Head for High Hog Heaven

(# 5 in a series of Skeeter Kitefly’s Titular Assets)

as told to P. S. Ehrlich

I can’t believe you’re making me watch this Jesus Loves Me Show again. Oh yes you are! This is your TV, isn’t it? And it was you who told me my archest rival from high school had become a Yuppie televangelist.

Pamela Pillsbury! The Dough Girl! Ooh lookit her traipsing around in front of God and everybody, wearing a pea-green minidress for crying out loud. Boy, Scarlett O’Hara was right when she said blondes ought not to wear that color, ‘cause it turns our complexions greener than Gorgonzola. Yes she did say that. In the book, not the movie, when she was at a bazaar or barbecue or baby shower or something that starts with a B. Bar mitzvah, maybe. [Jackie Mason voice:] “Frankly my dear, I should give a damn?”

You don’t think I look like Pam, do you? Well you better not. She sure as heck doesn’t resemble ME, not one little bit, ‘cept for the hair color and eye color and height and weight and shape. (I wonder if she’s wearing a push-up? Be just like the Dough Girl to titillate the masses into bringing her their sheaves. And lookit the size of her rear! If I had a rump that plump, I sure wouldn’t display it from coast to coast in a tight-seated miniskirt—not unless I wanted viewers to “plight me their tithes,” as it were.)

(Jeez that sounds naughty, in kind of a Scottish way.)

Hey! As long as you’re up, wouldja mind pouring me another cup of coffee? And maybe toasting me a slice or two of bread? And buttering one while spreading the other with the Smuckers-of-your-choice?

(Yes I know you only have razzleberry. You could at least pretend to enjoy free will.)

Thanks. Oh enough with the “Yassum, Miss Skeeter!” Just for that you can go back in that kitchen and rattle your pots and pans. And peel me a grape while you’re at it!

(Munch crunch gulp slurp smack.)

Oh God, Pammy’s going to sing again...

So how many cans of AquaNet do you think she emptied, getting her hair to look like that? Every time she hits a high note, I expect it to shatter—both her hair and the high note, that is. But if you’re bound ‘n’ determined to be a totaltease, you might as well start with your own hair.

She actually used to have a pretty good singing voice, back when we were in Drama Club and operettas together. Better than that sticky-sweet fiddle-dee-heighdy-ho voice she talked with, anyway. But listen to her now: pure plastic.

The mountains skipped like rams
And the little hills like lambs—

Till another commercial! Like, like, um—jams? hams? clams?

No, better make it “Pam’s mams.” Not only has hitched up that push-up, but she must’ve tweaked herself a couple times too. Lordy! You know I’m no churchgoing born-againner, but even I think that looks sort of blasphematic.

I wish I could pray like Sister Kate,
She can shake ‘em like Jell-O on a plate!

Makes you wonder what foreplay’s like in the afterlife, at least.

(Sorry—I didn’t mean to get all theophilowhatsical.)

Oh listen to this: “For your first Love Gift of $25 or more, we will send you a JLM Show Starter Charm Bracelet. Each further Love Gift will earn you an additional Blessing Bangle, signifying an event in the life of your personal savior. Collect all twelve while supplies last.”

Why do I get the idea that Baby Jesus burst into tears just now?

And what would the blessèd Bangles say? “Won’t be feeling sorry, sorry, sorry on the Judgment Day?” Makes you want to go down to Liverpool and do nothing all the days of your life.

Religion wasn’t like this when I was a kid in Marble Orchard. No miniskirts in church there—just the Reverend Hall, who looked like Mr. Magoo, and Sunday school and choir practice in these long thick robes with stiff starched collars, and if anybody’d shown a nipple-bump I think the whole town would’ve gone up in flames. Boy it was BOring.

Then when I moved to Demortuis I joined the JayCee Christian Gospel Youth Group in pursuit of that “Laplander,” Troy Janssen—I’ve told you about this, haven’t I?—despite my sister’s thinking I’d turned all Jesus-Freakish on her, when in fact I was only hot to trot after the First of the Svens. (More fool me.) And those JayCees were too earnest and artless to keep anyone’s mind from wandering off toward carnal knowledge—or carnal speculation, anyway.

