It was a cool Saturday evening, and I was just about to start a fire in the chiminea when our new kitten Sigmond started barking wildly and staring toward the driveway.

"What is it?" I asked Sigmond.

"It is a pronoun," Mister Meme said, and gave me the "slow blink." He added, "Don't you know anything?"

"She knows I'm gonna kick her ass into next week if she doesn't put down that firewood and go get me a glass of vanilla Coke!" Citizen Jim yelled as he ambled up the gravel driveway. "And you need to feed that cat so he'll stop barking like a coon hound!"

I dropped the log I was holding and opened my arms wide. "Oh, Jim! It's been so long! Wait till Miss Mabel finds - "

"Forget about Miss Mabel," he said. "Do you know what happened to me this year?"

A trick question if I'd ever heard one. I wasn't taking the bait, though; I just shrugged.

"That's exactly what I thought you'd say," he said, and drew back his fist. "I turned 40!"

"I know," I said. "I'm so glad you were born!"

Citizen Jim ignored me and grabbed his face, pulling at his jowls and howling as if he were in pain. "The big four-oh! The beginning of the end!"

"But Precious Lamb, nowadays being 40 is like being 25," I tried to assure him. "It's the opposite of the heat index. You know, like when it's 85 outside but the heat index makes it feel like it's - "

"Right! The heat index!" he said. "You dolt! There's no such thing as a heat index - when it's 85 degrees, it's 85 degrees and nothing in the fucking world can make it feel like a hundred degrees!"

He was so angry by this time that he ripped the sleeves off his shirt and wadded the material up before throwing it on the ground. Then he adjusted his very shiny, coppery-looking ivory-horned viking helmet.

"I like your hat," I said, staring at my feet.

"Go ahead and laugh - but you won't be laughing a year from now when you turn on your TV and see me holed up in my penthouse apartment being fanned by belly dancers while barely dressed women feed me seedless grapes and mango wedges and pineapple chunks," he said.

"Is that right? I'm sure that'll be a sight to see," I said, and smiled. "When will I see that?"

"You're probably gonna hafta wait a few months," he admitted. "But I got me an idea."

"Would you like to tell me about it?" I asked. "Should I go inside and get Miss Mabel so she can - "

"I don't have time for you to go inside and fetch your girlfriend! I need you to write me a letter, then I've gotta go."

"I send you emails all the time. I guess you haven't been reading them, though."

Citizen Jim was silent. This meant he was thinking about punching me. I ducked and ran, hiding behind a tree with the cats on either side of me for protection.

Jim calmly strolled over to where I was standing. "Look. I'm riding a wave right into middle age. I don't have a steady date, much less a bride. But ******** told me about this TV show she loves called 'The Flavor of Love.' At first I thought it was the Home Shopping Network selling peppermint and wintergreen condoms, and I said I wasn't interested."

"Of course not," I said.

"So, yeah, after ********* slapped me across the face for interrupting her, she told me 'The Flavor of Love' is about this guy, Mr. Flavor, who has a whole bunch of girls living with him, and they're competing to be his full-time girlfriend!"

"Yes, I've seen that show," I said.

Jim tapped his foot. "You've seen that show," he said.

I nodded.

"And you didn't think to tell me about it, did you? It never occurred to you that I might be able to find myself a girlfriend the same way Mr. Flavor is, did it? GAH! You are the worst friend I've ever had! I don't know why I even bother with you."

"I've only seen it once," I lied. Miss Mabel watched it quite often, in actual fact, and I sneak a few peeks here and there, especially when the audio portion becomes little more than a long series of bleeping sounds. This means the girls are saying lots and lots of filthy words to one another while Flavor Flav looks on with pride and horror smeared across his goofy face. These scenes cannot be missed, if only for the dreadful anticipation of physical violence which rarely materializes.

"Well, okay. So you probably know that whenever Mr. Flavor gets ready to kick one of the girls out of the competition, he hands them a clock and says, 'Don't let the door hit you on the keister.'"

"Actually, I think he says 'Your time is up.' Hence, the clock, " I said. "But since I've only watched it half of once, I - "

"It doesn't matter what HE SAYS!" Jim screamed. "Because I got me some ideas!"

