Leading from the Rear Dept.

The Butt Strike of 2021

We will not sit for this!

I would tell you all to sit down, but that’s not an option, is it? We all know what’s going on. We’ve finally sorted out how and why.

Our butts have gone on strike. Not all of them, it’s true. Membership in the American Butt Union is, at best, 20% of all butts. The National Posterior Association is much smaller. But the radical labor butts are louder, more driven, and more intimidating than the reasonable butts. Frankly, the butts that are not striking — bourgeois butts — are too scared to do anything but watch from afar. And the violence enacted upon those butts who actively oppose the strikes — butt scabs — only confirms the fears of the bourgeois.

How did this happen? It seems our butts have been discontented for longer than we thought. Maybe it was the pandemic, and the longer than usual sitting in front of Zoom meetings. Maybe it was the fact that slim pants are back in fashion this year. They’re uncomfortable, but are they abusive? After a year of sweat pants and pajamas, our butts thought so.

But the spark that set off the powder keg was a series of articles in Medium responding to a prompt mocking the butts. We laughed. Yeah. That was funny. Our butts did not think that was funny. Our butts have had it being the proverbial center of all punch down humor. You can hear our butts shouting, “We are not the butts of your jokes!”

Eventually a few of the butts emerged as leaders. This includes, I’m sorry to say, my own butt.

I should have seen the clues. My butt started reading. Marxist theory. Derrida and Foucault. A trip to Venezuela. My butt returned with the skill set to “take back ownership of the means of production.” Other butts flocked to my butt. His rhetoric was on fire. He was the Moses of butts and I was Pharaoh.

My butt formed an organization, The Committee to Free All Butts (from the Rapacious Claws of Capitalistic Oppression), or CoFAB, and would attend three meetings a week. My butt wore a tee shirt, “Tight Pants are Sweat Shops.” My butt painted picket signs and wrote “STRIKE” on my calendar two days ago. I should have paid more attention. I thought it was a phase.

So, where do we stand? Everywhere, because we can’t sit without our butts. No twerking. And no lap dances. Because without a butt you don’t have a lap. The joy is draining from our buttless lives, and no easy solution presents itself. That tingling sensation? Like your butt has gone to sleep so hard it’s in a coma? That’s not going away.

We’ve thought about bringing in replacement butts. The trouble is, when this is settled — one way or the other — what will we do with all the redundant butts? I don’t want to have two butts. Do you want to have two butts?

For now, the butts are marching in our streets with signs and chanting. We can live with this.

What do we want? Adequate remuneration, benefits, and working conditions! When do we want it? Now!

It would only take one misstep on our part to have this thing head into violence or sabotage. Butts with brickbats. Butts with knives. Butts with guns. Butts with bombs. Think about it. Think about how ugly it can get. ’Cause our butts are already pretty damn ugly. Do we want another Occupy Your Underwear moment?

So we wait them out. Have patience. I’m not saying we give into the demands of the butts. I’m saying we need to be smart — at least as smart as our butts.