PNL's DIVINE DUMPS

I was switching radio stations in the car recently when I caught the front end of a story on the plunging house prices. Some guy who had been trying unsuccessfully to sell his house had been given a small plastic St. Joseph statue for good luck. The man was instructed to bury St. Joe head-down in his front yard, feet pointing to heaven -- at exactly 15 inches depth -- to expedite the sale of his home.

Thinking this silly, the frustrated house seller threw the statue in the garbage.

A few days later, the man was sitting on his front porch reading the local newspaper when he spotted an article in the real estate section that the town dump had suddenly been sold. The land the dump sat on had been on the market since 1873.

Frantically, the man headed for the dump, only to find "Sold" and "No-Trespassing" signs where "For Sale" signs had stood for over a century. Undeterred, he drove to the nearest Bible supply store and purchased another St. Joseph statue -- and a shovel. Thinking it odd the Bible supplies store sold shovels, he inquired about it to the bald, heavy-set shop owner and was sorry he had.

Anyway, at this point I lost reception on the car's radio, and can only speculate on how the story ended. But before I do, first a little background history.

St. Joseph, for all you Bible geeks, was the son of Jacob. He was born in Bethlehem, but soon moved to Nazareth where real estate was cheaper. Why Joseph forsook his home town for the land of Galilee is not known as of this writing, but suffice it to say his moderate circumstances, combined with the necessity to earn a living, may have preordained the move.

Joseph, you may recall, was a mechanic by profession, but with cars not yet invented, Mr. Good-Wrench took up carpentry. At the age of 40, Joseph married a woman called Melcha (for her unpleasant odor), and they lived forty-nine years together having six children -- the last of whom killed Joseph's wife in childbirth.

The local priests then sweet-talked the widower, now pushing ninety years old, into marrying Mary, then twelve years of age, explaining that God had chosen Joseph, and "to fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her, is of the Holy Ghost;" their words, not mine.

Joseph, now suffering from emaculate degeneration, asked if he could at least engage in a little "slap-and-tickle" with his young wife, and was told that foreplay would not be necessary. When Jesus was born, nine months later, Joseph stared into the lights and insisted, "I did not have sex with that woman." The rest, as they say, is history.

Jesus's foster-father died before the beginning of the Savior's public service, at the ripe old age of a hundred and fourteen. As for the Savior, he's due any time now, and with Bush still in office, "now" wouldn't be too soon.

Okay. Where were we? Real Estate. By the way, there are hundreds of real estate web sites selling St. Joe statues, complete with instructions for burial. For as little as $2.95 -- plus $49.95 for Next Day Air, anyone can expedite the sale of his/her home. Indeed, one site even bragged that one of its customers buried her St. Joe statue in a neighbor's yard whom she hated, and the bank ended up repossessing his house. But back to the story.

As it turned out, I believe our frustrated home seller buried his St. Joseph figure and before the week was out, he had an offer. The offer was well below asking (50% below) but the money would at least pay-off the mortgage. So the desperate seller, looking to slough off debt and thinking it divine intervention, accepted the deal.

At the closing something was bothering the seller, and he couldn't quite put his finger on it. With the ink still wet on his signature, he noticed the buyer, though wearing a rug, looked strangely familiar. When it came to him, it was already too late.

Now homeless and penniless and wearing the smile of resignation, our sorry seller asked the new owner if he would kindly accept the slightly-used shovel back for a store credit.

REQUIEM FOR A PINK FLAMINGO

Union Products of Leominster Mass has shut down its last remaining production line and just like that, the neon-pink, plastic lawn flamingo has gone the way of the ivory-billed woodpecker. That icon of the American landscape is now deader than a dodo.

Isn't that just the last straw? Well, screw you world!

I've always loved plastic pink flamingos, even before they became koolkitsch -- and well before Jenny Price's moving requiem for the plastic birds in her Op Ed piece in the Times (Friday, Nov. 17) -- the inspiration behind this PNL.

Even when the lawn ornament was co-opted by the Gay Games as a mascot for the "Pink Flamingo Relay," I felt secure enough in my masculinity to proudly display my neon lawn birds. Back when marriage was still between a man and a woman, pink flamingos adorned the tops of wedding cakes. Only weirdos put little plastic brides and grooms on top of their pastry. How tacky! Both my wedding cakes had pink flamingos. It seems to bring good luck.

As the premiere lawn decoration of the 1950's, the pink flamingo distinguished the ticky- tacky little boxes of Levittown, Long Island, where every other house stood out. There, swaying in the breeze, the resin birds gave scale to their claustrophobic settings.

