Gretchen informed me about eight o’clock this morning that Christine O’Donnell wanted a telephone consultation, but I was booked solid most of the day. I did, however, manage to find a place for her in my schedule, at long last.
O’Donnell: Hello? Hello? Is this Tom Collins?
Tom: At your service, madame.
O’Donnell: Oh, gee, I’m so glad we could finally make contact today.
Tom: The feeling is mutual. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. How can I help you?
O’Donnell: Well, ah, first of all… I… I hear you charge a pretty penny for your services, and um…
Tom: I understand. As a matter of fact, I often offer an initial consultation free of charge, especially if, as there are in your case, some… shall we say, extenuating circumstances.
O’Donnell: Oh, goody! That’s fabulous, because, as you may know, I’m in some pretty dire straits – financially speaking – at the moment.
Tom: So I’ve heard. It seems you have money problems.
O’Donnell: I sure do, no doubt about it, and I’ve been having them for a long time, too!
Tom: A very long time, it seems. It took ten years – from 1993 to 2003 – for you to give your college $4,823 in unpaid tuition, for example, didn’t it?
O’Donnell: Yeah, well…
Tom: So tell me, did it really take you ten years to save up $4,823?
O’Donnell: Uh, ah, well, in 1993 I went right to work, you know, with Enough is Enough, the anti-pornography group, and what I found out eventually was, there’s not a lot of money in fighting pornography. I mean, if you want to fight pornography, it’s probably better if you have a lot of money already, really. That’s why I left and went to work for the Republican National Committee. Frankly, I’ll tell you, working for the RNC pays an awful lot better than try to stamp out smut.
Tom: I’m sure it does. By the way, how do you define pornography?
O’Donnell: I… well, um, I can’t, really. But I know it when I see it.
Tom: Okay, so is Michelangelo’s David pornographic?
O’Donnell: Um, well, David doesn’t have any clothes on, does he? So yeah, like we used to say at Enough is Enough, “If it’s nude, it’s lewd.”
Tom: But all those pictures Michelangelo painted on the Sistine Ceiling – quite a few of them are nude, too. Are you saying the Pope is a pornographer?
O’Donnell: Oh, no, no, of course not! The Pope is an extremely holy man! But I do think he should hire somebody to paint some clothes on all those naked pictures they have there in Rome.
Tom: Who would you suggest to paint clothes on the nudes in the Vatican, then?
O’Donnell: Oh, gee… how about Jon McNaughton? I think he did a really great job with his painting of Jesus Christ holding the US Constitution.
Tom: No “penumbras of privacy rights” in Jesus’ copy of the Constitution, I suppose.
O’Donnell: What’s a penumbra?
Tom: Never mind. You’re a strict constitutional conservative, though, right?
O’Donnell: Absolutely.
Tom: And consequently, you don’t believe in a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancies, because it doesn’t explicitly say anything in the Constitution about women having any such right, correct?
O’Donnell: Yeah.
Tom: And therefore, on the other hand, you believe in slavery.
O’Donnell: What?
Tom: Because, while it’s true that the United States Constitution doesn’t mention abortion, civil rights penalties for hate crimes against homosexuals, or requiring citizens to buy health insurance, it does in fact mention slavery.
O’Donnell: All right, yes, it does, but those parts were repealed! Weren’t they?
Tom: By the Thirteen Amendment.
O’Donnell: Uh, yeah, okay, sure, that sounds about right. So no, slavery was bad, and we fixed that, and the Constitution doesn’t say it’s okay anymore.
Tom: So the Constitution can change?
O’Donnell: Of course it can! Like you said, they can amend it.
Tom: So that makes it a living document, right?
O’Donnell: No! It means that if you get an eighteenth-century dictionary and look up the definitions of the words in the Constitution, you can figure out what it really means!
Tom: Except for the parts what were written in the nineteenth century.
O’Donnell: Yeah, okay, those.
Tom: And the other parts, written in the twentieth century, of course.
O’Donnell: So you need more than one dictionary, big deal!
Tom: Now let me get this straight – you don’t believe in income tax, either, because there’s nothing in the Constitution about that?
