Joemala: Episode 69

by | May 11, 2022 | Joemala | 181 comments

 

Karine’s nostrils flared as she stepped into the Oval Office. This was the real Oval Office, she thought, not the dismal movie set with backdrops and greenscreens she had worked her first year in the Press Office. It stank, piss and sanitizing chemicals, and something else she could not quite place. Rabbit hutch? Jen was holding onto her arm tightly as they approached Joe, who was staring down at the floor, his nurse/granddaughter Finnegan hovering behind him with a tight smile on her face.

“Mr. President?” Jen asked. “I have someone for you to meet.” Joe had met Karine a dozen times previously.

Joe lifted his head and a too-wide smile spread across his face. He threw out his hands. “Madam Vice President,” he rasped and moved in for a hug.

“No, no,” Jen said, taking the hug instead, “This is Karine. She’s going to take over my job. Because I’m leaving.”

“Leaving?” Joe asked. “When did this happen? Why wasn’t I informed?”

“I’m going to MSNBC, sir. We discussed this. The DNC assigned me there for the midterms.”

“What am I supposed to do without my sweet Strawberry?”

“It’ll be OK, sir. You’re going to love Karine.”

“Who is Karine?”

“This is Karine,” Jen said, doing the you-just-won-a-car! sweep of the hands toward Karine. The woman flashed her white white teeth and did an awkward curtsy.

“Karine!” Joe said and lurched toward her. “Welcome aboard the Administration.”

Karine stuck out her hand and Joe ignored it to lean in and sniff deeply.

“Coco butter,” he mumbled. “And pussy.” Finnegan slapped away Joe’s hand before he could touch her hair.

“We don’t touch Black women’s hair, Grandpa,” she muttered.

“Oh, that’s right. They’re very sensitive about their hair. It’s the source of their power, like, like, like, Shazam in the Bible.”

“Samson,” Jen said automatically.

“I don’t really eat much fish,” Joe replied. Finnegan swallowed a despairing giggle.

“Kamala told me, but…” Karine began.

“I know, you really have to see it for yourself,” Jen said.

“I’m going to go over here,” Joe said, vaguely gesturing toward the windows behind his desk.

“OK, sir!” Jen said, terminally perky.

“Blackberry?” Joe whispered to himself.

“Never,” Finnegan told him. “Never, never, never.”

 

About The Author

SugarFree

SugarFree

Your Resident Narcissistic Misogynist Rape-Culture Apologist

181 Comments

  1. Ownbestenemy

    They’re very sensitive about their hair. It’s the source of their power, like, like, like, Shazam in the Bible.

    That’s gold…however

    “Blackberry?” Joe whispered to himself.

    • Sean

      “Blackberry?”

      I’m ded.

      • slumbrew

        Also ded.

      • Zwak,The Baddest Johnny on the Apple Cart

        Winner, winner, fried chicken and watermelon dinner!

      • juris imprudent

        [Zwak is banished to the Fuzzy Zoeller gallery]

      • robc

        IIRC, Tiger ordered hamburgers. While I am sure Augusta National hamburgers are good, I am betting Fuzzy’s suggested menu would have been better.

    • Nephilium
      • Tundra

        Man, I remember that show. I forgot she was that smokin’.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I didn’t forget. Isis formed a lot of Scruffy’s opinions about the ideal woman.

  2. Ozymandias

    Oh, god, this is just too damn good.
    Thanks, again, SF, for making it all tolerable with some chuckles.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Ozy. Wanted to say thank you for your advice over the past year and encouragement to stay in the fight…now where is my Blackberry

      • Tonio

        “Never, never, never.”

        Like he’ll remember that.

        This is definitely one of the better “Joemala” episodes.

      • Tonio

        Okay, that was supposed to be a top-level comment, not a reply.

      • Ownbestenemy

        It works

  3. Ozymandias

    The “Samson” line that gets followed by “I don’t really eat much fish” is an absolute missile.
    You should write sitcoms for a living. Seriously.
    You’re at least a 1000 times better than most of what passes for comedy on Wokeflix or any premium channel.

