“Yeah, dude. Ain’t every day we get out inta the wilderness wit’ OC an’ his biology class.”

“Wilderness, dude? Ya fer real? Ever hear ’bout not seein’ the forest fer tha trees?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I don’t see no forest, I don’t see no trees. Where’d they go?”

“It’s a clearcut, dude. The forest dudes cut ‘em all down.”

“That’s ug-lee, dude, rippin’ up the forest like that! Where’re we gonna put the homeless squirrels? We gotta stop this!”

“People need tha trees, dude.”

“Then people gotta figure out how ta need less of ‘em.”

“When did ya turn inta a tree hugger?”

“The minute I saw my first chainsaw massacre. Whats’amatta wit’ ya, dude? Ain’t ya got no sympathy fer yer fellow creatures?”

“Ain’t written one yet.”

“Written one?”

“Symphony fer Wood Winds. Oughta be music t’yer ears.”

“Maybe fer the screech owls, dude. Or tha cuckoos. So if ya ain’t got no sympathy fer them, how’s about fer me?”

“Now whaddaya want?”

“A bathroom.”

“Huh? Ya can’t go fertilize one a them trees ya like so much all of a sudden?”

“Dude! Dude might take me fer a bear!”

“Yeah right. Bare butt.”

“‘Zactly, dude. I’m gonna need toilet paper.”

“Tree Hugger Dude’s gonna need toilet paper. Y’got any idea how crappy that is?”

“If I don’t get outa this car soon …”

“Hold it, dude. Let’s break this down. Y’wanna save the trees, but y’also wanna use toilet paper ta do yer business so ya don’t haveta make like a bear in the woods. How many sheets?”

“One.”

“A paper, dude!”

“Oh. That. Maybe 10 of ‘em.”

“Right. Multiply by five …”

“Du-uuuude! I ain’t got diarrhea. Not yet, anyway.”

“Yeah, but ya gotta remember that the chicks gotta use this stuff every time …”

“TMI, dude!”

“TS, dude. Fer this countin’, yer half a chick. That’s closer than ya normally get. Ya c’n thank me later.”

“Don’t hold yer breath waitin’, dude.”

“Suit yerself. Yer the one worryin’ ’bout bein’ bare. So ya use 50 sheets a paper a day. What’s on a roll, 200? That’s two rolls a week, near enough. Which is a pound a the stuff. So ya go through 50 pounds a toilet paper a year.”

“Yeah?”

“One a them trees out there makes about 100 pounds a toilet paper. So’s ya cut down one a year just ta take care a yer butt an’ mine. Any idea how many trees there are in an acre a ground?”

“Who the hell ya think I am, OC?”

“Right, I fergit, we’re in tha wilderness an’ yer cut off from yer internet supply. Let’s assume that the trees are all 10 feet apart from each other, that means there’re 400 trees in an acre. That means one acre a trees produces a year’s supply a toilet paper fer 800 people, thereabouts. How many people in the US?”

“Sheesh … 300 million?”

“An’ presume that all of ‘em are usin’ toilet paper. That’s about 40,000 acres a trees, enough ta cover about one fifteenth a the state a Rhode Island, that we gotta cut down every year just ta wipe yer donkey. An’ I ain’t said nothin’ yet about lumber, ‘r plywood, ‘r firewood, ‘r any a the other stuff we get from trees.”

“Dude – I love the trees, but I ain’t sure I can do without the TP.”

“Y’ain’t left-handed, are ya?”

“Nah.”

“Y’ll be fine then. Just don’t get yer hands mixed up when ya clean yerself.”

“Eewwwwww!!”

“Wuss. Hey, there’re some loggers at work over there. Y’wanna go hug some trees?”

“What, dude, ya crazy? Ain’t we got a chainsaw in this rig?”

“Too late, dude.”

“Whaddaya mean, ‘too late’??”

“Two months too late, dude.”

“What?!”

“It’s May, dude. Y’wanna do anythin’ in March, it’s two months too late. Or ten months too early. Pick one.”

“Du-uuuuuude! Not calendar March. Marching march! Ya know. Picket signs. Megaphones. Beer.”

“Tear gas?”

“Whats’amatta wit’ ya? I thought you an’ OC believed in climate change, big time.”

“OC don’t ‘believe‘ nothin’. But he does accept the evidence that the climate is changin’ an’ we’re the ones who’re doin’ it. Is that what this is all about?”

