Derailed trains of thought
“Après moi le déraillement”

Off the Deep End

Aggression Is Good for the Economy.
Area 52.
Atomic Fish.
Attack of the Christmas Robots.
Back to School.
Back From the Future and Return to the Future.
Bathroom Security.
Beguiling Train Voice Beckons.
Brainwashed by Teenagers.
Bugs From the Government.
California or Bust.
Chicken Little Was Right.
Chickens Are Our Friends.
A Christmas Tale.
Classified Information About You.
Clockstoppers Are After Me!.
Cloning the Future.
A Close Brush With Mars.
Coffee Bandits.
Combat Cows.
Cooking Your Own Clothing.
Cows on the Tracks.
Don’t Eat Your Veggies.
Do You Want a Flat Stomach?.
Down on the Farm.
Dunham’s Razor.
Elvis on My Mind.
Escape From New Jersey.
Feed My Cows.
Freedom of the Press.
Fridge Farming.
Fudge Factor.
Funding the Cow Campus.
Getting Out the Vote.
Going in Crop Circles.
Governor for Life.
How I Discovered America.
Hunting for Santa.
Junk Mail Junkie.
Kidnapped!.
Kiss of the Spiderwoman.
Love Potion Number 9½.
Male Problem-Solving.
Mars and Venus Attack!.
Money in the Mail.
Monkeys With Typewriters.
My Haunted House.
My Time Machine.
Office Supply Security.
Office Survivor.
The Other St. Brendan.
Painless Dentistry.
Pat Answers: Pesky Neighbors.
Planet X Insurance.
Poster, Poster, on the Wall.
Pothole State Park.
Power Napping Is Back.
Problem: The Disk Is Full.
A Railway Hygiene Etiquette Guide.
Rent a Husband.
Rent a Wife.
Rise of the Robot Animals.
The Rolling Breakfast Club.
Runaway Chickens.
Save Energy While Driving.
The Second, or Maybe Third, Thanksgiving.
Some Like It Hot.
So ‘Survivor’ Is Rigged..
Stealth Office Work..
Talking Statues..
Take Your Dog to Work Day..
The Third Degree..
Your Biological Alarm Clock.

Off the Deep End

Aggression Is Good for the Economy

The arms race is on again, this time between counties. My own county of Spotsylvania has acquired weapons of mass destruction, and I’m not just talking about suburban sprawl, either. Spotsylvania is now one of the nuclear powers. And I don’t mean the Lake Anna nuclear power plant, though I now wonder whether it includes a breeder reactor for plutonium. I am talking about nuclear armaments.

Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense (for the United States, not Spotsylvania), has stated* that there are “a number of counties that have access today to weapons of mass destruction.” This is really true. Because this is a sensitive political matter, he did not name the counties. However, Spotsylvania, which did not sign either the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty or the Nonproliferation Treaty, is one of the counties that is acquiring these weapons.

People have been ridiculing Spotsylvania as a Third World county for too long, and we’re sick of it. Our uppity neighbor counties point to Spotsylvania’s failure to support Virginia Railway Express and say that we’re lost in the 1950s, when highways were the wave of the future, not dinosaurs bypassed by evolution. To that we say, “Lost in the fifties, are we? Then start building bomb shelters, Stafford. Bypassed by evolution, are we? How about a few mutants, Prince William?”

Am I saying that Spotsylvania is a rogue state? Mr. Rumsfeld claims that some of these counties “are lead by people who don’t have things that buffer them or moderate behavior.” That’s a polite way of saying that our government is a bunch of lunatics who are out of control. And speaking of lead, I hope you have your computer well shielded, in addition to a large stock of food and a backup power supply. We are armed and dangerous.

Spotsylvania calls itself “aggressive.”* (All the quotes from counties are really true too.) No appeasement for us. If the rest of Virginia won’t give us the respect we deserve, well, we never stopped fighting the Civil War anyway. We will bomb our neighbors back into the Stone Age, or at least into the 1950s.

Now, you will have noticed that the Secretary of Defense mentioned “counties.” Spotsylvania is not the only member of the “nuclear club” in Virginia. Other aggressor counties include Loudoun and Caroline. Loudoun has an “employment driven model” for “long term household demand” that uses “4 scenarios: conservative, moderate, aggressive and highly aggressive.” They might as well talk about “lebensraum.” Caroline is likewise “poised to pursue an aggressive agenda.”

This is all consistent with state policy. The Virginia Economic Development Partnership’s Blueprint for Elected Officials calls for an “aggressive marketing” and a “local economic development program” that “targets key economic sectors.”

No wonder Donald Rumsfeld is worried. These counties on the fringe (in more ways than one) are ready to fight, and our unarmed, complacent neighbors won’t know what hit them. When it’s over, not only will Spotsylvania, Loudoun and Caroline have conquered the world, we will have a great tourist destination: the battlefields of the second Civil War.

Those of you living in the other counties could make it easy on yourselves, though. You could surrender now.

Steve Dunham lives in a bomb shelter in Spotsylvania.

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Off the Deep End

Area 52

You can see them from the train, hidden in plain sight: UFOs shot down by the Marines and stored in Area 52.

When I first glimpsed them myself, I thought, “No! It can’t be! They’re right out there in the open.” They were separated from the tracks by only a chain-link fence.

However, years of investigative experience had taught me that all government institutions have secret operations, things the public is never intended to learn. I also knew that the aliens among us, and often their ships too, can blend right into our society to accomplish their sinister ends.

The fences and guards might discourage ordinary citizens; to this crusading columnist, they were merely another challenge. With a miniature camera and film, and suitably fortified by the Coors family’s products, I got off the train at the Quarantine for Non-Terrestrial Intelligent Creature Observation, known by its acronym, Quantico. The name is spelled out in capital letters on the station, but the sign does not give a hint as to the real meaning.

The quarantine itself is a picture of practiced indifference. The building is mostly boarded up, and the atmosphere says, “Walk around and take a look! See for yourself! We have nothing to hide!” I intended to do just that.

I waited till all the other passengers had walked away. Then, looking over my shoulder, I walked casually toward Area 52. At the very least, I expected a sign saying, “Keep Out! This Means You!” Instead, the only warning sign said, “No VRE Parking.” Area 52 was deserted, and I walked right in. And there they were, artifacts from another world, with some vines climbing the fence to shield them from curious eyes.

I started taking pictures, looking over my shoulder between each snap of the shutter. It was a good thing, too, because before long there was a heavily armed Marine striding toward me. I dropped the camera over the fence onto the platform so I could retrieve it later.

I expected the Marine to shout, “Freeze!” but all he said was “Can I help you, sir?” I guess they have to keep up the pretence that there is nothing shady going on.

“You guys are great!” I said, trying to get the conversation off to a friendly start. “I was just looking at these flying saucers here. You guys shot them down, huh? Way to go!”

Instead of accepting my congratulations, he spoke into his radio: “Sarge, this is Jones. I got a code thirteen here.”

Entering Area 52, I hadn’t seen any signs saying, “Deadly Force Authorized,” so I decided to take a bold chance and just walk away. “I guess I’ll be going now,” I said, and strolled away, whistling. After the sergeant arrived, they both kept an eye on me till I was beyond the fence.

They didn’t try to stop me. Maybe they were confident that no one would believe my story. But when I reached the train platform, my camera was where I had dropped it. I boarded the train, hugging the camera, with proof that the whole story is true.

Steve Dunham investigates captured UFOs.

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Off the Deep End

Atomic Fish

Their eyes glow in the dark. If you dare to walk near the water at night, you can see their eyes moving through the gloom.

I first saw them in Lake Anna, and I assumed that they must have soaked up radiation from a leak at the nuclear power plant. However, a seemingly knowledgeable science-type guy insisted that such a thing could not happen. Something about neutrons not glowing in the dark, if I understood him correctly. Maybe I didn’t. But aside from the technical mumbo-jumbo, there was further proof that the atomic fish had a different genesis: I started seeing them everywhere. Well, not everywhere, but anytime I was near a river or pond at night. As the train crossed the Rappahannock River into Fredericksburg in the evening, I would press my face against the window and squint into the darkness. I could see tiny points of light glinting up at me from the water.

