Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl, with yellow feathers in her hair and a dress cut down to… wait a minute. Where are the feathers? Where’s the DRESS? Something is clearly amiss in Gotham City, and we must find out more. Let’s eavesdrop on the scene and see if we can learn something juicy to share at the church picnic on Sunday, gossiping away at the horseshoe pit while the hypocrisy marinates and the potato salad botulizes…

Sparky the Little Dog, lower left: “I’m thinking this is something that Mama Cujo wouldn’t let me watch if she knew I was doing this, which makes me want to watch it even more. I sure hope nobody rings the doorbell right now, because even though I’m really enjoying this Mrs. Robinson moment, I won’t have any choice but to go bark insanely at the UPS man. Damn my natural instincts.”

Keko, the Ming-vase knockoff just above Smutty Sparky’s hormonal head: “I fail to see why Lola is always getting all the attention in this house, with her tawdry and rebellious acts. What about me? Does nobody realize that the plant shoved in my blowhole is just as dead as my soul? What does an imported accessory have to do to get some water around here?”

Sparky: “Why can’t you just go drink out of the toilet? That’s what I do.”

Keko: “You also tongue your exit portal. That’s not a lead that I wish to follow. Besides, I don’t have legs. If I did, I’d hop on a city bus and throw myself in Lake Erie. I’m so parched that every time I belch the Gobi Desert increases by another acre.”

Beulah, the nondescript planter to the northwest of the depressed and dehydrated Mini-Ming: “Keko, honey, dial it down a notch. You need to get over this obsession with your dead puffball. Neurosis is a gift that you share with yourself, not with others. Unless you’re Woody Allen. Then you get to film your neuroses and win an Oscar for it and marry your daughter. Sometimes the karma scales are a little off-balance.”

Keko: “Beulah, you’re just bitter because you’ve put on some weight and I’ve managed to retain my factory figure.”

Beulah: “Oh, please. I was born this way, it’s not a choice. Besides, if we’re going to start comparing appearances, then…. Wait a minute. Has anyone else noticed that Lola has a tattoo of Oscar Wilde on her back? That means she’s either deeper than we all thought, or she blindly follows what others tell her to do even if it’s something she doesn’t really want, or her tattoo artist didn’t know what he was doing. Suddenly, I think I understand the American political system.”

Armand the Armoire at the back of the room: “Don’t kid yourself. No decent-thinking person can understand American politics. It will never make sense until stupidity is removed from the equation, and I don’t see that happening as long as breeding is unregulated in Alabama. But back to me. Since all the liquor in this house is stored in my bowels, I feel compelled to report that the gin inventory has dramatically decreased in the last two hours. I normally try to be discreet concerning who plucks what from my interior, but this might explain why Lola is envisioning herself as Gypsy Rose Lee as she squirms about on the chocolate cake that she has mistaken for an ottoman.”

Frank, the robust planter on the right: “Um, folks, I also try to be discreet, but I have a line of sight that the rest of you are not quite privy to, and based on the pendulum I spy, I think it’s fair to say that Lola was not the name on her birth certificate.”

Ludmilla, the stocking being manipulated on Lola’s left leg: “You don’t have to tell me. I’m about to be wrenched toward the man-compass as we speak.”

Lola, startling everyone with her sudden sign of life: “Covfefe.”

Sparky: “What the hell does that word even mean?”

Keko: “It means impeachment.”

Lola’s Right Shoe: “I don’t get it.”

Lola’s Left Shoe: “Let me break it down for you. The writer here at Bonnywood loves to recycle past stories. But sometimes those stories have lost their timeliness over the years and he is forced to add additional dialogue in a desperate attempt to make the story relevant again. That’s why you are I are now appearing in this director’s cut even though we didn’t appear in the original, so we can help folks get over the speed bump of not remembering the ‘covfefe’ reference.”

Right Shoe: “I still don’t understand what’s really going on.”

Left Shoe: “Your side of the shoe factory rarely does. That’s why we need more Left Shoes to vote in November than Right Shoes.”

Right Shoe: “I think you’re making fun of me.”

Left Shoe: “I think you did that all on your own.”

Lola: “Just walk to the Church of Pepper-Sprayed Protestors and hold up the Bible thingy.”

Left Shoe: “Well, it looks like the writer has also updated Lola. But she’s still a showgirl. With orange feathers in her hair and an IQ cut down to there.”

Barry Manilow: “He would merengue. And do the chop-chop. And while he tried to be a star, Mitch McConnell always tended bar. Across the crowded Senate floor, they appointed right-wing judges from eight till four. They were mean and they had each other, who could ask for more obstruction of justice? At the Copa, Copa-ca-Senate…”

Armand the Armoire: “I really need to get a better lock on my doors.”

Ludmilla the Stocking: “I think we’re way beyond that now.”

Previously published. Revised and extended for this post.

Covfefe!