“So he ain’t a mass murderer like the billboard says.”

“What billboard?”

“You ain’t heard?!? The one that went up in Chicago that says that anyone who believes in climate change is a killer like this Ted K … K … K …”

“Kaczynski?”

“Yeah! Him! Wha’d he do, anyway?”

“Um … killed people?”

“‘Zactly! You kill anybody lately?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Me neither! We gotta stop these people what put up this billboard from doin’ it again! Sign petitions! March in the streets! Down wit’ anybody who don’t think climate change is real!”

“Right. So yer gonna go out an’ scream yerself silly, prolly get plastered inta the bargain, so’s ya all can give these billboard people publicity that they couldn’t buy for themselves, not if they had Bill Gates’s fortune behind ‘em. I’m impressed. Ya really think climate change is real?”

“Yeah.”

“An’ ya really think we gotta go out an’ do somethin’ ’bout it?”

“Yeah!!”

“Great. I got just tha thing for ya. Here. Sign this.”

” ‘I pledge to do my part to stop global warming by ceasing to operate a car, heating my house only to prevent its freezing, abandoning all air conditioning, and otherwise reducing my carbon footprint by 2013 to one-fourth of that footprint in 2011 …’ Du-uuuuuuuude!! Are you nuts?!? How the hell’m I supposed to do Facebook if ya lay this on me?!? There ain’t no way!!!”

“More’n half o’ the world manages.”

“Right. What kinda a sucker d’ya take me for?”

“Everlastin’. Dude, do what ya gotta, but do me a favor?”

“Yeah?”

“Bug out an’ leave me alone.”

Have you ever noticed that every major character in the “One Ring” saga – every major character, black or white [sic] – is a leader or a scion of a local, regional, or ‘national’ hereditary aristocracy?

Every character but one: the hobbit Sam Gamgee. Sam is the only major player through four long books/movies to become a member of a local aristocracy – starting as a gardener at the Baggins estate, ending as Mayor of Hobbiton, founder of the prominent Gardner family, and (with symbols clashing) the last Ring-bearer to enter Aman.

And this fate befell Sam against the wishes of his own folk. His father, Hamfast, related to his peers at the pub how their [NB] master Frodo had taught Sam to read, “meaning no harm, mind you”, and, disgusted with Sam’s interest in the tales and legends of the wider world, told off his son with the words:

Elves and dragons! Cabbages and potatoes are better for me and you.

(Your Friendly Neighborhood Amoeba heard words like this often enough himself, at Sam’s age.)

Even Sam’s name was against him. Tolkien, one of the most prominent English-language linguists of the 20th century, derived Samwise from samwís, “half wise” – in other words, “halfwit”, “simpleton”, “fool”.

Thus, the leading generation in today’s United States of America, the Land of the Free, the Land of Opportunity and of Justice for All, embraces a tale that is all about the actions of those in the top layer of a highly stratified society. A layer accessible only if you’re born into it, or are adopted by it – in the case of the eavesdropping Sam Gamgee, literally by being snatched out of the garden and dumped into the conspiracies of the ruling class.

A layer with which that leading generation identifies.

What got YFNA thinking about all this was an email from the Alumni Association of Dawg U., exhorting me to take their latest survey.

“Please be assured that this is not a fundraising solicitation”, the message intoned. “And it’s only seven minutes.” Yeah, but by the time I got two minutes into the survey and discovered that the questions were all about to what part of the university I will be giving (the more the better), how much (preferably all I have), and how soon (yesterday), I realized, like the musician I sometimes pretend to be, that I didn’t much like their intonation:

Dear Dawg U. I am terribly sorry that the tuition, fees, and other charges that I have already paid, in exchange for the pieces of fancy paper that you market, have proven insufficient to keep your senior administrators in the personal Dreamliners to which they wish to become accustomed. I am likewise sorry that, therefore, you feel it necessary to dog me for more – not only myself but also my heirs and assigns unto the fourth generation, who already bear the burden of the debts I have incurred to acquire the aforementioned pieces of fancy paper.

Be assured that I feel my obligation to you most deeply, especially in that place where I would keep my wallet if I could afford one. As soon as the credentials that you have sold me procure employment that will pay back the direct and opportunity costs of obtaining those credentials, I will be sure to let you know.

I am convinced that, whatever the intentions of the “university education for all” policies, in place in at least the Western world since the 1960s, may have been, the policies as implemented have been disastrous.

