’m serious, what the hell happened last year? Did we mix up our multivitamins and roofies again? Because if anything at all of note happened in 2006, we missed it here at the commune. Best to check the tape.

Ah, right. Who could forget the midterm elections, when even Republican candidates were voting to toss their own corrupt asses out of office? Never before has the term “midterm� meant anything near this good, usually it’s just a sign that the time has come to stop having sex with that pregnant girl at the office.

The Iraq War trundled on, if you can call it a war when we stand by and watch while a country tears itself to shreds like that one Superman where he tried to rip his Clark Kent suit off, but forgot he had already done so and ended up pulling off all his skin like a Halloween costume and got a superinfection. That’s basically what has happened in Iraq; only the country is infected with assholes.

Speaking of assholes, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was hung like a horse, only not in the good sense of the phrase. It turns out Iraq doesn’t hang many people, preferring execution by forcible blowupification, and so Hussein had to be put down in the capital punishment wing of a veterinary hospital. Tack-y, Iraqis.

Paul McCartney’s pirate wife, Heather Mills McCartney, filed for divorce on the grounds of emotional cruelty, on account of McCartney’s habit of singing her Wings songs during their tender moments. McCartney took the news in stride, citing the fact that he’d run out of good “one leg� jokes months ago anyhow. This, moments before he launched into an a cappella rendition of ZZ Top’s “She’s Got Leg,� bringing the room to an uncomfortable silence.

Ariel Sharon had a stroke, and millions of children cried. Until adults explained that this was not the Ariel from The Little Mermaid. And so, millions of children went back to playing with their food.

It was the year of K-FED, some kind of sexually transmitted disease the young people were going nuts about this year. And it says here they finally caught the guy who killed JonBenet… I can’t be reading that right. Anyway, a bunch of Amish kids got shot, if that surprises anyone after all the crap they’ve pulled.

A bunch of yabbos tried to bring down airliners with Gatorade, resulting in a ban on anything wetter than Tony Danza’s back going through airport security and spiking sales of $5 bottles of tap water in airport gift shops.

And how could we have forgotten the Foley sex scandal? Republicans proved yet again that they do everything better than Democrats, including falling flat on their faces in public after quizzing underage boys about their boner etiquette. Thankfully for all involved, Foley quickly entered alcohol rehab, the only known surefire cure for rampant pedophilia.

Oh shit! Cheney shot some dude. Yeah, that was pretty memorable. Anyway, it was a year, end of story. Unless you died or got laid, in which case it was the most important year in the history of mankind. Congratulations.

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I swear to God you break one little hip, slip into a light four-month coma, and the entire world passes you by. It's like you died, nobody bothers to bring you up to date on the lotto numbers or the once-in-a-lifetime cataclysmic events you missed while you had a feeding tube sticking out of your ass like a goddamned ringtail lemur. The Red Sox? The World Series? For that very reason I'm still unconvinced that I didn't die that day, living ever since in some kind of strange Jacob's Ladder hinterworld. The motherloving Red Sox? That gimpy bunch of fruits? I spend the autumn on the rack at Jiffy Lube and the whole world passes me by like I was driving a Prius in the Indy 500.

While I was in my coma, dreaming about soft foods and My Little Pony, I had some vague awareness that I was probably missing some big events out in the so-called "real" world. I knew if I stayed in there long enough, the usual grab bag of celebrities would probably kick off, and I might just miss the Al-Qaeda razing the city of Chicago like it was the Crusades 2. And I was fine with all that. But I'm still pissed off that nobody though to bust out the electroshock paddles when the Sox came back from 3-0 against the Yankees back in October. Trust me, I would have climbed down off my pretty-hair pony and rejoined the waking world to see that, they wouldn't have had to shock-paddle me more than three or four times. No acrid stink of fried chest hair for this guy. We're talking playoff action here.

Back in my day, doctors could recognize a coma for what it was: a hard-earned vacation for people who hate to travel. They didn't mess around with all these expensive EKGs and CAT-scans. They just tossed a spare blanket on you and left a glass of water on the nightstand for when you eventually woke your ass up. And if there wasn't room at the hospital, thanks to a fireworks fight at the coal mine or war breaking out in the Balkans, there was always some nice family out there proud to host a comatose American. Hell, I had a guy comatose on my couch for three months back in '57. I didn't mind it one bit, he kept the nachos warm while I was in the bathroom.

But that world's as far gone as an underground bunker full of Scientologists, readers. Nowadays, it's screw you and your 86-year World Series curse, old man. As long as your family keeps sending the hard sucking candies, we're keeping you in that coma.

My God, the Red Sox. How did this self described bunch of "fucking morons" defeat the mighty-footed Yankee juggernaut? I've seen the footage on Betamax, and I'm still not sure how it happened. The only sane conclusion is that the 2004 Yankees were, to a man, a bunch of pussies. If I were Steinbrenner, I'd be pissed nobody pointed this out to me earlier. I bet next season the Yankees have some kind of public disclosure rule where that kind of stuff gets exposed, possibly over the public address system. "Now batting, Alex Rodriguez: Pussy. Also plays some third base."

Did anybody else see Rodriguez karate-chop that ball like he thought he was Jackie Baseball Chan or something? What a pussy. If I saw that in a little league game, I'd be down on the field, bitch-slapping some little kids. The ghost of Babe Ruth needed to pry his fat ass out of the grave for about ten minutes and give that Rodriguez guy a serious murph, and pronto.