    • kbolino

      Yes. Plus he does it every week. What are you, some kind of machine?

      • ron73440

        Meh, he just transcribes what the security cameras show.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Truth is stranger than fiction.

    • R C Dean

      That was my fave. Although “Blackberry?” is a very close contender.

  4. juris imprudent

    Rabbit hutch?

    I grew up in the country but never had first hand exposure to that smell.

    “I know, you really have to see it for yourself,” Jen said.

    Jokes on you Jen, we all see it.

    • ron73440

      Rabbit hutch?

      I grew up in the country but never had first hand exposure to that smell.

      It’s a smell you never forget.

      Not horrible exactly, but distinct.

      • juris imprudent

        We had a chicken farm not far from us – you knew which way the wind was blowing by what you smelled.

      • pistoffnick

        I’ll raise you. Southern Minnesoda pig farms

        “That’s the smell of money, son.”

      • Nephilium

        I’ve only experienced a Pennsylvania hog farm. That was bad enough.

      • Fourscore

        I’ll raise you an I-35 road trip around Des Moines. Must be a lot of money in the waft.

      • juris imprudent

        Everyone does realize someone from Joisee is bound to chime in on this thread and we all lose.

      • Sensei

        I’ve lived in both rural and northern urban NJ. Rural was way worse than the refineries.

      • Dr Mossy Lawn

        Rural is rural, there will be cows and other animal smells, but the worst collections I can remember are the chicken farms SW of Harrisburg PA. adjacent to I81.

        The only other time like it was riding a motorcycle behind a chicken truck in West Virginia. We took the very first turn that was available, and figured out a route that would go in that general direction but would not get us behind that truck ever again.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Two worst ones I remember?

        The fertilizer plant in Centralia Il. and the stock yards out southwest of Kansas City.

        Back in the ’70s, you could smell Centralia for 10 miles before you could see it.

      • pistoffnick

        Dog food plant in Wichita…

      • Zwak,The Baddest Johnny on the Apple Cart

        Cattle country feed lot.

      • Swiss Servator

        Bogalusa, LA paper mill – you could smell it 6 miles away.

      • Animal

        I used to work a few blocks from the rendering plant in Waterloo, Iowa. That was the second-worst thing I’ve even smelled.

      • R C Dean

        I’m with Gustave on this one. I’ve been to a hog farm in Wisconsin. I’ve driven past, any number of times, a rendering plant (also in Wisconsin). The pulp mill wins.

      • Ted S.

        Yeah, I remember when we drove from Montreal to Ottawa and went through Thurso, Quebec, with its paper mills.

      • Tulip

        Crystal sugar plant.

      • MikeS

        Yup. That’s the $mell of money.

      • Gustave Lytton

        I like the smell of the sugar beet factory in Nampa. Smells like something sweet baking in the oven.

      • MikeS

        They must do something different with their waste water in Nampa. The ones here stink something terrible.

      • DrOtto

        I grew up the hill from the South St. Paul stockyards. *blows fingernails – buffs nails against chest*

      • Tundra

        That’s where my Grandmother lived! Where were you?

      • Fourscore

        Over at the Guns and Ammo place, I’ve forgotten the name but it was the smell of filthy lucre

      • DrOtto

        On 5th Ave

      • ron73440

        Every other year we would clean out the “manure pit”.

        This is where we would scrape the barn where the cows ate.

        You could smell it for miles once we cracked the crust.

        It had grass growing on top and once a coalf got unto it, broke through and got stuck.

        My Step Dad and I went swimming to get it out.

        We then had to hose each other off and strip before we were allowed in the house to shower.

        Good times.

      • hayeksplosives

        Riding in a car south on I-35 as we crossed into Iowa from Minnesota was the first time I’d ever been woken up by a smell.

        It was a hog farm.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Just south of the 605/10 freeway interchange in Southern Cal, there is a duck farm. Terrible place to get stuck in afternoon traffic on a summer day.