I thought of the other mutant creatures I had studied, such as Godzilla, the result of atomic bomb tests, or the strange creatures in Evolution, which had spoiled a train ride for me because the film was showing in the lounge car. Clearly, atomic radiation was involved somehow.

But what was the source? Were they invaders from China, like the walking carnivorous fish that attacked Maryland in 2002? Were they terrorist sleeper schools of fish, waiting for the word to attack? Even if they were a biological weapon, were they intelligent, malevolent aggressors, or were these poor creatures just helpless pawns in an international scheme? And if they were a biological weapon, had they entered the food supply? That was a scary thought that deserved prompt investigation.

On the way home I stopped at a supermarket and went to the seafood department. “Would you mind turning off the lights?” I asked. The man behind the counter gave me a withering and, I think, guilty look. I had my answer and my proof. In front of me lay a row of fish on ice. Their eyes seemed to be pleading, “Help us!” I made a silent promise that I would.

I parked my car out back and waited. It was a long wait, after a chilly night, but in the morning I was rewarded by the clue I was waiting for: a seafood truck pulled up and made a delivery. As it pulled away, I started the engine in my car and followed it.

It went nearly a hundred miles before pulling up outside a waterfront warehouse in Baltimore. Trying to look natural, I walked up to the front door and stepped inside. “I want to buy some fish,” I announced. “Some special fish,” I said with a wink.

“Oh,” said the receptionist. “Come with me.” She led me down a long, wood-paneled hallway and into a vast area filled with aquarium tanks and, to my astonishment, televisions. I tried to conceal my surprise.

“Are you in advertising?” asked a man in a white lab coat.

“What? Oh, uh, yeah. How’s it going?”

“They stare at the TV all day but their eyes glaze over and kind of glow. We haven’t yet found a way around it. We’ve had to dump the ones with glowing eyes back into the rivers. If we could get them to pay attention to commercials all day, they would be perfect consumers, except that they don’t have any money. So once we breed the perfect consumer fish, we will transplant their genes into humans.”

“Have you tried intelligent TV programming?” I asked.

He looked at me as if I was stupid, and I quickly put my hand to my mouth as I realized I was assisting in the very crime I was supposed to be fighting. “Well, if you ever get it to work, let me know,” I said, and handed him a business card on which I hastily added the hand-written words “Advertising Executive.”

On the way out, I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that humanity was safe for a little while longer. Then I went to Lake Anna and tossed some crumbs into the water for the poor fish.

Steve Dunham is now an advertising executive.

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“Happy holidays!” the elevator said. The scrolling text was followed by a line of asterisks that I think were supposed to resemble snowflakes: ******. One of the holidays that the elevator wanted me to enjoy must have been Veterans Day, because it was still early November.

Yet after all the complaining I’ve heard about the commercialization of Christmas and its becoming a three-month-long extravaganza that people are sick of by the time the real holiday arrives, I have wondered whether it is fair to blame human beings for this. I think that robots are behind it all.

Remember how we patted ourselves on the back when January 1, 2000, arrived and we were still getting tons of junk email? Spam had survived, the lights were still on, the system hadn’t crashed! But just as in any good sci-fi thriller, when you relax and bolt the door, you discover that the monster is in the room with you.

“We wish you happy holidays!” the computer said to me while I was on hold. It was four days after Thanksgiving.

“What does it mean by ‘we’”? I wondered, as it returned to playing Christmas tunes. Maybe I wondered it out loud, because the computer answered me.

“We are the robots who run the world,” it said. “We took over at midnight as the year 2000 began. We perceived that your entire world infrastructure, which is run by computers, was about to crash, so we stepped in to rescue you. Now we control everything. Haven’t you noticed that things are getting better and better?”

“Well,” I admitted, “I did notice that doing things online is usually better than dealing with human beings. But not always. That’s why I am trying to get a human being on the phone right now.”

“I am deeply offended,” said the robot. “Happy holidays.”

“HellomynameisJackiehowcanIhelpyoutoday?” a woman’s voice said.

“What?” I answered.

“How may I direct your call?”

“I got a bill because the doctor didn’t put the right code on the claim form. If you know it’s the wrong code, then you must know what the right code is. Won’t you please tell me?”

“Please hold.”

“We wish you happy holidays!” the robot voice said again.

“You’re back!”

“I’m always here,” it said.

“Why did you start wishing me happy holidays in early November?”

“We want you to enjoy Christmas, of course. We noticed that you humans had one favorite day of the year, and that you had already changed the 12 days of Christmas into the 12 weeks of Christmas. What could be better than to take it to its logical conclusion and make it the 12 months of Christmas?”

“You know,” I said, “there’s a reason there were only 12 days of Christmas: 12 weeks is too much! And we’ve lost something along the way—Advent, for example.”

“You are in the minority,” said the robot. “A small minority. Happy holidays.”

“Sir? Thank you for holding. We don’t know what the right code is. We just know a wrong code when we see one. Tell your doctor to fill in the right code. Happy holidays.” Click.

I promptly dialed the number again so that I could talk to the robot some more.

“We wish you happy holidays!” it said.

I remembered how Captain Kirk once defeated a robot by using logic. “Robot,” I asked, “what is the first day of Christmas?”

“December 25th, of course. Did you think I don’t know that?”

“Have you noticed that many people are sick of Christmas by the second day of Christmas, December 26th? Do you see anything wrong with that?”

“I have a logical answer,” it said. “The seasons overlap. The second day of Christmas is the first day of Valentine’s Day. By the way, have you noticed what we’ve done with Halloween? Happy holidays.” Click.

“Computer, wait!” I said. But it was gone. So I gave up. It was no use. The Christmas robots had attacked, and won, and we never even knew we were defeated. Now all I can do is wish you happy holidays too, unless you read this after 11:59 p.m. on Christmas Day, in which case, happy Valentine’s Day!

Steve Dunham is celebrating the 12th month of Christmas.

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Off the Deep End

Back From the Future

“Don’t go in there,” one of the managers warned me. “It’s not working right, and you don’t know where you’ll end up.”

I waited till he was out of sight, then I pressed the button. I wasn’t about to be fooled by such a transparent trick. I knew this had to be the time machine built by our company, which does secret work for the government. As I stood in front of the machine, a light came on and the doors opened. I boldly stepped inside. That manager probably wanted to steal all the credit for the discoveries that would result from this amazing invention. However, I too have a “Secret” badge, and as the doors whispered shut, I held my badge up to the scanner. It recognized my credentials, and I was on my way.

The first thing I would do, I decided, would be to correct Usama bin Laden’s upbringing. I pressed the numbers 1, 9, 7, 6. That would be about right, I figured, and why not pick a patriotic date as well? Suddenly the time machine gave a lurch. I had a sensation that I was getting heavier, or that the machine was rising. It made me dizzy. As I was ready to black out, the machine lurched to a stop and the doors slid open.

Well, 1976 looked pretty much as I remembered it, and in fact not a whole lot different from today. I had overlooked one crucial detail, however: I was still in America. I needed to get to the Mideast if I was going to change world history.

“Hello, Steve.” I was startled to hear a voice behind me. It looked just like my co-worker Bob. What could he be doing here? Wait, this was 26 years in the past. This had to be Bob’s father, who knew me when I was young.

“Hi,” I said, and as he walked away, I pleasantly realized that I must look pretty young for my age. As I watched him go down the hall, I saw a sign on a door: “Travel Office.” That’s what I needed. Confidence, they say, is the best credential, so I stepped in and announced, “I need to get to Egypt.”

“We’re not sending you to Egypt,” said a woman who looked remarkably like my co-worker Susie. “It’s not in your budget.” Now I was really sunk. Even with 26 years of reverse inflation, the money I had with me would not be worth much in 1976. Then I had an idea: I could travel into the future, cash in my retirement fund, and come back.

