Something Doesn't Add Up.

 

I can tell that some who have recently come under my wing have a newfound, if snarky, interest in the 'pain equation'. I counsel them through the vapid movements of my fingers over the tabletop which sometimes separates us. Try as we might, a threatening word, uttered with a calm, professional demeanor, is not always guaranteed to add up to an exculpatory episode. Instead, we are more than likely to escort them, by stealth if necessary, to a local pontoon factory, where the manager, whose son is married to my niece's oncologist's chauffeur, will make every effort to do a little number on their confidence. Before you know it, they're eating quite happily out of both of our soiled hands. And, just who do you think we have to thank for this state of affairs? It's a person who's well known in the community of survivors of the Jonestown Massacre. His name is Harvey Fish. He's a Kaplan Scholar, a master chef in Roumanian cuisine and enjoys bowling on those rare weekends when he feels the need to return one or two items he stole from my parents' most recent houseguest.

They say that it will take on a dull umber sheen before even the first person thinks to inquire about the value of an alternative high school education. Closer to the moment of no reports, a standing order to an over-compensated vagabond is sure to elicit not a few comments and raise all sorts of uncomfortable questions from the peanut gallery writ large. I will only have myself to blame if anyone from down below thinks it wise to interpret hazardous chemical spills as a sign from the Almighty. If you put two of them alone together in a room with enough sound baffling, making sure that sufficient funds are provided to set them up in a forgotten estuary or two, you'd be surprised what kind of result you'll fail to see. The reason is that some of them operate only after a state of darkness has prevailed over one and all. Further, if all your bounties are tied up in corporate boosterism, how could you ever believe that a random shooting would scare away some of our most fanatical supporters?

One baleful glance is all it usually takes to cause those on the rim to delay their approval of an eminently coercive mealplan from being adopted campus-wide. It seems that more than one of their advisees is on the take and the only sense we can make of it amounts to a piddling lack of results overall. I am constantly on the alert for invasive spores on my dining room divan. Because, if one should get lodged in a sensitive location, a visit to Border Control is mandatory. You are asked to bring six or seven bundles wrapped in burlap into a non-obvious pageant trap. I will be there to guide you every step of the way. Without my wife on hand to provide a baffling non-sequitur or two, we should be good to go in about three or four hours at best. At worst, my head person will tap you lightly on the back of your head and inquire as to your involvement with a precision road crew. If you can cough up the goods, we may be able to go lightly on your Father's tree surgeon. Please don't ask us about this ever again. Then make amends. It won't hurt.  Promise?

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