by Susan Bankston
Juanita Jean Herownself, the proprietress of The World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc., in Cabo San Rosenberg, is addicted to nut radio. Not necessarily just the politically right-wing kind, but the ghosts-and-UFOs/Bilderberg-conspiracy/Mayan-calendar/fluoride-in-the-water/you-better-stock-up-on-duct-tape kind of nut radio, too. And at some delightful and charming times, those two groups meet in a magnificent collision of stardust and insanity.
Every morning, the customers at this beauty salon want a full report from Juanita about what happened the previous night in the super-secret world that those of us who don’t heed the 2 a.m. pleas of radio callers to Wake Up, America! don’t know diddly-squat about.
The latest 2 a.m. topic is the horror of CFL light bulbs—those twisty little bulbs that remind Juanita of the squiggle on top of a Dairy Queen ice cream cone. They are so adorable.
However, if you listen to talk radio, those light bulbs are a giant, hideous plot brought on by The Illuminati and The New World Order to infiltrate our minds and make us forget the alien masters who are turning us into chubby foodstuff for the creatures who live on that new planet scientists just “discovered.” Juanita winkingly suspects that this theory explains McDonald’s two-million-calorie milkshakes, the whole super-sizing thing, and why Pluto isn’t a planet any more. Or something like that. It’s hard to keep up when people wearing tin foil hats are talking. Try it yourself if you don’t believe me. There’s an echo. And a heck of a glare, too.
Anyway, radio nuts and right-wing Republicans have teamed up to oppose CFL light bulbs. They are stockpiling regular ol’ light bulbs. You’ll wish you had joined them when your brain is rotten from having to replace light bulbs only every five years instead of once a month. They believe there’s just gotta be something bad about light bulbs that won’t burn out for five years. That ain’t normal. It’s practically a proven scientific fact that something satanic or yuppie-inspired is involved.
Our favorite Queen of the Right-wing Hussies, Phyllis Schlafly, is so old that they have to carbon-date her every year to figure out how many candles to put on her birthday cake—and she has used most of those years finding out what people are doing and telling them to stop it. She generally limits her nut-o-mania to telling other women to sit down and shuddup so she can have all the attention. She’s also pretty prolific about her deep resentment that God gave gays all the style, and apparently there is some hoochy-koochy happening even
among the straights. We cannot be having that. Oh no.
However, she recently hushed about gays, uppity women, and the s-e-x thing so she can focus all her energy on CFL light bulbs. She is certain those light bulbs are a liberal plot brought on by Barack Obama, the Muslim Brotherhood, and three lesbians in Omaha.
In the Texas Eagle Forum newsletter, a far-right publication where most of the words are spelled almost correctly, Miss Schlafly wrote, “CFL bulbs do not work well in colder temperatures, and most cannot handle dimmer switches; broken CFL bulbs allegedly cause migraines and epilepsy attacks.”
In a tornado of irony, it’s Phyllis Schlafly who gives me migraines and fits!
Juanita believes that if Miss Schlafly’s warnings don’t scare the poop outta you, it’s too late and you’re probably already being sautéed in a nice chardonnay for your place on the salad plate of the alien masters.
But most importantly, I do have a point and it is this: if CFL light bulbs are the most we can do to piss off the right wing, we are not doing something right, dammit!
You are letting down the team. Yes, you.
You truly need to set your mind to this and do something to make Miss Schlafly so hot that her garter belt fuses to her thigh. It would be the most fun her thighs have ever had, and possibly just the thing to bring her around to being almost human.
Go do something outrageous, like asking for equal rights or fair pay for a fair day’s work. Ask to be in control of your own body or to make education a right, not a privilege. Demand effective and responsible police protection or an affordable college education. You know, the normal stuff we rally for that really, really hacks off the far-right wing.
One more thing: if we liberals were only half as smart and conniving as the right wing thinks we are, we might have won some elections last November. We’re pathetic. But at least we ain’t scared of those new-fangled light bulbs. We do have that going for us.
Susan Bankston lives in Richmond, Texas, where she writes about her hairdresser at The World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc., at juanitajean.com.