      • juris imprudent

        Ha, were you around SoCal back in the days of Bandini?

      • juris imprudent

        I should’ve included the link.

      • Ownbestenemy

        not sure…

      • Ownbestenemy

        Ha! I would have been two…but that is funny

      • Old Man With Candy

        Harris Ranch on I-5.

      • Zwak,The Baddest Johnny on the Apple Cart

        YEP, old man knows it. Square miles of cow shit.

      • DEG

        My sense of smell is poor, but I could always smell the local chicken farm.

        Cow manure at certain times of year.

        I never noticed the local pig farms.

      • juris imprudent

        Worst thing I’ve smelled is the treated human waste now being used as fertilizer for non-food crops. Thankfully, there is only a small amount applied to the fields near us.

      • Fourscore

        The daily burn barrels in VN, especially in the bigger cantonment areas.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        The worst thing I ever smelled was while studying in a human cadaver lab. The formaldehyde and stench of death combined into something worse than either alone and permeated everything. I brought a change of clothes whenever I was in there because the smell clung to my shirt. It’s been close to two decades now and I’ll never forget that smell.

        The second worst was working in a poorly run animal lab at a University. Cage after cage of rabbits, rats, and hamsters with shit and piss-filled trays under their cages. The smell of ammonia hit you hard in the face as soon as you walked through the door.

        Open air farm and refineries smell like perfume compared to the enclosed confines of industrial death and excrement.

    • KSuellington

      Body that had decomposed for four months in a house I had to work at. Luckily only for about 10 minutes but the puddle of goo was only a few feet from where I needed to do my job. They took out the body the day before but the windows weren’t even opened. An N95 with a dryer sheet stuffed in it didn’t even cut the stench, it was like a visible miasma.

      • Bobarian LMD

        My brother is 30 years on the LAPD. The neighbors eventually call and say that they ain’t seen Joe in a while, and maybe they notice a smell.

        Once you’vegot near the place and smelled it, you know immediately what you’re gonna find.

      • KSuellington

        Yeah I’ve been in other similar situations, but that was usually just a couple weeks of decomposition. This one really had time to permeate. I’ve been in dozens and dozens of hoarder situations, not all of which really smell all that bad, depending on what is being hoarded. I’ve been in two though that almost compared to the dead bodies ones. Those involved massive amounts of animal shit and piss.

  5. WTF

    “I’m going to MSNBC, sir. We discussed this. The DNC assigned me there for the midterms.”

    Perfect.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Every piece of satire needs to have that nugget of truth weaved in.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Satire needs to have some exaggeration or hyperbole.

    • Sensei

      That is gold!

  6. ron73440

    “This is Karine,” Jen said, doing the you-just-won-a-car! sweep of the hands toward Karine.

    Why is it so easy to see her actually doing this?

    Great one today SF.

    • Fourscore

      The close was perfect, it was like you had this in mind from the beginning.

      SF is Personnel Assignment guy at the White House.

      • SugarFree

        I often have the ending and work backwards a bit.

      • juris imprudent

        “Are my methods unsound”?

      • SugarFree

        Oh, my. I was just talking about that. My supervisor was asked to deliver a video message talking about my years of service I told her to do the Dennis Hopper speech from Apocalypse Now.

        “What are they gonna say about him? What are they gonna say? That he was a kind man? That he was a wise man? That he had plans? That he had wisdom? Bullshit, man!”

      • Zwak,The Baddest Johnny on the Apple Cart

        SugarFree is just an errand boy…

  7. Fatty Bolger

    “Blackberry?” Joe whispered to himself.

    Took me a sec. lmao.

  8. Tundra

    It’s the source of their power, like, like, like, Shazam in the Bible.”

    Thanks for this. Absolutely brilliant!

  9. Scruffy Nerfherder

    It’s the source of their power, like, like, like, Shazam in the Bible.

    I laughed out loud at this.

  10. The Other Kevin

    Amazing as always. And that photo reminds me of a couple of girls from my 17yo’s volleyball team. It doesn’t make me feel good to know they’re in charge of the flow of information.

