Sitcom
MCGIMPSEY, DAVID
copyright © David McGimpsey, 2007
first edition
This epub edition published in 2010. Electronic ISBN 978 1 77056 205 9.
Published with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for
the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. Coach House also
acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through
the Book Publishing Industry Development Program.
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
McGimpsey, David, date
Sitcom / David McGimpsey. -- 1st ed.
Poems.
ISBN 978-1-55245-188-5
I. Title.
PS8575.G48S58 2007 C811′.54 C2007-904809-9
for Samantha
Foreword
Reba only slightly depresses me
Steve Urkel has seen me well past blue
Evan Drake stings like a nest of scorpions
Mr. Furley stirs up poison mushroom stew
Maude’s voice haunted me into my teens
Chandler’s a stuck tick of embarrassment
Deb destroys each molecule of resolve
Flo slaps me with a wet, bony hand
Lucy only slightly depresses me
Hawkeye is like being laughed at by girls
Uncle Jesse is worse than eczema
Jethrine’s just eczema at the ankles
Gilligan reminds it’s foolish to try
Jan Brady combs her hair a thousand times
Newman gets me running in small circles
Fonzie’s a kind of sweet formaldehyde
Porky only slightly depresses me
Molly Dodd really doesn’t understand
Rerun gets my nervous tic a-twitching
Roz makes me pour with a liberal hand
Gladys Kravitz undermines my ambition
Kate and Allie are a vague stink in my sheets
Buddy texts me the message ‘Hello failure’
Bailey Quarters takes off her glasses and pukes
Marcia only slightly depresses me
Meathead asks, ‘How do you spell melancholy?’ Schneider elbows me off coffee shop stages Georgette sings ‘Steam Heat’ just to make me cry
Eddie’s blog calls me ‘Bonghog’ and ‘Pillsy’
Mr. Ed warms up the spoon while singing
Lassie tsk-tsks, ‘I’m just disappointed’
Flipper straight out gives pistol-whippings
Tootie only slightly depresses me
Natalie had me wear homemade ponchos
Jo told me to stay away from L.A.
Blair told me to forget about Toronto
Holly went for drinks with me at Chez Jay’s
Val smoked with me outside the Smog Cutter
Tina tried her best at Jumbo’s Clown Room
Lauren went beer for beer at the Joker
Potsie only slightly depresses me
Skippy is pretty much off my compass
Boner saw me through six years on the couch
Cockroach yawns and says, ‘You’re a disgrace’
Kimmy Gibbler asks, ‘Are you mental?’
Jenny Piccalo asks, ‘Why’d you say that?’
Ethel says, ‘You’re your own worst enemy!’
Rhoda says, ‘Are you saying I look fat?’
Princess only slightly depresses me
Sabrina took me out in ’98
Kelly Bundy inspired my dreary sonnets
Kelly Bundy stabbed at my fingertips
Little Ricky just kept taking from me
Cousin Oliver just kept taking from me
Andrew Keaton just kept taking from me
Timmy Martin just kept taking from me
Daphne only slightly depresses me
Mrs. Naugatuck took my love of life
Mrs. G. gave me a D in ethics
Hazel said, ‘Where’d Kelly leave that knife?’
Colonel Crittendon had a good left hook
Sgt. Carter a respectable kick
Inspector Luger punched right to the face
Major Dad lunged straight towards the neck
Jeannie only slightly depresses me
Barbara Jean taught me love does not stay
Ginger Grant said, ‘I think we need to talk’
Agent 99 had to get away
Murray Slaughter sharpened the Ginsu
Keith Partridge performs sweet lobotomies
Paul and Jamie are like heart and disease
Reba only slightly depresses me
– D.M., Los Angeles, 2007
Act I
‘Timon will to the woods’
– Timon of Athens, 4.1.35
Invitation
Please join me on the occasion of my
thirty-ninth birthday. Drinks will be served,
esp. the mixed ones that announce
lounge-weary sophistication: old-fashioned, lime rickey, chocolate dancer – though I only drink Schlitz Light. Gifts are not necessary, but should you be strolling downtown and see some nicely framed limited-edition print of a sad battlefield where a general’s caprice cost thousands of lives, or a pair of antique binoculars, or a vintage board game where the Happy Days characters have to rush Fonzie to the hospital, knock yourself out. Even a mail-order certificate that allows me to perform wedding services in the Philippines would be a nice touch; but no funny cards about aging, please, no To My Friend on His One Hundredth Birthday, No You’re Not Just Getting Older … You’re Losing Hair Too! And even if you have bought me a ticket overseas and secured a seat for me at the finest hash bar in Amsterdam, don’t even think of saying, ‘Welcome to the Netherlands.’ There will be hors d’oeuvres, the tiniest of tiny foods, tasty miniatures of already miniature snacks, baby corn so small it’ll look like Niblets, taquitos so small, so diminudo, they will be called taquitoitos and they will look like the bits at the bottom of a bag of corn chips. I also have hot salsa I once bought in South Texas, on a dare, which claims to use pepper-spray extracts squeezed from the used big-nozzle canisters of riot squads that have subdued the world’s most determined hippies – drink up, my friends! There’ll be a piñata made up to look