You'll get my contribution when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers

Hey, I bet none of y'all got this phone call. Telemarketing weasel tells me, "Please hold for an important message from Tom DeLay." Whereupon, the fella Molly Ivins calls the Sugar Land bug man commences to inform me, through a prerecorded message, how the Big Lib'rals like Billary and that damn Janet Reno are fixin' to take away my right to bear arms against rabbits, deer and other criminals.

The telemarketing weasel came back and asked me what I thought about the liberal politico-media assault on innocent gun owners. I thought about telling her that the only message I'd consider important from Congressman/exterminator Tom DeLay would be "Unh! My heart!" But I instead I just said I resented his making up this so-called Gun Owners Task Force as a way to raise money to get Republicans elected. She admitted it was a branch of the Republican Congressional Committee (as she styled it), thanked me "anyway" and went away without asking for a contribution.

I guess it serves me right. I hung up on them the other day when they called with an important message from Chuck Heston. I didn't know they'd come back with the fourth string.

But what really jerks my chain is, how do they know I'm a gun owner? I'm not an NRA member, although my collection could be described as an arsenal. I thought the Repubs ensured that gun purchase information could not be compiled in a database, lest it be misused as a form of gun registration (the first step, as we all know, to gun confiscation, a dictator and gulags). Maybe the state has sold them the list of people with concealed carry permits (I put that right next to my ACLU card, to confuse cops).

However they did it, those rascals are keeping dossiers on gun owners! How are we going to be able to keep that information away from the gun grabbers? Quick, ma, get the shotguns and head down to the bomb shelter, pronto!