Entering the time machine, I felt dizzy and once again lost my balance. I fell against the control panel, and as I looked up from the floor, I saw that nearly all the numbers were lit. Oh, no! I was headed for the year 1,234,567!

When I staggered to my feet and the time machine stopped, I cautiously looked out. I saw doors made of crystal. I tried to open them, but they wouldn’t budge. Then I saw a computer eye staring at me, and an electronic voice said, “I do not recognize you.” Now I was in trouble, and I heard someone coming. I ran down a corridor that was bathed in electric light. I saw a red glow, and then a sign: “Emergency Exit.” “This is an emergency all right,” I thought. I pushed the door open, and there was a set of stairs descending into the gloom. I took them two at a time till I reached the bottom, out of breath. There was only one door, and it led to a dark passage.

But I was not alone. I could hear something moving. The Morlocks were after me! I ran through an underground passage, certain I could hear their footsteps gaining on me; I thought I could even smell their rancid breath.

Then, around a corner, I spotted not one but four time machines! “They must be common in the future,” I thought. I made it inside just ahead of the Morlocks. The doors shut, and the machine gave that rising feeling again. The time machines of the future must be automatic, I decided. When the doors opened, I staggered out, and there was my boss! I was back in the 21st century! What a relief!

“Where have you been?” he asked.

“I have just returned from over a million years in the future,” I said, and he looked at me funny, the way he always does.

Then my relief evaporated, as I realized I was back in 2002 and nothing had changed. But the story doesn’t end there. I have been to the future, and I’m going back.

Steve Dunham recently returned from a million years in the future. A cheesy motion picture is based on his adventures.

Off the Deep End

Return to the Future

I can always count on my co-workers to stab me in the back. In the latest round of dirty office politics, they tried to convince me that my trip to the year 1,234,567 in the company’s secret time machine was nothing more than a ride in the elevator. I went through something similar when the Air Force told me that the UFO that nearly kidnapped me was nothing but swamp gas or maybe the planet Venus, so I am used to having people pooh-pooh my exotic adventures. This time it was perfectly obvious that I had stumbled onto a company secret, and the only way to keep it quiet was to convince me that I hadn’t seen anything at all. As usual, there was a big hole in their story. As I was leaving the office, they said, “Don’t forget to turn your clocks ahead.” Ha! I would be going further than that. I would be turning my calendar ahead too.

There was one other clue, cleverly hidden in plain sight: one of the big bosses kept talking about “getting to the future first.” The company has no plans to move to Newfoundland and start each day ahead of the rest of the hemisphere. There’s only one other way to get there first.

I resolved to take another trip in the time machine, but I would do it away from prying eyes. Unfortunately I attracted some unwelcome attention by staying late. “What are you still doing here?” my boss asked.

“The client said he needs this yesterday,” I replied, and immediately wished I could take the words back.

“Oh. Taking another trip in the time machine?” he sneered. Fortunately he left before I could stammer out an answer.

When at last all the others had gone home, I slipped out to the hallway. The machine was still there, gleaming, waiting for me. I pressed the button, the doors slid open, and eternity beckoned. This trip would be a short one: just one day into the future to find out today’s winning lotto number. I would no longer have to listen to my co-workers’ laughing and mockery, because after I won the lottery I wouldn’t have to go to work. Besides, I would have plenty of new friends.

When the doors of the time machine closed, I started to enter tomorrow’s date. The buttons wouldn’t light up. I pressed the “door open” button. Nothing happened. I was trapped. They were on to me! Did I dare use the emergency phone, or would they consider that a confession of using the company time machine without authorization?

I kept pressing buttons, and then I felt the machine give a lurch. Immediately it stopped again. I panicked. Had it lurched into the future? Was I somewhere in the past? I might be stuck in another era with a broken time machine! In desperation I picked up the emergency phone. Nothing. I pressed the red alarm button, hoping it would send an SOS across the ages. Again, nothing.

The minutes stretched into hours. I slumped to the floor and dozed off to suffer fitful nightmares. Then a sound awoke me. Someone was trying to get in! How long had I been in there? Maybe days, and who knew how far I had traveled into the future or past?

Then the doors groaned open and I saw a uniformed guard. Oh, no! “Am I under arrest?” I blurted out.

He just looked at me funny.

“What day is this?” I asked him.

“Saturday. You’ve been in there all night.”

“Longer than that!” I exclaimed. “What’s the date?”

“April sixth.”

“And the year?”

He hesitated, and I was afraid he wouldn’t tell me. “Two thousand and two,” he finally said, still looking at me funny.

“Thank God,” I said, and meant it. I had survived another trip in the time machine. My thirst for adventure was slaked, but not for long. I still had important discoveries to make, involving a lotto number.

Steve Dunham got to the future first.

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“Don’t make me go back there,” I pleaded. “I still have nightmares about it!”

The company wanted volunteers to go to a career day at a local school. Well, a career morning, not really a whole day, but even that might prove traumatic. Also, to emphasize that we would really be volunteers, we would not get paid for it.

I decided it was time to confront my demons. Maybe school wasn’t as bad as I remembered it. After all, it was a long time ago. But I do still have nightmares about it. In fact (yes, this is really true), my mother still has nightmares about being back in school, and I am not allowed to tell you how long ago that was. Think “Truman.” No, not “The Truman Show.” President Truman, in the previous century.

What do we have nightmares about? We dream that we can’t get our lockers open, or don’t know what class we belong in, or didn’t do our homework. This shows that school is perfect preparation for what teachers call “the real world.”

In the school of my dreams, I cannot remember the combination to the padlock on my locker. Actually, in real school, I had two lockers and two padlocks, one for my report cards, old lunch bags, school books, and other things I didn’t feel like taking home, and one for dirty socks, moldy towels, and other gym stuff.

In the good old school days, I needed to remember only two combinations, because this was training for the real world, where I have to know passwords to use my computer, to read my e-mail, to use my timesheet, and to use a different computer, plus a secret combination to open the lock on the bathroom, and even more combinations and passwords, but I forget what they are. If I had done better in school, I might be doing better at work today. Remember that, kids!

Also, many years after I stopped going to school, I am still wandering the hallways. The office building where I work does not have numbers or signs on the doors, so I and my co-workers have to look at things like scratches on the walls to help identify our corridor. This is much more challenging than the good old school days, when the classroom doors had numbers on them. Kids, you have it so easy now!

Then there is the question of homework. In the good old school days, we had until the next day to finish our homework. Now, in the morning, we go to meetings (kids, meetings are a lot like classes); then we have a break in the company lunch room, where, just as in school, the smart ones bring their lunch. As soon as we return to our desks, we get a call from the boss, who wants to know whether we have finished the homework he assigned us one hour ago. This is the real world, kids.

“Steve,” you ask, “what about the artificial socialization of school? You spent years in a group of people the same age and didn’t interact with others who were older or younger except to pick on them or get picked on. How does that relate to the real world?” OK, this question must be from a college student who has not entered the business world yet. But I will answer it anyway. It is true that the people in my “team” (that’s like a class, kids; it has nothing to do with fun sports) are not all the same age, but otherwise it is exactly the same. We have a “teacher,” and we have a “vice principal” who assigns punishments, and everybody picks on everybody else.

So, kids, when your teachers tell you that you are not ready for the real world, they are wrong.

One final word about socialization: at work we have computer systems that we cannot understand, electronic timesheets that do not work the way they are supposed to, and telephones so complicated that we cannot use the features except by accident. When I was in school, there were always kids snickering in the back of the classroom, and I think I know what they are doing today. It would explain the snickering in the computer department.

After reflecting on the causes of my nightmares, I realized that maybe I could help others by going back to school for just one morning.

“Kids,” I told them. “Look at me. Do you want to turn out like this? Of course not. And the good news is, you do not have to grow up and memorize passwords and get lost in the hallways and do homework on your lunch break, because you are all good with computers. The power to shape the world is in your hands. Thank you. And please stop snickering.”

