Table of Contents
Praise for Akhmed and the Atomic Matzo Balls
“This book is very sick. Highly recommended.”
—J. Maarten Troost, author of The Sex Lives of Cannibals, Getting Stoned with Savages, and Lost on Planet China
“Akhmed is the Dr. Strangelove for our times.”
—Marcy Gordon, editor of Leave the Lipstick, Take the Iguana
“I’m ashamed to say I loved this book. It’s demented, deranged, and offensive…but hysterically funny.”
—Lavinia Spalding, author of Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler
“Delectably despicable. Will blow you right out of your burqa.”
—Kirsten Koza, author of Lost in Moscow: A Brat in the USSR
“Buslik will throw anyone under the bus for a cheap laugh. Frankly, we’re sick of it.”
—Rabbi T. Canarish
“Patients like Buslik are the reason I got into this business… and why I quit.”
—Daniel P. Luce, psychotherapist
“The world’s funniest book outside of North Korea.”
—Supreme Leader, name withheld
“Wackier than a bus plunge!”
—Hugo C., prominent Venezuelan
“You’ll wet your Depends! Trust me!”
—Fidel C., prominent Cuban
ALSO BY GARY BUSLIK
A Rotten Person Travels the Caribbean
The Missionary’s Position
For everyone who is kind to animals.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and satirically. Events depicted here never took place. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. No offense is meant to any person or group.
PART I
One
“THEY’RE KILLING ME, HAZEEM,” WHINED THE IRANIAN president, Akhmed, as he lay in his jammies, tucked into the sheets of his ornately carved, gold-plated bed in the master bedroom wing of his Tehran palace. “Hand me the thermometer again, will you?”
“But you just finished taking your temperature, Your Greatness, and it was perfectly normal. A little below, in fact.”
“Don’t you turn on me, too, Hazeem,” the president moaned. “I couldn’t bear it. Everyone around here wants to see me dead—don’t deny it. I thought I could depend on you, at least.”
“Of course you can.”
“Then hand me the damn thermometer. I feel feverish.”
Hazeem complied.
“Shake it down for me, will you?”
Hazeem shook it down.
The president opened his mouth and lifted his tongue. Hazeem guided the thermometer in gingerly. Akhmed gestured for his friend, interpreter, and confidant to hand him the Popular Mechanics magazine that, along with People, Marie Claire, and House Beautiful, littered