On this special Saturday edition, we’re going back to Happy Friday’s humble roots. Back before the News Roundup and the rhymes and the infinite number of OJ jokes and Introduce Yourself and the Timmy Mooney Hall of Fame and the website and the comic strip and the blog and the busted-up hotel rooms and the drugs and the groupies and the sex tapes and the public fights and the dwindling sales and the stints in rehab and the jail sentences and the multiple parole violations and the failed comeback tours and the reality shows and the feuds and getting banned from Conan O’Brien’s new show and the failed live show and the comic book that got pulled because of some unintentional indecency and the unfortunate Happy Meal scandal and especially back before this rambling and slightly made-up paragraph started. Back to the very first Happy Friday, when it was nothing more than a Top Ten list about the then-current 1995 government shutdown.

We came close this time around. Really, really close. Down to the last hour, supposedly. I say “supposedly” because I’m pretty positive that they knew they were making a deal and just needed to stall long enough for John Boehner to stop blubbering, Barack Obama to get back from his local Communist Party meeting, and Rush Limbaugh to figure out exactly everything he hates about the deal so he can tell his audience on Monday what it’s supposed to think because otherwise how will it know?

However it happened, this time around they managed to avoid driving everything off the cliff. The players have all changed (thought somehow Newt Gingrich managed to make my Top Ten list both times), and maybe that’s the difference. But even though the government remains open for business (which is probably for the best because if the government was closed where were all those lobbyists going to hang out?), one result is the same as last time. And that result? Once again we get undeniable proof that we as a nation suck at electing politicians who will actually do the job we elected them to do, plus a lame Top Ten list explaining it all. Which part of that is worse? Only you can decide. So without further delay, let’s go old school with…

Tgreen’s Top Ten Reasons the US Government Almost Shut Down This Week:
10. All part of secret plan to lull Qadafi into a false sense of security
9. Everyone in Congress bought tickets to Charlie Sheen’s live show, was too busy winning to do any work
8. April Fool’s joke gone awry
7. Because Obama’s an America-hating socialist who won’t show us his birth certificate and is a closet union-loving Muslim liberal who doesn’t like the Easter Bunny, or something
6. Someone on Fox News said it was a good idea
5. Because the government almost shuts down any time someone says Newt Gingrich’s name 3 times on Meet the Press
4. They finally ran out of ways to be useless, and needed time to come up with some new ones
3. No one wants to be on duty once the inevitable international incidents stemming from filming The Jersey Shore in Italy start rolling in
2. Latest budget plan smudged until it’s illegible by John Boehner’s tears
1. Heard Trump wants to run it and figured it was safer to just hide out until he loses interest

Of course, since the government actually did shut down before, and since that did inspire the original Happy Friday email way back in 1995, here’s your chance to see what’s changed in the last 15 1/2 years (not much, because I’d have used an OJ joke in today’s list if I could’ve gotten away with it) and to judge if I’ve gotten any funnier in the last 15 1/2 years (not really, because I’d have used an OJ joke in today’s list if I could’ve gotten away with it). Take a look at the very first Happy Friday Top Ten list…

And now, The Top Ten Reasons the US Government Shut Down Tuesday:
10. Bill Clinton sent all 800,000 government employees home to watch an Elvis movie marathon on TBS.
9. National holiday declared for “Screw the Poor Week.”
8. Bob Dole lost his pen and won’t let the government offices open up until he finds it.
7. Due to a lawsuit, Congress had to fire everyone who’d ever been hit on by Senator Packwood.
6. Local theater started half-price matinee of Ace Ventura 2.
5. Government employees ran out of Post-it notes, paper clips, and scissors to pilfer from office supply rooms.
4. Hillary said so.
3. Newt Gingrich fired everyone who didn’t buy his book.
2. New David Hasselhoff album went on sale.
1. Rumor spread that OJ was in town with a little time to kill.

Now get back to the rest of your day secure in the knowledge that we have a government that’s as efficient and productive today as we had yesterday (uh, wait, what?) and have a Happy, er, Saturday!

T “editing on the fly” green

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