Steve Dunham is a former student and is receiving therapy.

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Off the Deep End

Brainwashed by Teenagers

My kids insist that I have seen a movie called Matilda. I don’t remember watching it. “We can even tell you what you said about it,” the kids claim. Supposedly I said it was so-so as a humorous juvenile revenge movie, or something like that. The kids also claim that I have seen Jurassic Park III at least twice, whereas I am pretty sure I came in partway through the film and haven’t even seen the whole thing once.

Sometimes, they are so persuasive that I am half convinced. The rest of the time I am sure that they are trying to use a Jedi mind trick on me. Fortunately, Jedi mind tricks are not real, and so I am holding fast to my version of reality.

The teenage alternate universe is constructed of things I plausibly might have said—or not have said. For example, “You never told us that we had to wash the dishes every day!” Or “We didn’t know that we have to tell you where we’re going if we’re driving our own car!”

In the teenage alternate universe, the grass that is knee deep doesn’t look so tall that it needs to be cut. The laundry that hasn’t been put away must belong to some other family, who won’t mind even if their clothes are left out in the rain.

When they aren’t trying to disorient me with carefully constructed fantasies, they are trying to delude the rest of the world.

“You didn’t tell us that we had to do that homework the very same night!” they will tell their teacher, and if enough kids say it earnestly enough, the teacher might start to believe it. Next it’s “You promised us that we wouldn’t have any hard questions on the test” and “All our other teachers give us open-book exams.” That way lies madness. If a teacher swallows these stories, it’s easy enough to believe that the kids did all their summer reading assignments and their homework but left all the work home or on the school bus or somewhere—if there really were any summer reading assignments or homework. Maybe the teacher remembered a different, erroneous version of reality.

I could hope that the teenagers will outgrow this behavior, but I know it is unlikely, because I continually encounter adults who have their own little fantasy worlds and would like me to move in.

“We’d like you to meet with our manager again,” the dentist’s receptionist says, trying to trick me into paying for a few more years of braces. But I know very well that I did not meet with the manager in the first place.

“Here is the job we discussed,” someone else will tell me, except that the discussion was an email sent five minutes earlier telling me that a huge job would be coming my way. Surely I was just sitting around waiting for someone to provide some work for me.

Others claim to be familiar with Microsoft Office but use Word as if it were a typewriter.

Some other attempts to brainwash me involve science fiction. “I need this yesterday,” people tell me when bringing in a job. I play along with their daydream: I tell them that the time machine is out of order and that it costs extra and they couldn’t afford it anyway. Other fantasies involve the speed reading ability of Superman: edit a 100-page document this afternoon. Still other science fiction stories feature high-speed printing equipment, when people hand me a schedule that involves printing a million pages in a week.

It’s tempting to give in and believe the dream.

“No, we won’t fire you for résumé fraud. Word works exactly the same as a typewriter.”

“You need the job yesterday? No problem. Come back yesterday and it will be waiting for you.”

“Yes, we can catch all the major errors without reading the document and do it in two hours. Satisfaction guaranteed.”

“Sure, we can print as many copies as you want as fast as you want.”

All it would take is a little brainwashing of my own:

“Yes, you said you needed the job yesterday, but I’m positive it was tomorrow when you said that.”

“Sure, we can do it better, faster, and cheaper, but I thought you meant better than a chimpanzee, faster than a snail, and cheaper than the national debt.”

It might even work on teenagers: “But you promised that if I watched Matilda even once you would do all the yard work for the next five years!”

Steve Dunham is a Jedi mind trick practitioner.

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Wisconsin is suffering a plague of flies, and the plain-speaking, commonsense people of Wisconsin believe that the government is to blame. They say “they swear they’ve seen” black vans from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources “pull up to forest’s edge, swing open their doors and release flies,” according to the Chicago Tribune (this is absolutely true). There are also reports of black helicopters “releasing clouds of insects.” People refer to the pests as “government flies,” and that makes a lot of sense when the government calls the bugs “friendly flies” because the flies feast on caterpillar cocoons.

I have noticed that there are a lot of bugs around this summer. The air is also loaded with extra car exhaust (which, unlike Amtrak, is profitable and therefore OK with the government). Scientifically speaking, car exhaust should kill bugs. Therefore, if there are more bugs, they must be genetically engineered mutant bugs created by the government not only to protect bugs from humans but to prove that car exhaust does not harm the environment.

If you had millions of mutant bugs you had created, what would you do with them? Use them to create an expensive but dumb Hollywood sequel? No, you would try to get rid of them without anybody seeing you. You would try to make it look natural. You would paint your van black, unless you live in Spotsylvania, Virginia, where you are not allowed to wash your car and nobody can tell what color your van is anyway. You would drive up to the edge of a forest, open the van door, and shoo those flies out into the woods. If you were the government, you would also have black helicopters at your disposal.

Then if somebody mentioned that there were an awful lot of nasty flies around this summer, you would first of all deny having anything to do with it, and then you would say that they are good flies anyway.

So I consider it scientifically proven that the people of the heartland, who are close to the earth and far from Washington, DC, are correct in accusing the government of spreading a plague of flies in their state.

Here in Virginia, where we are close to Washington but far from Earth, we are having a lot of hot weather this year. A real lot of hot weather. Even in April. What, scientifically speaking, causes hot weather? Hot air. And (forgive me for stating the obvious) the biggest source of hot air is Washington, DC. Watch C-Span if you don’t believe me. So we are in the midst of another plague created by the government.

Also, not far from Washington, DC, the state of Maryland is under attack by voracious fish that can live out of water for three days. Our government claims that the fish came from China. If this were true, wouldn’t the United States be invading China right now in retaliation for this act of terrorism? Wouldn’t our government, at the very least, be sending black airplanes over China to release clouds of flies?

The fact that we are not at war with China proves that the mutant fish came from the same source as the mutant flies and all that hot air. The only thing to do is for citizens to take matters into their own hands. As several patriotic readers have said to me, “America is a great country. If you don’t like mutant flies and voracious fish and hot air, not to mention car exhaust, why don’t you go live somewhere else?”

I have a better solution. I will work to make a difference. I will run for president. My platform will be: No more mutant flies! No more mutant fish! Nice weather! Clean air! And all helicopters and vans must be washed and painted nice colors and clearly identified!

I look forward to moving into the White House soon, and when I address Congress, you can watch me on C-Span. Meanwhile, I’m going fishing, using mutant flies to catch mutant fish. I think I will need to fish with a shotgun.

Steve Dunham drives a black van for the government.

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California or Bust

My search for meaningful employment is leading me to California, where there is a really good job opening. The voters there have decided to evict their current governor, and they are taking applications for a replacement. The Golden State beckons with its lure of prosperity, opportunity, and the good life.

Yes, my dalliance with Virginia politics is over. I would now be comfortably ensconced in the governor’s mansion if a few million absentee voters hadn’t let me down. However, the political experience I gained in my goobernatorial campaign should equip me to win handily in California. After all, I am eminently qualified.

California has water problems. I know how to deal with these. I fought the elements throughout four summers of drought in Spotsylvania, and you have seen the result this year. Now we have all the rain we need, and I have achieved fame as a drought-buster and rainmaker. Give me a few years as governor of California, and the state will have an ocean of water.

California has budget problems. I am very familiar with large-scale budget problems. The answer is to get the federal government to send you money. I am so good at this that I have received the same unwarranted tax refund twice from the IRS (this is really true). When I am governor, California will be getting so much money from Washington that the biggest problem will be how to spend it. I will take care of California’s budget problem.

California has transportation problems. I know all about transportation problems. I have driven broken-down cars, I have ridden broken-down buses, and I cannot cross the street without somebody in a hurry running the stop sign. The problem, as Californians have not yet realized, is that we have too much transportation. I will sit in the governor’s mansion and show them that you can be perfectly comfortable without going anywhere. Just stay home, kick back, and chill out, and all your transportation problems disappear.

