LAUGH LINES : I Just Called . . . to Say . . . ‘Save the Scoot Frog!’

I got a letter the other day from my friend Ben Cohen, the Ben of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. I’m assuming we’re friends, since Ben addressed the letter “Dear Friend”--even though we’ve never met, and even though I prefer Haagen-Dazs coffee to his politically correct flavors, such as “Cherry Garcia” or “Funky Chunky Donkey Meat,” the one made out of free-range mule milk.

Ben wrote to solicit clients for Working Assets, a private phone company that will give 1% of your long distance charges to “environmental and social change groups.” The clue that Ben was talking about liberal groups came in the next paragraph, which proudly said: “Working Assets is the only phone company that prints its bills on unbleached, 100% post-consumer recycled paper.”

Most other phone companies, I gather, print their bills on paper cut from trees illegally poached from old-growth forests and use ink made from the blood of the spotted owl.

Ben wrote that if I switched to his company, he’d give me 60 free minutes of calls, presumably to the ACLU, and a pint of ice cream. (I’m torn between “Anise Joplin,” a licorice swirl endorsed by Planned Parenthood, and “Great Green Gobs of Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts,” a nouveau pistachio.)

I was intrigued by the letter’s mention of a “Free Speech Day.” On Mondays, I could make free calls to targeted political and business leaders and chew them out for some unspeakable act of theirs--like putting iceberg lettuce in a Caesar salad.

One of this month’s targets is the Florida Citrus Commission for hiring Rush Limbaugh to hawk orange juice. I guess things must be real slow in the protest movement. I mean, Limbaugh may be a pain in the patootie, but he’s not Hitler. What is so terrible about him endorsing citrus fruits? Conservatives should get scurvy?

The other target is Pat Schroeder. They want her to sponsor a bill to make some guy stop cutting down trees somewhere. I don’t care if the call is free, I don’t want to talk to Pat Schroeder. In fact, I’ll go with any long distance company that promises I’ll never have to talk to Pat Schroeder. Or Pat Boone. Or Pat Sajak.

Because of my friendship with Ben, I thought about switching over. But I worried: What if my operator was Che Guevara? What if one day I decided I liked school prayer? Would I get all static on my line?

The point of all this is the politicization of everything.

You pick a phone company based on ideology? I am so out of it. (I picked Sprint because I thought they would help me speed dial.) This started with credit cards. Because they were all the same, they needed a gimmick. So one offered a minuscule amount of cash back. Another offered frequent flier miles. Another offered hotel points. It sort of snowballed. I have a Visa card that earns me global points toward a papal indulgence.

American Express introduced the concept of “guilty conscience” to charge cards. It promised to make a donation to feed the hungry when you used the card. This let you buy a coat made from the skin of gorilla fetuses and feel as though you had done something noble.

What’s next? If you buy a washer at Sears, could you get them to pledge that the silver-beaked Moluccan scoot frog will be saved from extinction?

Soon, I see myself going into a luncheonette. . . .

“I’d like a tuna sandwich on white toast.”

“No tuna. They catch dolphin in those nets. We don’t go for that.”

“OK, a BLT.”

“No bacon. You should see how they treat the pigs.”

“OK, just lettuce and tomato.”

“No lettuce and tomato. Migrant workers are exploited.”

“A cup of coffee then?”

“Nope. It’s from Colombia. Drug cartel.”

“Tea?”

“China. Human rights violations.”

“I just wanted lunch.”

“You should have thought of that when you came in here.”