I don't care if New Orleans floods

Politics are all over the news these days, what with McCain’s choosing a woman as his running mate to pander to feminist Democrats and Obama’s choosing a crusty old man to appeal to crusty old Republican men. Neither strategy seems to make much sense to me. Feminist Democrats are crazy bitches who would rather wear a skirt than vote for John McCain (maybe that’s a bit of a stretch), and all the old Republican men are going to vote for the old Republican man no matter what. “A black president?!” they’ll exclaim. “Pshaw!”

But I don’t want to spend too much time with politics for now. Also in the news the past few days has been the anticlimactic onslaught of Hurricane Gustav.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I was hoping for the drama and excitement of another Katrina-scale disaster. I mean, the stories of heroism, the heartbreak, Kanye West making an ass out himself… that’s just compelling television.

But that wasn’t the only reason I wanted Gustav to slam into New Orleans and flood it again. I also felt that New Orleans kind of deserved it. All everyone ever talks about is how hard it was and how sad and yada yada, who gives a crap?

The Lower Ninth Ward is constructed almost entirely below sea level. You know what happens to places that are below sea level? The sea flows into them, and they get wet. I don’t care how much quick-dry cement you dump into those levees; sooner or later, that shit is going to collapse and your stupid town is going to flood. So live there if you want, but don’t come crying to me when your retarded plan blows up in your face. Suck it up and move to Nebraska, bitch.

My dad has a theory that people build out below sea level just so they can have a great story about a boy who heroically stuck his finger in a dike, and I’m all, “Rosie O’Donnell sorta looks like a boy.”

But we don’t need to literally stick our fingers into sandbags or lesbians here in America just to make a point. If that’s your thing, that’s your thing, I guess, but I would disagree with your dirty doings.

Instead of sticking a finger somewhere inappropriate, we can stick our whole hands.

Let me explain. On Monday night, the long weekend wound down with a barbecue at the home with the whole family. After dinner, as usual, the men went out to the porch to smoke cigarettes and pass gas, and it was a few minutes after this stage, as I was sitting in the kitchen, sipping the last of my Bookers when I heard a cracking sound and a loud grunt.

I looked over to see my brother Ed straining with all his might against the giant rack of cupboards that sit above the stove, which had somehow suddenly decided to fall off the wall. Most inappropriate behavior for a four hundred pound cupboard. I helped him hold it up and we awkwardly scrambled to empty the shelves enough that Ed could hold it up while I ran to get help.

My parents were watching tv and drifting off in the front hall, and I could clearly picture Ed, holding out for as long as need be, the boy with his finger in the dike.

I tried to be calm. “The cupboards above the stove are falling,” I said.

My mom looked up from the tv. “Like falling, falling?”

“Yes.”

The two of them immediately whirred from their seats like rocketing pheasants and we bustled back to the kitchen.

It took a while for us to empty the rest of the cupboards, turn off the requisite circuit breakers, unscrew the hood of the stove and lift the giant piece of furniture to the ground, but that’s not the image I want to leave you with. I want you to picture Ed, alone, straining to hold on. He might not have had his finger in a dike, but that cupboard must have weighed almost as much as Rosie O’Donnell, and that’s good enough for me.

In conclusion, this is why I don’t care if New Orleans drowns once and for all.