Ernie, Bert, and the saucers ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

O to be Ernie and Bert! These men live a life that's free!

Notice how the 'Sesame Street' comedic duo possesses so many nice things - a huge apartment, fine china, a lamp that doesn't spontaneously combust, everything. Yet have you ever seen them working?

Don't get me wrong: Like everybody who has ever lived in the history of the universe, I love Bert and Ernie. But the way America is supposed to work is that you earn your keep. You don't just get freebees your whole life. You have to work for it! Big banks and airlines that got free bailout money from the taxpayers might not think so, but that's a fundamental truth.

I'm not saying Bert and Ernie are lazy. I'm sensitive about being called lazy, because I still remember the teachers in high school lecturing me and my classmates to try to make us think we were. Nothing was ever good enough for that school, and they broke us. But perhaps the Dynamic Duo are just unmotivated and directionless. They don't know what to do with their lives.

That still doesn't explain how they've been able to pay the rent on time for the past 41 years. Maybe the reason Grover has to take so many different jobs and has nothing to show for it is that Ernie and Bert keep burglarizing and stealing from him and he has to keep up with that. (B and E. Bert and Ernie. Breaking and entering. Hmm.)

I've already profiled the hilarious 1973 sketch in which Ernie counts cups and saucers and Bert sweats bullets worrying about Ernie breaking them. I got such a positive response that I'm profiling it again here:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9A2njhZOR4

Having the finest dishware known to mankind is the main Ernie and Bert pleasantry to appear in that segment.

Everybody I know keeps having their dishes permanently stained by the local water supply, but the cups and saucers in that skit seem to be stain-resistant.

Now, back to work - and more job hunting!