wo hours after being promised a liver from a recently-deceased organ donor, terminal liver patient Marcy Quelode refused to accept the liver, declaring that it did not meet her standards.

"I don't think it's out of line to say this liver is unsatisfactory," Quelode told her doctors and EMTs who had brought the liver in an emergency helicopter from Illinois.

"See?" Quelode said, pointing out thin, veiny fissures in the organ as they presented it to her, per her request. "Not a top of the line model, to say the least. It's not bite marks or anything, but as far as I'm concerned it's not far from it. I'll pass."

Quelode's doctors assured the woman the surface scarring or blemishes were just cosmetic defects, but Quelode said if they didn't bother the doctors then they could have it, but she wanted a better one.

"I know you're trying to save my life, and I appreciate it and all," the ill patient told transplant surgeons, "but if I let you talk me into it right now, I'm just going to wake up and regret it tomorrow. I've been through this before—well, not this. I was never happy with my breast augmentation surgery, though."

Earlier this year Quelode was diagnosed with Primary Biliary Cirrhosis, some kind of liver disease. Without a liver transplant, it is highly probable the disease will continue to shut down her liver until she dies from liver failure. However, the immediacy of the situation, according to Quelode, is no reason to accept substandard donor organs.

"Despite the warnings of doctors and the rolling of eyes while saying, 'Oh-kay!' I believe that I can do better. All my life I have taken 'good enough' when I deserved much better. This liver is surely 'good enough'—the donation was a kind gesture by a man with a wonderful heart. Unfortunately, I need a liver and he apparently kept shoddy maintenance on that."

Her condition worsening, Quelode was put back on the waiting list for a new liver, with the hand-penciled footnote "Grade B or Better Only." Doctors, exasperated and annoyed, tossed the refused liver back in the medical cooler bowing and adding, "Certainly, your majesty. Watch us jump to it. Jesus."

Immediately the doctors and EMTs left the room and waited a couple of minutes just outside, then went back in, but Quelode recognized the cooler and told them she wanted a brand new liver, no more shenanigans. More frustrated, doctors exited again and had Quelode returned to the list.

"We gave the liver to some guy in Iowa," said transplant surgeon Yurgen Pose. "He was doing fine with it for hours, then some big-mouth on the operating team mentioned the lady rejecting it, now he's all on the phone with us everyday asking what's wrong with it. What a pain in the ass. Why did I become a doctor? I could have been a NASCAR driver. I guarantee you Jeff Gordon doesn't have to listen to shit like this all day."

As Quelode's serum bilirubin levels continue to rise, edging her closer to the end, she asks to be included in everyone's prayers and hopes that everyone will fill out their organ donor cards, especially non-drinkers who exercise but infrequently engaged in rough contact sports.

neaking up on an enduring place in music history like an albino in a snowstorm, the platinum-selling English grunge band Bush has dropped completely from public memory in record time, a study found Tuesday. Previous record holders The Escape Club could not be reached for comment, as nobody could remember who was in the band or what they looked like.

Bush rose to fame behind the success of their 1994 album Sixteen Stone, which sold over 15 million copies worldwide and settled hundreds of bets over how long it would take alternative rock to turn into Def Leppard. Bristling under the weight of overwhelmingly poor reviews and tired of not being taken seriously by anyone over the age of fourteen, Bush donned indie producer Steve Albini like a credibility hat for the release of their second album, 1996's Razorblade Suitcase. Despite sporting an title that Spinal Tap thought was artsy, the album was another critical failure, sending the band into a deep prettyboy funk. They returned in 1999 with The Science of Things, an attempt to succeed where U2 had failed, by half-heartedly aping popular trends in techno music and alienating every last one of their fans.

Bush drew massive ire from music critics and hipsters on both continents for their 2000 release We're Nirvana, then promptly dropped off the face of the planet when the record-buying public lost its taste for generic bands copying good bands and developed a passion for homogeneously generic bands and rich white teens pretending to be angry and black.

