GLYNN WASHINGTON, HOST:
Welcome back to SNAP JUDGMENT. Today we're exploring crisis of identity, situations that make us question who we are and what we know. Our next guest is a SNAP JUDGMENT legend, regular contributor Mr. Joshua Walters. And Joshua has not been on the program for little while so people have asked me on the street where's Joshua? Where's he been?
This next story, it answers that question. It's a true story. I saw Joshua the other day. He came up to SNAP JUDGMENT studios and he did this piece in one take. I'm going to play it for you raw - no scoring, no music, no sound. You're going to hear it the same way Joshua Walters delivered it.
JOSHUA WALTERS: You meet a girl and she just so happens to be the girl of your dreams. Smart as a whip, gut-bustingly hilarious, fine as frog's hair. There's only one catch - she's a health Nazi. Only free range, local, organic vegetables sit at her table, but that is not the problem. What gets you is the other side of the coin. See, she's supposed to be a doctor but she has a thing against pills. She won't even take a Tylenol. This is how some people operate. They become super educated on the pharmaceutical industry and they say, not a single pill will enter my body.
In some ways they have a point. In America, even our dogs are on pharmaceuticals. I was on the bus and a man said to another man, (impersonating the man's voice) my doctor says my dog has anxiety. I mean, like $300, $400 just to get my dog relaxed.
The only issue is you take those dog pills for your well-being. That's right, my friend, you have dog anxiety where you're scratching around and itching and you can't sit still, and you have doggie depression where you're sleeping all day in a puddle of your own drool, and depending on the season dog bipolar - mad dog, sad dog - and depending on the weather, dog schizophrenia where you're barking and no one's there.
Your girl likes dogs and she likes you, especially when you wear all beige. She's got a thing for Golden retrievers but she doesn't like the pills and this is a problem. She makes you an ultimatum. She says get rid of the dose and you can have all of this and be a happy pair of these for the rest of your days. And you think about it and you decide, OK and you go off the dog pills. You drop your medication and how does that end?
Well, it ends in disaster. You flee the country thinking the whole world's going to end, mad at the docs, mad at your folks, mad at her. It's like without your dog pills you have rabies. You end up in a kennel in Canada and they shoot you full of shots - one that goes straight to your heart and you're howling at the moon and ain't nobody going to save you now, ain't nobody going to save you now.
The only solace you have is your friend the jungle cat and her redheaded mother that come to visit you in the kennel and eventually, they fly you back to California. There you're able to recuperate, finally get back on your two feet and your four dog legs and finally see the health Nazi one last time, just to lick her face and piss on her leg.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOW MUCH IS THAT DOGGIE IN THE WINDOW?")
PATTI PAGE: (Singing) How much is that doggie in the window? The one with the waggly tail? How much is that doggie in the window? I do hope that doggie's for sale.
WASHINGTON: Big thanks to the amazing Joshua Walters. Stay healthy, brother. The world needs your voice.
Check out everything that is Joshua Walters at thejoshuawalters.com.
That piece was produced by Mark Ristich. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.