This is what happens when aggrievement is righteously earned.

 

Jaran Pesmo felt genuinely aggrieved. All morning he'd been taking down small pieces of chalk and placing them in appropriately spaced Dixie cups which he'd bought just for this. And now the wife, whose name he'd only recently purchased in an online auction, took actions that perturbed him. Once his English had failed him, he sought a helping hand at a market near a River underneath a bridge. A bridge, I might add, in desperate need of emergency repairs. Yet everyone felt perfectly okay plowing on through as if someone else could be expected to bear the superlative brunt if worse came to worse. Jaran watched closely to avoid common mistakes. Also to blend in. Even the clothes he wore testified to this in spades. You get the picture. Not everyone does. Try me.

I managed to enroll the wife in a ring-toss intramural dispute while their kids were kept busy in the basement of one of our foremost Major Leabers. Each was designed to incorporate a spoonful of Special Liquid. They knew that if they could go the distance, then I would make sure the parents were awarded custody of a titanium interval desk. It would allow their competitive traits to bloom quite produndantly. We've all known people like that. They ask if you'd like one. You start to move your hand. They back up and try again. Rinse and repeat. All goes well if it starts with persons deciding to pretend to make a bold commitment to appearing effortful. We're glad when recalcitrant busybodies start to see it our way. It will go easier if you join them for a drink in our cellar.

Once Jaran had searched through all of his unbreakable line items, I felt it was time to look directly between his eyes and ask him if he really wanted to go through with this. Or even something vaguely similar. He replied that since the wife had taken to ducts like a floor to water, he'd had to rethink his plans and try to not come up wanting for air in all the wrong places. I knew that he had a chronic knee problem and his place in the Program was at serious risk. We decided to approve his removal to Hawthorne State where there were trained spatialists. Before he was transposed, his remaining underlings expressed the wish to see him in his own wagon. Unfortunately his number had been lost in the War, so we had to make do with an Ivan Cart with the wrong code on each side. It served everyone right. Each of the kids was given a jumper. The wife was gifted a Committee all her own. I took my sweet time before refilling the Delta. The house was sold to a Junior Minister. Despite what anyone might think they've forgotten, no one ever got caught. It was that kind of year. 

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