    • juris imprudent

      flow of information

      And not just once a month.

      You know, in theory you should be able to construct a bureaucratic logjam between the WH Press Secretary and the Board of Disinformation Governance.

    • R C Dean

      That photo is chilling. Strawberry gritting out a fake smile. The dead eyes on Blackberry – its like she just spotted somebody she is going to kill before the night is out.

  11. DEG

    “Coco butter,” he mumbled. “And pussy.”

    Karine and Jen were busy.

    • Ownbestenemy

      I wound not not watch that

      • MikeS

        I might even pitch in a few bucks.

      • Bobarian LMD

        I wound not not watch that

        Eye wound… like from a fork.

  12. Timeloose

    “ He threw out his hands. “Madam Vice President,” he rasped and moved in for a hug.”

    Perfect, setting up the blackberry comment.

  13. Old Man With Candy

    Wait, if Vanilla Joe managed a three way with Strawberry and Chocolate, it would be a Neapolitan.

    I have many questions.

    • Ownbestenemy

      I see it more as a trifle…

      • juris imprudent

        I think they might be pudding up a fight.

    • R.J.

      …And OMWC wins the comments.

    • Tundra

      *standing ovation*

      Well done, Old Man.

    • MikeS

      Well played!

    • JaimeRoberto (shama/lama/ding dong)

      Hunter would be more likely to bring the vanilla.

      • Bobarian LMD

        The sprinkles on top.

  14. MikeS

    “Coco butter,” he mumbled. “And pussy.”

    “Blackberry?” Joe whispered to himself.

    “Never,” Finnegan told him. “Never, never, never.”

    ??? This has got to be a top 5 episode.

  15. mikey

    Five Stars!
    Reading again.

    • Tundra

      I dream of a day when all women of extreme conventional hotness will no longer be shamed into not displaying their bodacious ta-tas and curvy keisters in tastefully lit pool photos

      LOL!

    • juris imprudent

      Hillary Duff has 3 kids? I didn’t realize she wasn’t a kid herself anymore.

      • robc

        She was born in 1987, so that makes her about 15 right?

        Pulls out abacus, does calculatio…oh shit.

      • R C Dean

        The year I graduated from law school.

        *morosely ponders advanced age*

      • robc

        Your old. I graduated High School in 1987 so I am still super young (refuses to do the math again).

      • kinnath

        I graduated college in 85 at an advanced age.

        Fourscore will be along to tell us young people to settle down.

      • Compelled Speechless

        You won’t hear me asking you to stop. Y’all making me feel young talking about the things that happened to you around the year I was born.

      • Fourscore

        Actually I’m surprised to find so many Glibs (50-60) around my kids’ ages

        ”Now settle down in the back there before I have to stop and make you settle down”

        Said every parent with 2 or more kids on a longish drive to Grandma’s house

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        *whistles innocently*

        Hillary Duff was up there with the girls from 7th Heaven on my “watch the show for the actresses” list.

      • Compelled Speechless

        Buffy dude. SMG and Charisma Carpenter…mmmmm. For some reason I was always lukewarm on the Duff.

      • Mojeaux

        Graduated high school in 1986.

      • R.J.

        Indeed. Stop with the tattoos!

  16. Trigger Hippie

    How the hell do you get to the forums again?

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        Just another example of creeping credentialism in this country.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Thanks, man.

      • Nephilium

        Not a problem at all.

      • EvilSheldon

        Right, what he said.

    • Bobarian LMD

      Dear Penthouse…

  17. Sensei

    Speaking of paid shills for the administration.

    For Tens of Millions of Americans, the Good Times Are Right Now

    For the 158 million who are employed, prospects haven’t been this bright since men landed on the moon. As many as half of those workers have retirement accounts that were fattened by a prolonged bull market in stocks. There are 83 million owner-occupied homes in the United States. At the rate they have been increasing in value, a lot of them are in effect a giant piggy bank that families live inside.