Kevin Brown? Another big pussy. Only the Yankees could find a way to spend so much money on a guy whose spine is held together with Polydent. This guy gives the elderly a bad name.

Jeter? He's always been a pussy. You can pull all the carnival bullshit you want, throwing some steroid freak out at the plate with a backward pass like you think you're Magic Johnson, but… actually, there's no "but" involved, that alone makes you a pretty big pussy. I've slapped little leaguers for more manly pranks than that.

Mussina? Pussina. That guy belongs in an elementary school library, checking book margins for nude doodles of Minnie Mouse. Matsui? Japanese Baseball Robot. Not a pussy, but not very convincing either. They might have pulled that one over on us if it weren't for all the sponsorship logos printed on his teeth. Bernie Williams? You ever see that cartoon aardvark Arthur? Same guy. Both pussies. And a name like Georgie Posada speaks for itself.

Few would call Gary Sheffield a pussy, but you've got to look at the company a man keeps. Something's not right with this guy. Plus Sheffield swings harder on a bunt than Jack Nicholson saying hello to Scatman Crothers. And they want to know how he ended up with rancid hamburger for a shoulder by the end of the season? After the Twins game when he tried to catch that fly ball in his mouth, it dawned on me that the guy's arms are tied on with twine, like a scarecrow. They're just for looks kids.

And don't get me started on the "Cardinals." Anyone with half a memory knows those guys were the "other" team from the Bad News Bears movies, all growed up. I don't know what they did with the real Cardinals to make sure the Red Sox Cinderella story came true, but Guantanamo Bay is the first place I'd look.

Anyway, bitter rant aside, it's good to be back among the conscious. Thanks for calling, if any of you called. Sorry I wasn't able to answer the phone: coma and everything. But I'm sure subconsciously it meant something to me, on some kind of psychic Caller-ID level. But the next time I get jumped for slapping little-leaguers, I expect a marked improvement in coma management, people. Good day.

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As a public service, I've decided to dedicate this installment of the column to clearing up some popular misconceptions that have persevered over the years, due to superstition and our lame-duck public education system. You're welcome. It's important both to have an informed society, and for people to stop asking me this crap when I'm trying to wash my car. So let's take a look:

Pizza was invented by the Chinese.
Okay, this one is just stupid. Ever try to order a pizza from a Chinese food place? I rest my case. This rumor was started by McDonalds back when pizza delivery started to get really popular. Their business was hurting, so they started spreading the rumor that pizza was Chinese, not Italian, playing off of the public's ingrained mistrust of the Chinese. After all, if pizza was Chinese, it could have all kinds of crazy stuff in the sauce that white people don't even understand. Better to trust the Italians, I suppose, and their penchant for putting boiled pig assholes in everything. It's somewhat surprising that this myth caught on, considering that all Chinese food is pretty much devoid of cheese, but I guess it follows the truism that the biggest lies are the easiest to believe.

Dogs can't eat chocolate.
Another bullshit claim, dogs love chocolate. Fat women shouldn't eat chocolate, but it's fine for dogs. The only time dogs shouldn't each chocolate is when they're on the couch, as chocolate stains are really hard to get out. So, I suppose if you've got a show dog that stains easily, you might not want to give him chocolate. Or at least put on a bib or something. On the dog, you're free to wear what you want. This is another excellent reason to pick dogs in brown or other colors that don't show dirt, or to get your dogs scotchguarded when they're puppies.

Cats always land on their feet.
This is true only in isolated situations, like when cats are wearing cement booties or have just been shot through a huge industrial fan. If, for example, you throw a cat out of a moving speedboat, it will land like this: feet, head, back… feet, head, back… feet, head, back. This myth comes to us from cat lovers, who actually love nothing more than pretending that their cats love them back. They love to spread stories about how smart and talented their cats are, despite all evidence to the contrary. Kind of like people with kids. The only time I've ever seen a cat land on its feet was when it fell out of a Great Dane's ass.

George Washington had wooden teeth.
A popular misconception originating from a lack of understanding of the English language of that day. Back then, saying someone had wooden teeth was just a funny way of saying their breath was stank. And Washington's breath was so bad as to defy explanation. Some historians have suggested that Washington's teeth were actually made of Roquefort cheese, a strong possibility given the poor dental science of the day. When someone had a toothache back then, the "dentist" would knock out all his teeth with a pistol grip, so as to allow all of the bad humors to escape through the patient's gum-holes. He would then fashion replacement teeth out of whatever he had handy, using everything from marbles to dice to live beetles tied down with string. This is the reason you never see any of the founding fathers smiling in their dollar bill portraits; they didn't want the money to scare children.

When you fall off a cliff in a dream, if you hit the ground before you wake up you will die for real.
This is a popular one that many parents tell to their children, and for good reason. In actuality, if you hit the ground in the dream you'll most likely just shit the bed. But you won't die unless there's someone in the bed with you who takes violent offense at being shit on. Bed-shitting has long been the bane of parents everywhere, and the primary reason I will never have children. Thankfully, this misconception has been an effective tool for parents in cutting down the cliff-falling-dream variety of bed-shitting in recent years. Kids having dreams about clowns, however, is still the nation's leading cause of ruined twin-sized mattresses.

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