False Flags and Philandering Foibles

Caffeine confusion…

Brian Lageose
4 min readMay 1, 2024

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Image by Author, created in AI based on a screen snap of Janet Waldo and Desi Arnaz in a 1952 episode of “I Love Lucy” entitled “The Young Fans”.

One day, something unexpected happened in the Ricardo kitchen…

Some Woman That Is Not Lucy: “And here’s a bit of coffee that can work better than Viagra if you would just let go of your psychological speed bumps.”

Desi: “Who the hell are you?”

Not Lucy: “I come from the future. But don’t think about it too much or you’ll be flaccid again.”

Desi: “I’ve never been flaccid in my life. I’m Cuban. We don’t even have a word for that condition in our language.”

Not Lucy: “Of course you do. In every culture there are men who can’t raise a flag. It’s one of the main reasons why nations go to war, right behind religion and ignorance. Now drink up.”

Desi: “I’m not drinking anything. What have you done with Lucy?”

Not Lucy: “Nothing that hasn’t been done before. This is Hollywood. Every actress knows that her time in the spotlight is limited, because advertisers reject every female over the age of 23. Meanwhile, the male actors are allowed to fart their way into senility without dropping in popularity, starring in vapid movies where an octogenarian manages to bed a high-school student with the ease of opening a can of tuna.”

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Brian Lageose

Texas-based writer, raised in Oklahoma, struggling to overcome both stigmas and prove that decent people can survive in a sea of overwhelming cluelessness.