     

    “Maybe it’s easier to focus on the negative, but a huge number of people, maybe 40 million households, have been doing pretty well,” said Dean Baker, an economist who was a co-founder of the liberal-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research. “You’d have to go back to the late 1990s to find a similar era. Before that, the 1960s.”

    Pay no attention to recent market peformance, CPI and/or shortages.  And, of course, current world events.

    • wdalasio

      There are 83 million owner-occupied homes in the United States. At the rate they have been increasing in value, a lot of them are in effect a giant piggy bank that families live inside.

      No matter which party is in power, this sort of thing is just plain stupid. It’s a “piggy bank” that you can’t really access. To get those gains, you have to either sell your home or go deeper into debt. Going deeper into debt isn’t something to cheer about. And if you sell your home, all you really wind up doing is spending those gains on a replacement home, unless you want to live under an overpass.

      That said, I think I saw this guy in a movie

      • R.J.

        Well played.

      • juris imprudent

        Even better – the home equity that can be tapped via debt instrument is the exact same thing as securities loans taken out by Musk (and others). So if one piggy bank is good, how can the other be bad?

      • Sensei

        One won’t be trying to spread hate.

      • Zwak,The Baddest Johnny on the Apple Cart

        One doesn’t tow the lion.

      • Nephilium

        That worked out so well during the last housing crisis.

      • wdalasio

        Well, there’s that. A lot of highly leveraged real estate usually isn’t a good sign of things to come.

        But, even if you ignore that, surging real estate prices mostly aren’t a very good thing. Yes, if you hold a lot of real estate equity that you anticipate liquidating in the near term (maybe you own a bunch of rental properties and aren’t buying more or you’re trading down on your house) you stand to benefit. But, that isn’t most homeowners. If you have the house you want, it’s a wash, as I explain. If you want to trade up, it’s actually bad news. And, really, the news is worst for the poor and young people starting out. Surging real estate prices means lower housing affordability.

      • Gender Traitor

        Going deeper into debt isn’t something to cheer about.

        Student Home Equity loan forgiveness for justice! ?

    • Gustave Lytton

      but a huge number of people, maybe 40 million households, have been doing pretty well

      Leaving aside the numbers, isn’t that the justification for imposing a wealth tax because the rich are doing well while the poor are struggling more than ever? (Not that a wealth tax would do any positive change towards that)

      • Tulip

        40 million is a minority of the population.

    • Ted S.

      As many as half of those workers have retirement accounts that were fattened by a prolonged bull market in stocks.

      When I checked it a week and a half ago, April wiped out a year’s worth of gains.

      • Fourscore

        “But other than that, Mrs Lincoln…”

        Wait until you see May…

      • juris imprudent

        Runs to liquor pantry.

      • Necron 99

        On the plus side, the money you lost in your retirement account isn’t worth as much because of inflation. I’m down $45K, but really today that is only like $40K, see, it’s not so bad.

    • Gustave Lytton

      (Also, someone tell the MoD we don’t have a “Ministry” of Agriculture)

      Since we’re picking nits, how about we don’t have a “Centre” for Disease Control, dipshit.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Huh, exactly one European country where the CDC has a presence…

      • JaimeRoberto (shama/lama/ding dong)

        That chart didn’t seem all that crazy to me. We have sent money to the labs via the DOD. Does the CIA also fund it? It wouldn’t surprise me. Does the research go back to pharma companies? Probably some does, NTTAWWT. Were US engineering companies involved? Probably. The money was meant to upgrade the safety of the facilities left over from Soviet times, so likely US companies were involved in doing that.

        It does steal a base by claiming that bioweapons research is going on in those labs, but do we really know everything going on in the labs? Are they doing gain of function like Wuhan?

        The references to Soros seem gratuitous. He’s an international bogeyman of mystery.

        Financial support for campaigns may not be correct, but Hunter’s positions and the positions of a number of family of US politicians certainly were meant to buy influence.

      • R C Dean

        The money was meant to upgrade the safety of the facilities left over from Soviet times

        Step one would be to stop doing dangerous research there. That should take, what, a day?