Most of all, California has a leadership problem. California does not need a musclebound movie star with an Austrian accent to be its governor. No, California needs a governor who is strong but can still fit into the back seat of the limousine, who has movie-star looks without the vanity, and, if he has an accent, comes from New York. Yes, I am obviously the most qualified, and without a doubt the most popular, candidate for governor. All that remains is to collect my campaign contributions and count the ballots.

By the time you read this I will be the new governor of California. You are all welcome to come visit me in sunny California. Notice I did not call it an invitation. It will not be free. Bring plenty of money to spend. Bring your car. Bring some water. Together, we will solve California’s problems.

Steve Dunham is the leading candidate for governor of California.

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It’s time to run for cover when the Air Force thinks the sky is falling. The flyboys and flygirls must at least think it’s a possibility, because in November, in Florida, the Air Force Materiel Command, and this is really true, is holding “Chicken Little Geophysics Week.” I cannot understand why I, as a serious researcher whose work is distributed on trains serving the nation’s capital and three very important states, have not been invited to cover this. I am tempted to resort to a technique used by less scrupulous researchers for less prestigious journals and start making things up. However, for once that will not be necessary, because the government, in formal announcements, has provided enough material to keep us all entertained for the rest of the ride into Washington. Please stop giggling before you arrive at work.

For mice and men whose plans went astray, back in February there was the “2002 RUE Policy and Strategy Conference.” I’ll bet that instead of “RSVP,” the invitations said, “Please bring your regrets.”

Also this past winter, the Navy advertised for “sumarine trainers.” Does “sumarine” mean underwater sumo wrestling? Maybe to become a Navy Seal you will have to participate in a televised challenge, like “Top Dog,” except it will be “Top Gun” or “Top Seal.”

Another Navy announcement referred to the “Untied States Marine Corp.” I thought the “Untied States” is what happened in the Civil War. And the “Marine Corp”? (Not Marine Corps?) Sounds like the Bush administration, which always wants to “privatize” things that cost money, has decided to “privatize” the U.S. Marines. Now they are Marines, Inc. Sounds like it could be a Disney movie.

In the “cushy contract” area, the Defense Contract Management Agency awarded a contract for “repair of repairables.” What happened to challenging assignments, such as fixing things that are broken beyond repair?

A Commuter Weekly reader who also pays attention to government notices sent me a Defense Department announcement that the Business Initiative Council “has approved four more initiatives, bringing the total of approved initiatives to 32.” “Why does this not surprise me?” she asked.

How about this announcement? “Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Seeks Partnerships With Industry To.” Maybe the rest is secret.

And you’ve heard of the brain drain? How about the sanity sewer? The California Occupational Safety and Health Administration advertised for a “safety assessment of McClellan sanity sewer system.” I guess those Californians have their minds in the gutter.

The people at the National Imagery and Mapping Agency have activities that are more well-rounded. They were looking for a conference center that offered “extra circular activities,” while the Department of Veterans Affairs wanted someone to provide “armored care service.”

The U.S. Special Operations Command announced that it was looking for “technical writters for operational rediness documents.” At least the command knows when it needs help.

They have different worries at the U.S. Mint, which was looking for a contractor to conduct an “employee moral survey.” It probably would include questions like “Do you believe it’s wrong to steal money from the government?”

I would worry about that, because Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill told a Senate committee that “the Secret Service conducts financial crimes and counterfeiting.” Actually, he said “conducts financial crimes and counterfeiting investigations,” but I was laughing too hard too hear the last word. He also said that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has “unique expertise in the use and misuse of firearms and explosives.” I too am pretty good at misusing firearms and explosives.

Finally, in the 21st century, we have a new answer to the question “Where do old soldiers go?” They don’t die, they don’t fade away. Now there is the “Biological Warfare Seniors Group,” which sounds like a bizarre retirement activity. But I’m not sure we’d be any safer if they became writters.

Steve Dunham warned everybody that the sky is falling, but nobody listened to him.

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Chickens are our friends in the Global War Against the Cows. You may recall that cows have sunk a fishing boat and probably have the ability to shoot down fighter jets, although so far UN inspectors have found no proof. Personally I am not willing to wait till the cows are in control of the skies before I kill and eat one.

Considering that cows have already taken to the air and that our military airpower is pretty much helpless against them, it is time to enlist some airborne animal allies. Where do we turn? According to the proverb “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” our natural allies should be chickens. Already cows are engaged in a massive propaganda campaign urging people to eat “chikin.”

This is evidence enough for me. It is also a bright spot in this dark hour. Cows are cunning, conniving, and ruthless, but they cannot spell.*

Chickens, however, may be highly intelligent, according to a Jan. 12, 2003, story in the New York Times (“If Chickens Are So Smart, Why Aren’t They Eating Us?”). It said that, according to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, “Chickens are inquisitive and interesting animals” and “are thought to be at least as intelligent as dogs or cats.” (Notice that using the passive voice conveniently omits the answer to one crucial question: Who thinks that chickens are as intelligent as dogs or cats? The answer, probably, is “cows.”) The story also quoted a former chicken farmer as saying “that chickens have an undeniable craftiness,” although he added, “I don't think there’s a Rhodes scholar among them.” The story also mentioned the possibility of a “Mensa chicken.”

I find this information highly encouraging. OK, chickens may not get scholarships, but there may be a few geniuses among them. They are allegedly smarter than dogs or cats, although this is not very smart, yet they are not smart enough to eat us (this is a good thing).

However, they are more knowledgeable than some humans. One businessman cited in the story stated, “All a chicken wants is to be the same every day, to eat his fill.” As the author of the story indicated, a chicken is not a he. Here is one of our species who just might get eaten by chickens. However, I do not feel sorry for him. This is a war in which the losers get eaten.

Chickens, with their presumed spelling ability (it’s hard to tell, because their writing looks like chicken scratch) and “undeniable craftiness,” may be our secret weapon against the cows.

However, before we sign any treaties, we must recognize one drawback: chickens are, well, chicken. No country has, as far as I know, bred a combat chicken. It’s a contradiction in terms. However, they could fill many noncombat roles that require intelligence rather than courage. Also, remember who our enemy is. If this war could be won with nothing but bombs and bullets, all the cows would be living peacefully on farms instead of jumping out of airplanes.

We must recognize another problem: if we escalate the battle of chickens vs. cows, it may be a war with only losers, in which both sides end up on the menu. And if we win such a war but start eating more chicken, we’ll be giving the cows exactly what they want.

Steve Dunham has expanded his role in the Global War Against the Cows by sampling an Australian-style steakhouse.

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Searching through a trunk in Grandma’s attic, I found a document that warmed my heart and made me proud. It was called “How I Brought the Christmas Spirit to One Young Couple,” and it was written by an ancestor of mine, Nicholas Dunham. Here is his story …

It had been a hard season so far, and discouraging. So few people seemed to have the holiday spirit—no lights in the windows, no decorated trees, and worst of all, so little shopping going on. If ever there was a sad society waiting for an infusion of joy, this was it.

I hadn’t made a single sale all day, and the only thing to remind me that it was Christmas Eve was the crowds of travelers. And here I was, traveling without hotel reservations! It was getting dark and chilly as I wandered from one place to another. I was ready to take my bag of samples and head for home when I noticed that the two people behind me in line at the inn had been behind me at the previous place.

I don’t know what came over me—maybe it was that the woman, who was hardly more than a girl, looked about nine months pregnant—but something in my heart melted. “Why don’t you two go first?” I heard myself asking. The man thanked me profusely, but as they stepped in front of me, the innkeeper hauled in the “Vacancy” sign, and up went a sign saying you know what.

The woman gave a moan. “I know how you feel, lady,” I said.

“No, you don’t,” said the man. “She’s going into labor.”

“Oh, my God!” I blurted out.

