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American Dream
A nebulous catchphrase used religiously by campaigning U.S. politicians, most likely because it has never been defined and therefore means whatever the listener chooses it to mean: freedom ... educational opportunity ... a piece of property with a tract home (q.v.) on it... a small plumbing business of one's own ... two cars in the garage, including one Buick ... a personally narrated late-night commercial on the local TV station, with spouse and children smiling stiffly in the background . . . relocation to a Tudor-style house with a tennis court and a Jacuzzi . . . hobnobbing with the mayor at the eighteenth hole . . . three cars in the garage, including at least one Mercedes . . . going national, with plumbing franchises in twenty-nine states ... a summer house on the lake, with costumed servants . .. one's face on the cover of Fortune ... a listing in Who's Who ... a private jet with an 18K gold-plated toilet. . . one's face on the cover of Time ... a villa on the Mediterranean, site of periodic games of bridge with Omar Sharif and King Juan Carlos . . . one's face on the cover of People ... an affair with a nubile actress who has been nominated for at least one Golden Globe award . . . invitation to dinner at the White House . . . surviving a corporate takeover attempt . . . surviving quadruple bypass surgery . . . burial in a family mausoleum with at least one commissioned sculpture of oneself at the entrance... inclusion on God's A-list. |
Amnesty
A retroactive licence to commit political crimes with impunity, esp. as demanded by well-heeled leftist agitators who wish to distinguish themselves from criminals without education or breeding. |
Amusement Park
A walled city populated mainly by teenagers, who willingly pay to have their bodies and brains agitated on a variety of fiendish contraptions designed to induce vomiting. |
Anchor Person
A bland, well-coiffed TV entertainer who is paid more to read the news than ten reporters are paid to report it. |
Angina
A sneak preview of greater heartaches to come. |
Angst
A form of suffering caused by too much thinking; a phenomenon probably incomprehensible to anyone who owns a beach-buggy. |
Anhedonia
The pathological inability to derive pleasure from shopping malls, overwork, urban squalor, indigestion and chronic lumbago. |
Animal Rights
A loopy, well-intentioned activist movement that, in its extreme form, harbours more compassion for a captive circus elephant than for the hapless trainer on whose face it sits. |
Animal Shelter
Death row for surplus dogs and cats. |
Anorexic
Exhibiting the alluring slimness of a skeleton, like the prose style of a minimalist writer. |
