Point/Counterpoint pt2

Erin Roof

Bloody Mary does coke on Barbie Bush

Note to readers: I apologize for the poor quality of this column. You see, the night before deadline, I was involved in a vicious gunfight in the slums of Kent. An ancient ’57 Chevy pickup truck painted-up in red, white and blue stars and bars blazed down the alley toward me. I glanced out of the corner of my eye and was filled with a horrible fright as I noticed the passenger door was pocked with bullet holes. I knew this wasn’t their first rodeo.

I had felt uneasy ever since I woke up that morning to a wretched stench coming from outside my door. I poked my head out to see a newspaper on my doormat. Only it wasn’t the copy of the Plain Dealer I usually have delivered. It was the Youngstown Vindicator. I would never read that. So I knew I was in trouble.

I took it inside and opened it up. I discovered before my eyes a rotten, dead salmon. In between gags from the putrid smell, I noticed what a lovely shade of pink its decaying flesh was. That’s right, I thought. They use canthaxanthin to dye the skin of genetically engineered salmon to that pretty rosy hue.

Then I noticed a note pinned to the fish’s eyeball:

We’re gonna make a bloody Mary out of you tonight, you stinkin’ hippie liberal!!!

— The College Republicans

P.S. Nice new haircut …

I thought the threat would have been more effective had my name actually been Mary. Nevertheless, I heeded the warning. And I appreciated the compliment on my new haircut. You know, it was time …

I flashed back to the note as I was nearly blinded by the Chevy’s headlights. My ears bled from the wolf-like howls coming from inside the truck. Then I saw a long nose and squinty eyes peer out from the driver’s window. “What do you say we start this thing in five minutes?” the gravelly voice shouted. “I’ve got some business to take care of first.”

“OK,” I hollered back. Just then a short figure wearing a Nixon mask hopped out and approached me. He pulled out a small bag of cocaine and an autographed photo of Barbara Bush. Crouched on the street, he cut up a few lines for each of us on Barbara’s face. Then we took a couple swigs from my flask of cheap rum. But before I could recover, the bastard whipped out an AK 47 and fired.

Luckily, the bullet only grazed the right side of my neck. But, the two goons, thinking they had me, roared away.

The only thing I could find to sop up my blood was a head of lettuce lying in the gutter. I held it firmly to my neck as I stumbled to the emergency room, where I now lie in bed. About four hours after the incident, I notice a weird growth forming in the bullet wound. Doctors inspected it and said I was growing a second head. Despite attempting to suffocate it with my pillow, the thing kept growing.

“It must have been genetically engineered lettuce you used,” the doctors told me.

I have since been so busy working on a lawsuit that I didn’t have time to write a good column.

I’m sorry.

Erin Roof is a junior magazine journalism major and a columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Contact her at [email protected].