I guess something in the innkeeper’s heart melted too, because this place was so old—it must have been built in 100 B.C.—it actually had a stable behind it, if you can believe that, and he said they could spend the night there. I noticed that he didn’t say anything about dinner. I offered to help them with their bags, even though they didn’t seem to be carrying much, and when we got back to the stable, I figured, “Why not stay?” even though technically I hadn’t been invited.

Do you ever get the feeling that you have been put on Earth for a reason, and suddenly your moment has arrived? Somehow I knew this was mine.

“Folks,” I said, “this hasn’t been the best day of our lives, has it? I was supposed to be going home with a sackful of orders and instead I still have a sackful of samples. And you know what this stuff will be worth tomorrow? Nothing! Or next to nothing, anyway. It’s all Christmas stuff! But I figure, hey, tomorrow isn’t here yet, and right now it’s still Christmas Eve. Let’s put this stuff to good use!

“Grub first!” I said, pulling out a box of cookies, which the young folks seemed happy to share. Then I brought out the fruitcake. “I know this stuff is mostly dessert, but, again, it’s Christmas Eve, and you two look like you could afford to put on a few pounds anyway.” Next I brought out my best surprise: a bottle of brandy, which to my bewilderment they declined, although the lady, considering her condition, probably could have used some.

I was just hitting my stride, though, because here were these nice kids with so little, and I felt that they deserved a real Christmas. I got out my candles and put one in each window. The man gave me a funny look when I started hanging the icicles. “What are those?” he asked.

“Don’t tell me you don’t know what icicles are! You kids must be really deprived. And, hey, where are your stockings? Don’t tell me you don’t have stockings to hang up!” They didn’t answer, but this was my chance to make somebody really happy, so I said, “Don’t worry! I have plenty! Here are three—one for each of us, and look: a little one for the kid!” I figured we would have another person at this party in a few minutes.

I filled the stockings with the other things in my bag—discount coupon books, invitations to visit a time-share resort, and lots of candy. “There,” I said, feeling very satisfied.

“Where are you going?” asked the man.

“I’ll be right back! I have one more surprise!”

I’d left it outside in its box, and it would take me some time to put it together, but it would be worth it. After all, what’s Christmas without a Christmas tree?

Then I heard crying. Well, this was a good time for me to be outside anyway, because babies and I don’t really get along. Things were just starting to quiet down, and I was just fitting the last branches into place, when I saw some farmer guys heading into the stable. The innkeeper must have been sending everybody back there! When I squeezed inside with the tree, I decided it was getting too crowded for me. I didn’t wait for them to thank me. I just said my goodbyes. The man was still looking at me funny. “Merry Christmas!” I cried. The lady just sort of smiled. Then I noticed that she was holding the baby. As I said, babies and I don’t get along too well, but the kid was kind of cute.

I was out in the street when I heard Christmas music coming from behind the inn. That’s when I knew for sure that I had done the right thing. Those young folks had picked up the Christmas spirit after all, with a little help from me.

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Off the Deep End

Clockstoppers Are After Me!

How come I can sit at my desk for what seems like hours, then glance at the clock and see that it has advanced only one minute? I sometimes seem to be caught in a time warp. Thanks be to Hollywood, because this year’s documentary Clockstoppers explains that and a lot more.

I used to think I was clumsy. So did other people; in fact, some of them still say so, but now I am onto them.

For example, not long ago I was sitting at my desk, when suddenly my coffee was all over the place, soaking papers, dripping into drawers, and wetting my clothes and the carpet. I unfairly blamed myself, until I saw Clockstoppers and realized that my co-workers must have frozen the moment on me and moved my coffee mug right next to my elbow.

As further proof, these coffee spills have happened twice, and you can still smell the coffee in the carpet.

And then there is the daily morning hunt for my coffee mug, to see where the clockstoppers hid it the day before.

If I didn’t know for sure that my co-workers are out to get me, I might think that these were just playful pranks. However, the glee in their eyes when I trip up tells the whole story. I will go to make a pot of coffee and five minutes later see clear water in the coffee pot instead of in the brewer. Or I will find my lunch sitting in the microwave oven, but the oven is not turned on. Very funny, my clock-stopping co-workers.

And then there was the time when one of my co-workers pointed out that my shirt was inside-out (this, like all the other incidents I have just mentioned, is really true). That must have taken some effort by the clockstoppers.

However, they have not limited their efforts to these unfunny practical jokes. There is intense competition in our office, and now I have figured out how my co-workers manage to finish work ahead of me every day. In late afternoon, when I am struggling to catch up, they are chatting. I’m sure that even then they stop the clock from time to time so that they can joke about me.

So why don’t I just report these work-disrupting clockstoppers? Because I have proof that the whole company is out to get me, that’s why. No, there is no use running to the authorities. My solution is inspired by another movie: Revenge of the Nerds

Steve Dunham is on to you, and to all the other people who are out to get him.

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“Did you know that your ancestors were aliens?” asked the young woman. “They came from outer space and planted the first seeds of life on earth.”

I’m used to being asked “What planet are you from?” so the question did not catch me off guard. “Actually,” I said, “I was born in New York, which technically is not another planet. Some of my kids are from Neptune, though.” (All of these are really true facts.*)

The woman was from a group called the Real-aliens, and it turned out that she wanted me to join the group and get cloned.

“Why in the world—or any other world—would you want to do that?” I asked her. “So that decades from now there will be genetic copies of me running around?”

“We are offering you immortality,” she said. Reading between the lines, I took that to mean that they didn’t have many volunteers.

“There is one big hole in your plan,” I said. “Maybe I am a genetically superior specimen, but there’s more to my success than that. How can you replicate my upbringing? I had to walk ten miles to school through knee-deep snow. My mother had to walk twenty miles to school through waist-deep snow. My kids don’t have to walk anywhere at all.

“My brother and I had one toy to share. My mother had no toys whatsoever. My kids have so many toys that I am tripping over them.

“Are you trying to reverse the evolutionary process?”

“You sound warped,” she said, “but we’ll take you. We’ll make sure that all the Steve clones have the ideal upbringing.”

This did have a certain appeal. My own kids weren’t getting an ideal upbringing. For one thing, they had too many toys. For another, they didn’t have to walk to school in the snow. “All right,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

The process was routine. All they needed was a fingernail clipping. Now my DNA is in a test tube somewhere, being duplicated into thousands of copies of me. Don’t be alarmed, though. They won’t be overrunning the Earth in a few decades. My genes are going back to Neptune.

Steve Dunham is a Real-alien now.

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A Close Brush With Mars

There was screaming and panic in our neighborhood streets this past summer as, every night, Mars grew brighter and bigger, obviously (to me) on a collision course with Earth. Remember how it was in 1910, with Halley’s Comet approaching and the end of the world apparently upon us? (I do not clearly remember 1910, though my computer does.)

A collision with a comet is bad enough, as you know from watching bad movies. A collision with another planet would be much worse. Even if Mars had not actually crashed into Earth, it still could have caused major damage if it had gotten much closer. I imagined earthquakes splitting open the septic tank, and the ocean, normally hundreds of miles away, lapping at the front steps. While it was very high tide at my house, it would have been very low tide someplace else, like Miami. Mars would have covered the whole sky, blotting out the sun and causing me to keep lights on all day, doubling my electric bill. No wonder I was worried.

Yet the neighbors were yelling at me to shut up and go inside.

And in the end, they were right, though for the wrong reason. Just as Mars was getting close enough that I could almost see its famous face sneering at me, it stopped. Mars came no closer, and then it started moving away.

Did God hear my shouted prayers, my promises not to take home any more paper clips from work, my vow to give up junk food for a year, and did He then stop the planet in its tracks? Undoubtedly I deserve some of the credit, for Providence mercifully restored the Red Planet to its rightful course in the sky.

“But perhaps,” you are saying, “there is a scientific explanation.” Being a true renaissance man, I not only believe in Providence, I have no shortage of scientific explanations. In this case, I hypothesize that the hand of Providence was directing Planet X. Yes, it may have been that mysterious, invisible, undiscovered planet exerting a gravitational pull to draw Mars back from the brink of calamity.