O’Donnell: Sure don’t. So we gotta dismantle that IRS, pronto, because it’s unconstitutional. It’s just that simple.
Tom: You seem to have the same problem with the IRS that a lot of TEA Party people do.
O’Donnell: I beg your pardon?
Tom: Didn’t the IRS recently put a lien for $11,000 on you for unpaid back taxes?
O’Donnell: That’s just an example of the government oppressing another true patriot!
Tom: That’s what all the TEA Party members with big IRS problems say, isn’t it? But in fact, income tax actually is constitutional, you know.
O’Donnell: You’re kidding me!
Tom: Nope. Sixteenth Amendment. Ratified February 3, 1913.
O’Donnell: Oh come on, now! You’re making that one up, aren’t you?
Tom: No brag, just fact. It says, “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”
O’Donnell: Well, I’d say that’s some mighty fancy talk, right there! You say that means income tax is constitutional?
Tom: Yeah, pretty much.
O’Donnell: Well, I’d say I’ll have to check with Sarah Palin on that.
Tom: Sure, why don’t you? Sounds like a good idea, really.
O’Donnell: But any-who, I think you’re getting at what I called you about.
Tom: Which is?
O’Donnell: This money stuff – it’s really bugging me. Like, for instance, I beat Mike Castle in the Republican primary a couple of weeks ago, and I become the Republican nominee for Senate in Delaware, and what happens? The RNC gets all hinkey and mean and stuff and says they won’t give me any money! And then there’s this stuff with the Federal Elections Commission…
Tom: Claiming you were spending campaign funds on yourself?
O’Donnell: That’s legal, you know!
Tom: It is?
O’Donnell: Sure – as long as you live in your campaign headquarters!
Tom: Well, I.A.N.A.L.
O’Donnell: Huh?
Tom: I am not a lawyer. So I can’t say. But you must admit, it certainly doesn’t look very good.
O’Donnell: I can’t help what it looks like! I need a place to sleep, don’t I?
Tom: Of course. We all do.
O’Donnell: That’s right, and you try sleeping on a mattress on top of a pallet of cardboard yard signs sometime! Look, if I didn’t have constant cash flow problems, I wouldn’t have defaulted on my mortgage, okay?
Tom: Bottom line – you have continual money trouble?
O’Donnell: Chronic money trouble. And I’m pretty sure I know why, too.
Tom: You can’t hold a paying job?
O’Donnell: No!
Tom: You’re not smart enough to make a decent living?
O’Donnell: What’s that supposed to mean?
Tom: Just that you’re running for United States Senate…
O’Donnell: Which happens to be a very decent job, you know! Good pay, no heavy lifting, great benefits.
Tom: Especially the health care. But, as a TEA Party candidate, aren’t you supposed to be running against career politicians instead of trying to become one?
O’Donnell: Not really.
Tom: No?
O’Donnell: No, because sometimes, it’s necessary to become the enemy in order to defeat them.
Tom: Gee, what you just said sounds almost profound. Where did you hear that?
O’Donnell: I think I heard Jim DeMint say it once. But I’m not sure. Look, as I was saying, I know the root cause of my money problems – it’s a curse.
Tom: Metaphorically, I suppose.
O’Donnell: No.
Tom: Psychologically, then.
O’Donnell: No.
Tom: Literally?
O’Donnell: Yes. When I was young, before I had the Lord on my side, I hung around with Satanic types, including a genuine warlock.
Tom: But you were never a witch yourself, were you?
O’Donnell: I dabbled at witchcraft, yes, but I was never a genuine witch, not like my boyfriend was a genuine warlock, no.
Tom: So what happened?
O’Donnell: Well, back then, I was pretty hot, you know. Not that I’m not hot now, of course, but I’m hot in a very… Evangelical way, not hot like a teenage Catholic girl who’s dabbling at witchcraft – I’m sure you can appreciate the difference.
Tom: Absolutely. Please, tell me more.
O’Donnell: Okay, so, any-who, this warlock had a girlfriend, you know, and I more or less stole him away from her, and that made her really, really angry.
Tom: Understandable; it was a classic love triangle, wasn’t it?
O’Donnell: More or less, yeah, I guess so. And suddenly, without warning or anything, he’s like “I need to tell you something important – I’m going back to Samantha.”
