Sitcom Knows Best

© el_yate / flickr.com

"Buddha Knows Best." Joel smiled at me confidently. "It's the name of our new sitcom.”"

I stared at him, fully aware my jaw was as slack as a dead man's dick. "You're joking, aren't you? Tell me you're joking!"

"Not at all, my faithless friend," he replied. "NBC have picked up the pilot and it will be aired in summer."

"So what is about?"

"Well, Buddha gets reincarnated into a mixed household consisting of two gay men and their daughter, a lonely single woman in her 40s and a down-on-his-luck ad executive who has an eye for the ladies. He dispels all types of wonderful advice that has comic consequences in this uber-modern, uber-dysfunctional household."  

My mind was blanker than a sheet of white paper. What on earth was the network thinking? Joel was standing, one hand on his hip, rolling his eyes in exasperation.

"Oh come on,” he cried. “Be happy for me!"

"I am," I managed to splutter. "But I'm more worried about what will happen to you when Buddhists worldwide discover – one: that you've reincarnated Buddha who is beyond reincarnation and two: that you've deemed his advice does not work for these people."

"Don't be such a stick in the mud," he responded, poking me in the side with forefinger. "Besides, they all pacifists. They won't harm me.

"Don't be so sure. Haven't you read the papers lately?"

"Oh, what are they going to do – chant me to death?"

I pondered that. Anything was possible.