I'm against clean beds
A little off the top
By Ethan Smith
The email was urgent. You could tell, because there were a lot of exclamation points!!!!!
Action was needed. People for Clean Beds were at it again.
Like most of you, I get a lot of junk email, but because I have some sway over what a few thousand of you read each week, my email address is circulated to every advocacy group in the nation.
They often email me, and usually they wait until right when I'm in the middle of our deadline and layout day, Tuesday, and have some cheerful 22-year-old Junior Advocate call me to ask whether I got the five emails they sent yesterday, and whether we are going to publish their guest column from their president, who is working hard to protect the endangered North American termite.
Betcha' you didn't know that dirty beds were a huge, pressing issue facing our nation, unless your older brother was a bed wetter, and you had the bottom bunk growing up …
But it is a pressing issue, and People For Clean Beds want YOU to be aware of it. Sick and tired of your husband not doing his share of the laundry, including bed sheets and pillow cases? Join them now.
People For Clean Beds actually exists. You can visit them at www.peopleforcleanbeds.org
Their motto is "People fighting to keep our mattresses and bedding clean from toxic flame retardant chemicals."
(Other proposed mottoes included "We're better looking than Star Trek fans, but with more time on our hands" and "Other groups are already trying to rid the world of poverty, war, disease, and Hillary Clinton, so we figured we'd try this," but those died in committee.)
Up until now, I had no idea how deadly my mattress was. In fact, prior to visiting their website, I used to go home and actually look forward to crawling into bed for a safe, secure night's sleep.
The mattress industry, apparently in an effort to keep you and me safe in the event of a house fire, uses flame retardant material on our mattresses. People for Clean Beds I guess would prefer being burned alive rather than using those materials.
People for Clean Beds is just one of dozens of groups who try to get my attention each week. Up until a few weeks ago, I used to get an email each week from the Save the Manatee Club.
Manatees, in case you didn't know, are these fat, hairless, harmless creatures who live in Florida, kind of like grandparents, except they live underwater. Picture a cross between a seal, hippo and a walrus.
They are on the endangered species list, mainly because they get chopped up by boat propellers all the time.
The fact that no manatee could survive in Montana doesn't keep the Save the Manatee people from emailing me each week, asking me if I want to help save them.
"Just tell them to stop swimming under the power boats all the time," I responded via email. "There's 24-year-olds in bikinis, trying to learn to water ski, for Pete's sake! How can they learn to ski when they have to wade through manatee guts, floating on the surface?"
Nobody fights for the 24-year-olds in bikinis. What about their rights?
Now that there's both a state gubernatorial and presidential election on the horizon, my inbox is being flooding with political emails from both sides, and Ron Paul, whoever he is. (Are we as a country ready to elect a guy with two first names?)
All the politicians want me, and you, to know that they vetoed appropriating money for Communist Lesbians for Satan, but that they love children and puppies (except, presumably, children and puppies owned by CLS members.)
They also want you to know that Candidate A's wife is probably a member of Communist Lesbians for Satan because she was once seen talking to another woman, while wearing a red sweater.
Boy, I get sick of the advocacy groups. It sure was a lot easier back in the days when nobody cared about anything.
Maybe I'll start my own advocacy group, which will work to rid the world of advocacy groups. We'll be called APATHY — Advocacy Prevention And Total Hate-group Yuckies.
Or maybe I'll start an advocacy group for 24-year-old, bikini-clad women in Florida who've been traumatized by manatee heads floating by.
I'll call it TOPLESS. That will get the editors' attention.