fforts to rebuild Iraq achieved a success Friday when U.N. officials, voiced by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, pledged funding for the reconstruction from the official United Nations "swear jar."

The swear jar, instituted in the 1960s during initial squabbles between Israel and surrounding Islamic nations, became a staple of public negotiations at the U.N. building in New York. Familiar statements such as, "Please, ambassador—there are ladies present," or, "Does the Prime Minister kiss his mother with that mouth?" became outlets for relief of tension with the high-strung representatives of many nations.

The legacy of the swear jar since its inception has spawned many rumors with U.N. fans, or "Unies," as they are called behind their backs. In 1967 the popular story was the swear jar had accumulated $432,000, all of which would be used for a hootenanny-slash-barbecue that summer, until Cold War relations worsened and the jar was put aside for possible war reparations to the eventual winning side. In 1978, after years of U.N. members dipping in for candy bars and vending machine sodas, the swear jar funds were down to $1.3 million, despite accruing an estimated $3.9 million in the time since public discussion of its allocation, and popular sentiment at that time was to use the bounty to build a new recreation room with new pool tables, a 27-inch TV, and a sofa with its upholstry intact. In 1990, during the first Gulf War crisis, the U.N. elected to move the swear jar money to a ceramic Mickey Mouse bank so everyone would be less likely to replenish other funds from swear-earned income.

At Friday's donor dinner, which is fun to say, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed attendees from the United Nations and requested approximately $35.8 billion through 2007 or "best offer" for the rebuilding of war torn Iraq, in which we did most of the tearing.

Angry nations and their angrier representatives expressed disinterest in springing for rebuilding out of their own pockets after explicitly making their aversion to the war public. Miniature squabbles resulted in the aftermath, adding an estimated $43 to the swear jar before lunchtime, but U.N. executives managed to chill out the crowd with a copy of Bob Marley's Legend album.

With the uproar squashed, Secretary General Kofi Annan sparked a quiet hush in the room when he turned to Treasury Secretary Candy and asked, "How much is in the swear jar?" After conferring privately with the secretary, Annan nodded and turned back toward the microphone, pronouncing, "I think we can swing it."

Most countries found the pledge agreeable, but the allocation of the swear jar funding did have its opponents. French ambassador Henrí Bois-Bois was quick to voice his dissent.

"If the U.S. expects the rest of the Western world to step in and pay to make its repairs when it gives us no voice in preventing a war, we are setting a dangerous precedent by agreeing to do so," stated the dignitary. "Also, there are many of us who had not given up hope on getting jackets with our names on the back done up. Those are not going to pay for themselves. Does the U.S. propose to pay for those in exchange? This is so unfair."

The swear jar allocation, if it happens, could be the largest expenditure of U.N. community bank since financing a pizza party to settle the Falkland Islands dispute with money found in the rec room couch cushions.

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Thank your lucky stars you're alive to witness another episode of Reflections of a Goocher, with your host, Stu "the Dew" Umbrage. The part of Stu will be played this week by Lil' Abner.

SU: Thanks for joining us, folks. Those of you who were not eaten by dinosaurs while waiting in line will be happy to know that I've got a whole new line-up of dinosaur jokes tonight. So, let's waste no time getting to the funny. What did the dinosaur say to the Reflections of a Goocher fan right before it ate him?

AUDIENCE: WE COULDN'T MAKE IT OUT THROUGH ALL THE SCREAMING!

SU: Very good! You guys are one step ahead of me yet again, I'm going to have to either fire my audience or hire smarter writers. Funny, funny stuff people. So, anyway, you ever pull a jar of something out of your refrigerator, only to be stunned by how old the expiration date is? I saw one at my house the other day that said "PALEOLITHIC ERA"! I'm going to have to buy some more Worchester sauce!

AUDIENCE: AH! RUN! FUCK ME!! (indistinguishable guttural noises, roaring)

SU: You people are a great audience, did I ever tell you that? Those of you who are left are just awesome. Moving right along, what time is it when a triceratops sits on your fence?

AUDIENCE: FOUR O'CLOCK!

SU: That fucker sat on my fence again? What, he can't read the sign? Where's my gun?

