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US Election
The best ad for condoms ever
By Kevin Potvin
Levi Johnston is the new poster boy for every teen who rushed into a hasty mistake in the dark of the back of his car
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Pity Levi. He’s 18 and just fresh out of high school. He lives in a tiny town of 9,000 in the middle of nowhere and he plays hockey, dreaming of making it to the big league. Last March, possibly during March Break, he knocked up his girlfriend. Sometime between then and now, she told him she wouldn’t abort the fetus. As a teenager in a place like that, it can’t have meant much that his girlfriend’s mom was the mayor. The town budget is likely smaller than the average small business trinket store and mayor is likely one of those positions one gets stuck with rather than competes for. Even when his girlfriend’s mom became governor of the state, it can’t have registered much on the 16 or 17 year old Levi. The state is like Texas—there isn’t a whole lot of government to the state government. It’s likely a part-time seasonal job at best, something of a lark for anyone who wants it.
Levi didn’t marry the girl when she told him she was pregnant and he likely had the same reaction as any teen would have when his girlfriend told him she wanted to deliver the baby. It’s the tragic stuff of John Mellencamp and Bruce Springsteen songs. That’s where things stood until just a couple of weeks ago, with his girlfriend now five months pregnant and he probably weighing his options and plotting his escape.
Everything changed dramatically for Levi two weeks ago. His face appeared in every major newspaper in the world as the poor sap was greeted by the US Republican presidential candidate as he stepped off a plane, after his girlfriend’s mom, Sarah Palin, was shockingly selected as John McCain’s vice presidential running mate. Abortion and teen sexual abstinence happen to be the mom’s biggest electoral draw in what promises to be another razor sharp and globally important election. One can just imagine Levi sitting alone in the locker room under the seats at the local hockey rink half dressed in his equipment and staring at the stained concrete floor and thinking, with horror, “What have I done?!”
The mom has announced on the world stage that young Levi “will marry” her daughter. The mom is known locally as Sarah Barracuda for her blood-thirsty political style, a woman who, in her introductory speech at the Republican convention, compared herself as a “hockey mom” to a pit bull dog, the only difference being, she said, lipstick. She is reputed to have used her power as governor to get a cop fired from his job for the effrontery of divorcing her sister. And Levi muses, as any teen in his situation would, about ditching this woman’s pregnant daughter? The woman is a proud life-long member of the National Rifle Association who can bring down a moose at long range with a single shot from any one of her many handy guns. The girlfriend’s brother is eager to ship off to Iraq next month to go to war. Dude, you really really made a mistake that night five months ago!
If ever there was a solid gold ad campaign to get teen boys to wear condoms, Levi is it. He is in deeper than any teen ever has been. He made in the heat of some moment a quick decision to forgo the inconvenience of slipping on a rubber, and now he’s got himself in the biggest pickle mankind has ever witnessed. If I ran Trojan, I’d hire the guy for millions of dollars to just stand there with a box of condoms on billboards around the country. He doesn’t even have to say anything, he just has to wear the most sheepish look any teen has ever worn. I realize there is a girl caught up in tragedy here as well, but I really feel sorry for the young guy. Choice has utterly disappeared from his life.
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The Republic of East Vancouver masthead
The Republic of East Vancouver supports no party, advocates
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