Damnation's Teapots

Robert Knight
Concerned Women for America

Dear Mr. Knight,

I loved Fireman Frank. As a kid, I watched his cartoon show every morning on Channel Four in Salt Lake City. Sure, he wasn't a Gemini astronaut like Channel Two's Captain Scotty or a submarine commander like Channel Five's Admiral Bernie, and maybe most of his cartoons were scratchy black and white anachronisms from the the thirties and forties rather than Jet Age masterpieces like Roger Ramjet, but I loved him more than the others, nonetheless (in a purely heterosexual kind of way, of course.)

To me, Fireman Frank was the coolest guy around because he had a second gig as the voice of Nightmare Theater, a show that aired horror movies at 10:30 on Friday night. I knew he had to be cool, because like my older cousins, he was allowed to stay up past my bedtime.

But it was really more than that, I trusted Fireman Frank more that I trusted anyone in the world. I once drew a fire truck for him. It was a good fire truck, but I had a problem drawing the firemen. Every time I tried, I'd screw it up and I'd have to turn them into rolls of fire hose. By the time I was finished, that fire truck had more hose hanging from it than Bill O'Reilly at a pantyhose convention, but I showed it to my extended family at Sunday dinner anyway.

My mother asked me what all the big circles were supposed to be. I replied that they were rolls of fire hoses. One of my cousins then asked why some of them had legs and everyone laughed. I was crushed. I wanted to throw it away, but my mother took it and sent it off to Fireman Frank. It appeared on his show about a week later. Fireman Frank said it was a good picture and didn't mention the legs at all. I was the proudest little boy in Zion that day.

Then, one day, Fireman Frank violated that trust by showing one of those old cartoons that featured movie stars from the 1940's. It was one of those big Busby Berkeley like cartoon extravaganzas where products in a store came to life late at night and sang and danced. You know the kind I mean--a Bing Crosby toothbrush sings in a nightclub made of matchbooks as an Edward G Robinson shoe horn devises sinister plots in a dark corner with a Jimmy Cagney bottle of cod liver oil.

This cartoon starred Greer Garson as a dancing teapot. She seemed to glide across the shelves and around the dishes like lace in the wind, entrancing me with some sort of black magic and entrapping me into a life time of sin.

I know by now, you're beginning to wonder why I'm telling you this story. Well, it has to do with your recent remarks about Secretary of Indoctrination Spellings' attack on Buster the Bunny. Specifically, I'm referring to a comment in which you said, "Mrs. Spellings has given notice that left-wing lobbies will have to find other ways to peddle their pansexual propaganda."

"Pansexual?" That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I mean, how would you do something like that? Nobody's that big are they? Are you sure that you didn't mean teapots?

I know about teapots. I became fixated on them after Fireman Frank aired that cartoon. The mere sound of a whistle sets me off. I have hundreds around my house now. In moments of weakness I'll gently stroke their sensuously curved handles, caress their pert little lids with my lips, and commit unspeakable acts of utter depravity with their spouts. It's my own personal hell. I think you know what I mean.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

A helmet tip to Michael Berube for pointing us to the quote in his heretical post about Secretary of Indoctrination Spellings.