DES MOINES,IOWA,JANUARY 4,2008(AP)--While relieved that the presidential caucuses are finally over, most Iowans report feeling "cheap, dirty and used." Respondents to a Washington Post/ABC News Survey said they felt like "deflowered virgins" after too much vodka.
"I feel like I need a really long, hot shower," Mimi Olson, a grandmother of five and proprietor of The Happy Flower Knickknack Shop said. "I feel like a cheap hooker two days after payday at a mining camp."
Ms. Olson added that the candidates "all come in here, waving around their campaign cash and talking all sweet, and as soon as the deed is done they sneak away like adulterous pigs clear across the country. I say good riddance."
Irv Hilldale, a soybean farmer in Hogsnout County, said the weeks before the caucuses reminded him of a drunken riot, but without all the fun.
"Look at this place," he said, referring to the two-block mainstreet of Berry Forks, the county seat. "They come in here, sittin in our diner, ridin our tractors for the media, kissin our babies. We'll have a whole generation of kids growin up not normal because of this, and that don't include the thrasher accidents. We still haven't found Ed."
Mr. Hilldale's brother-in-law, Hank "Hank" Showdirt, a spare parts repairman who finished second in the State Fair's Largest Gourd Contest, added that both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama made promises he knew they couldn't keep.
"They both promised me a cabinet position if I reported to the right school gym. Interior, I think."
According to the survey, 68% of Iowans feel "used and abandoned" by the candidates, and of those, 32% said they "felt like cheap sluts who cry themselves to sleep because they're only wanted for a quick booty call."
Allison Rogers, a third-generation single mom from Cedar Rapids, said she's better off without the candidates, but that sometimes she thinks she led them on.
"They remind me of Billy Jackson, the father of one or two of my kids," she said. "They look real good, talk real smooth, but then it's like wham! They plant their seed and they're gone. Still, it's nice to be noticed."
She added that they shouldn't have to worry about candidates from either party for almost 3 1/2 years, because the nominees generally ignore Iowa during the general election.
New Hampshire officials are apparently taking heed of the statements made by some Iowans. Kelly Attire, the state's attorney general, said they will do everything possible to protect the citizens of The Granite State.
"They're real smooth, with their private jets and field offices, but we're ready for them. When they try and slip their hands beneath the panties of our electorate, they will find they are blocked by the chastity belt of common sense."

I wasn't going to do this again, but what the hell. Today I was reviewing some past writing, and I came across my journal entry for January 1, 2007. It's not too bad, considering I felt rattled and frazzled from the previous night, and, like most of my journal entries, I wrote it after not enough sleep and too much strong coffee.
So anyway, here it is. Let me apologize right here and now for that horrible bit of profanity right there in the opening line.

January 1, 2007

Happy -- ah, fuck it.
Yes, another one down. But it is a mere tick of the clock, the passing of a moment. It is a marker, a passage, but really, why the fuss? I guess so that a lot of people can go out and do something on New Year's Eve, since they are all tired of staying home and reading fine literature.
Work was extremely busy last night. It took awhile for the voices to fade. Uh, let me explain. You have a section of five to seven tables of people for whom you are responsible, and every time you get within spitting distance of it, everybody calls out to you, and not in pleasant greeting. "I need water!" "We want to order!" "We need our check!" "There's a severed finger in my potatoes!" And everywhere you turn -- people in your way, darting about. It's cramped, crazy, crowded and claustrophobic, the phone keeps ringing, you have to seat people because the owner -- who said he would play host -- is drunk at the bar, EVERYBODY asks you where the bathroom is, even if you are in the middle of ringing in an order, running a credit card and taking a reservation on the phone, trying to hear above the rising din and the screaming kids. (And honestly, why can't people find the bathroom themselves? I have never, ever, been in a restaurant or a bar where I could not find the bathroom. All you have to do is start at one spot, and circumnavigate the premises. Eventually, you will find it. It's not exactly like trying to locate the mouth of the Nile River, or the Northwest Passage.)
And so that jumble and jangle of voices rattles your head for hours and hours afterward, to the point where you want to wash down your heroin with valium-fortified whiskey, or sit on the Continental Divide and listen only to nature for hours, days even.
But it's over. Hopefully, it is my last one spent working in a restaurant.
Gray and rainy out there. The streets -- finally quiet. For some reason, I like that on New Year's Day.
Well, Shinto, guess I'll get on with it then. Calls to make, and all that rot. And you, too, Toshibo. Be as centered as possible. Me, I'm a-ramblin, too. I'm headin back to the Divide.
Hand me my heroin, will ya?

And indeed, it was my last New Year's Eve working in a restaurant. I've since found another job, what some might call a "real job," unlike all of those fake jobs I've toiled at over the years. However, I still had to work on New Year's Eve -- right up to midnight -- and as for stress, it makes waiting tables seem like a nap in a hammock on a quiet summer afternoon.
Maybe one day, I will describe what it is like.

Just a quick note here, something I noticed today and thought I would pass on.
Earlier, I opened a jar of organic peanut butter. Out of curiosity I read the ingredients. They are: peanuts, sea salt.
That's it.
Then, I noticed a warning printed directly below that list of ingredients. It said, and I swear I am not making this up, Warning: This product contains peanuts.
[Pause to let that sink in.]
Why does a jar of peanut butter, which quite prominently displays the word "Peanut" on its front label, need to carry a warning that it contains peanuts?
Normally, I would make some sarcastic remark here, but I don't think I can top the unintended irony and downright weirdness of that label.

WASHINGTON,DECEMBER 26, 2007(AP) - NASA scientists reported today that alien beings from an unnamed galaxy 478.5 lights years away landed in Los Angeles, but immediately left the planet after getting bombarded by news reports about Britney Spears.
"They sure did leave in a hurry," Jack "Scott" Allen, a mission control scientist at the Johnson Space Center in Houston said. "They left some sort of coded message, and we think it roughly translates to, 'Screw this.'"
Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff released a statement saying that the federal government is prepared to spend billions of dollars studying whether news reports about the controversial pop diva could repel potential terrorists.
Republican Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado said that positioning large televisions blaring "the latest sordid details" of Britney Spears' life along the U.S.-Mexican border might solve the illegal immigration problem and "... save our nation from imminent ruin." He added that it would be ironic if the salvation of God's chosen country lay in the hands of "a drunken slut of dubious talent."
Astronomers studying solar radiation at the NASA laboratory in Greenbelt, Maryland, first noticed the arrival of the alien spacecrafts, which seemed to go unnoticed in the greater Los Angeles area.
"I think if they had landed anywhere else, they might have stuck around," Harvey Loos, the lead astonomer, said. "I guess if you suddenly find yourself in a place that's one big TMZ show, you backpedal out of there as fast as you can."

The Mitchell Report, released yesterday and splashed across the entire media spectrum as though it contained holy writ, announced that steroid use in professional baseball is widespread. The report named names, including those of stars like Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte. In all, 89 players were outed, including eight MVPs and at least one player from each team.
Mr. Mitchell, a former U.S. Senator and a broker during the Irish peace talks, called this "baseball's steroids era."
So, professional athletes who show more allegiance to their bank accounts than to the cities whose fans support them, bulked up to break records, stay competitive, and score multi-million dollar deals.
Is anybody really surprised?