        Step two might be to upgrade the research facilities. Call that one a year or so.

        So what exactly are we still funding there? All the Soviet-era bioweapons researchers would have retired by now.

      • Tres Cool

        Retired and/or dead.

  18. The Late P Brooks

    The DNC assigned me there for the midterms.

    What a bizarre right wing delusion. The DNC, moving administration personnel around like pawns on a chess board.

    Harrumph!

    • Gustave Lytton

      OT- were you doing mouth taping to stop snoring? Going to try it and wondering how closed do you tape your lips.

      • R.J.

        Make sure your nose doesn’t get plugged at night. Could get awkward to find your asphyxiated corpse with a mouth covered with duct tape.

      • Gustave Lytton

        I was going to use surgical tape.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Could get awkward to find your asphyxiated corpse with a mouth covered with duct tape.

        Why was there a rubber ball in his mouth? And what’s with the pony costume?

      • Tres Cool

        “…was found swinging from a rafter, covered in jizz and cheese-whiz, with a zucchini in his ass…”

      • pistoffnick

        ^
        !
        !
        !
        THIS GUY KNOWS HOW TO PARTY!

      • Tundra

        Every night. Not only does it help snoring, but as weird as it sounds, it reduces congestion and improves SPO2.

        I use a small (postage stamp) piece of surgical tape right in the middle of my lips. I’ve seen people tape their entire mouths, but I don’t think it’s necessary.

        If you really want to deep-dive, James Nestor’s Breath is a terrific book.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Thank you! Mama needs to be happy.

      • Tundra

        You’re very welcome.

        The interesting part is how many health issues relate to mouth breathing. Ancient peoples knew it was fucked up, but we’ve appeared to lost that knowledge, too.

    • Drake

      I wouldn’t put it past the Administration to send the Ukrainians a couple of Davy Crockett’s.

  19. The Late P Brooks

    Dean Baker, an economist who was a co-founder of the liberal-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research.

    A totally trustworthy source. Maybe we can get Mark Zandi to fact-check him.

    • R.J.

      OR perhaps we can start our own think tank? Seems like a money making opportunity. “The Glibertarian- leaning Center for Being Left Alone”

      • R.J.

        “Give us money, and we will research how to leave you alone.”

      • R C Dean

        “You want us to leave you alone, right? I mean, who wouldn’t? Well, nothing happens without funding, so what’s it worth to you?”

      • R.J.

        Exactly!
        On Wednesday, the Gilbertarian leaning Center for Being Left Alone issued a statement:
        “We have reviewed the comments made by President Biden, and can say without a doubt, that you are paying the government entirely too much, and they do not leave you alone. Instead, we suggest you donate one million dollars to our institute, which will entirely leave you alone for comparative pennies on the dollar. Should this be too much (considering how much you have to pay in taxes) you can pick an item from the Center for Being Left Alone’s Amazon list. Just keep in mind, just buying us new earplugs for the range will not ensure you are fully left alone. A man named R.J. might appear in the shrubberies outside your window on random mornings. We suggest a higher donation to fully enjoy the freedom of being left alone.”

      • one true athena

        And fortunately we now have it on Good Authority that standing outside someone’s house and yelling is a good thing, so people should pay for that service.

  20. Tres Cool

    ” Joe had met Karine a dozen times previously”
    “Madam Vice President,” he rasped and moved in for a hug.

    So they do all look alike ?

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I don’t know, the Coast Guard?

    • Ted S.

      Festus watches the custodians.

    • juris imprudent

      Bartenders?

  21. Mojeaux

    For some reason, I keep getting an internal server error when I try to post one particular comment. It’s almost like it doesn’t like some random word in the comment. Don’t know why.

    • Tres Cool

      naggers ?

      • Mojeaux

        Er…no.

    • juris imprudent

      I had that happen yesterday; I could post other comments but not one particular reply I wanted to.

      • Mojeaux

        Did it have a link in it?

  22. db

    GENIUS!

    • hayeksplosives

      SugarFree is a national treasure.