FAITH RESTORED!

Nothing could have prepared me for this. In the five days since my post about Grin's financial troubles, the money has been pouring in. Thousands of donations, in all denominations, from all parts of the country and the world. Remember the final scene in "It's a Wonderful Life"? I feel like George Bailey. Here's just a sampling of the messages I've received:

"I wuz plannin' on stickin' up a 7-Eleven so I could buy me some crack cocaine. But after I done read what you wrote, I robbed a Wal-Mart instead. I'm sendin' you everything I got." -- Mojo Man, Rochester, New York ($2500 plus three plastic lawn chairs)

"Dear Mr. Morris: I'm kinda broke right now, so I'm enclosing my pancreas." -- Spencer T., Middlevale Psychiatric Hospital, Wichita, Kansas (one pancreas)

"Your postings exposing government-sponsored mistreatment of Maine potatoes have changed forever the way I think about tubers. I love you, Mike." -- Melanie G., Montpelier, Vermont ($250)

"I sold my baby to raise money for 'Grin,' and I'm not ashamed to say so." -- Gretchen K., Sante Fe, New Mexico ($750)

"Here's a nickel I dropped in the toilet yesterday by accident. I don't want it anymore." -- Stevie (age 6), Charlottesville, Virginia (5 cents)

"Boom! Ha-ha-ha-ha!" -- Mr. Z., Pyongyang, North Korea (nugget of plutonium, valued at approximately $6500)

I could go on, but I think the message is clear. The bills are paid, and Grin is back in business. My thanks to everyone.

A DELICATE MATTER

Some of you may be wondering why I haven't posted anything for the past several days. The answer is that I've been trying to figure out how to bring up a very touchy subject. I've decided that the wisest strategy is simply to dive in and hope for the best.

Here's the problem: I established "Grin" several weeks ago, and I'm still not rich. My understanding going into this venture was that publishing a blog would make me a lot of money. My experience has turned out to be precisely the opposite; I'm actually LOSING money with this blog. Running a blog is not cheap. I have to pay the two fact-checkers who work for me, as well the student intern from NYU who does reporting and handles light secretarial duties. One of the fact-checkers has a dog for whom I provide limited health insurance. The dog ("Woodrow") has a chronic illness and is in and out of the vet's office on a regular basis. Thus far, my best estimate is that I am about $700 in the hole as a result of starting this blog.

Several friends of mine (Denzel W., Barry B., Cameron D.) established blogs at about the same time that I did, and now they're incredibly wealthy. I don't get it. While it is true that some folks have sent me donations (for which I am very grateful!), most of these have been cash gifts in the $5, $10, and $20 categories. I have only received one check for more than $1,000, which came from a Mrs. Manila Squires, a 93-year-old widow from Bismarck, North Dakota. She writes: "My doctor said I would never walk again after the incident involving the wheat thresher, chain saw, and pneumatic drill, but two days after I started reading Grin, I took my first tentative steps since the accident. I immediately tumbled down the stairs to the basement and fractured both of my hips. But I don't blame you, Mike. I want to thank you for giving me the courage to try. God bless you, Mike of Grin!"

God bless YOU, Mrs. Squires. With readers like you out there, I know I'll make it.

MYTH ALERT! MYTH ALERT!

A response to my Presidents' Day post referred to James K. Polk, and implied that he was once President of the United States. The "Myth of the Polk Presidency" is one of the most enduring urban legends in our nation's history, according to many scholars. It is true that Polk was elected President in 1844, but he never served. On the eve of his inauguration, he was accidentally whacked in the head with a lacrosse stick wielded by the Vice-President-elect, George M. Dallas. This occurred during an impromptu game of "Smash the Goblets" in the Burgundy Room of the White House. Henry Clay and James Buchanan also participated in the match. Polk spent the rest of his life in the basement of the White House, writing children's books under the pen name "Penelope St. Pierre." They sold poorly.

Vice-President Dallas impersonated Polk in public for all four years of Polk's Presidency, and during the first two years provided surrogate conjugal services to Mrs. Polk, the former Sarah Childress.

It was not until 1872 that historians became suspicious, when an article in the American Historical Review noted that no photographs or video recordings existed that featured the President and Vice-President together in public.

In a 1998 poll, U. S. historians ranked the Polk Presidency as the fifth most persistent Presidential myth. The top four:

#1 -- Grover Cleveland was a woman

#2 -- Martin Van Buren was a man

#3 -- Andrew Jackson was born with bison buttocks where his head should have been

#4 -- John F. Kennedy was the out-of-wedlock offspring of Rose Kennedy and W. C. Fields

Thanks for your attention. Beginning in March, "Myth Alert" will become a regular feature of Grin.

WHEN I AM KING....