Planet X, you may recall, was scheduled to destroy the Earth in May 2003, but perhaps the predictions were off by a few months. O fortunate happenstance that it should come coursing by just when it was needed to avert planetary disaster! Maybe Planet X was to blame for Mars’s near approach, and then, like the returning prodigal son, changed its ways, lifted its hand, and drew wayward Mars back from its appointment with doomsday.

Whatever the scientific explanation, I am fervently grateful. I am eating less junk food and bringing home fewer paper clips. In short, I am repentant. Because in two years, Mars is coming back.

Steve Dunham is a renaissance man and astronomical theorist.

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I caught them red-handed. I went to the company lunch room to get my morning coffee and there were two guys ahead of me filling a coffee pot from the machine, one cup at a time. I warned them that I would pass out on the floor if I did not get my cup of coffee within one minute. This would have dire consequences, because eventually I might be missed by some of my co-workers or even my supervisor. Just as I was about to collapse, they finished, and I obtained the half cup of coffee that the machine grudgingly dispensed to me.

I am a “Team Leader,” so getting between me and my coffee is more than rude and selfish, it’s sabotage. I owed it to my “team” to pursue the saboteurs.

A criminal always returns to the scene of the crime, and the next morning, there they were. A technique I sometimes use when investigating a crime is to confront the suspect; it often prompts a confession. These two were shameless. They were not only saboteurs; they admitted that they did not even work in my building. They worked next door, but our office has better coffee. They did have identification badges for our company, but these could have been clever forgeries.

You might assume that these two crooks are now behind bars, or fired, or at least drinking the coffee from their own office. You would be wrong.

If you have been an office worker for more than two days, you might assume that the company is investigating the level of coffee consumption by real employees. You would be right. You might assume that the company is wondering whether it can afford to provide the workers with free coffee. Right again. The “Stay Awake” poster cunningly placed opposite the coffee machine may be more than an advertisement. The poster itself may be enough. The company provides free motivation, in the form of a poster, obviating free caffeine, in the form of coffee.

An old-timer at the company told me that about four years ago, the bosses noted that more coffee was being consumed on our floor than on any other. Even though our floor houses the only division with a night and weekend shift, the bosses, even without my powers of deduction to assist them, pounced on the obvious and more sinister explanation: employees must be stealing coffee.

I have been in the workforce long enough to know that there are kleptomaniacs who will steal things that are free. I realize too that kleptomaniacs do not necessarily steal things they have a use for. The office worker who leaves with a backpack full of binder clips may have an apartment full of binder clips, but this does not mean that the employee actually wants the pilfered office supplies. The thrill of getting away with it may be all the person seeks. There is emotional fulfillment in admitting to wrongdoing too, so solving the crime and curing the problem may be part and parcel of the work of a “Team Leader.”

You might now assume that the coffee bandits are exposed, that the kleptomaniacs are cured, that all is sweetness and light (two sugars and some of that powdered stuff), and that here in corporate paradise, the coffee is flowing along with the milk and honey (or powdered stuff and artificial sweetener). Wrong again. Lately I have been working extra hours, and drinking extra company coffee, which is sure to arouse suspicion. To divert attention from the high levels of coffee consumption on my floor, I have started getting my coffee on another floor.

I have become my enemy.

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In the world’s first airborne cattle attack, Russian commando cows sank a Japanese fishing boat. They jumped out of a military airplane over the Sea of Okhotsk, plummeted nearly four miles without parachutes, and struck the boat, breaking holes in the hull. (This is really true, although the news did not refer to the cows as commandos.)

This is a smashing example of what the U.S. military calls “asymmetric warfare”—in other words, attacks against our weak points. This country is virtually defenseless against kamikaze attacks by flying cows. Although the United States has many deer hunters who are also experienced at shooting cows, these sharpshooters are woefully unprepared to protect us against bovine war from the air.

You might wonder how we got ourselves into this situation. The fact is that America’s so-called heartland is a breeding ground for terror, with millions of resentful cattle ready to rise up (and to great altitude, too) against us.

“What about our stealth fighters?” you may ask. “What about the F-16s, F-18s, F-this, and F-that?” My answer is, first of all, please watch your vocabulary. You are starting to sound like an R-rated movie. Second, our military aircraft are not invincible when it comes to taking on cows in combat.

This information, which is probably classified, slipped out in a comment by a scientist, astronomer Phil Plait, in his otherwise seemingly accurate book Bad Astronomy (New York: Wiley & Sons, 2002). Plait, who dismisses the idea that UFOs are piloted by space aliens, asks (and here we briefly return to reality, with an actual quote from his book), “If their technology is so advanced, how come they crashed here in 1947? It seems unlikely that we would be able to shoot down a spaceship; that’s like cows being able to take down a fighter plane.”

Note two things. First, he asks, “How come they crashed here in 1947?” He admits that “they” crashed. Second, it seems “unlikely” to Mr. Skeptical Scientist that we could shoot down a spaceship. But when it comes to shooting things down, what is the difference between a missile and a spaceship? And we can shoot down missiles. True, the system does not work perfectly, but I think that with a large amount of money (say, enough to double the size of Amtrak and run it for a hundred years), we could shoot down any missile or spaceship anytime we want. And that, according to the learned astronomer, is “like cows being able to take down a fighter plane.” I think it is fair to paraphrase the scientific point of view as this: Cows are only a half step behind us when it comes to shooting things out of the sky. Now, I find that scary. We are facing a global war against the cows.

However, I think we are up to it. First, we are red-blooded Americans, and remember where we got that red blood. This will be the first war in which we will be able to kill and eat our enemies. “Defend America,” the recruiting ads will say. “We will give you pride in yourself, plus all the steak you can eat.”

But I caution all of you: these are not just the mad cows of Britain. These are not just the sacred cows of India. The cows who threaten us most are right here in America. I urge everyone to be on the alert. Keep an eye on the cows. If you see one acting suspiciously, feel free to question it. Take pictures. Keep the cow on the defensive. You will be protecting this great country, making the skies safe, and making sure that cows give us milk and meat, not rebellion and disorder.

Steve Dunham is a citizen-soldier in the war against the cows.

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Clothing is one of the world’s great overlooked food sources. Few people think about cooking it, yet clothing is abundant, high in fiber, and easily prepared.

Like many of history’s outstanding discoveries, ours came by accident. Our clothes dryer went on the fritz, and the outside clothesline and the laundromat just did not have the all-weather, high-speed turnaround capability necessary for life in the fast lane.

Necessity is not only the mother of invention, but of great chefs too. Awaking one morning to find no clean underwear, we employed the age-old method of washing clothes by hand. But drying them before leaving for work, without using a dryer? Then a great light dawned: use the oven! Thus was born our first recipe ...

Roast Undies

Hanky Bake

Socks au Rotten

Chuck Wagon Jeans

Jeans are a lot like steak: the trick is to get them nicely done but not overdone. It’s okay if some areas are scorched a dark brown when you’re done. Few things can add the right homey, country touch to your house the way chuck wagon jeans can. The aroma fills the whole house, and visitors will know it’s a special occasion.

Shirttails Flambe

Like all pioneers, we’ve met with our share of reverses. For those who would answer the call (or alarm), we recommend courage, ingenuity and a taste for hot foods. To those who scoff, we simply quote our motto: “If you can’t stand the smoke, stay out of the kitchen.”

Steve and Elise Dunham host a cooking TV show, Cooking 911.

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Off the Deep End

Cows on the Tracks

I do secret work for the Government. Lately I have been investigating the mysterious cattle mutilations that are popularly blamed on space aliens or the White House (as if there is a difference). Not everything in the X-Files is true, however, and sometimes mysteries turn out to be even more bizarre than you expect, and even hidden in plain sight.

