Published with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for

      the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. Coach House also

      acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through

      the Book Publishing Industry Development Program.

      LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

      McGimpsey, David, date

      Sitcom / David McGimpsey. -- 1st ed.

      Poems.

      ISBN 978-1-55245-188-5

      I. Title.

      PS8575.G48S58 2007 C811′.54 C2007-904809-9

       for Samantha

      Foreword

      Reba only slightly depresses me

      Steve Urkel has seen me well past blue

      Evan Drake stings like a nest of scorpions

      Mr. Furley stirs up poison mushroom stew

      Maude’s voice haunted me into my teens

      Chandler’s a stuck tick of embarrassment

      Deb destroys each molecule of resolve

      Flo slaps me with a wet, bony hand

      Lucy only slightly depresses me

      Hawkeye is like being laughed at by girls

      Uncle Jesse is worse than eczema

      Jethrine’s just eczema at the ankles

      Gilligan reminds it’s foolish to try

      Jan Brady combs her hair a thousand times

      Newman gets me running in small circles

      Fonzie’s a kind of sweet formaldehyde

      Porky only slightly depresses me

      Molly Dodd really doesn’t understand

      Rerun gets my nervous tic a-twitching

      Roz makes me pour with a liberal hand

      Gladys Kravitz undermines my ambition

      Kate and Allie are a vague stink in my sheets

      Buddy texts me the message ‘Hello failure’

      Bailey Quarters takes off her glasses and pukes

      Marcia only slightly depresses me

      Meathead asks, ‘How do you spell melancholy?’ Schneider elbows me off coffee shop stages Georgette sings ‘Steam Heat’ just to make me cry

      Eddie’s blog calls me ‘Bonghog’ and ‘Pillsy’

      Mr. Ed warms up the spoon while singing

      Lassie tsk-tsks, ‘I’m just disappointed’

      Flipper straight out gives pistol-whippings

      Tootie only slightly depresses me

      Natalie had me wear homemade ponchos

      Jo told me to stay away from L.A.

      Blair told me to forget about Toronto

      Holly went for drinks with me at Chez Jay’s

      Val smoked with me outside the Smog Cutter

      Tina tried her best at Jumbo’s Clown Room

      Lauren went beer for beer at the Joker

      Potsie only slightly depresses me

      Skippy is pretty much off my compass

      Boner saw me through six years on the couch

      Cockroach yawns and says, ‘You’re a disgrace’

      Kimmy Gibbler asks, ‘Are you mental?’

      Jenny Piccalo asks, ‘Why’d you say that?’

      Ethel says, ‘You’re your own worst enemy!’

      Rhoda says, ‘Are you saying I look fat?’

      Princess only slightly depresses me

      Sabrina took me out in ’98

      Kelly Bundy inspired my dreary sonnets

      Kelly Bundy stabbed at my fingertips

      Little Ricky just kept taking from me

      Cousin Oliver just kept taking from me

      Andrew Keaton just kept taking from me

      Timmy Martin just kept taking from me

      Daphne only slightly depresses me

      Mrs. Naugatuck took my love of life

      Mrs. G. gave me a D in ethics

      Hazel said, ‘Where’d Kelly leave that knife?’

      Colonel Crittendon had a good left hook

      Sgt. Carter a respectable kick

      Inspector Luger punched right to the face

      Major Dad lunged straight towards the neck

      Jeannie only slightly depresses me

      Barbara Jean taught me love does not stay

      Ginger Grant said, ‘I think we need to talk’

      Agent 99 had to get away

      Murray Slaughter sharpened the Ginsu

      Keith Partridge performs sweet lobotomies

      Paul and Jamie are like heart and disease

      Reba only slightly depresses me

      – D.M., Los Angeles, 2007

      Act I

      ‘Timon will to the woods’

      – Timon of Athens, 4.1.35

      Invitation

      Please join me on the occasion of my

      thirty-ninth birthday. Drinks will be served,

      esp. the mixed ones that announce

      lounge-weary sophistication: old-fashioned, lime rickey, chocolate dancer – though I only drink Schlitz Light. Gifts are not necessary, but should you be strolling downtown and see some nicely framed limited-edition print of a sad battlefield where a general’s caprice cost thousands of lives, or a pair of antique binoculars, or a vintage board game where the Happy Days characters have to rush Fonzie to the hospital, knock yourself out. Even a mail-order certificate that allows me to perform wedding services in the Philippines would be a nice touch; but no funny cards about aging, please, no To My Friend on His One Hundredth Birthday, No You’re Not Just Getting Older … You’re Losing Hair Too! And even if you have bought me a ticket overseas and secured a seat for me at the finest hash bar in Amsterdam, don’t even think of saying, ‘Welcome to the Netherlands.’ There will be hors d’oeuvres, the tiniest of tiny foods, tasty miniatures of already miniature snacks, baby corn so small it’ll look like Niblets, taquitos so small, so diminudo, they will be called taquitoitos and they will look like the bits at the bottom of a bag of corn chips. I also have hot salsa I once bought in South Texas, on a dare, which claims to use pepper-spray extracts squeezed from the used big-nozzle canisters of riot squads that have subdued the world’s most determined hippies – drink up, my friends! There’ll be a piñata made up to look