An Unfortunate Conversion (or, “Another Commie Dickhead”)

Short fiction/Satire

Here’s my submission for this week’s Stories from the Jukebox prompt from MJ Polk: A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You by The Monkees.

Title: An Unfortunate Conversion (or, “Another Commie Dickhead”) - by Steve McKennon

A few weeks ago on a Thursday morning, I woke up to find that my schniedel had been radicalized, apparently as a result of spending too much time in online chatrooms long after I had gone to bed. He typically gets up many times during the night and rises well before me in the morning, which evidently provided a lot of free time to chat with heaven knows who and be exposed to all kinds of crazy ideas. If only I had locked down access to the internet, but hindsight is 20/20.

It is not clear how long that had been going on, but that morning I emerged from a dream to find him already up and looking around the room with his one eye. Something seemed off that I couldn’t quite wrap my hand around, until I was able to focus my not-at-all-a-morning-person vision and realized he had dyed his patch of hair blue, added a piercing, and put on eyeliner. Immediately I swore to sue who the hell ever had assisted him in all this, especially the piercing. The pain slowly began to wash over me, as the prick turned to face me and, with a definite sense of moral superiority, said, “Socialism or barbarism! Capitalism is state violence!”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “It’s not like you’ve ever paid for anything. Wait, what is that smell?”

“My comrades are in the kitchen cooking up breakfast,” he said.

From the smell of things, they had no great experience in that endeavor and were wasting a lot of eggs and coffee and whatever else they were trying to make.

“You invited people over without asking me?” I asked in surprise. “That is a huge violation! There are rules!”

“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it,” he said.

Now I was starting to really get irritated and, without thinking, I blurted out, “Don’t be a dick! You couldn’t even survive without me. There are rules, and you certainly aren’t going to be hanging out with whoever you want!”

I immediately felt a twinge of guilt for being so harsh, and in response he stood up straight, looked me right in the eye, and said indignantly, “No one is illegal on stolen land! Besides, I don’t identify as my gender assigned at birth now.”

At that, my anger deflated (at least for the moment) as I saw that ridiculous blue-haired nut-bag was claiming to be a … oh, dear sweet merciful fate, it was too silly to say out loud.

“You know, by definition you can only be associated with one gender and you are literally dependent on me for your existence, right?” I asked gently.

Then I rose and went downstairs to find a fat bald guy in a dress; a scrawny girl with a rose neck tattoo and hormone shot induced beard growth; and an angry looking old guy in a hoodie with “I AM ANTIFA” written across the chest in white block letters. Noticing a little tug in the direction of the bearded female, I looked accusingly at my buddy.

“No way,” I whispered.

“We are in love,” he said indignantly, attempting to turn his back to me.

“I promise you we are never going near that again,” I hissed.

Then, I threw the Three Stooges (or was it the Marx Brothers?) out of my house and told them never to come back, after which I password protected all access to the internet beyond a few sites. None of them featured women with beards. At this, he seemed deflated and began to mope around inconsolably.

“I am not just your property,” he said. “I bled for this country! I served in Afghanistan for three years!”

“You are 100% my property, it’s like you don’t understand you can’t survive on your own for more than a few hours before you literally start to rot,” I replied. “Besides, you didn’t serve in Afghanistan I did. You were just along for the ride and almost got me in trouble several times.”

He gasped, and shrank back from me. What a whiny little wiener! Then, brushing it off I realized letting Commie dickhead logic control you is always a bad idea. It is kind of like female logic, but meaner and more perverse.

For instance, the industry has women convinced that car seats expire, even though they are made of components, which, if placed in a field, would still be there a hundred years from now. Female logic says you should recycle the car seat (read: turn it back in for free) and buy a new one, because “the children” and “safety” and “I think they are on sale anyway.” Commie dickhead logic says you should light the old one on fire right in front of the store where you bought it, then use the flames as a diversion to steal a new one, because “capitalism” and “fascism” and “you’re just trying to use my wife’s fear to rip me off.” As a guy not led around by either of these “logic” models, I am personally proud that all three of my kids have used the same damn car seat and when the last one is too big for it, I will pass it off to another guy that just had a kid. And that kid will be just as safe as if the car seat had not officially expired three years ago! Ok, that was clearly a bunny trail that’s oddly specific to my own life right now.

Anyhoo, it turns out the dye job wasn’t even done with permanent color… although the same could not be said for the piercing. Ouch. Bottom line, even though he may have acted like a tool, it is important to acknowledge our destinies are intertwined, and he was just too thick to realize he was being used (a few weeks later I uncovered that his name served as a passthrough for donations to a certain political pact). No sense trying to beat him over it, because at the end of the day: I control the internet, I pay the bills, and his very existence depends on me. So… just NO dammit!


**This was a work of satire. I am fully aware that not all penises are Communists, although all Communists are dicks.

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In response to Stories from the Jukebox weekly prompt #26 (“A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You” by the Monkees):

A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You