The Governor, To the Rescue!

News item: Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has already rescued California
from the brink of bankruptcy while successfully overhauling the state's
workers compensation program in only the first couple of months of his
first term as governor, helped save a man from drowning while on
vacation in Hawaii.

SO I'm standing in the parking lot, late at night, and I realize to my
chagrin that I've locked my keys in the car.

But because I'm a fortunate guy, the governor pulled up in a yellow
Hummer.

"Are you having trouble, my friend?" Arnold Schwarzenegger asked.

I told him of my problem and, before you can say "borrowing $15 billion
to pay off old debt," Arnold smashed a brick into the driver's side
window, reached in and pulled out the keys.

"There you go, friend," he said, handing me an Arturo Fuente Opus X
cigar. "Problem solved."

Replacing the window set me back a couple hundred bucks, but at least I
wasn't stranded.

Is there anything our governor can't accomplish?

LIKE a couple of days earlier, I'm engaged in another escalating verbal
disagreement with my next-door neighbor because he keeps tossing his
dog waste into my back yard.

This has been an aggravating and long-standing issue that has created a
deep rift in our neighborly relations. The problem, of course, is that
he's a hard-headed jerk, while I'm the essence of reason.

All of a sudden and out of the blue, Arnold shows up in a forest green
Hummer. The governor takes my neighbor aside, hands him a Padron
Anniversario cigar, and says a few gentle words.

Before you can say "those ridiculous Democrats and their crazy ways,"
the neighbor comes over and gives me a big bear hug, delivers a weepy
apology, and offers to pay me for the inconvenience of picking up after
his dog.

Before leaving, Arnold nodded and gave me a big wink. "Problem solved,"
he said.

Is this guy a problem solver? Or what?

A FEW days later, I found myself locked in a mortal struggle over the
seeming incompatability of Darwinian principles to traditional
Judeo-Christian ideals.

This is an age-old cosmological quandary, of course, for those of us
who place our faith in both the awe of a Supreme Being and the certain
evidence of science.

Fortunately, Governor Schwarzenegger pulled up in a red Hummer while on
his way to a shopping mall in Encino, where he was scheduled to launch
his campaign against thieving Native American casinos operators.

I mentioned to him that the core of my soul — the essence of my very
being — was troubled by the contradictions of faith and knowledge, but
the governor came to the rescue yet again.

He pulled out a chalkboard, on which he drew up a complicated series of
mathematical equations to prove conclusively that evolutionary
creationism is not mutually exclusive.

"Problem solved," he said, handing me a Lars Tetens cigar before
driving away to rescue California from onerous casino operators. "And while
you're at it," he said, "have a tax break on me."

What a guy.