perfectly plausible
falsehoods for the sole purpose of finding humor in the fact that someone else
might believe them. This shall include but not be limited to introducing
oneself under a false name, reporting fictitious news stories and informing a
gullible second party that a third, physically attractive, party has the
quadruple drooling hots for the second party. The people's right to
exclaim "Can't you take a joke?" and "You actually believed that? Bwahahahaha!!!" shall not in any way
be limited by law.
IIIb) Out-of-towners'
ignorance of the pronunciation of local proper names shall be considered
hilariously ludicrous in every state and territory of the union.
IIIc) Whether
in the home or in the workplace, no limitation shall be placed on the number of
weeks, months, years or decades that a citizen may be ridiculed for any simple
mistake, lapse, faux pas or miscomprehension, no matter how understandable or
inconsequential. Nicknames arising from childhood incidents involving
pants-wetting, inopportune vomiting or the ejection of brightly-colored
beverages through the nostrils shall forever take precedence over any other
subsequently-earned titles, such as "Doctor", "General",
"Your Honor", "Your Holiness", etc.
IV. Citizens who wish to express a vague, general dissatisfaction
with their lives shall have the right to give vent to their frustrations by
treating their friends, family members and co-workers as utter imbeciles in
spite of any number of years of evidence to the contrary, finding and
expressing fault with their every action and utterance. In particular,
the people shall have the right to state for the first time any question,
request or order in such a way as to imply that it is in fact the one-hundredth
time. Congress shall pass no law restricting the people's right to react
to common every-day occurrences with exaggerated, virulent responses, including
"Are you deaf?", "Can't you read?" and "What are
you trying to do -- kill me?!"
V. Every citizen shall have the right to shirk his or
her duly assigned job, household chores and/or scholastic homework until
threatened with physical or financial retribution. When finally coerced by an
employer, teacher, spouse, military superior, parent or other person of higher
authority to rise from one's biologically-allotted buttocks and get a move on
already, the people's right to engage in eye-rolling, dramatic sighing and
moving as though encumbered by heavy weights shall not be infringed.
VI. All citizens shall have the right to speak on portable
telephones in a booming, mirror-shattering voice in waiting rooms, restaurants,
bars, public conveyances, elevators, and cinemas or concert halls during
performances, larding their speech with vulgar, strong and offensive language
while revealing their unsavory opinions and/or information of an intimate
nature. Citizens who do not own a portable telephone may substitute the
electronic reproduction of ear-splitting simplistic popular music.
VII. The use of chemical intoxicants being necessary to the
preservation of a sustainable shitty attitude, the right of the people to bend
elbows shall not be infringed. Citizens who perceive, wrongly, that they
enjoy the consumption of alcoholic beverages or other mood-altering drugs shall
have the inalienable right to consume any quantities of said intoxicants in the
name of "feeling better" or "having a good time" and then
proceed to feel, in fact, worse and ruin their own day, evening, night and/or
life as well as that of anyone unfortunate enough to stray within a 200 yd.
radius (350 yd. in Texas and Montana).
VIII. Citizens who earn their livelihood
by operating photocopy machines, motor vehicles or any other type of equipment
whose functions and manipulations are commonly understood and frequently
practiced by the majority of the population shall have the explicit right to
pretend, and if desired actually to believe, that they and they alone are the
only true masters of their craft and that any non-professionals attempting to
operate such equipment for themselves are:
a) fools, and
b)
doomed to failure.
IX. Congress shall pass no law
limiting the freedom of expression of citizens who:
a) Think that every aspect of human existence is a
bad joke, and
b) Think
that everyone else thinks so too.
When faced with a choice between two or more
possible outcomes of any given situation, each citizen shall have the right to
announce, interrupting others if necessary, his or her full expectation that
the worst possibility will come to fruition. [This is the so-called
"Watch It Rain" law, in reference to the classic response to any
decision involving the choice of a date for a picnic, parade, cookout, campout
or other outdoor leisure event.]
Failure to employ a sarcastic tone of voice shall result in the immediate
forfeiture of this right.
X. Any citizen who has formed an emotional union with
another citizen shall have the right to presume that union to be the one and
only such bond ever formed or ever to be formed by the other person throughout
his or her entire lifetime, irrespective of the number of such unions or
relationships that the first party may or may not enter into before, after or
during said union. Violations of this principle in the form of the
reception of unsolicited letters or telephone calls from exes, casual mention
of the physical attractiveness of a third party (including celebrities), or
looking at or being alone with any other member of the opposite sex for more
than 2.5 seconds may be dealt with in an exaggerated, logic-defying manner,
accompanied by a steadfast refusal to listen to reason and followed by pouting,
tantrums, fantastic accusations, the willfull destruction of crockery or
"the silent treatment", as the individual case requires.
