Irrelevant Cheetah

He appeared behind me in the bathroom as I was combing my hair and getting ready to go to work. There was a pop! and standing behind me was what looked like a grumpy leprechaun in a three-piece suit.

 “Wolf, I’ve got some bad news for you,” he said without preamble. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to cancel you.”

“Cancel me? What do you mean?” I decided to ignore the fact that Danny DeVito’s ugly twin brother had just appeared in my bathroom and concentrate instead on the specter of imminent cancellation, whatever that was.

“Well, your ratings are way down. You’re losing viewers faster than we can attract new ones, and I think we’re just going to have to cancel your life.”

“You mean –”

“Yeah.” He attempted to look remorseful, but it looked more like someone had stepped on his foot. “We’re gonna have to switch to reruns. Syndication, baby!”

“Wait! I can be funnier! I can do more dumb things! I can do more bathroom humor!” Without warning, the gaseous digestive side effects of last night’s artichoke dip exited my rear end. “I can do less bathroom humor!”

He shook his head. “I just don’t know. Viewers love adventure, controversy and scandal. You’ve got nothing. Look at yesterday, for instance. You stayed home with the Offspring because he had a sore throat and a cough. Plenty of opportunity for hijinks there, but what did you do? You wrote some of your so-called book, read a bit, and watched Return of the Jedi. Hardly stimulating entertainment.”

“Well, summer’s coming, and I do live in Alaska. I plan to do some hiking, take some pictures, maybe try some whitewater rafting.”

He appeared to consider. “Might be a possibility. Rafting, did you say?”

“Yup. Plenty of chances for bodily injury.”

“Yeah, they do love the bodily injuries. What else you got?”

“Um. Replacing my water heater?”

“No, that won’t do. Any chance you can be linked romantically to Paris Hilton or Britney?”

“Are you kidding? Not only am I happily married, but even if I weren’t, I wouldn’t touch either one of them with somebody else’s penis!”

He shrugged. “All right, can’t say I blame you. I gotta tell you, though – we need something to keep people interested. Gotta keep ratings up.” His eyes started wandering around the bathroom, and I could tell he was losing interest in the conversation. My mind was racing as I tried to figure out how I could convince him to let me stay on the air.

Suddenly, I remembered that he was in the entertainment business. I leaned over and wiggled my ass at him. “How’s about if I let you –”

He held up his hands and fell over himself trying to back away. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! We run a clean show here! None of that!”

“What?” I asked him, confused. “I was going to let you pick my pocket! What did you think I meant?”

He shook his head. “All right, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If you can promise to spice things up a bit – you know, break a limb or two, cause some local neighborhood chaos, that sort of thing – I’ll tell the board to renew you for another year. Can you promise me that?”

At that point, nothing else mattered to me. “You bet I can! Just wait! I’ll have you guys in stitches! You’ll have to book me on Oprah and Letterman to keep up with my new fans!”

“All right.” With a flourish, he produced a sheet of paper from somewhere inside his jacket, scribbled something on it, and handed it to me. “Step it up, wolf. I like you, I really do, but it’s not up to me. Savvy?”

With a pop! he was gone, and I was left alone in the bathroom, holding a chartreuse piece of paper that renewed my contract for another year. Apparently my negotiation skills suck, because a salary increase wasn’t even listed. Still, I suppose I should be happy I didn’t get cancelled.

In the meantime, I need to purchase a chain saw, two model rocket engines, fifteen bags of Fritos and a “Don’t Walk” sign.

Humor-blogs.com drives a hard bargain, or so I hear.