Tom: “Samantha?” This girl called herself “Samantha?”
O’Donnell: Um, actually, in fact, that’s what her mother named her.
Tom: Oh, boy. Then what?
O’Donnell: Well, he did, and a couple of months later, he told me she had put a curse on me.
Tom: Did he say which variety of curse, perhaps?
O’Donnell: No. He was really kind of snotty about it, actually. But I’m convinced that curse is the reason I’ve had so many money problems over the years, like defaulting on my mortgage, the IRS putting a lien on me and the FEC investigating how I spend my campaign contributions. So I prayed on it, really hard, and I heard the voice of God.
Tom: You did?
O’Donnell: Uh-huh, and He gave me your phone number and told me to call you.
Tom: Madame, I think you should know, Karl Rove does a very convincing Voice of God imitation.
O’Donnell: He does?
Tom: Absolutely awesome, as a matter of fact. He used to fool George W. Bush with it all the time. Are you sure it wasn’t Karl Rove?
O’Donnell: Yeah, I am.
Tom: What makes you so certain?
O’Donnell: Because I have faith in God, that’s why. And God told me to call you and ask for advice.
Tom: Well, advice is my stock in trade, no doubt about that.
O’Donnell: And God said, since I’m broke and in all this money trouble and since He wants me to be the next United States senator from Delaware, you aren’t going to charge me anything, either.
Tom: And I won’t, no siree, not one red cent, not one thin dime, not a single inflation-battered dollar. Now, let’s get down to brass tacks here – what you have is obviously a highly effective Occidental Satanic witchcraft curse, and it was clearly cast by a thirty-third degree spell master.
O’Donnell: Oh, gee, do you think so? What does that mean?
Tom: It means, short of a trip to Lourdes with a simultaneous intervention by a fully beatified and canonized saint, accompanied by a full-court press from a crack team of Jesuit exorcists, there’s nothing Western magic or miracles – holy or Satanic – can do for you.
O’Donnell: So what’s the solution?
Tom: Fortunately, there’s an Eastern curse-breaking spell that can beat anything even the best magic the Occidental Satanic School can contrive, and I just happen to know it.
O’Donnell: So that’s why God told me to call you!
Tom: Must be, I guess. Furthermore, it breaks all curses, of any kind, and doesn’t require any artifacts belonging to the persons who created those curses, either. So get a pen and paper or take out your favorite computer notebook or whatever.
O’Donnell: Just a second… Okay, I’m ready.
Tom: As we begin, I must caution you – this is an extremely powerful ancient Thai application of even more ancient Chinese Qi Men Dun Jia magic, and you will have to follow my instructions exactly.
O’Donnell: Okay, no problem. Go ahead.
Tom: First, the ingredients. You’re going to need a copy of the I Ching, printed in squid ink on rice paper.
O’Donnell: Oh, shoot! Where in the world am I going to get that?
Tom: Um… Chinatown in New York City?
O’Donnell: Uh, right. Sorry. And what else?
Tom: While you’re there in Chinatown, buy two liters of one-hundred-six proof maotai.
O’Donnell: What’s maotai?
Tom: A Chinese distilled spirit made from fermented sorghum. You’re also going to need about three pounds of dried yarrow stalks, two pounds of fresh banana leaves, and a peck of dried bamboo roots. But don’t buy the ones in they have in Chinatown, because you can’t be sure those will work.
O’Donnell: No? How come?
Tom: Because you won’t know if the bamboo roots come from running or clumping bamboo, and if you use running bamboo roots instead of clumping bamboo roots, the spell will backfire and you’ll only intensify the curse in proportion to how good the other ingredients and execution are.
O’Donnell: All right, so where do I get the kind of bamboo roots I need?
Tom: There, you’re doing fine, because no less than five clumping varieties of bamboo are growing in your state of Delaware right at this very moment, and the best ones for this spell are among them. You need to collect roots from a member of the genus Phyllostrachys, that’s P-H-Y-L-L-O-S-T-R-A-C-H-Y-S; of the species Bambusoides, that’s B-A-M-B-U-S-O-I-D-E-S; Aurea, that’s A-U-R-E-A; or Nigra, that’s N-I-G-R-A. Dig up the root clumps and dry them.
