She Party
by Samantha Stone
Apologies to Bob Dylan: Everybody must get schlonged
It’s been a schlong, schlong year, and not just for Jeb Bush, who’s suffered an awful schlonging by Donald Trump. Writers everywhere owe a heartfelt thank-you to Mr. Trump for spotlighting this Yiddish slang, which not only gives us a chance to play with a word that’s great fun to use, but also removes any pressure to spend time on the portrayal of the Cruz children as dancing monkeys. So, with apologies to Bob Dylan, everybody must get schlonged. Here’s a partial account from 2015.
They’ll schlong you when you’re riding in your car: Volkswagen schlonged its dealers, customers, shareholders, and smog-measuring professionals everywhere, by rigging vehicles so that their emissions test readings looked better than their actual performance. This raises troubling questions about every single physical process that’s reported on a digital screen. Utility bills, medical devices, air traffic control instruments, the list goes on. Think about that when you’re lying awake at night.
They’ll schlong you while you’re playing you’re guitar: The financially-struggling Hartford (Conn) Symphony Orchestra may be forced to shut down because of an impasse with the musician’s union. It’s really the same old story – workers getting schlonged by their own union’s negotiators, who refuse to accept that the revenue they generate doesn’t support their compensation. Instead of making painful-but-realistic adjustments, they hold out, jeopardizing the very existence of the operation. In this case, the union may push 86 part-time musicians off the stage entirely, rather than acknowledge that the symphony can’t afford to put on the number of performances in the contract.
They’ll schlong ya when you are all alone: How about those men who tried to alleviate marital boredom on the Ashley Madison website, instead of more tried-and-true venues, like a local watering hole or the company Christmas party? A cyber intrusion at AshMad turned into a double schlonging, and not in a good way. First, an identity thief announced with great fanfare that AshMad members’ credit card numbers were posted online. Then, after men began confessing to their wives that they might be on the list, it was revealed that AshMad produced very few actual hookups. That’s because most of its female members were not real women, but software programmed to flirt with wannabe cheaters.
They’ll schlong you when you’re trying to go home: Pity the residents of Porter Ranch, a 30-year-old master-planned community in southern California. They’re self-evacuating their neighborhood after being stricken with headaches, nausea, nosebleeds, and other ailments attributed to fumes emanating from a nearby field of gas and oil wells owned by SoCal Gas, a division of Sempra Energy. Home values are dropping, sales are falling out of escrow, and the Los Angeles Unified School District had to relocate two schools serving the neighborhood. The problems started after a failure in the standard procedure the company uses to shut down an “idle” well, and the fix will take an estimated four months. But SoCal Gas may also have schlonged itself – hard – as officials now allege that it had no back-up plan and no best practices in place to deal with the failed shutdown or the ensuing health and safety crisis.
They’ll schlong ya when you’re trying to make a buck: Heartbreak for Nevada’s taxpayers and fiscal conservatives, who were cruelly schlonged after falling for the oldest lie. No, not “I’ll still love you in the morning,” but “I won’t raise your taxes.” Republican politicians schlonged the very people who put them in office, with a billion-dollar business tax package. A complete list of schlonged businesses would have to highlight Yahoo, where CEO Marissa Mayer spent money like a drunken Kardashian on a fashion junket, producing little to show for it. Mayer has also given a scandalous same-sex schlonging to the notion of female leadership. Rational businesswomen everywhere will bear the scars for years to come.
They’ll schlong ya and then they’ll say “good luck”: Look what the Federal Reserve has done to American retirees. Folks who feel uncomfortable in the stock market spent yet another year longing for the days when CDs produced a return – any return at all, as the Fed continued artificially suppressing interest rates. Although the Fed finally raised its benchmark rate this month by a whopping quarter of a percent, banks aren’t required to hurry up and hike the rates they pay individual savers.
They’ll schlong ya when you’re trying to be so good: A sobering fall semester for serious college students and tuition-paying parents. Campus protests have exposed many universities as self-righteous caricatures of higher learning institutions. This should prompt mom and dad to consider just what they’re paying for, and cause some students to rethink going into debt for college. Meanwhile, K-12 students at public schools were schlonged in their restrooms and locker rooms by boys demanding to use girls’ facilities, and girls demanding to use boys’ facilities. Adults stood by helplessly, and in some cases, unhelpfully.
They’ll schlong ya just like they said they would: The Environmental Protection Agency dumped mine waste into a river, turning it bright orange, but kept its commitment to impose harsher ozone standards on American business.
They’ll schlong ya when you’re at the breakfast table: American taxpayers got schlonged all day, every day. Executives at the Veterans’ Administration gave themselves fraudulent raises and relocation reimbursements. The TSA seized your cosmetics, even as undercover agents carrying mock explosives and weapons got through airport security checkpoints 95 percent of the time. Agency heads all over Washington used personal email for government business, leaving significant holes in the public record. The Justice Department gave a pass to “retired” IRS director Lois Lerner despite her obvious involvement in institutionalized political corruption.
They’ll schlong ya when you’re young and able: The next door neighbor of San Bernardino terrorist Sayed Farook may have been tragically schlonged. Enrique Marquez, a Walmart security guard and sometime barroom floor sweeper, seems to have carried around a sign reading “Schlong me, I’m a patsy.” He drew an opportunist seeking a green card marriage, and a would-be terrorist in need of a straw buyer for weapons. Now Marquez faces decades in prison. Whatever his intentions or his capacity for sound decision-making, something about this poor SOB attracted the most evil schlongers of all – those who exploit odd, lonely little characters.
There’s so much more, but this is getting a bit schlong. Got your own examples? Please share: [email protected]. Or make predictions about the schlongings 2016 will bring.
