an open letter to turkmenistan

dear turkmenistan, people of, KGB, rebel factions, the people that listen to steve's phone conversations and record them, whatever:

today is steve lynch's birthday. you might remember him from such shows as.....wait, what? oh, you don't have "teevee." right. well, you might remember him from such....uh.....russian shows? as "i believe that children are our future," and "i wish he would marry my daughter and take her with him to america." there are some problems with these statements, but we'll just ignore them for now because i don't want to end my day by dashing all of your dreams and causing you to stone him to death. cool?

look. it's steve's birthday today and i'm writing you this letter because i want you to treat him nicely. very nicely. so nicely, as a matter of fact, that i actually want you to construct the kid a workable toilet out of styrofoam, or there's going to be hell to pay.

okay, i'm sorry about the swearing so early on in this letter to you. i was trying to be nice, you know. cordial. it's hard for me, though. you see, we all happen to really like this kid a lot over here. the steve kid, i mean. the one that fasted with you? remember? during ramadan? and then he almost died or whatever because he lost like a thousand pounds in twenty minutes? that guy. good thing he didn't get too sick, since you closed all the fucking hospitals!

whoops! my bad on the f-bomb. you know, i'd also really like it if you made the toilet and you crowned him prince of turkmenistan. but only if the title "prince of turkmenistan" required him to be given food with healthy caloric content instead of fried fat in salt paste, or whatever you happen to be feeding him over there. see, i can't really do anything for him right now, on his birthday, because he's over there in your schools teaching your children how to be the future and all that shit, so i can't, you know, get him an ice cream cake from dairy queen, which is totally his favorite. or, say, take him to the country cookin' cafeteria, like he wanted us to do last year. i also can't take him to lunch, just him and i, and sing loudly to the radio while expositing on stevie nicks and her many mysteries. no, instead i'm going to just have to send him a card and a package, which some of your brightest and best will rip into and steal everything valuable inside, leaving him with nothing but a few packing peanuts and a tearstained piece of bubble wrap.

but turkmen dudes, seriously, steve is one of our brightest and best, and we love him, and care about him, and want him to be happy. so if i hear about you giving him some shitty birthday party, or not announcing it over the single television set somebody owns in the middle of the fucking desert, or not giving him a crown with actual jewels in it from fucking xerxes to wear for the day, i'm going to be hella pissed. so pissed, i am going to come there with a tootbrush and a nine millimeter and start taking hostages until you open up the fucking hospitals again, build stephen wayne lynch a fucking toilet, and give me a reason not to shoot you. seriously. fuck.

very truly yours,
catherine "i'm not kidding about the xerxes thing" loya.