What does food taste like? I cannot remember. This is because in 1978, my stomach and most of my small intestine had to be removed. All of my nourishment comes from intravenous tubes and subcutaneous injections.
You enjoy seeing me suffer, don’t you, you no-good, lousy harpy of a nurse? What? No, I don’t want you to read me Black Beauty again! A nurse responsible for the care of America’s greatest newspaperman, and she’s as deaf as a post.
Though I barely recall its taste, a nice hot bowl of Farina sure sounds good right now. I used to start off every morning with a steaming helping of the stuff, and how reassuring it was to feel its thick, creamy mass slide down my throat. Ah, hot porridge. It thickens the blood, enhances the constitution, and makes a man as strong as a tree trunk.
None of this weak-kneed, dry, flaky wheat compound that the kids go for. That stuff would dry up and blow away if it wasn’t weighted down. It’s Bolshevism, plain and simple! That Kellogg gentleman should be deported!
Rotten kids, defying their elders. Just look at them! When they’re not eating chaff for breakfast, they’re driving around in their souped-up jalopies, wearing those appalling raccoon coats and listening to that Bix Beiderbecke racket on the gramophone!
It boils my blood to see such insolence. “Twenty-three skidoo,” my fanny! Learn the King’s English, you whelps! I shudder to think what our country will be like in 30 years. At this rate, how will we ever reach the moon or construct a doomsday weapon capable of destroying all mankind?
I hear tell there’s a presidential election coming up soon. Good! Turn the rascals out, I say! Alf Landon will be the greatest President our great Republic has known! He’s a hearty oatmeal eater too, you can be sure!
I wish there was a way Farina could be taken intravenously. My fortune to anyone who can figure it out! Proposals can be sent to the Old Zweibel Manse in the Tidewater Basin. Address them to the attention of “Mr. G. Derman Fweibel,” so my nurse doesn’t catch on and intercept them.
Miserable she-gorgon.
T. Herman Zweibel, the great grandson of Onion founder Friedrich Siegfried Zweibel, was born in 1868, became editor of The Onion at age 20, and persisted in various editorial posts until his launching into space in 2001. Zweibel’s name became synonymous with American business success in the 20th century. Many consider him the “Father Of American Journalism,” also the title of his well-known 1943 biography, written by Norman Rombauer.
