hree masked bandits made off with the largest-ever collection of stolen sperm samples in a daring daylight heist of the McCullough Bank of Low-Grade Sperm in New York this week, amusing authorities and frightening one McCullough patron into premature donation.

Authorities believe they are dealing with extremely low-grade, and possibly mentally deficient, criminals, all likely the results of McCullough sperm in the first place. Common sense and eyewitness accounts point to the robbers mistaking the sperm bank for the usual money-filled kind, lured by the facility’s lax security and complete lack of the imposing 87-year-old security guards usually employed by banks in the movies. Even worse, the apparently dipshitted bandits also robbed the least desirable sperm bank in town, as McCullough has traditionally been a discount repository for the genetic material of over 5,000 winos, junkies, teenage heart-attack victims, the criminally obese and conservatives for the last 20 years.

“Yeah, this looks to be the work of some real gonads,� evaluated police captain Walter Diggs. “One of them even dropped his wallet at the scene, but since it was just full of coupons and a novelty driver’s license made out to Jesus H. Christ, this has been of little assistance in our investigation.�

The McCullough Bank of Low-Grade Sperm, known in the reproductive-assistance community as “The Island of Misfit Spank,� was created by wealthy thinker Nelson McCulloch in 1982 to counterbalance to the offensively Nazistic eugenics movement. McCullough hoped to counter the societal effects of eugenic tycoon Robert Graham’s Repository for Germinal Choice, also known as the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank, which aimed at improving society by giving more women access to high-grade spunk. The McCullough Bank went in the other direction, extending the reproductive power and reach of the very individuals who natural selection, and surely at least the Nazis, would likely have wiped out.

Authorities speculate that after McCullough’s long and proud history of creating the ugly, the short, the slothful and disinterested, the weak, the gene-poor, the flat-chested and the unlovable, the bank’s chickens may have come home to roost in the form of deficient McCullough alumni making off with millions of their potential siblings in a beige 1987 Chevy Nova with a “Big Johnson� bumper sticker.

Reproductive-assistance experts remain terrified at the thought of how the sperm samples might be used in the wrong hands, possibly as sandwich spread.

“I just wouldn’t want to be in that car when the skeet packet goes off,� chucked McCullough head Nigel Barmes, referring to the explosive packet of hot-pink dyed sperm that tellers mix in with stolen samples to foil robbers.

The McCullough incident marks the first occurrence of sperm bank violence in this country since 1991, when militant pro-choice activists blew up the Washington, D.C. Gentleben Sperm Repository in retaliation for several abortion clinic bombings nationwide.

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Modern mysteries come in all shapes and sizes, from the five-toed horny gorilla to the location of the island where they breed reality show contestants. But some of the most vexing mysteries of all come in the blandest of blandishments. Sometimes they slip under our radar in plastic-windowed envelopes, without any kind of Unsolved Mysteries theme music alerting us to their mysterious presence.

The only thing harder to read than an epileptic doing sign language or Spanish scribbled on a men's room wall is the modern cell phone bill. We live in a society where experts can catch a killer based on the velocity at which the blood hit the beanie baby display case, but there doesn't seem to be a person on the planet who can tell you what the fruity hell is going on with your phone bill. We have scholars who can read hieroglyphics, cave drawings and the handwriting in hip-hop album liner notes, but even they throw up their hands in disgust when you ask them what a Cross-Promotional Technolocality fee is or why you're being charged for Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Removal. And this isn't only because you called them up at home in the middle of the night from a bar and they couldn't hear your question over the Phil Collins blaring in the background. They just don't know.

However, all that is unknown may not be unknowable. It may just be that no one has ever had the balls to rip the phony rubber Richard Nixon mask off the truth. And believe you me, there is truth behind the cowardly jargon that clogs your phone bill like Cher's decapitated head stuck in a toilet. Icky truth.

Phone bill jargon is all about telecommunications companies needing to give you a "deal" to get your business, but being genetically incapable of actually giving you a deal. If they actually managed to give you a bargain, their fat-cat golfing buddies would never let them hear the end of it, and might actually call into question whether they're really white or actually a member of some deceptively near-white-looking minority group. That, and they're greedy as fuck. So you can rule out not being bent over the barrel by the phone companies, that's just a fact of life.

However, everybody likes to feel like they're getting a bargain, so the phone companies developed a clever ploy to lower their rates while actually raising their rates. They gradually shifted more and more of their expenses into itemized fees and taxes that aren't included in your standard rate. So now your cell phone plan is only $40 a month instead of $60, but they're charging you $22 in made-up fees and official-sounding taxes on the back end of the bill. Washington capitulated because they liked the sound of the word and wanted to put "capitulating" on their résumés.

So now you open your cell phone bill and it's like you let a bunch of greedy leprechauns loose who are running around and grabbing whatever they can get their dirty little mitts on. There's one called the Federal Programs Cost Recovery Fee. This is to reimburse the phone companies for all the money they spent lobbying to get all of these fees and taxes okayed by the bureaucrats. Another is called the Universal Connectivity Fee, which is universal because everyone has to pay it, and it covers the cost of the phone company making sure everything is plugged in.