AUDIENCE: (gunshots, dying)

SU: I swear, you people. I know I say this every night, but you guys really are the best audience ever. What's that folks? There's an invisible dinosaur waiting for me in my dressing room? Tell him I can't see him! Ha! Oh God, I've got to write that down. Hey, where are you two going? We can't finish the show without an audience.

AUDIENCE: PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, HIDE US! THEY'RE COMING!

SU: Hide you? Then who are the cameras going to cut to for reaction shots after the big punchlines? What's that? The cameramen are dead? That reminds me of a great joke: What's the name of the dinosaur that's hunting you down right now?
Doyathinkysaurus? Ha ha!

AUDIENCE: (digestive noises)

SU: Well, I'm afraid that's about all the time we have this week on Reflections of a Goocher. Be sure to join us next time when we'll have a fresh new audience that's a lot more fun than this last bunch, and maybe by then the exterminator will finally get his ass over here to spray for these berserk, blood-hungry carnivores. Until then, I'm Stu Umbrage and you're a homo.

º Last Column: If God Had a Lawn, It Would Be Nice Like This
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Again we find ourselves in this same spot, George. You, babbling on about your hurt feelings; myself, thankful I do not have a gun, because all it takes to kill a man is a gun and the will to riddle them with bullets, and believe me, all I lack is the gun. What’s that? You would kill yourself if you had a gun? Then we’re at last in agreement on something, George, and it’s long overdue. Actually, no. Suicide is too good for you, George.

Yes, suicide, that haven for cowards and those who lack the will to fight. You are a coward, George, and you lack the will to do anything. But I still would not have the actions of all those courageous self-killers blemished by you adding your lumpy, wrinkle-ridden corpse to their numbers.

Oh, I’m sure you’d do it. Not because you have the shred of self-respect that suicide requires, but because you’re just that thoughtless, to blow your brains out and leave me to find a disreputable cemetery where I could bury you in an unmarked grave. Perhaps I would put a big "X" on the ground to mark your place, only so an unwitting family doesn’t build a house over your bones and find itself haunted by the world’s most sadsack ghost. Better yet, I’ll put a small wooden tombstone at the head of your grave site, with a picture of you tacked to it—the international symbol for pathetic windbag buried here.

I take that back, George, there’s no way you could kill yourself, if you dared to, if you had the fraction of self-esteem it would take. No bullet could pass through your head. It would simply bore half-an-inch deep, yawn, and then lose itself in the humdrum of your inane conversation. Yes, George, I’m convinced even inanimate objects find you offensive, and more offensive than offensive, agonizingly dull. Poison in your food would leap off the fork just to get away from your ever-running mouth, just as the dead chicken it coats would, if it hadn’t been mercifully slaughtered already. The blade of a knife? George, no self-respecting piece of steel would be caught dead penetrating you, terrified of what the other blades would think, all the names it would be called or the inevitable accusations of preposterously low standards. Hell, the blade would shrivel like your most reprehensible bits themselves if it came within a millimeter of your ashen bare flesh.

So, George, it appears you’re resigned to live the rest of your hideous natural life, and I’ll be forced to live it with you, unless Death is much kinder than tales have told, and it comes to take me in my sleep tonight. I will count the hours. You, however, George, you may be luckier than anyone else. How do you fancy immortality, George? Kind or not, Death would have nothing to do with you, that’s my prediction. You will trod down the street, searching everywhere, see Death in a bar, either at work or taking a break at the end of its long day, and Death will put its skeletal hand over its face and try to hide from you. Oh, Christ, there’s George, he wants me to at last end his life, but that would require touching him. Fuck that, Death will say, in the vernacular of our times. Heaven will not take you if it did, because it’s Heaven up there and those good occupants should be spared your constant whining, and Hell—well, even those damned to Hell do not deserve some tortures. You geriatric loose sphincter.

Enough, George, I say enough of your tears! Enough of your prattle, enough of your pleas for compassion. I have enough compassion to tell you things the way they are. Stop your sobbing and put on your best numb façade, as the rest of us do while you speak.

And grab your good sport jacket. I won’t have you looking like the world’s most vile hobo when you collect your Lifetime Achievement Award this evening. The good shoes, George, not the Crocs. My word, George. Get dressed by yourself once, that would be a lifetime achievement.

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