o Whom It May Concern:

Please accept my application for Senior Director of Hospital Fundraising listed in the newspaper. While I lack previous experience working in the health care sector, I am confident that my previous 25 years of incarceration at Lewisburg Penitentiary has well equipped me with the essential skills needed to be a successful fundraising director.

I am extremely detail oriented, motivated, and an excellent manager. For 15 years prior to my time in the clink, I personally operated a highly successful multimillion-dollar drug ring out of my Miami-based high rise. With each fiscal year, my business saw record earnings, which I attribute to my shrewd business tactics and savvy management style.

During my tenure, I learned to effectively deal with high employee turnover, as my business lost 32 percent of its work force in the first five years to death, imprisonment, and corporate headhunting. Before my prosecution, I was able to orchestrate a highly lucrative corporate merger with a New York-based human-trafficking ring. I felt that vertical integration was the best choice to keep my business competitive during the fluctuating market trends of the late 1970s. Though I resigned as CEO upon my sentencing, I currently serve as a consultant. I am certain that with my guidance, this big business that started merely as a big dream will continue to earn record profits.

My time in confinement truly attests to my fundraising capabilities. Even from the pen, I was able to give over 300 mobsters, pimps, and hitmen the shakedown and secure over a quarter of a million dollars that I funneled into a charity very dear to my heart, Boob Jobs for Bitches. I cofounded Boob Jobs for Bitches, and I am very proud to say that we have helped women from all street corners of life gain the self-confidence they need to be highly productive members of the trick-turning industry. I am positive that I can garner the same results for your hospital.

I would also like to note that while I have no previous experience working in the health care industry, I have, however, witnessed numerous beatings and homicides. In fact, when my homeboy Lefty (named for his lack of a left testicle) was capped in the thigh during an incident of police brutality, I successfully removed all three rounds with nothing but a broken crack pipe and a pair of needle-nose pliers. This truly demonstrates both my resourcefulness and my deep understanding of the important role that health care providers play.

Please look over my enclosed resumé. If you have any questions, I would be happy to meet with you in person to discuss further my qualifications.

Warmest regards,

John “Smackdown” Robinson

grew up watching reruns of Lassie on Nickelodeon. I longed to be just like Timmy and have an unbreakable bond with a dog all my own. I would imagine all the things my dog and I would do together. If I were trapped in a well, my dog would bark for help. If I had been bitten by a rattlesnake, my dog would drag me safely home by the collar of my shirt. And, if my dog and I happened to be aboard a burning ship floating aimlessly in the turbulent sea after the crew had jumped overboard taking with them all the life vests, my dog would certainly know how to bark out an S.O.S. into the ship's radio. My dog and I would be an extension of one another, just like Lassie and Timmy.

I was seven years old when my older brother Pat told me that we were getting a puppy. Pat burst into our shared bedroom where I was going over multiplication tables to a classroom of stuffed animals. He ripped the little chalkboard out of my hand and tossed it to the floor, barely missing Perry the Penguin. I started to scream for our mom, assuming that Pat was going to hold me down and fart on my face like usual. He cupped his hand over my mouth, wrapped his free arm over my torso, and dragged me into our closet.

“I'll take my hand off of your mouth and tell you a secret if you promise not to scream for mom,” he whispered, then blew a big breath in my face to let me know that he had just eaten peanut butter.

I shook my head up and down under his hand. He then took his hand off my mouth and slumped down so that he was eye level with me. “I heard mom on the phone,” he said in a barely audible whisper. “She's getting us a dog.” I shrieked in sheer excitement and attempted to bolt for the closet door. He grabbed me and smacked me in the mouth bloodying both my upper and lower lips. In retaliation, I kneed him as hard as I could in the crotch and while he fell into our clothes hamper moaning, I was able to free myself from the closet and our bedroom.

“What in the hell happened to you?,” my mother asked running for the paper towels.

“The dog, dog...,” I said out of breath, blood running down my chin and covering my large gapped smile.

“We don't have a dog,” she said holding a wet wad of paper towels to my mouth.

“But, we're getting one,” I screamed in excitement through the soggy mess affixed to my lips.

Pulling the bloody glop away from my mouth, she laughed and shook her head up and down smiling while she examined the cuts on the insides of my lips.

A week later, my mom came home with a tiny curly golden retriever poking his nose out over the edge of the box that she was carrying. I loved him from the moment I saw him. I actually loved him from the moment that I knew we were getting a dog, but now that I saw him, I really loved him. I finally had my Lassie.

