So one of the many things I’ve been doing lately is that I perform in a monthly cabaret show. I sing with the band, I choreograph the dance numbers and often perform in them, I write the news segment, and I do some light comedic acting in various skits. I also recently started writing skits. Here’s the sort of quality entertainment I’ve been contributing.

The Death Panel

PANELIST 1: Good morning, everyone. I would like to call this meeting of the death panel to order, but I can’t find my gavel.

PANELIST 2: Oh, come now. (wags finger) Under Obama’s Socialist Regime, the gavel belongs to us all.

PANELIST 1: Very well. May I use our gavel for these proceedings?

PANELIST 2: I think I last saw it on the desk of that judge who does all the gay marriages. (gasps) He must use it to smash the institution of marriage!

PANELIST 3: That must be why my wife is divorcing me!

PANELIST 1: (looks him over) I don’t know. Maybe. (shakes it off) Let’s see what kinds of cases we’re reviewing today. (flips through some papers/folders) Here we go. First up, we have a sick little boy who may never walk again, due to a degenerative and crippling disease.

PANELIST 2: Can it be cured with stem cells?

PANELIST 3: You always ask that.

PANELIST 2: Well, can it?

PANELIST 1: How should I know? I’m not a doctor.

(ALL laugh)

PANELIST 2: If it can, though, we should probably hand out more free abortions. That way, we can get all the stem cells he needs!

PANELIST 3: You know that there are other ways to get stem cells, right? They don’t all come from aborted fetuses.

PANELIST 2: Maybe, but everyone knows the aborted fetus ones are the best.

PANELIST 3: Well, I can’t argue with that.

PANELIST 1: Very well. I move that we approve little… (checks the papers) Billy’s treatment with stem cells. Any discussion?

PANELIST 2: If it’s got stem cells, I’m for it!

PANELIST 3: Sure, whatever you guys want.

PANELIST 1: Motion carries! (bangs a random object on the table) Now then, we have… (shuffles through papers, finds another) Ooh. Lou Reed needs a new liver.

PANELIST 3: Should we really approve that? I mean, look what he did to the old one.

PANELIST 2: Not even stem cells can fix that.

PANELIST 1: (thoughtfully, as if using the Socratic method) Are you saying that a prominent senior citizen deserves to die?

PANELIST 2: Well, what assurances do we have that he’ll treat a liver we give him with any more care than the one he grew himself? I mean, if a child’s goldfish dies, you don’t buy him a puppy.

PANELIST 3: (puzzled) What?

PANELIST 2: It’s just an expression.

PANELIST 1: I’m not sure we’d have any assurances at all.

PANELIST 2: What about this? What if we give him a liver, but not a very good one? You know, one we wouldn’t put in a healthy person.

PANELIST 1: You are such a softie.

PANELIST 3: Yeah, the biggest softie on the death panel!

(ALL laugh)

PANELIST 1: What about that Slayer guy that died recently? Do we know what happened to his liver?

PANELIST 3: Not really.

PANELIST 2: That would be perfect if it’s available! If not, Lou Reed can have another musician’s liver when they die. It just can’t be, like a folk musician’s or Christian rocker’s liver, or anybody really young. And it has to be someone who’s done at least a few major road tours.

PANELIST 1: I can live with that.

PANELIST 3: (shrugs) OK.

PANELIST 1: Motion carries! (bangs random object on table) Let’s do one more and then break for lunch. (riffles papers a bit) Here’s a good one! We have here an 82-year-old woman, affectionately known as “Granny.”

PANELIST 2: Let’s kill her.

PANELIST 3: I agree. Kill her.

PANELIST 1: She’s not actually asking for anything life-threatening, though… She just needs a new pair of glasses.

PANELIST 3: I don’t care. I don’t like her. Let’s kill her.

PANELIST 2: I can get on board with that.

PANELIST 1: Well, that was easy. I guess it’s unanimous, then (bangs random object on table), and that’s lunch!

About two years ago, I stopped my daily intake of caffeine. I decided that I didn’t like getting a horrible migraine if I didn’t get my fix. I’ve still had a cup of coffee or tea from time to time since, and it was like a nice boost of energy. I took great care not to drink coffee more than two days in a row, and that the amount was small.

This week, though, it happened. I drank more coffee than that. Iced coffee to be precise. I missed it. And then I missed it the next day, and the next… and now I fear if I don’t drink coffee, the horrible headaches will return. But damn, I missed this buzz.

I gave in to it. I got a pound of coffee and soaked it overnight for toddy. I have a beautiful glass container of insanely intense Columbian coffee in my fridge right now. I poured it, I distilled it, I crafted it. Not only am I back on the bean, but I’m already back to being so hardcore, I make my own.

I’m currently justifying my fall from grace by saying I was always a coffee junkie — it may even be that the deck was stacked against me, since my late father drank it seemingly by the gallon — and that not drinking it for two years was against my nature. Also, I feel better when I have a nice little caffeine buzz on AND I’m more productive.

Oh-kaaaaayyy. I’m Meg and I’m a caffeine junkie.

So I’ll fill you in as I go about what the hell I’ve been doing, but I helped open a small business about a year ago. That means my finances have been alarmingly troubled for a while, but that they’re slowly improving. Which, in turn, means that if I want to go out to eat somewhere where you actually sit down, someone comes to the table to take your order, and there are napkins, I often must turn to Groupon.

Groupon is an interesting concept. For those unfamiliar with it, the deal is that various businesses can offer these screamin’ deal coupons for stuff (meals, entertainment, mouse shaving, whatever) through them. Consumers then go buy an electronic “coupon” for them at a discounted rate, then present them at the business when they go to get their meal/entertainment/mouseshaving. For example, a restaurant that wants to increase its client base can offer $30 worth of food for $15. You buy the $30 coupon, you pay $15 for it, and then you go get your $30 worth of food.

That’s not the fun part, though. The fun part is where you try to figure out why this restaurant had to hook up with Groupon to get people to go there. The best possible answer is, “Because they’re new.” There are lots of other possibilities, though. For example:

• The food sucks
• The seating is atrocious
• It’s a strange, pretentious, expensive place, and it’s right next to the ballpark
• The online menu says they have stuff, that, in reality, they don’t
• The service would be better if it were given by angry howler monkeys
• It’s right next to a better restaurant that has the same kind of food
• It is apparently hiding from the world because it’s ridiculously hard to find, or behind a lot of buildings
• They recently lost their liquor license
• It’s dimly lit in the hopes that you won’t notice that it’s so very filthy
• It’s only accessible by hovercraft
• It’s stupidly expensive without a Groupon and the portions wouldn’t satisfy an unshaven mouse
• They don’t really serve food
• It’s clearly in the wrong neighborhood, for example, with authentic Guyanese food in the midst of an area that thinks mild salsa is exotic and spicy
• They’ve gotten a LOT of bad reviews and/or given the Health Department Inspector salmonella
• It’s very far from everything in the universe, and can only be seen with the Hubble Telescope

The worst part is, of course, not being able to tell what the problem is. Then you’re uneasy for about 48 hours afterwards.