Lost between those notable, flamingo-festooned, postage-stamp sized yards were the yards with the tacky green and blue "Christmas Ball" pedestals that told everyone you had coodies. One could always tell the elitists and the racists by their black-jockey-hitching-post lawn ornaments. Cast iron stableboys with big red lips and bulging white eyes stood at the ready for their horseless masters.

Of course, the pink flamingo soon became a national phenomenon. Migrating south to Miami and west to San Diego, "Flamingo Gringos," as the yard artists were known, left no yard behind. Soon the gentle pink flamingo replaced the bellicose bald eagle as the national bird.

The original pink flamingo was designed, appropriately, by Don Featherstone, a man of dubious taste whose signature was cast right into the mold. They originally sold for $2.76 a pair plus tax and now, when you can find them, they command more money than your car.

I have friends with vintage pink flamingos (and the last car port in Chappaqua) and every several years I slip into their driveway under cover of darkness and steal them. As close as we are, they threaten legal action until I return them (or facsimiles of them).

Simply put, tasteful lawn ornaments (like the pink flamingo) make everything better. Somehow disease, starvation, loneliness and war all seem better when you have the correct lawn ornament.

For instance, were you to walk through the woods, you'd see an ugly tangle of trees and underbrush held together by poison ivy. Boring. Throw in a pink flamingo, and the space wrapping around it suddenly gets defined. It gets scale. You start to see the forest for the trees. The world was an ugly place prior to the plastic pink flamingo.

As a symbol of bad taste, the pink flamingo has always defined my aesthetic sensibilities. Instead of gathering yardbirds, today we have gathering threats. Now that the gentle plastic flamingo is extinct, I hope we can still find our way through the dark landscape left behind when the Republican machine finally ground to a halt.

YOUR ANTI-AGING CARD

It's bad enough AARP sends you a card before you even turn 50. Never mind your sophomoric tastes. Never mind that 50 is the new 40. Never mind that you're doing yoga and eating bran. Never mind you won't be able to retire until you're 90. Fasten your seatbelt, 'cause you're heading for the Pearly Gates and for a fee, AARP will ease the way.

They might as well have called it HARP. The Grim Reaper shows up in your mailbox looking like just another official document; like a social security card, or tax audit. Death and taxes. It's a foregone conclusion you will send them twelve bucks, if you believe their official-looking literature. But you are being robbed, you idiot.

AARP is just another thieving company reaching into your pocket. And once you sign on, you will be robbed every year 'til death do you part. Worse still, you won't even use your group discounts because you will never admit you are AARP material.

And what are the discounts to? "Oh look hon, there's a 10% discount on Bingo tonight," or, "Quick, get in the car, the last Howard Johnsons in Massachusetts is having an AARP special on the turkey with stuffing Saturday nite."

The only people proudly flashing their AARP cards are those who can't remember turning 50. Hello? I take my Gingko just so I can remember turning 50.

As if it wasn't bad enough that my "going problem" is a "growing problem," my TV tells me I must toss AVADARTs at my bladder 'til I walk around like a human sprinkler. Who the hell thought up that name? But not to worry, DEPENZ will allow me to dash to the pharmacy to buy METAMUCIL so I can move my bowels, before wetting my whistle.

As if it wasn't bad enough I must inject snake venum to BOTOXify the nerves wrinkling my forehead, I must now wear a lampshade to cover up my 12-hour erections.

Face lifts, breast lifts, and dick lifts have lifted us to the point where, if we weren't "GELLIN," our toes would barely touch the ground. With everything heading north, it's not hard to see why our bank accounts are going south. Imagine explaining to your daughter, "I''m sorry honey, but you'll be stiffed out of your inheritance because daddy overdosed on VIAGRA."

Thank heaven they've given us more sleep medicines because old farts (formerly Baby Boomers) can't fall asleep. The names alone will put you to sleep: LUNESTA, AMBIEN, SOMINEX. The only side effects are "drowsiness while operating heavy equipment," and with the new time-release version, "death." Thank God I don't operate heavy equipment!

"Death" isn't so bad: It's what they call your last payment at AARP.

That's it. I'm starting a new company. CARP. On their 30th birthday, I'll send every citizen and illegal alien a little CARP membership card and charge them only six bucks -- a savings of 50%. They'll be no unnecessary discounts (indeed, no discounts at all) and best of all, the brochure won't have Paul Newman's face on the cover.

In fact, CARP literature will contain no rhetoric at all about being as young as you feel, which only made you feel older. Until your ALIEVE kicked in.

Hell, why don't we just get started? Mail $6, (no pennies or pesos please) to PO Box 17793240871902447, Laguna Beach CA, and you'll receive your very own anti-AARP CARP card.

One free lifetime membership will go to the winning entry in the "What Does CARP Stand For?" contest.