My parents debated for days over what to call him. My parents occasionally took into consideration the names that my brothers and I offered, but much to my consternation, they were not as sold on names from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as I was. I thought Shredder was a perfectly legitimate name for a dog, even if it was the name of the turtles' arch nemesis. My parents finally decided to call him Mac. My dad believed that it was a fitting name for a dog that was obviously as Irish as the family he belonged to and who also had very large paws like the wheels of a Mac Truck. After Mac chewed his way through my baby blanket, an encyclopedia and the arm of Rocky, my stuffed raccoon, I felt that perhaps Shredder would have been a completely appropriate name. He clearly liked to clamp onto my mom's ankle while she was cooking. A few times, he drew blood, but he was only playing.

Mac and I would spend hours running and playing in the backyard. Well, I mostly ran and played. He spent the majority of his time chewing grass underneath a laundry basket that I had trapped him under so he wouldn't get away. When I'd get tired, I would lie in the grass next to the laundry basket, poke my dirty index finger through the holes, and stroke his snout. He especially liked it when I poked dandelions through the holes for him to nibble on. I loved his sweet puppy breath and couldn't wait for him to get bigger so that I could ride him to school.

He did get bigger, and unfortunately, so did I. I was never able to ride him to school, so I contented myself with dressing him in my clothes. I thought he looked especially dapper wearing my white briefs with his tail frantically wagging through the fly. He reminded me of Tom Cruise in Risky Business, the epitome of cool. I even put black sunglasses on him that I bobby-pinned to the fur on his ears to keep them from coming off. He was the younger brother that I never had. When I had made myself a bologna sandwich, I made him one too. When I got a haircut, I would come home and trim the long hair that hung from his legs. And when I came home from Sunday School, I would recount the entire lesson to Mac.

“In the beginning...,” I boomed, imitating the preacher at the Pentecostal church that my family attended, while Mac rested his head on my lap. “God created the heavens and the earth.”

“ What are you doing?,” my mother asked poking her head inside my bedroom.

“Reading the Bible to Mac so he won't go to H-E-L-L,” I replied, careful to spell-out “hell” so that I wouldn't get in trouble for cussing.

“I don't think you need to read the Bible to the dog,” my mother said snidely closing my bedroom door.

“Pagan,” I whispered under my breath so that only Mac could hear. He looked up at me to concur. Mac and I both knew if anyone was bound for H-E-L-L, it was my mother for screaming profanities from her bedroom every Sunday morning when she put yet another run in her pantyhose, only to tear them off and put on a new pair that she would ruin en route to her bedroom door. I knew that with each “Son of a Bitch!” emanating from her bedroom, I was allotted an extra five minutes to play with my hair.

My mom and I had to take Mac to the vet because he had an ear infection. Apparently, ear infections are fairly common among dogs with floppy ears. “What's that?,” the vet asked pointing to the quarter-size bald spot on Mac's right paw. My mother and I both shrugged.

“He licks it all the time,” my mom finally managed, afraid she might be deemed and unfit pet owner.

The vet determined that much like girls who play with their hair, or people who bite their nails (like myself), Mac had developed a nervous habit. I didn't dare mention that he would lick it so loudly at night that my mom couldn't sleep so she would give him a Benadryl to knock him out. When I once protested about drugging the dog, she claimed that the vet had once prescribed an antihistamine when Mac swallowed a bee. Weighing 120 pounds, he was the size of a grown adult, so at least she wasn't administering him an overdose. The vet did also mention his weight and wondered how he had gotten so fat. I didn't bring up the fact that I fed him bologna sandwiches or let him lick my ice cream bowls. The vet put him on a diet and prescribed him a bad- tasting ointment so he wouldn't lick his paw anymore.

“How did he develop a nervous habit?,” my dad asked once we got home. “He's gay you know.”

“Mac is not gay,” I fired back.

“Sure he is, look at the way he squats when he pees instead of lifting his leg. He probably has a nervous habit because of the way you brush him, Conor.”

“Dogs like to be brushed,” I said with authority in my voice.

“They don't like their fur brushed the wrong way,” my dad retorted.

“Big hair is in!,” I screamed running to my bedroom and slamming the door wondering how I could belong to such an unfashionable family. What did my dad know; he wore flannel shirts and had a beard. He looked like a lumberjack.

I didn't care if Mac was gay, he was still my dog and I wanted him to know that it didn't matter to me. I wondered what gay dogs looked like, then finally it dawned on me. That night, I waited for my parents to fall asleep and I snuck out of my room and into the bathroom with Mac on my heels. I locked both of us in the bathroom and plugged in my mom's curling iron. I was going to give Mac a makeover. I curled the long hair that hung from his legs into tiny spirals and asked if he had any plans for the night. He looked at me as if to say, “I don't care if you're gay, you are still my master and it doesn't matter to me.” When I had finished, I marveled at my work and knew that although my mom would be mad, she would also be impressed since she was a beautician.

