Hi, it’s me, Gustave. Yeah, Gustave. I’m your new recapper because Aaron is, um, "suffering from dehydration" and is hanging out at this, um, "resort" with AJ from the Backstreet Boys, Robert Downey Jr., and Paula Poundstone.

I know what you’re all thinking. You’re all used to an Aaron recap, the same way you could only eat Spaghettios on your special bunny plate when you were a kid. Or the way you had your favorite babysitter. Aaron is like the bubbly high school freshman who’d read to you from VC Andrews novels and let you stay up late and watch Cinemax movies, just as long as you didn’t tell Mom that her 32-year-old tattooed boyfriend came over to make out. I’m like the blue-haired lady the agency sent with bad breath who made you watch PBS, sent you to bed on your official bedtime, and gave you enemas. Well, guess what, kids. Aaron found out he could make more money folding sweaters at the Limited where he’d have a nice employee discount too. I’m your new babysitter, and I’m not going anywhere because I’ve got arthritis and the library won’t hire me back after the Judy Blume "cleansing" incident.

But seriously, folks, Aaron is only away for this week, so you’ll only have to put up with my unfamiliar recapping style once. I’m not too familiar with the traditional vocabulary, so I’m using some of my own. And I tried to work in an Aaron-style hypothetical dialogue sequence, but I found I couldn’t compete. Oh, and this recap is dedicated to the fine folks at Kiehl’s. I think we all know why.

Okay, so first it’s like we’re watching a home video. We see a grainy shot of a young army private in camouflage fatigues standing in his barrack tent in front of the camera. He adjusts the camera until he’s sure he’s in the frame and then starts talking to the camera. It’s a video letter to his parents. But when you’re not paying too much attention, it looks like amateur porn -- you know, with that military thing going on. Furthermore, the guy looks like a younger version of David…or at least that’s my impression. So anyway, he explains to his parents excitedly that he’s got all this responsibility as an army private, and how important it is to keep all their mechanisms clean because of all the sand blowing around. Helicopters blare in the background. His mischievous but hunky friends interrupt his video message -- one of them is a bald black guy (a Keith stand-in?) who kisses him, but in a manly drunken way. I mean, I know that not every single bald black guy looks like Keith and this guy is no exception, but I wonder if someone else wanted us to make that connection. Private Young Bottom explains amid the growing din that he can’t tell them much about what they’re doing, but soon their unit will get into the thick of things. He’s interrupted again by two more privates, one of whom moons the camera. And unfortunately it’s the least hunky of the four. EMF’s Unbelievable plays in the background. Hey, didn’t Unbelievable come out AFTER the Gulf War? So as Private Young Bottom goes on about what a great opportunity the army is for him and how it’s changed his life -- which apparently wasn’t so action-filled to begin with -- the camera pulls back to reveal that this video is being watched by a not-so-young-looking Private Young Bottom from a hospital bed. And from the tubes in his nose and the dejected expression on his face, I’m guessing that things didn’t work out so well for Private Young Bottom, whose name turns out to be Victor Kovitch. Like, nice rip-off of Ron Kovic’s name from Born on the Fourth of July. Victor’s older brother, a hotheaded balding guy, appears in his room with "the latest South Park" on video. Private Old Bottom closes his eyes, and the screen goes black. This week’s Le Morte de la Semaine is Victor Wayne Kovitch, PFC, October 20, 1971 to March 21, 2001. What? No sexually provocative last words or wacky senseless accidents? Just a Gulf War Syndrome PSA? Damn!