Tuesday's report included a poll of over 3,000 households, none of whom could recall the grunge quartet in any meaningful fashion. Polls of the commune staff and random yokels on the street provided similar results.

Professional man-on-the-street Rodney Brown came the closest to remembering the band with his comment "What was their big song? Crazy Train?"

Others were not so lucky. commune reporter Lil Duncan feigned memory of the band with her claim to have toured with Bush as a groupie in the mid-90's, but her stories of wild debauchery and pharmaceutical excess quickly revealed the band in question to actually have been Scottish uberdorks The Proclaimers.

Other staff members confused the band with similarly forgotten, yet not completely eclipsed pop acts such as The Crash Test Dummies, Fun Lovin' Criminals and Frente.

"I got it. They were the ones with the two drummers, and the guitar player would always get naked for the last song," convenience store clerk Rasham Levin nodded with barrel-scraping conviction.

Whoever the members of Bush were could not be reached for comment as of press time.

You see, George? I told you the name of that movie was Deep Blue Sea, the one where the sharks eat the people. I should know, it's probably one of the best movies I've ever seen. Yet you doubted me. Well, tonight I dine on victory.

Lake Placid? How you could get a movie about a giant alligator in a small town confused with a movie about hyper-intelligent sharks eating all the people at a floating sea lab? No victory for you, George. You clearly don't keep good inventory on your mutated-creature-attacks-people movies. I, on the other hand, who do keep good inventory on my mutated-creature-attacks-people movies, will be eating big fat slabs of victory tonight, right off the bone.

Not that Lake Placid is a bad film, George—that's not my argument at all. Bill Pullman, Bridget Fonda, Oliver Platt, a great cast all around. But are you honestly telling me you mixed up Oliver Platt with Samuel L. Jackson? An incalculable error on your part, George, which is why I munch victory chips and you get crow. Enjoying your crow, George? I've had to eat crow far too many times to feel sorry for you. I've eaten enough crow for the population of India in my years. And they're practically starving, George, so you know they would eat a lot of crow. But tonight my soup is filled with chunks of victory.

What about the sheriff? There's not even a sheriff in Deep Blue Sea. Not that I'm not enjoying delicious victory-chip cookies over my win, but I don't understand how you could so clearly confuse a small town with a partially submerged sea lab. Did the diving suits not give it away at all? When the fellow at the party asked what was the movie with Samuel L. Jackson where the sharks are trying to kill him, and you said, "Oh, Lake Placid!" did it not seem at all possible that sharks in a movie about a lake was a major blunder?

The more I think about it, the victory isn't all that sweet. Sure, it's good, especially for a change since I've so often had big fat crow while you chomped victory, but I didn't want to win this way. It takes some of the fun out of it. Did you let me win on purpose? Is it possible you fouled up the movie title so completely hoping that I would pick up the ball and run the touchdown? Seriously, George, it's starting to bother me—are you retarded? Not that it's a problem if you are, but if you have suddenly become retarded during the course of the party last night, I need to know. I sure didn't want to win this way.

I'm starting to see you in a whole new light, George. Sitting here, cutting my victory into small pieces and eating it quietly… you're not at all the impenetrable fortress of knowledge I once thought you to be. You're truly fallible, aren't you? Especially where your weak knowledge of modern giant creature movies comes in.

It was bound to happen, I guess. Maybe before I was too awestruck by your ability to recall most movies without failure, to beat me to an answer and make me look like a jackass. I imagine those days are over, and I'm a little sad. I won't be eating crow anymore, just sweet, sweet victory, but still, it changes the way I see things now. The rosy-colored glasses are off and I see you for what you are—a buffoon, I dare say, when it comes to telling the difference between giant shark and giant alligator movies. God forbid someone ever asks you about Gator or Jaws—you're liable to burst a blood vessel and drool all over yourself and become a complete vegetable.

Let's hope it was a one-time thing, for both of us, and never speak of it again. Here—share my victory. Just this one time.

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