Me: On Day Two of People Week, we're going to learn about the forgetful, a group that has been braving winters barehanded, getting rained on without umbrellas, and tearing rooms apart in searches for missing keys since the dawn of civilization. Tonight we'll be interviewing three such chronic 'losers'. The first is a woman who has had to replace her driver's licence a staggering ninety-three times, Madeline Mayhew!
(Applause. Enter Mayhew. We hug and sit down.)
Me: So why did you have to replace your licence so much?
Mayhew: Twice isn't that much, is it?
Me: I thought it was ninety-six times.
Mayhew #2: Excuse me.
Me: Yes?
Mayhew #2: Yes, I'm Madeline Mayhew. I was just waiting backstage when this impostor came out of nowhere.
Mayhew: I beg your pardon?
Mayhew #3: You're both impostors! Hi, Dave. I'm Madeline Mayhew. I'm sorry I missed my cue.
Me: Well this dispute is easily enough resolved. Can I see some ID?
Mayhew #3: Sure. How about a driver's licence?
Mayhews Spokesperson: We all have driver's licences, too!
Me: Who are you?
Mayhews Spokesperson: The Madeline Mayhews. We're a cheerleading team whose members are all named Madeline Mayhew.
Me: (after a pause) I think I'm beginning to see what happened here. You're all illegal immigrants applying for passports with the same fake driver's licence! Don't worry people. We'll get rid of these flimflammers during the commercial break.
(Commercial.)
Me: Next in line is an octogenarian. We all know how much aging can impair the memory. Let's hear it for Ernie MacGuff!
(Applause. Enter MacGuff. Leaning heavily on a cane, he slowly makes his way over to the guest chair.)
Me: Mister MacGuff, at roughly what time in your life did you begin to notice that your memory was failing?
MacGuff: I can barely remember anything past my forty-sixth birthday. But who says my memory was failing?
Me: Well if you can't remember anything past the age of forty-six -
MacGuff: Maybe I didn't want to.
Me: What do you mean?
MacGuff: I mean that I don't need to clutter my brain with a lot of useless shit!
Me: But so much has happened since then.
MacGuff: Like what? Hippies that wouldn't fight for their country? If my generation were like that, we'd all be speaking German right now, instead of American!
Me: But what about all the new technology?
MacGuff: It's all crap. I counted thirty-eight buttons on my remote control. I only need four of them. And the TV's break when you kick them now because they're all made of cheap fucking plastic instead of being built solid like in the old days. And if you wanna call and complain about it, you end up talking to Roberta the Robot. They fly all the way to the moon. What for? So they can plant a flag and make home movies of themselves playing golf.
Me: But what about all the history?
MacGuff: What history? Nothing big's happened since they dropped the big one on Hiroshima, except that they should have kept going and nuked those Commie bastards while we still had the advantage!
Me: Actually, those countries have switched over to free-market economies.
MacGuff: I thought it was more of a free-money economy with all its damn social programs and handouts! In my day people earned their pay!
Me: The music?
MacGuff: Don't get me started. Even without my hearing aid I could still hear your sound check.
Me: You didn't like it?
MacGuff: You sound like a goddamned gorilla.
Me: So your memory loss is all deliberate.
MacGuff: That's right. And if you keep forcing me to remember things, I'm going to have to crack you over the head with this cane.
Me: Well that won't be necessary because it's time to go to another commercial. Ernie MacGuff, folks!
(Applause. MacGuff smiles and waves to the camera.)
*********************************************
(A group of transit users wait at a bus stop with a 'No Smoking' sign. One of them lights a cigarette and goes around blowing smoke in the faces of the others.)
Smoker: Ha! How do you like that?
User #1: Stop it! Can't you read the sign?
Smoker: (blowing smoke in her eyes) What sign? Ha! Ha! Ha! A-ha! Ha! Ha!
Announcer: We care about you. That's why we've implemented a final solution to the problem of smokers.
(Troopers in brown shirts with red arm bands that display the 'no smoking' symbol appear at the bus stop and surround the smoker.)
Trooper #1: What do you think you are doing?
Smoker: I was just going to put it out.
Trooper #1: Let me do that for you. (He takes the lit cigarette and butts it out on the smoker's forehead.) You're coming with us. (They seize him and remove him from the scene.)
Announcer: We've converted all the old schools that were condemned for an asbestos hazard into concentration camps.
(A flag with the 'no smoking' symbol flutters atop a converted elementary school. Barbed wire has been added to the fence, which opens to let in a paddy wagon.)
Announcer: If your children didn't learn anything in them, maybe these smokers can at least learn some manners.
(Smokers all sit in a classroom, smoking away as their instructor stands before them in a gas mask.)
Instructor: And can anyone tell me the effect of smoking on an unborn child? Melissa? You ought to know.
Melissa: (six months pregnant, cigarette in mouth, putting her hand on her womb) It makes them kick harder if you cut off their supply of nicotine.
Announcer: And since they seem to want to shorten their lives, there's nothing wrong with helping them do it.
Instructor: And can anyone tell me one of cigarette tobacco's most toxic ingredients?
(The camera pans out to show that the smokers have all died in their desks.)
Instructor: That's right! Cyanide!
Announcer: Pretty soon there'll be no more smokers left to interfere with your healthy lifestyle.
(Show a cyclist riding down a roadside.)
Announcer: Then we'll start picking on cyclists for you.
(A vehicle bumps the cyclist off the road.)
Announcer: Breathe easy. A public service announcement from your loving government.
*********************************************
Me: He's a songwriter who posted over a hundred songs on the internet and then forgot every last one of them! Ladies and gentlemen, Jason Ashley!
(Applause. Enter Ashley. Greetings.)
Me: How could you forget all your songs?
Ashley: I guess it's because I'm not on the receiving end of the music. I'm on the giving end.
Me: But when they tested you a year and half later, they played your own recordings to you.
Ashley: I know. Can you remember everything you said and did on May 2, 2009?
Me: Why do you think you forgot them?
Ashley: Because they were my bitterest expressions drawn from my most painful experiences.
Me: But you didn't really forget them because you have since reconstructed most of them.
Ashley: No, I was forced to relive them.
Me: And in the meantime, countless strangers helped themselves to the bulk of your work. How did that feel?
Ashley: Ever seen the film, A Clockwork Orange?
Me: Yikes! And I hear they're still holding back all the money they made from your work.
Ashley: Yes they are. And as long as I have to walk the streets, people are going to assume that there is something gravely wrong with me for not being allowed to have my money. And every minute that I have to wait is going to feel like eternity.
Me: It must be tough to plan ahead when you feel that you can't trust anyone.
Ashley: Not really. I'm writing a will that says no one can profit from any of my music or writing after I'm gone. It is to be used strictly for charity if it is used at all.
Me: A will? Isn't that a little final?
Ashley: What's planning ahead without any thought to the glorious afterlife?
Me: Good point. His background might be spotty but his future is entirely sound! Jason Ashley, everyone!
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