* They have produced vast increases in the cost of university education. Any business presented with increased demand will raise prices as much as the market will bear, to pay for expansion and increase profits while the profits are to be had. Universities are businesses.

* They have cheapened the value of the education. The principal product of universities, as YFNA has argued in the past, used to be graduates prepared for the professions. Now, the principal product of universities is courses and degree programs. The customers are the students, not the professions, so the quality constraints imposed by the professions are, with few exceptions, no longer relevant. The universities have strong incentive to simultaneously raise the prices on courses and reduce their investments in them.

* They have cheapened the marketability of the education. When degree holders are few, and the standards of that degree are rigorously controlled, then the holder of a degree is scarce, and the price for the services represented by that degree can be as high as the market will bear. But when degree holders are many, and standards are slack, the price that the degree can command lessens accordingly – as any of the countless folk who are using their Bachelor of Arts degrees to flip burgers will tell you.

Finally,

* They have permitted the trashing of public primary and secondary education. Why should a community tax itself to pay for elves and dragons for their children, when cabbages and potatoes would suit them better anyway? After all, anybody who can afford it is going to go to college.

(Don’t believe this? Spend some time studying the schools in Hawai‘i. Where anyone who aspires to anything goes to the private schools, and no one sees the need to spend money on the public schools or the kids in them, because they’re all just going to work in the hotels anyway. Cabbages and potatoes Sugar cane and pineapples …)

Anybody who can afford it … We the People have been told for decades that a university education is a passport to the middle and upper classes of society, for anyone who had the appropriate talents. But given the crippling debts that students now have to bear to attend tertiary education, it’s hard to envisage the degree as a passport to anything but bankruptcy court. Rather, it seems to Your Friendly Neighborhood Amoeba that it’s become a rite of passage – for those who have the appropriate birth. Have We forgotten so soon that President Dubya got into Yale, not on account of his grades, but on account of his family name and fortune?

Got talent but no bucks? Well, I suppose you can always hope that your masters will discover you and pluck you out of the cabbage patch. Otherwise, I’m afraid you’re SOL.

Back in the 1860s, the nobility of Europe held great hopes for the newly-declared Confederate States of America. In the South’s plantation economy, the Europeans saw a stratified society much like their own, and far more to their liking than that of the damned egalitarian Yankees in the North. It would be only a matter of time, they reasoned, before the Southrons who were lords of their manors in fact became so in name – thereby establishing a formal aristocracy in English-speaking America.

Kinda like now.

“Stop!”

“Dammit, Jack, you just no fun no more. If it no for the dividend checks …”

“So what part a ‘no jokes on duty’ don’t ya get, Juan? Y’want the checks ta keep comin’, follow tha rules.”

“Si, si, Jack, I do what it takes to keep ‘em comin’. Nice checks. You got somethin’ nuevo?”

“Jeez. Is everybody on this crew a Pinocchio?”

“Pinocchio?”

“‘Cause ya all got big noses.”

“Yeah? Well, we no puppets, gringo.”

“Ya sure about that? Awright, awright. Just remember I got ears, hombre.”

“I remember, Jack.”

“So we’ve got the terminals pretty much locked down. We’re expandin’ onta the planes. Ya know the vid screens they’re buildin’ inta the backs a all the seats now?”

“Yeah. You buy TV, you buy movies. But not everybody buy.”

“Right. So we run ads on ‘em. Captive audience. Sweet income source.”

“Like the ads in the tray liners that you put your laptops an’ sneakers on in the line, si? But don’t everybody just turn the screens off?”

“Ya’d be surprised how many don’t, Juan. An’ who says we gotta let anybody turn ‘em off?”

“¡Ai! We can do that?”

“We’re doin’ trial runs now. Runnin’ ads after the safety vid, the one that tells ya ta buckle your seat belt an’ stuff. Ya see an’ hear ‘em or else. If that flies …”

“¡Pesos!”

“Ka-CHING is right, hombre.”

“Yeah … but …”

“But what?”

“How long we keep this goin’, huh? How many terrorists we catch? Billions of dollars an’ no fish in the net.”

“Juan. Don’t be a bigger dope than ya can help. We ain’t caught nobody, an’ we ain’t gonna. Yer a terrorist, ya don’t storm a guarded gate. Ya look for one that no one’s watchin’.”

“So how we gonna win? Throw mucho bucks at every chink in the wall?”