XI. Citizens who deem that life is too expensive shall
have the right to cheat, chisel, weasel and stiff any and all of their friends,
business associates, family members and casual acquaintances out of any sums of
money whatsoever, no matter how small, and with no regard to their own actual financial
capacities. Congress shall make no law respecting the people's right to
"forget" loans, steal hotel linens, defraud electrical and telephone
service providers, sleep through tolls, time trips to the restroom to coincide
with the arrival of the check and undertip in a blatant and shameless
fashion.
XII. Any citizen who so chooses may
invoke the right of universal right-of-way and thereby never ever ever ever
ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever
ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever
ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever
ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever
ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever
ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever
ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever
ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever once move aside or in any
way make room for anyone else when walking, running, bicycling, horseback
riding, roller skating or operating a motor vehicle, until such time as this
citizen happens to run into another citizen with the same attitude. [This is
the so-called "Outtamywayfuckface" law.]
XIII. As of the date of ratification of this amendment, the world does in
fact owe you a living. Citizens who feel that they are not receiving
remuneration commensurate with their talents and abilities shall have the right
to portray themselves as hapless victims of uncontrollable circumstances
attributable to God, political/financial institutions beyond their
comprehension, society at large, or implausible and unprovable conspiracies
perpetrated by any ethnic group of their own choosing. Panhandlers,
hitchhikers, buskers and ambulant vendors of all kinds shall have the right to
abuse roundly anyone who fails to respond favorably to their solicitations, to
their face or behind their back, in the form of snide remarks, grimaces,
gratuitous speculation on the other party's ancestry or erotic predilections,
and/or the isolation of the longest finger of either hand.
XIIIa) As of the date of ratification of this amendment, the world does in
fact owe you a love life. The people shall have the right to expect fully
100% of all persons they might at any time find physically attractive to
reciprocate said attraction. Any failings or disparities in one's ability
to locate, secure, and have usufruct of a little ass once in a while may be
assigned to the shortcomings of the opposite sex as an aggregate group.
Any and all such disappointments shall be legally recognized grounds for
snorting "Men!" or "Women!" as the case may be, adding
"you're [they're] all alike!" if the situation so dictates.
XIV. All citizens who so desire may declare themselves ex nihilo to be infallible and
thereby entitled to prevail in any argument, disagreement or dispute of any
kind, no matter how trivial. For citizens who have opted to exercise this
right, pure bluster shall be accepted as a full and legally binding substitute
for knowledge and honesty. Any and all objections to said citizens' points of
view shall be immediately and permanently dismissible by a brief wave of the hand,
a grunt of disgust or both. "Infallible" citizens who
nonetheless fail to get their way shall be entitled to piss and moan bitterly
and incessantly until the disputed decision is reversed in their favor or the
world comes to an end, whichever occurs first.
XIVa) Self-declared
infallible citizens shall have the right to suspend any and all rules of logic,
common sense and/or physics as they see fit. The rules and conditions of
games, sports, wagers and other types of competitions may be unilaterally changed
before, during or after the event with no prior notice to the other
participants.
XIVb) Infallible
citizens shall furthermore have the right to assign the responsibility for any
problem, damage or unpleasantness of any kind resulting from their own actions
or decisions to anyone or anything but themselves, incuding persons who
originally advised against those very same actions or decisions.
XV. Citizens who wish to progress one step further from
infallibility to invincibility will perforce be exempt from the usual
principles and requirements of safety and good sense.
XVa) Self-declared
invincible citizens shall suffer no harm whatsoever from the consumption of
fatty foods, tobacco, drugs or alcohol or the lack of physical exercise.
They will furthermore be entitled to forego the principles of safe sex, ignore
toothaches, and observe solar eclipses with no optical protection.
XVb) As
concerns the operation of motor vehicles, they shall be endowed with miraculous
powers enabling them to drive at any speed while under the influence of any
quantity of any intoxicating substance(s) and with no need of a seatbelt. Any
passengers' comments or criticisms concerning an invincible driver's speed or
judgment, including involuntary exclamations of pure colon-draining fear, shall
entitle said driver to become furiously angry, drive even faster and more
recklessly, and blame his or her pointlessly aggressive mood on said passenger.
XVb1) Particular
attention must be given to the protection of the unchallengeable rights of
citizens who own and operate two-wheeled motorized vehicles. In addition
to the miraculous powers appertaining to all "invincible" drivers
under the provisions of XVb, motorcyclists shall be entitled to operate their
vehicles with no helmets or other protective clothing of any kind, and at any
decibel level attainable by modern mechanical engineering. In keeping
with the spirit of this amendment, such operation shall not result in deafness.
XVI. Any citizen who has willfully and
consistently exercised his or her rights as specified in points (I) through (XV) above for a period of
one calendar year or more shall have the inalienable right to contact former
friends, estranged family members and lukewarm acquaintances, either in person
or by telephone, and demand, "How come you never call me anymore?"
*You actually believed that? Bwahahahaha!!!"
©1999 by David Jaggard. All rights reserved worldwide.