Light shined in one ear no longer emerging out the other.
USH LIMBAUGH, the don of right-wing talk radio, announced during a recent broadcast that while cleaning out his refigerator over the weekend, he discovered his brain "way back in the corner by the baking soda." The organ of thought, well preserved in the coldest section of Limbaugh's fridge, disappeared around the time of the second Reagan administration and had been, as Limbaugh put it, "completely obscured by old pizza boxes."
"There's nothing quite so good as cold pizza," noted the plus-size talk-show host, "but old, cold pizza—well, I should have known better. However, I had misplaced my brain by then, so that pretty much explains it. In fact, it pretty much explains a lot of things, doesn't it?"
Limbaugh, whose eyes glinted with new-found intelligence, theorized that he was able to get by without a brain by leaning on the basic functioning power of his in-tact brain stem, and "the neurons provided by my enteric nervous system, which as you may already know, is located in the gut. My gut is quite prodigious, so I probably have an extra set of neural pathways that have kept me going all these years."
Reviewing tapes of his behavior without a brain, the oversized host appeared simultaneously amazed and chagrined, shaking his head now and then and issuing low groans.
"Why would I cruelly mock a defenseless child just because her father was a president I didn't like? And these days I'm apparently smoking giant torpedo cigars when I'm clearly a heart attack on two legs! What a complete ass I've been."
Limbaugh initially leaned toward plans to write a book, whose working title was to be based on Al Franken's 1999 best seller, Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot.
"I think I'm going to call it something like If I'd Only Had My Brain: Reflections of a Big Fat Idiot. With the kind permission of Senator Franken, if there's any justice in the world."
However, soon after Limbaugh's brain was reinstated, he learned that his brain stem had recently signed a five-year, $400 million contract to continue his right-wing radio broadcast.
"Oh. Well, I may be fat, obnoxious, cocky, and ignorant, but if that's worth $400 million, I think the old grey matter's going back in the cooler."
© 6.11.09 Kate Heidel