“Not our problem, Juan. We only gotta pay attention ta this one. An’ make everythin’ we can outa doin’ so, while we can.”

“OK …”

“So, dude, this dude walks up to me an’ asks ‘Have you filed yet?’”

“An’ you said …?”

“I said, like, ‘What, dude? Have I broken a fingernail or somethin’?'”

“Du-uuude!”

“Funny, he said somethin’ like that. ‘Yeah, yeah, swish swish.’”

“Uh huh.”

“Then he goes, ‘So what part of income tax don’t you understand?’”

“That’s easy. Income!”

“Word. What I don’t get is, if you ain’t got income, how come ya gotta do all the paperwork anyway?”

“Same answer, dude.”

“Yeah?”

“Somebody’s gotta read all them forms. And they ain’t gonna work fer free. Especially they ain’t gonna work for the gummint fer free.”

“Dude?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re so smart …”

TSA Jack

“Hi, Ja … Jeez! Leggo!”

“No jokes on duty, dammit, Mario. Capisce?”

“I didn’t know you spoke Italian.”

“I speak knuckle sandwich too. Shall I demonstrate?”

“Ah, no, I’ll take your word for it. Especially today. I hate this day worse than all the others. It’s no wonder you’re edgy.”

“Me? Nah. We got procedures. We follow ‘em. No reason to be concerned.”

“Yeah? But they got Al Capone on tax evasion, when they couldn’t get him on his rackets. What about our …”

“Capone was a rookie. We know better. Relax.”

“OK, Jack …”

“But no jokes on duty!”

Screwtape The Third

“Have you got a report on our Mr. Capone, Wormsap?”

“Troublesome as usual, sir. He keeps trying to boss his unit, which is one of the largest in the Estates. He doesn’t like our rules and regulations, and he doesn’t get that, around here, just about everybody is a stoolie.”

“His punishment?”

“Assignment to our internal revenue office, where he has to process forms. With, of course, all of our corporate rules of conduct in full force. That does tend to keep him contained for awhile. He hates the work, and he hates the memories associated with the work.”

“I trust you’re continuing to funnel demons into those same offices topside.”

“Of course. Taxes, all aspects of ‘em including setting, prosecuting, and, naturally, evading, are our biggest source of contracts.”

“Attaboy, Wormsap.”

Reg and Syd

“So, Reg, this fellow walks up to me and asks, ‘Have you filed yet?’”

“Was he carrying a picket sign?”

“As if I would have spoken with him if he were. I said ‘Filed?’ And he said ‘Yes, filed. It’s tax day. What part of income tax don’t you understand?’”

“That’s easy. Income!”

“Taxable income, anyway.”

“Some people just don’t get it, do they, Syd? Shall we go down to the bar?”

“Well, sir, it is that most devilish time of year.”

“Yes, yes. All those devout, sanctimonious Christians raging on about how eggs are really Lucifer’s testicles [snort!], and they can’t even figure out that the name they’ve picked for their highest holy day is that of a pagan god!”

“Don’t forget all those contracts we get from people screaming at each other while they try to put together Easter shows. ‘Services’. They sure as H.E.L.L. serve us!”

“Old news, Wormsap. You’ve gotten your snout into something new. Spill. Or were you thinking about your latest plot with that Printphubar demon you like so much?”

“Nono, sir, nothing like that I assure you! I went to investigate a disturbance in the Technology Terraces. Our Mr. Jobs is having a hard time settling into the routine, and the Peace Goblins were paying him another, ah, visit.”

“We are a Microsoft shop. Mr. Jobs will use Microsoft and like it, and learn to abide by our rules and regulations. His outbursts may have gotten him deified topside. They will not be tolerated here. Is that all?”

“Hardly, sir. The commotion attracted the attention of the residents in the Philosophy Pavilion, and the shade of Karl Marx came over to investigate.”

“Oh? How did that go?”

“Slowly. You see, when I saw Marx coming, I changed H.E.L.L.’s common language to Old Norse. The closest word that Marx could find for ‘opium’ was ‘mead’, which stirred the honey pot nicely. I have no idea how Jobs expressed the concept of a central processing unit.”

“I take it they managed eventually?”

“Oh, did they ever! When Marx figured out what Jobs had done topside, which was to dump boatloads of fancy toys on the market that distracted people from the overall collapse of their standard of living, while he made untold billions of dollars, Marx yelled out ‘So, now, computers are the opiates of the masses!’ and went for Jobs’s neck. The Peace Goblins had to separate them. They both got citations, of course.”

