Popeye Doesn't Live Here Anymore

It has been common knowledge among primary school children for generations that Popeye the Sailor Man lived in a garbage can throughout the period of American Ascendancy. Many attributed his fall from national hero and icon of American machismo to the decline of the nation's maritime industry and an ugly divorce from Olive Oil over the paternity of Sweet Pea (recent DNA tests affirm it was in fact Wellington Wimpy). So the question that has troubled the American people since the onset of the Great Recession remained: If Popeye the Sailor Man lived in a garbage can in good times, then where the hell is he living now?

Some experts on cultural matters and professional Popeyeists contend that Popeye, born January 17, 1929 in Thimble Theater, is deceased. His inadequate housing and diet of worms could only be survived by a younger cartoon as chronic exposure and lack of fiber probably compromised his ability to spit out the germs. While the Veterans Administration refused to close the case on one of the Navy's greatest WW2 heroes contending that millions of Americans live in WalMart whack ups, the modular sheet rock (pronounced shit rock) pre fab plastic plumbing disasters mounted on poured concrete and two by four skeletons. The VA contends that the vast majority of modern housing offers less protection and security than the metal trashcan Popeye made his castle. 

Forces in the construction industry have taken issue with the VA's pronouncements claiming that since the American Dream was quietly assassinated in the late Seventies their cardboard mansions offer an effective facade of respectability and affluence which is all most Americans ever wanted in the first place. Owners can point to their high utility bills and crushing mortgage payments as proof that they have "made it" and that many of the modern houses built in areas without weather should holdup for many generations of rabbits and fruit flies. 

The Popeye controversy recently peaked when students of the University of Baltimore followed up rumors in homeless shelters that Popeye had recovered the inheritance left by his Pappy and bought a newly constructed home in Baldwin, Md. The old salt who refused to be photographed or videotaped had a squint right eye, corncob pipe and chin like a baby's fanny claimed that his steel trash can had finally rusted out after sixty years and he couldn't replace it with one that wasn't made in China so he reluctantly bought the house. 

"This be a very pretty trash can but too's big for me. The landlubbers that's live here need 'em cause they gots so much crap and they likes to keep it organized so's it like everybody's got their own indoors garbage scow."

Asked by the BU students if he felt his new circumstances would change him he replied, "I yam what I yam be it in this or the old trash can."

Don Arrup

Satire1