It was like, one night, I went to sleep on the planet Earth. Everything seemed normal. When I woke up, nothing seemed normal. Apparently I’ve been transported to the planet Yoko.
On Yoko, everything is different. The Yokums grow up thinking their government should take care of their every whim from cradle to grave. They go to the kind of colleges where they run to “safe spaces” in case their delicate feeling get hurt. And their feelings get hurt by almost anything. Especially if it has anything to do with the deplorable white Yokums. Their Yokommie professors encourage this type of behavior. Thank goodness we don’t have anything like that back on Earth.
Yokums do not trust their government. Their Yokongress lies. Many politicians on Yoko lie. It’s de rigueur, you know. Heck, Yoko’s intel communities actually spy on their fellow Yokums! Can you believe that?
On Yoko, perpetual revolution, chaos, destabilization of the order is the Yokan ideal. Yokums have no use for the likes of their first president, George Yokington, nor for their Founding Yokums. They romanticize revolutionaries like Che Yokevara and Yocolm X. Anyone who hates Yoko and murders any of their fellow Yokums who are wealthy, is a Yokan hero, while anyone who is a patriot is a considered a racist on Yoko. It’s a good thing we don’t have anything like that on Earth.
I even heard that some Yokum sports celebs refuse to stand with their hand over their heart when Yoko’s National Anthem is played. They actually kneel as if they were in church. And now they are desecrating statues of Yoko’s historic figures... like Yokopher Columbus... and rejecting Yoko cultural traditions! If something like that ever happened on my beloved Earth, these people would be fined, shunned and maybe even jailed. Believe me.
The Yokums are rather piggish. They dress awful, they act awful and they speak awful. They have some kind of ugly art injected into their skin. There is even a book, “The Illustrated Yokum” by Ray Yokbury. It’s about a tattooed man, but on Yoko it’s not sci-fi. It’s real! Oh yeh! I’m not kidding.
Local Yokums have weird hairdos, rings and jewels and things stuck through holes in their flesh. They listen to ungodly awful sounds that some ugly Yokums perform with bizarre gyrations of their arms and legs, and blather some kind of awkward rhyming hate-filled obscenities. They even get awards and prizes for this. Can you imagine! I’m really glad we didn’t have anything like that when I left Earth.
I am completely stunned by how many Yokums use illicit drugs. Whole industries have grown up around the smuggling of drugs from Yoxico into Yomerica. They even have some kind of primitive pipe thing where they inhale flavored steam and exhale it into the air in long streams like an old style locomotive. They celebrate getting hammered, stoned and higher than a kite. They are compulsive gamblers and will bet on anything from sports to the Yazdaq Stock Exchange. I’m so glad we didn’t have anything like that when I left Earth.
On Earth, people go to school, graduate, got a job, marry their sweetheart, work hard, get promotions, save some money, buy a car, have kids, buy a house, raise their families according to the social norms learned from the generations who came before us. None of this is so on Yoko.
When I went to sleep that fateful night, it was with the understanding that if you wanted to get somewhere in life, you worked for it. Nobody owed you anything. But on Yoko, the government gives Yokums whatever they need. So Yokums don’t work very hard. They sit around playing games, watching – but not playing – sports. They get very fat, have all kinds of sicknesses and conditions, and still they swagger around the streets and malls of New Yoko as if they are hot yokit. Of course Yokans don’t like to call themselves “fat.” They use euphemisms like “portly,” “plump” and “zoftig.” We would never do anything like that on Earth.
When I left Earth, adults in general had morals, were polite and their clothing was decent. On Yoko, everybody is a slob. Yokums dress like pigs. Eat like pigs. Live like pigs. And talk like pigs. At least Earth has some standards in entertainment. We have films like Gone With the Wind, My Fair Lady, and The Pink Panther. But on Yoko, they want blood and guts. The more the merrier. They want sex. Not the vaguely suggestive kind of Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn. No, Yokans demand the real thing. Quadruple X. They prefer movies like Scarlet Blows Like the Wind, My Fair Bimbo, and The Pink Panties.
Yokums drive cars that bounce, motorcycles that make enough noise to wake the dead; they have all kinds of guns and gangs... and in big cities like Yokago they shoot and kill each other whenever they can. Can you even imagine anything like that on Earth? No way, right?
Something that really frosts me though, is how some brilliant Yokum will invent something amazing, but not have the where-with-all to make some money from his efforts. Then, some creepy little Yokum comes along and uses that invention to become one of the richest Yokums on Yoko. And nobody thinks there’s anything wrong with that! Boy, if anything like that ever happened on Earth... grrr!
So after a few months here on Yoko, I’ve had enough. Yoko sucks. Too many Yokums cheat, steal, lie, are stupid, vindictive, vicious and untrustworthy. So every night now I fall asleep with the hope I may wake up back on Earth. Or maybe find someone with a transporter beam to send me back to my beloved Earth where people aren’t like Yokums. I just don’t fit on Yoko.