O’Donnell: Magic bamboo grows in Delaware?
Tom: If you believe in magic, yes. It was imported from the Far East over a hundred years ago.
O’Donnell: How do I know which bamboo roots to pick?
Tom: Look up pictures of those three species on the Internet.
O’Donnell: Oh, yeah. Right.
Tom: And you’ll also need to collect a four foot long bamboo stick from the same patch you collect the root from.
O’Donnell: Okay… I’ll get a four foot long bamboo stick, too.
Tom: Other things you’ll need that they do have in Chinatown are a two foot long one-eighth inch Malay mahogany dowsing dowel, a six inch two-by-four piece of Formosan sacrificial balsa wood, a large Burmese teak joss money bowl and a Chiang Mai jade ceremonial knife.
O’Donnell: Malay mahogany dowel… Formosan balsa wood… Chiang Mai jade knife… Burmese teak bowl…
Tom: Then you’re going to need a live male chicken.
O’Donnell: What! You mean, a rooster?
Tom: That’s what some people call it, yes. You will need to get a large, live… rooster.
O’Donnell: The kind that go “cock-a-doodle-doo” at dawn in the morning?
Tom: Precisely. Then you’re going to need about four ounces of dried tiger dung. It’s mostly water, so you’ll need to collect about two pounds of it fresh.
O’Donnell: Tiger dung? Where am I supposed to get that?
Tom: The zoo?
O’Donnell: Oh, yeah, I guess, yeah. They throw it out, huh?
Tom: Yes, they do, but unless you know what it looks like, you might get dung from the wrong animal, and that could be disastrous.
O’Donnell: So what should I do, then? Hide out at the zoo until after hours, watch the tigers until one of them does their… business… and then hop in their enclosure to collect it?
Tom: Well, I can’t think of a single reason why I wouldn’t encourage the TEA Party candidate for any political office to do that, actually – sure, why not give that a try?
O’Donnell: Okay, maybe I will, but I’ll try…. uh… making friends… with a zookeeper first.
Tom: Might as well. Right – so, the last thing you’re going to need is the menses of an idiot.
O’Donnell: Oh great! First, tiger dung, and now this! Where can I get that? And what’s a menses, anyway?
Tom: Don’t worry, I’m certain your gynecologist knows where to find some.
O’Donnell: All right, then, fine! Is that everything?
Tom: Yes.
O’Donnell: So what do I do?
Tom: During the night of the full moon, when it is at least an hour after moonrise, take out that copy of the I Ching. It contains sixty-four hexagrams. Tear out the pages with the pictures of each hexagram. Choose a gravel or stone surface and arrange them in a square using a reverse order from that in which they appear in the book. Then quickly put the male chicken’s head in your mouth and bite it off, just behind the skull, severing it from the neck at the first cervical vertebra…
O’Donnell: Omigod! Put the head in my mouth?
Tom: Correct. And bite it off as quickly as possible…
O’Donnell: Wait a minute here! I have to put the entire head in my mouth?
Tom: Yes.
O’Donnell: But it’s going to be, like, huge! Can’t I do this with a Cornish game rooster instead of a full sized chicken?
Tom: Sure, but the strength of the spell is proportional to the size of the rooster, so I can’t guarantee…
O’Donnell: All right, all right! Full size rooster, I bite the head off, okay, then what?
Tom: Spit the head into that teak bowl filled with maotai and immediately release the rooster’s body, placing it feet-down on the pages of the rice paper and squid ink I Ching. The rooster’s headless body will run around for several minutes, spewing blood all over the pages. When it stops moving, pluck all the feathers out and put them aside. After that, using the jade knife, remove the feet, skin and gut the rooster, and place the feet, skin and entrails in the teak bowl of maotai with the head. Then you consume all the flesh from the carcass.
O’Donnell: “Consume?” You mean, “eat?”
Tom: Exactly.
O’Donnell: Are you saying I should eat it raw?
Tom: I am.
O’Donnell: Eww! Gross! What if I get, like salmonella or something?