“I should hope so. Just as I hope that you’ve made suitable arrangements for Mr. Gates, when he gets here.”

“Indeed, sir. In the cell adjacent to Mr. Jobs. With Mr. Brin on the opposite side. With only paper screens separating them – and strict instructions forbidding any physical damage to the screen, or any bright lights (computer projections, for instance) or loud noises passing through them. And all of them will be paraded daily to the Philosophy Pavilion for panel discussions chaired by Mr. Marx.”

“Evil, Wormsap. Evil.”

“Thank you, sir. Care to join me for, ah, testicle rolling?”

“I have to write up your report for the Board. Have pain.”

“Jus’ tryin’ ta be friendly, dude.”

“Yeah? By standin’ on the side a the road wit’ my hair dryer – my hair dryer – an’ 200 feet a extension cord?”

“What, ain’t you heard, dude? It’s the gnarly new thing. All over Facebook an’ everythin’. Up Michigan way, they been doin’ it for like the last two weeks non-stop. Settin’ both early start an’ endurance records! ‘Course, no one bothered ta say how they did it, so I’ve kinda had ta guess …”

“Do what, dude?”

“The heat wave, dude!”

“The .. heat ..”

“Sure! That’s how come I hadta borrow yer dryer. Someone comes by, ya turn the dryer on, wave it aroun’ an’ give ‘em a blast. Near as I can tell, anyhow. Didn’t know where else I was gonna come up wit’ no heat. Ain’t like it ain’t been snowin’ around here lately.”

“Dude?”

“What?”

“Yer scarin’ me. Sheesh. Just what we need on top a global warmin’. Git back in the pad afore someone takes you fer a Canadian dollar.”

“A what?”

“A loonie, dude! An’ bring that dryer an’ all that cord in wit’ ya.”

“But dude! What if a dude comes by? How can I …?”

“Fake it, dude.”

“Oh?”

“This item here. The protest brewing over Shell Oil’s plans to drill in Arctic waters. I’m sure to be getting memos from my people about this.”

“Sydney. Environmental codswallop? Again?”

“Well, surely you don’t plan to ignore this?”

“No. I plan to promote it.”

“Uh … but won’t that have an impact on your portfolio?”

“I’ll do it anonymously, of course. Besides. I divested my petroleum interests long ago, as soon as they started dabbling in that hopelessly-unprofitable biofuels bullhockey. I tell my HR directors not to hire any Ph.D.s unless the job absolutely calls for it, and then to weigh the profits from any prospective hire against the substantial retraining costs. Attitude adjustment is expensive. This can’t hurt me.”

“But how will it help?”

“Simple. Simple enough for you to have worked it out for yourself, Syd; you’ll be ashamed of yourself when I tell you. You promote the cause. People buy into it. Immediate profits, like what happened with those polar bears on the cola cans. Then, the people who buy into it start getting involved. Social networks. Campaigns. Rallies. Cruises, probably including those Sea Shepherd pirate ships. All of which takes energy, Sydney. The very energy that these idiots are trying to stop Shell from generating! You don’t suppose that any of these protestors are going to walk to their meetings, do you?”

“Tee hee.”

“So we promote all this, secretly, and just as secretly collect the data on just how much energy is being used to stop energy being generated. Then we sell the data to Rush. A nice juicy story about how the liberal intelligentsia are trying to prevent anyone but themselves from having a life.”

“He could use a nice juicy story, to distract people from this ‘war on women’ that he precipitated, rather unwisely if I may say so.”

“It might even serve as a useful counterattack, as the people who are likely to be involved with, and spend energy on, that cause are likely to be the same ones that get involved with protesting this Arctic drilling business. The impact will surely be to discredit the protests and allow for business to proceed according to the true will of the people, which as we both know is ‘we want our gas, and we want it now‘.”

“You don’t think there’s a possibility that people will make the necessary lifestyle changes to accommodate dwindling energy supplies and the multiplying effects of using those supplies, as a result of all this protest activity?”

“Sydney. Not even Franklin Roosevelt, with World War II as his justification, could compel American citizens to live within their energy rations. The people will use the supplies until they’re gone, they will have things no other way. It is our duty and responsibility, to ourselves and our shareholders, to extract every drop of profit from these energy supplies until we no longer have them. And we will no longer have them, sooner or later, Syd. That’s as certain as death and tax evasion.”