When I entered high school, Mac and I didn't spend as much time together. He was often busy licking his paw while I was going to movies or attending parties with friends. We did however find the time to catch up every night. I would tell him about the girls I liked or who got in trouble at school, he would lick his paw. He always had my back. Like when I was 17 and my mom found cigarettes in my book bag, he totally tried to tell her that they were his, but she was being completely heinous about the whole deal. I was grounded for a month, and it was just like old times with Mac and me, we spent the entire month together. By then, he was getting pretty old and had bad arthritis.

Although my mom swore she never liked him since he chewed a hole in her ankle while she was cooking, she gave him an aspirin everyday to help with his joints while I was away at college. By the time I was 20, he was in bad shape because of his arthritis and could barely walk. My mom and I took him to be put to sleep, to end his suffering. I said goodbye to my best friend for the last time. My mom and I rode home in silence for what seemed like an eternity. She finally said, “Remember when you used to read the Bible to Mac, I think he'll go to heaven.” I think he did go to heaven.

y grandmother was a short woman, barely surpassing five feet with short, curly strawberry blonde hair that she often described as a nest of daddy longlegs when it was in particular disarray. I was always a little wary of hugging her when I was young, I am deathly afraid of spiders.

Her body was agile and lean from years of plowing, planting and picking the large garden that she kept in her backyard. During the summer, I would spend every day of my vacation helping her tend the garden. She never trusted the produce at the large supermarkets. What she couldn't grow, she would buy from the Amish in the town nearby.

“The Amish are a big bunch of hypocrites is what they are,” she would say every time upon entering the small Amish community. “They don't believe in electricity, but they have no problem asking you for a ride in your car. Who could blame them though? I wouldn't want to stare at a horse's ass all day, it's bad enough I have to live with your grandfather.”

A smart Amish person would have refused a ride from my grandmother. She always drove at least 15 miles over the speed limit and wove in and out of lanes without checking her blind spot or using her turn signal. She refused to use her brakes unless absolutely necessary and on one day in particular, a short husky kid had the misfortune of crossing the street too slowly for her taste as she barreled down the pavement. She rolled down her window, stuck her head out and screamed, “Move along fatty before I knock the chub right off you!” She threw her head back and let out a guttural chuckle as she pressed on the gas pedal. “Look at his little sausage legs trying to run.” She reasoned that her near collision with the boy was good for him; he got some much-needed exercise. I turned and glared at her completely mortified. She shrugged and said, “Oh shit, Conor that was fun.” I imagine the boy thought differently.

After my grandfather died, my brother and his wife convinced Grandma to move into the downstairs of their home. I came home from college every Sunday to spend the day with her and listen to her complain about my brother's wife. “Now Conor,” she would say leaning back in her recliner, “you know I love that girl up there, but it sounds like a herd of elephants stampeding every time she walks across the room. Now my bed is right underneath that refrigerator and one day she's going to fall through the floor and smother me in my sleep.”

She got up from her chair and motioned for me to follow her into her bedroom. She pointed to the spot in the ceiling that she anticipated my sister-in-law to plummet through. She then turned to examine other possible weak spots in the ceiling when she caught a glimpse of herself in her dresser mirror.

“Now would you just look at my hair? It looks like a nest of daddy longlegs.”

ood evening, I'm Colin Jones filling in for Carol Goldstein.

In our top story this evening, Carol Goldstein is dead. Goldstein, a 15-year JUST NEWS correspondent and altogether ball-busting feminist liberal died after she was trampled to death in Houston , Texas.

Here with more on this story is JUST NEWS Reporter, Bridget Peterson.

"Thanks Colin. I'm here with my four beautiful kids in Houston , Texas where JUST NEWS correspondent Carol Goldstein was trampled to death under the foot of God. Wave to the camera darlings."

"Goldstein was sent on assignment here in God's country to report on the 5th-annual Christ!, I Love Jesus Rally where I was here in attendance with my little angels Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Johanna."

"Now I also have here with me Pastor Joseph Mitchell of Armageddon Baptist Church in Albuquerque . He was apparently standing next to Goldstein when she became entangled in the cord of a 40-foot balloon depicting a pregnant Mary holding a sign that reads "Fetus Friendly." Pastor, can you tell me about what you saw?"

"Well, I was standing next to Ms. Goldstein when a bout of wind blew Mary down toward us. Well I guess the slack in the cord got caught under Ms. Goldstein's arm and before you could say Jehovah, she was flung a good 30 feet in air and dropped into the Missionary Mosh Pit."

"Sounds like a real Mutha, no pun intended. Now did you see what happened to her once she was dropped into the mosh pit?"

"I didn't, but a couple of kids from my youth group said that she was apparently mistaken for one of the many synthetic demons we put in the pit for the kids to stomp on."

"It sounds like a good time for the kids."

"Oh it is, we get the demons from Jerry Wilkinson, a member of my church. He used to operate a meth lab before he came to know the Lord, he's really great at mixing up chemicals and stuff like that."