Tom: I’d say that for anybody who has just bitten the head off a live chicken, salmonella poisoning will be the least of their worries, but, if you’re concerned about it, I suggest you get an organic, free-range rooster.
O’Donnell: But I’m a conservative! I hate the kind of hippie-dippie people who raise that kind of food!
Tom: Well, then, look at it this way – sometimes it may be necessary to consume the organic farmers’ food in order to defeat them.
O’Donnell: Oh, I suppose so. Do I have eat all of it?
Tom: Yes, you do. You have suck all the meat off the bone.
O’Donnell: Every single one?
Tom: That’s how the spell works, I’m afraid. But remember, nobody says you can’t drink some of that maotai first if you want. So, after you clean the bones off completely, arrange them to resemble the rooster skeleton they once were on a overlapping circular rosette pattern of banana leaves in a open field.
O’Donnell: Open field?
Tom: The back yard of the townhouse where you have your campaign headquarters should be just fine.
O’Donnell: Well, that’s a relief, any-who.
Tom: Of course. Now, at the next full moon…
O’Donnell: What? This takes a whole month?
Tom: Truly powerful magic always takes time. Besides, you’re going to need a month to sufficiently dry out the bamboo and tiger dung for the next step. And while that’s going on, after eleven days of soaking in the maotai, you need to take out the rooster’s intestines, dry them out and then, seven days later, fashion the tanned gut into a strand of rope. On the night of the second full moon, string that rope onto the bamboo stick, making a bow. Pile the dried bamboo roots on top of the chicken bones, then put the chicken feathers on top of that. Place the block of balsa wood on the ground next to the bones on the banana leaves. Sit down next to the balsa wood block with the bow and the mahogany dowel and, using the dried tiger dung, make fire. When the tiger dung starts to smoke, blow on it carefully, transferring the coals to the chicken feathers. Place all the dried tiger dung on the feathers and continue to gently blow…
O’Donnell: What if it rains?
Tom: Then you wait for the next full moon.
O’Donnell: Oh, rats!
Tom: Listen, if you don’t have what it takes to do this, we can…
O’Donnell: No, no, go on! I’m desperate! I have to raise money to run for the Senate!
Tom: All right, then, as I was saying, when the fire gets going nicely, stand at the north end of the fire and toss the head, feet, skin, and finally the remaining entrails onto it. Since they’ve been soaked in over-proof liquor, they will burn quite nicely. Next, standing at the south end of the fire, pile on the dried yarrow stalks. After that, standing at the west of the fire, toss in the bow, the gut string, the mahogany dowel, the balsa wood block and the jade knife. Then, taking the remaining maotai in the bowl by the mouthful, circle the fire, stopping at least once at each cardinal point of the compass, spitting the maotai out into the flames. When no more mouthfuls are left, be sure to pour every remaining drop of maotai out of the bowl into the fire. After that, kneel at the east end of the fire and put the menses of an idiot in the bowl and throw them in. Then sit in the Lotus Position at the north end of the fire and start burning the blood-soaked pages of the I Ching, again in the reverse order from that which they appear in the book, starting with the page depicting Hexagram Sixty-Four. And each time you consign a blood-soaked page of the I Ching to the flames, you must recite the following incantation: OH-WAH…
O’Donnell: OH-WAH…
Tom: TAN-AH…
O’Donnell: TAN-AH…
Tom: SIAM!
O’Donnell: SIAM!
Tom: That’s it. When you’re done, just dig a hole nine feet deep, shovel everything that’s left into it, fill’er up forget it.
O’Donnell: At least that part’s simple enough. You think this will be effective?
Tom: Madame, I assure you, I am absolutely certain that it will be every bit as effective in the magic spirit world as you and all the other TEA Party politicians who are elected to federal office this November will be when you get to Washington.
O’Donnell: All right! In that case, thanks a million and wish me luck!
Tom: You’re welcome, but luck doesn’t enter into it.
O’Donnell: It doesn’t?
Tom: No, because as any experienced, genuine witch will tell you, magic is all about skill.
O’Donnell: Yeah, I see what you mean. So lemme make sure now, that’s… OH-WAH… TAN-AH…
Tom: SIAM! You got it! I have to run now, so have a nice day!
O’Donnell: Okay! ‘Bye!