"Oh, Lord," I groaned.

"Don't stomp the shit out of my dream so damned fast!" Citizen Jim yelled.

"Your dream! At least I understand now why you're wearing the viking helmet," I said.

"I may change my mind about the helmet. But I know I can get me a girlfriend and maybe a wife if I have my own show on the television," he said. "I've got it all planned out, Stimpy! The way I see it, there's at least eight or ten girls out there who'd be willing to scheme, connive and fight like feral cats for the chance to be my steady girlfriend, right?"

I batted at the air and nodded my head. "Oh, at least fifteen or twenty," I agreed. "But you'll need a good title for the show. And a gimmick. Like the clock Flavor Flav gives when - "

"His name is Mr. Flavor!" Jim said, and smacked his forehead. "I need your help with those VH1 people, and you can't even remember Mr. Flavor's name. Please don't screw this up for me!"

"What're you going to call your show?" I asked.

"I'm really leaning toward 'The Grapes of Wrath,'" he said, then held his arms out in front of him as if bracing against a strong wind. "I know, I know. You hate that title. You hate it because you hate everything I love. And I do love it, always have - for a book, a movie, a vineyard, the two scoops of raisins in every box of Raisin Bran cereal! It's so rich and multi-layered, there're thousands of things you could call 'The Grapes of Wrath.'"

"Are grapes going to figure into your gimmick somehow?"

"Don't you worry about a gimmick, Missy, because I've got so much gimmick it's coming out of my ears and nose and eyes!"

"All right. Let's hear it, then," I said.

"First of all, I won't be taking those girls out for fancy dinners, buying them jewelry and jetting around the world like I have something to prove. If they live with me, they'll have to work - vacuuming, cleaning Spalding's cage, buffing my wrestling shoes, cooking, dusting, picking up my ointments at the pharmacy and all like that. I mean, these girls - they'll be judged solely on their ability to please me. And their looks. But mostly the ability to please me. "

"Who would want to compete for the chance to do such crap full-time?" I asked.

"Someone devoted to true and everlasting love, that's who!" he said.

"Well, it's definitely an original idea, I'll give you that," I said.

"I'm gonna give you a good kick to your kidneys if you don't shut up and LISTEN TO ME!" he shouted. "Now, listen. Here's the best part. Instead of a clock, I'll hand the departing lovely a - "

"A plump, juicy raisin!" I shouted, clapping my hands.

Not missing a beat, Citizen Jim corrected me. "A ring of Hillshire Farms smoked sausage."

"Why sausage? Why not a raisin? Then you could say, 'You're all shriveled up - like a grape of wrath.'"

"That is a stupid, stupid idea," he said and rolled his eyes.

"Better than sausage," I shrugged.

"Actually, it'll be kielbasa. And when I hand it to her, I'll say, 'Close, but no kielbasa, be-yotch.' Instead of close but no cigar - NO KIELBASA! And she'll have to stand there with a ring of kielbasa around her neck while the credits roll at the end of the show. Isn't that great? Ha ha ha! People are gonna love that!"

"Heck, it sounds like you have it all figured out," I said, and went over to the chiminea and picked up the log I'd dropped earlier.

"What the hell! Aren't you going to help me?"

"Help you?"

"Yes! I need you to write a letter to VH1. To introduce my idea. And then I need you to make a web site for me, and then I'll want you and Miss Mabel to screen all the entrants," he said. "But hear me out: no midgets, no trannies and nobody over the age of 22! I may be getting old, but I'm not desperate."

"If you let Miss Mabel take a picture of you and me while you're wearing that viking helmet, I'll do anything I can to help you," I said.

"Okay, but hurry up," he said and yelled for Miss Mabel to get her ass outside with the camera. "PRONTO!"

Once she stopped laughing at Jim's headgear, Miss Mabel finally snapped the photo.

As he skulked off into the night, Citizen Jim shook his fist in our direction. "Don't tell anyone my idea!" he yelled. "And DON'T PUT THAT PICTURE ON THE INTERNET!"

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