“What then, Reg?”

“That’s when we trot out the Live Where You Work® product. Without energy to power transportation or computer networks, people will need to live close to their workplaces. Live Where You Work® will provide everything you need – work, home, recreation – all ‘under one roof’, so to speak. And, of course, we will own all the plantations, all the factories, all the shops, all the housing. The customers will be captive, and the profits will roll in.”

“And you’ll have whole crowds of people singing about no. 9 coal.”

“As a matter of fact, Syd, coal mines should be perfectly well suited for Live Where You Work® communities, and we’ve already selected certain ones for product testing. What is in the cellar today?”

“I thought you’d never ask, Reg. Boy!”

“What?!?”

“Yeah, I’ll give ya what. Like, what is all this s … don’t you touch me!”

“Ya keep tellin’ me ta keep it clean, dude. Wit’ yer paws all over my face. Dish it out but y’can’t take it, huh?”

“Funny y’should mention ‘keepin’ it clean’, dude. Ya wouldn’t haveta worry ’bout my language if I didn’t haveta worry ’bout all this … this … stuff on the floor here. Ya tryin’ ta kill a dude or somethin’??”

“I’m jus’ doin’ what the lady said, dude!”

“What lady?”

“Friend a OC’s.”

“‘K, that answers the next questions.”

“Yeah?”

“What chick would bother wit’ the likes a you, and why. So wha’d she say?”

“I got it here, dude … but if that’s the way ya think ’bout her …”

“Yeah, yeah. Gimme.”

“So I picked up this old printer at a yard sale, cheap, an’ I thought if I just stuck in a USB connector, I c’ld get it to talk to my PC, an’ maybe even print from the cloud or somethin’. But I couldn’t figure out how ta hook the USB to the board, an’ while I was pokin’ things tryin’ to find that out, I discovered there were issues wit’ the power supply …”

“An’ so ya gave up.”

“Dude. I moved on. Like it says there.”

“So other dudes c’n trip over what ya left lyin’ around an’ break their necks! Who the hell ya think’s gonna come clean up after ya? The Mario brothers? Does the word ‘recyclin’ mean nothin’ to ya?”

“But that’s the whole point, dude! Yer saposed ta break the cycle so’s ya c’n get out a worryin’ ’bout stuff so much. Y’don’t need toes anyhow. B’sides. Ya tried recyclin’ computer parts lately?”

“Throw it in the trash, then.”

“They’ll throw it right back, dude. That stuff ain’t goin’ in no landfill.”

“So what’re ya supposed to do wit’ it, then?”

“Like I keep tellin’ ya, dude! Leave it an’ move on!”

“Move is right, dude. Like, move out!”

“Ya ain’t makin’ the rent noplace else, dude!”

“Same as you, dude!”

“Which means …”

“Yeah, yeah. Move on. Willya at least get the wreckage outa the middle a the kitchen?”

“Sorry, Master Screwtape. I just got out of today’s indoctrination session for the newbies, and one fellow in particular was particularly amusing.”

“Hmm?”

“Well, sir, you know how these topsiders are always trying to figure out how they can get into the [ptui!] Adversary’s place without actually having to do any work? So one day, this fellow wanders into a church thinking that maybe this will be the way, sits down – and the organ starts playing this low drone that goes on forever. ‘Man’, he thinks, ‘this is pure tedium.’ And then he checks the bulletin, and finds out the name of the music the organist is playing.”

“Te Deum.”

“Exactly! How did you know?”

“I’ve been in that church. I left agents. You weren’t aware of this?”

“Ah … um … well, the ploy sure worked on this guy. He jumped up, yelled ‘That’s it!‘, and ran out of the sanctuary before they could throw him out. And he spent the rest of his life being as boring, and as bored, as possible. He was not happy when the welcoming demon came up to him, with his signed contract in his foreclaws.”

“Uh huh.”

“We assigned him to the unit that houses Dunbar from Catch-22, and the narrator from the Rocky Horror Show – complete with audience.”

“Who are constantly yelling ‘Boring?’”

“Of course, sir. Hours of entertainment!”

“Wormsap?”

“Sir?”

“Am I not giving you enough work to do?”

“Ah …[gulp] … in the pleasure of this conversation, sir, I am neglecting tasks to which I should be attending. By your leave, sir …!!”