(I need to go sit down by the rivers of Babylon for a minute. Couldja brew me up a potful of refill? Percolate it right and there might just be a Love Gift in your future...)

Ah! Sweet relief. Is Pam’s show still on? Darn! Sour discomfort. Is that my fresh cup of coffee? Did you add my ton of Sweet ‘n’ Low? Did you stir it a dozen times, in both directions? Okay then. (Slurp.) Hey, not bad!—I think I’ve finally broken you of that true-grit aftertaste. Nice going!

We had terrible coffee aboard the “Belgian Bulge,” when I was shanghaied last year into cooking for those Hall o’ the Hearth™ missionaries on their way to Greece. I was ashamed to serve them such awful coffee, but they didn’t care—chugged it down by the urnful, morning noon and night. They were all too fat to begin with and only got obeser en route, gormandizing like they did. Pastor Muncie wasn’t much better (he sounded like Mr. Magoo) and don’t even get me started on Mr. Wong the head chef, who should’ve been off on some island as a cannibal king—I know he had his ogre-eye on me the entire voyage, and not just because of my buttoncute carnality.

Is it just me, or has Pamela’s hair gotten even bigger? “Oops there goes another AquaNet can!” And is her skirt even shorter and her nay-nays yes-yessier and is she singing AGAIN??

OLordbemyshepherdIshallnotwanttomakethmeliedowninpeagreenpastures—

HEY! I was watching that! Why’d you turn it off?... Oh don’t be absurd. I’ll tell you when I start speaking in tongues.

Still and all: I bet Pammy’s in heaven right now, strutting her designer self up and down that big brass runway, with millions of people with millions of dollars tuning in every Sunday to watch her do it. That’d be the Dough Girl’s idea of heaven, anyway. Better, at least, than when she was a Playboy Bunny in Great Gorge, New Jersey.

What’s mine? Why, Pink Gin of course—you should know that by now. Though it’s kind of early in the day—oh, you mean what’s my idea of heaven? As in the Hereafter? As in “You know what I’m here after?” (Hee hee hee!)

Well originally it was perfectly conventional, like Zuckerman’s farm in Charlotte’s Web, with Wilbur near at hand (don’t tell me there’s no pigs in heaven) and Henry Fussy on the horizon. Though I never could understand what Fern saw in a boy with a name like that.

Then there was traveling the Length and Breadth of Asia Minor, there beneath the blue Aegean skies! It’s a regular 24-hour hobnob with the gods when you go backpacking by yourself in Greece, especially in springtime (or when you drink a lot of retsina).

What else? There’s haulassing through the Bad Part of Town after dark on motorcycleback, hurtling into neon and freon on every side and hanging for dear life onto RoBynne O’Ring ‘cause you’re both more than a little blitzed and don’t know the meaning of cease or desist but realize that red lights are in fact special invitations to go girl go! when you’re a hot chick in an urban setting with all the wee hours still ahead of you.

Which isn’t to say that you can’t find your heart’s desire in your own back yard—or better still in your own best sweetheart’s sofabed, waking up on a weekend morning with no need to get out of each other’s arms till you’ve had your momentary fill of Oh-Gee (which stands for Orgasms Galore, in case you jealously thought I was fantasizing so much about Orichard Gere or Opeter Gabriel that I couldn’t spell straight).

But closest of all to my idea of High Hog Heaven would be if I could take off, all on my own, and go soaring like an angel to the heights of the sky, looking out over all creation from the very top of the world. And forget the robe and harp and feathered wings—I’ll soar just as I am, without any artificial enhancements, ‘cause (as I keep telling you) I can get high on an Eskimo Pie! Just like in that hymn by Harry Chapin:

See, he’s driving in his taxi
And dopin’ upon a pipe;
While me, I’m flying ‘cause I’m happy,
Really cute ‘n’ oh so hyped!
You go flyyyying so hiiiigh
WHEN YOU’RE HYPED!!

(You know on second thought I wouldn’t mind having a halo—it’d go much better with my style of blonditude than any amount of AquaNet....)