Telephone Number Pooling fees cover the cost of phone company employees picking out phone numbers that spell embarrassing words on the keypad when they're supposed to be working. Wireless Number Portability is a fee to offset the money phone companies are losing to cell phones, while the Audible Proximity fee is to offset the money cell phones are losing to people being in the same room and talking.

Enhanced 911 is a feature that plays a little animation of a guy getting carjacked next to a funny cartoon policeman sleeping in his cruiser with little Z's coming out of his head while you're waiting for 911 to connect you with a dispatcher. The Relay Service and Communication Devices Fund covers the cost of connecting calls to land-based phones, while the Telecommunications Relay Service Surcharge connects you to phones shaped like footballs and other novelty items.

The Universal Service Fund Surcharge is a fee paid to Universal Studios to recoup their losses from people who are talking on their cell phones so much they're not scared by the big jumping shark on the tram ride. The Federal Exercise Tax is meant to recoup the strain on the health care system caused by you talking on your cell phone instead of exercising.

The so-called State Regulatory Fee is also known at the Don Knotts Surcharge, which guarantees that you will never, ever, be telephoned by Don Knotts at any time. The FCC Access Charge covers lawsuits against the phone company brought by people who've had movies, meals, sporting events, urinations, wedding vows and evening commutes ruined by some idiot yakking on his cell phone.

Last but certainly not least, the Trans-Continental Deactivation fee is the charge for them to pull their dick out of your ass after they're done fucking you.

Likewise, you're taxed by the states, counties, cities, and special taxing districts you're calling to and from, and by Burt Shyman from Oak Grove, CT, who invented the dropped call. And you're also paying to not have your phone number listed in Serial Killer Magazine, and for the expenses incurred by the phone company while they're selling your phone number to every disabled reindeer charity, opinion survey group and credit card company in the nation.

The deeper you probe into this mystery, the murkier it becomes, kind of like Ronald Reagan's brain. Stare too long and you may come away cross-eyed, or sterile. One thing is clear, however: If it's not cell phone radiation giving us these brain tumors, it's the bills.

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I'm thinking about getting into the stand-up comedy business. I don't consider myself to be all that funny really... well maybe wearing a fruit-covered headdress and some canastas to the premiere of "Lambada: The Forbidden Dance" was pretty funny, but more on point I don't have a serious interest in stand-up comedy. But it does seem to be the lucritive pathway to success as a celebrity endorser of phone company services. Which is my real dream, when you get down to brass tacks that look like they're gold until you get down and really look at them close. I want to be the guy on television who's telling you to press a bunch of numbers on your phone so you'll save big. I don't care what the numbers are, you can make them up if you want. Go ahead. I'm not claiming to be an artist here. I just want to tell people what to do.

I'm sure you're asking yourself right now, "Well Omar, if they've already got George Carlin, what in the world do they need you for?". Good question. It seems to me I'll have to carve my own niche. Surely there's other phone company services that need advertising. I think I'll be the guy who tells you that if you pick up the phone and you don't get a dial tone, press the hang-up switch a bunch of times fast. The next step is to hit the receiver on the outside of the phone booth. See? I know this stuff. I watch movies.

I think I can make a career out of this, maybe even spin it off into a sitcom. Like what about those times you pick up the phone and there's somebody already on the line, WHEN IT NEVER EVEN RANG? Isn't that freaky? How do they do that? I think we could do a whole season on that. I'm thinking about having Don Ameche as my sidekick. I've always thought he was serious sidekick material.

Besides, the industry has already done too many adds on calling collect. It's tired, so formula. The people want something fresh. I think we could go high-tech... like a series of spots on phone taps. They're more common than you think. Sometimes I'm talking on the phone and I'll hear it in the backgroud, just this clicking sound. Click click. Who's tapping my phone? I'm not saying I'm any kind of expert on phone taps here, but if they were going to make a sound, I think that would be it. Click click. Tap tap. Y'know? We could do an animated spot with Barney Rubble as my straight man. Like in those old commercials you used to see. "BARNEY! You wiretapped my phone!". And then I could chase him around in a costume or something. I think that would make people want to call more long distance.

That gets me to thinking about commercials in general. Why is it that you never see the people you trust endorsing products? When's the last time Chris Rock called anybody collect? I don't think so. We need more credible sources, the people want to know. Like what does President Clinton take when he gets Herpies Symplex B? That's a hell of an endorsement. What does Kenny Rogers know about chicken? I want to eat at Domingo Pavoratti's Roasters. That tub looks like he knows his chicken. Jerry Seinfeld for American Express? What does he care if it has a high annual rate? He's probably just tired of getting papercuts from handling so much cash. Put Kato Kaelin up there on the screen. Put his hide-a-bed sleepin' mug on an American Express card and I'll think about it.

Until next time, I'm Omar Bricks.

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