"Now Pastor, tell me, do you think that God exacted some sort of vengeance on Goldstein because her people killed Jesus, or perhaps because she was a fur-trading lesbian on regular look out for top-notch beaver pelt?”

"Well it's hard telling. God may have wanted to snub her out for any number of reasons, but being a lesbian is as good as any other reason I could think of. God ain't too fond of the Birkenstocks, if you know what I mean."

"It appears that it is judgment day for Carol, reporting for JUST NEWS, I'm Bridget Peterson. Back to you Colin."

Thanks Bridget for that just and unbiased report. Goldstein leaves behind her partner of 14 years, Susan Fields and her three cats that she pathetically called her children. Her funeral service will be held Saturday at her home in Brooklyn . A seashell-waiving dyke will preside over the service.

In other news, the numbers are back from last Thursday's JUST NEWS online poll when we asked our viewers Christ or Anti-Christ, whose side are you on? Overwhelmingly, 98 percent of you said that you want to be on the side of Christ.

When JUST NEWS returns, I'll have an exclusive interview with self- proclaimed liberal, Margaret Lewis. I'll ask her why the left sides with the devil on all sorts of political issues.

I'm Colin Jones, JUST NEWS, just and unbiased.

i, I'm Wilford Brimley, and I want to talk to you about retirement. It's something that we will all one day do, and shouldn't it be enjoyable?

Here at Sunsets & Memories Retirement Village , we have all of the amenities a person with your lifestyle desires. We want your stay with us to be both pleasurable and gratifying, and we know that only we can provide the facilities that you crave. That's why we at Sunsets & Memories are certain that we alone can provide you with the attention you deserve.

Sunsets & Memories is not your average retirement home; you won't find arts and crafts and boring games of Bingo in our activity room. Instead, we offer a tremendous variety of activities such as binding, spanking, and whipping that you can only find here at S&M.

Average retirement facilities believe that defecating oneself is a nuisance and a problem, but not at S&M. We encourage each and every one of our patients to shit their pants as to derive pleasure from the humiliation of sitting in one's own squishy feces. At other facilities, you may be bitch-slapped by an insubordinate medical assistant for crapping your pants, but at S&M, we can ensure that you will receive a quality pummeling by both our staff and your peers.

Now we know what you're thinking. What if I break a hip during one of these beatings? Rest assured, we will be right by your side to celebrate every milestone, large and small, that you endure while staying here at S&M. There is nothing we love more than the sound of a shattering pelvis.

Now, we know this all sounds too amazing to be possibly true. Well, don't take my word for it; listen to George Stephenson, a five-year resident of S&M Retirement Home.

I moved to S&M back in the summer of 2000, and it was the best decision I've ever made. The first night I was here, they were holding their 17th annual strangulation orgy. Well, I throttled poor Hank over in 203 so hard he nearly lapsed into a coma. Ever since then, I knew this was the place for me. I looked at nearly a dozen other retirement homes, but none of them had the complimentary ball gags and handcuffs that S&M provides. Plus, S&M has a wonderful roommate pairing system that matches each sadist with a masochist. But, I gotta run. Sylvia and I are going to go get our chodes pierced in the salon.

If you're like George, you'll want to take complete advantage of our full-service salon, Slash & Burn. We offer a full range of services from nipple, labia and scrotum piercings to our exclusive hot oil treatments, during which one of our qualified technicians slowly pours boiling baby oil on a body part of your choice. And of course, all of these services come free of charge when you become a resident of Sunsets & Memories Retirement Village.

Now I want to get back to the roommate matching service that George mentioned earlier. Here at S&M, we force you (because we know that's what you like) to fill out a 30-page questionnaire detailing your turn-ons. We want to find out what really gets you hot. We then take your answers from the questionnaire, devised by our staff psychologist Dr. Peter Grim, and match you with a resident that shares your interests.

Let's take a moment to hear from one of our satisfied residents.

My name is Gert, and I was matched with Betty three years ago. I'm the bitch, and Betty wears the leather in our little family. Betty and I do everything together, from whipping to biting. One of my primary concerns after my husband died was that I no longer had anyone to bloody my lip. Betty has done a superb job. She's split my lip with everything from a broken beer bottle to a roll of quarters wrapped in a Depends. I've become completely reliant on the love I get from Betty. Thank you, S&M.

Wow, Gert, that's a beautiful story.

If you thought retirement would be the end of your days of sleep deprivation and suffering, you have options. You have Sunset & Memories Retirement Village.

Call the toll-free number you see at the bottom of your screen for a free video and brochure about all of the amenities S&M has to offer. In our 30-minute video, you'll see our whipping post, along with our happy residents being pricked with needles while locked in the stocks naked. You'll also see our luxurious state-of-the-art dungeon. Call today.

We know you have alternatives when choosing a retirement home, but we hope you choose Sunsets & Memories Retirement Village.

For S&M, I'm Wilford Brimley.