....there will no more Presidents' Day. Presidents' Day is an insult to our other national holidays. It's so generic and nondescript that U. S. Presidents (of all people!) don't even feel a need to acknowledge it. No President would dare let July 4th slip by without sticking a Roman candle up his rump and soaring over the Capitol Building proclaiming the wisdom of the Declaration of Independence. But Presidents' Day? The only folks you hear from are retailers with comb-overs dressed in cheap suits, screaming about Presidents' Day sales where you can buy a washer, dryer, and bag of tube socks for only $15 down and $12.95 per month.

Are we really so desperate for a national holiday in February that we'll sacrifice our self-respect to get one? We'd be much better off making Valentine's Day a national holiday. Give everybody the day off to have sex...or watch other people have sex... or think about the great sex they've had in the past...or the even better sex they plan to have in the future. Now THAT'S a national holiday worth closing the post office for.

For those of us living in the Northeast, February is already a depressing enough month without the government REMINDING us of how depressing it is with Presidents' Day; a day that screams, "Hey, do you have any frigging idea who John Tyler is?" Or "Just in case you forgot, you geniuses elected Richard M. Nixon to the highest office in the land -- TWICE!!!" Yeah, we so need to have our noses rubbed in this.

And have you noticed that some calendars label it "Presidents' Day" while others call it "President's Day"? Face it; nobody cares.

Let's ditch this vestigial organ and stop embarrassing ourselves.

LIMBO COMES TO LA

I'm sure that many of you have seen the news about the prison riot that occurred in Los Angeles last week. The "public story" claims that racial tensions are at the heart of the disturbance. Nothing could be further from the truth. According to a source deep within the Vatican, the riot resulted from a failed attempt of the Department of Homeland Security to provide housing in the prison for approximately 450 limbo evacuees.

"It was a nightmare," claims the source. "From the moment the limbo-ites arrived, they were resented and taunted by the inmates." For one thing, most of the evacuees were much, much older than even the oldest prisoners. As one inmate complained, "The guy they made me share my cell with was born in 1307! Can you believe that? That mutha smelled baaaaaaaaad! And you know what else they did? They done took out all the machines from the exercise room and put in a bunch of shuffleboard courts and sand pits for bocce ball. What the hell is up with that? And now we have to eat dinner at 4:00 every afternoon, so the cafeteria can be cleaned up for some lame-ass bingo game at 6:00. And I'll be damned if I'm going spend every night listening to these freaks talk for hours and hours about how their daddy fought in the Crusades, or how their sister was bitten by some rat during the Black Plague. It just got to the point where we had to take those suckas DOWN!"

The U.S. Government needs to come clean with the public about this whole episode. We deserve the truth.

NO, PURGATORY WON'T WORK

A reader has asked whether it's possible to house some of limbo's evacuees in purgatory. Unfortunately, no. For one thing, purgatory is a place of ACTIVE suffering (first-degree burns, minor blistering), while limbo is a place of PASSIVE suffering (not having access to heaven, bland food). Thus, purgatory is unacceptable as a substitute for limbo. In addition, major renovations are currently being done in purgatory -- new carpeting, a separate facility for smokers, and some work on the electrical system -- and no new residents are being accepted until that work is complete at the end of 2006 (Celestial Construction Weekly, Feb. 4, pp. 42-43).

But, please, keep those suggestions coming.

SITTING HERE IN LIMBO......

Well, apparently not for much longer. As reported in the January 8th issue of TIME magazine (p. 68), Catholic theologians are on the verge of shuttering limbo, which for many centuries has been the place where babies have gone if they die before being baptized.

Am I the only one who is concerned about the housing crisis that will result if limbo is shut down? After-life demographers estimate that over 17.4 million souls currently reside in limbo (Vatican Population Reports, November 2005). Where are they going to go? According to Cardinal Francesco Spatini, Papal Liaison to the Heavenly Kingdom, there were fewer than 12,000 vacancies in Paradise at the end of January 2006. "We've had a heavy influx of fundamentalist Christians in the past year, which has strained our residential facilities considerably," reports Cardinal Spatini. "We anticipate that our new Serenity Estates subdivision will not be available for occupancy until late 2007 due to union problems and bad weather. I'm not sure what we're going to do."

And you thought that resettling New Orleans residents after Katrina was going poorly? If Catholic authorities don't come up with some answers soon, Limbo-gate will make the post-Katrina fiasco look like a fun-filled afternoon of musical chairs.

I think it's time for other major religions to step up to the plate. Judaism, of course, operates Catskills North Star, where Jews go if they die before getting an advanced degree in one of the major professions. Presbyterians who pass away before learning how to spell "Presbyterian" are welcomed into Generica, an "all-purpose after-life facility," according to the brochure. And Rastafarians who are pot-free when they have their ticket punched are allowed entry into Marleyville, which is reputed to have the absolute best music of all the non-heavenly eternal venues.

Conservative estimates generated by the Brookings Institution indicate that these three sites could accommodate up to 15.1 million limbo residents. Don't you think it's time for the leaders of these three religious bodies to pick up their cell phones and dial 1-800-THE-POPE? Yeah, so do I.

Do the right thing. That's what you're supposed to be all about, isn't it?