Que Sarah, Sarah, Dept.

Your sobsister was watching the teevee just the other day, some televisual feast or another, possibly involving puppies dressed as U.S. presidents. And, just after viewing puppy Coolidge, the network cut to an ad.

In it, people were having the kind of fun one only associates with New Year's Eve, the last day of school and Heaven. All sorts of people: white, young, attractive, white. And the reason they were so rooty-toot-tootin' happy was because they were glugging down some Sunny D!

Sunny Delight, the announcer brayed, it contains five percent real juice!

And two things immediately sprang to mind. The first was: who the fuck brags about a fruit juice product that only features five percent real juice? Doesn't that immediately--and, no, I'm not going to say "beg the question"--raise the question: what comprises the other 95 percent?

Though one might default to "bull semen," one might be wrong, both because bull semen is frightfully expensive and because Sunny D's ingredients are, in fact, as follows--

Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup and 2% or Less of Each of the Following: Concentrated Juices (Orange, Tangerine, Apple, Lime, Grapefruit). Citric Acid, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Beta-Carotene, Thiamin Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), Natural Flavors, Food Starch-Modified, Canola Oil, Cellulose Gum, Xanthan Gum, Sodium Hexametaphosphate, Sodium Benzoate To Protect Flavor, Yellow #5, Yellow #6

"Hey, Mom, can I have some more sodium hexametaphosphate?!?"
"Well, Billy, it is used in industry as a thinning agent for suspensions and slurries, such as might be used in certain ceramic techniques; as a whitening ingredient in dental hygiene products; and as a dispersing agent to break down certain soil types...so, yes, darling, pour yourself another tall, icy-cold glass!"

Upon further reflection on Sunny D, a beverage perfectly and absolutely repellent in concept and execution--why drink actual, you know, fucking juice when you can drink a micturition of water, high fructose corn syrup and less fruit than the vermouth one waves over a bone-dry martini?--I had a moment of sweet epiphany, the second of the two things that, as I mentioned way up there, sprang to mind.

Sarah Palin is the Sunny D of American politics. Sure, you see people of every description--white, bigoted, illiterate, benighted, white--having heaps and heaps of fun around her. But when you look at what comprises Sarah P, you realize that the sweetness is artificial, the substance is minimal and the balance is repurposed toxicity.

"More Sarah P., Mom, pleeez?!?"
"Billy, you little scamp! If I weren't so numb to the degrading conditions that comprise my existence, I'd brain you with this frying pan. But, more to the point, drink a case of Sarah P., my beamish boy! Maybe you, too, will grow up to be a crack'd vessel for the bile and nightblack humours of powerful men."