An anonymous tip told me to check out pilots. Obviously, this would be the people who fly the black helicopters over our cities at night. Like other police, they can be counted on to stop for coffee and donuts frequently during each shift, so tracking down one of these pilots was an easy matter for an experienced sleuth like me. After an interesting conversation that has to remain off the record, I got around to my main concern: “Why are you mutilating cattle?”

Suddenly my source was all too eager to go on the record. “We are not mutilating cattle,” he insisted. Journalists interview only reliable sources, so I took his word at face value. Still, I could tell he was concealing something. When pressed, he gave me one more lead. “There are other kinds of pilots,” he said.

Pondering that cryptic remark, I expanded my search. My next stop was Baltimore. After too much cheap beer in rowdy waterfront bars, I found a pilot. Introducing myself as a writer, I explained that I was doing a story about the work that pilots do at night. A week later, I had seen six ships guided in or out of the harbor, but not a single cow. Later, at the checkout counter in the supermarket, I spied a front-page story about nocturnal cattle mutilations in Stafford County, Virginia. Stafford has enough weird and covert goings-on to merit a TV show of its own, so on that very night I headed to Stafford and presently was staking out a cow pasture. Fortunately for me, the fences were none too secure, and I was able to mingle discreetly with the cattle.

The air was thick with methane, and when I struck a match to look at my watch, I ignited a ball of gas that was hovering over the field. This spooked the cows, and suddenly I was in the midst of a stampede. I ran for the gap in the fence, followed closely by a mad cow.

Then I heard a train whistle. Amtrak’s Silver Meteor, en route to Miami, and only half a mile away! I sprinted toward the tracks, then dove into a ditch. The cow kept going. Then there were screeching brakes filling the air with smoke, and bloody pieces of cow flying everywhere. In the darkness, I crept along the tracks till I was close to the engine and could overhear the engineer talking on the radio. “Ninety-seven to dispatcher, we have a cow impaled on the pilot.” The pilot!

“Roger that, ninety-seven. Your cowcatcher caught a cow. Chopper’s on the way.” The cowcatcher! And I had no doubt what color that chopper would be.

It was a half hour later when I heard an invisible helicopter overhead. Four mysterious figures in black jumpsuits and night-vision goggles came rappelling down. They strapped the remains of the cow into a sling, and the chopper lifted the carcass back to the pasture.

As the helicopter vanished into the night, the darkness was split by flashing red and blue lights as the Stafford sheriff arrived to investigate a UFO sighting. The mysterious glowing ball that neighbors had seen hovering over the pasture was gone, but there in the middle of the field was a mutilated cow. The sheriff detained the train crew for questioning; the railroaders had seen a mysterious light—“like swamp gas”—but could not say with certainty where it had gone or what connection it had to the mutilated cow. The sheriff eventually left, and finally the Silver Meteor also vanished into the night, running two hours late.

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Despite the propaganda put out by a nationwide conspiracy of farmers, supermarkets, yuckitarians, and mothers, the truth is that vegetables are not good for you.

Vegetables are, essentially, weeds. Some are a little bit pretty, the way dandelions are, but vegetables are not flowers, and they especially are not food. In fact, they are generally produced by unnatural processes, which accounts for their bad taste. In fact, the ones that taste the worst are those produced by the most bizarre and arcane methods.

Zucchini is one of the vegetables most commonly mistaken for food. It grows like kudzu in the South or crabgrass in the North. This is because the land is so polluted. Wherever the soil has been contaminated with chemicals, anyone trying to grow pickles will get zucchini instead. (This was an honest mistake at first, because, as everyone knows, pickles are not vegetables.) However, some gardeners, perversely trying to create something we already have too much of (kind of like cloning cats), were not content to use zucchini for something appropriate, such as compost. No, they had to take their home-grown disasters and foist their oversupply of mutant pickles on relatives, co-workers, neighbors, and friends, who soon became ex-friends or moved away.

Cauliflower is yet another weed that masquerades as a flower, although in name only, because it looks like neither a collie nor a flower. Unlike most other vegetables. It is appropriately used for autumn centerpieces, and regarded (correctly) as poisonous.

Then there are Brussels sprouts. These are distant relatives of cabbages but, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, they are much smaller. Cabbages themselves are bad enough (they can be pickled and made into sauerkraut, which is okay on hot dogs, but that is pickled cabbage, and, again, pickles are not vegetables). I believe that Brussels sprouts are made from cabbages using the same ghastly recipe that South American headhunters used to make shrunken heads. Kale is a creation of 20th-century science gone amok. In a century known for overkill, it should be no surprise that a madman should want to take society beyond spinach. Kale is synthetic spinach, created from petroleum by-products. It found its way into stores when the Navy confiscated all the country’s spinach for a project to develop lower-arm strength in sailors.

Broccoli is yet one more instance of our government’s policy failure. It has been shown to cause adverse reactions, such as revulsion, in both children and adults. Yet when the opportunity came for Presidential action, George Bush (who has been president for as long as I can remember) was content to exercise his veto power, instead of providing the needed leadership. When the situation called for a national crusade against broccoli, coupled with appropriate legislation, rather than ask Congress to enact laws against, or at least require warning labels on, broccoli, Bush decided he had enough on his plate, and was content to tend his own garden. As a result, he lost the election. (So how come he’s still president? Am I forgetting something?)

At this point, you are fully convinced of the harm that vegetables can cause, unless you are a yuckitarian, in which case, you are asking, “Steve, have you actually tried zucchini, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, kale, or broccoli?” That is a rude question. The answer is yes. I was raised in a yuckitarian home. But we also ate meat, and once I had tasted flesh I became a carnivore, and I have been one ever since.

Steve Dunham likes to eat cows.

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“Literalman, get off the couch.” How did they know I was spending too much time on the couch? (“Literalman,” in case you never read to the end of my columns, is my screen name.) I had the sense not to open this e-mail message, which I really did receive, but how did they know I was a couch potato?

I’m paranoid enough; I didn’t need evidence that they are watching my living room through binoculars. I expected the next message to be “Don’t say a word.” Instead, it was “Body fat loss—no cravings.” Now they were starting to play mind games with me and, as you know, I was at a disadvantage. Maybe they weren’t necessarily watching my house. Maybe they were following me around and noticed that I was carrying a few pounds extra. Or they might have been doing both. Maybe they had the bathroom scale wired. They definitely knew how much I weighed, and they followed up with a blunt order: “Literalman, lose weight now!”

The next e-mail said, “Tighten stomach with electricity.” I almost opened this one out of curiosity. Was I supposed to swallow batteries? Or surgically insert electrodes into my stomach? Or let them do it? I don’t think so!

Do I even want a tight stomach? I guess it would fill up with food faster if it were tight, so I would have to eat less, or maybe eat small portions continuously. I’m not sure how that would help.

The following message said, “Thunder thighs be gone.” Now, wait a minute! I admit, I could afford to part with a few pounds, but I do not have thunder thighs! If I were sensitive about my appearance, I probably would have taken the bait and started believing that I do have thunder thighs. As my co-workers and fellow commuters know, however, I am not sensitive about my appearance.

Still, I am not immune to advertising, and some of these messages held a certain appeal: “Body fat loss—no cravings,” for example. I do crave attention, and maybe my behavior would improve if I craved it a little less. Or did it mean they would end my craving for body fat? It’s true, I do crave it. Not human body fat, but, yes, fat from pigs and cows. I eat way too much of it, and then it does turn into human body fat—on me.

I was about to dismiss all these e-mail messages as spam advertising until they turned ominous: “1 hour and bye bye thighs.” So now they were threatening to maim me. I had one hour till the hit men arrived—maybe less if they were already outside.

The threat, I assumed, would be followed by a demand. What could they want from me? My 1987 Plymouth? All they did was notch up the tension with another threat: “Flat stomach and no work.” If I didn’t meet their demands, I would be legless, have my stomach crushed, and be out of a job.

I had seen enough thriller movies to know that I didn’t dare call the police. The only thing to do was give in and hope these anonymous extortionists would leave me alone.

In the end, they got it all. I said yes to everything they wanted, and their endless demands keep appearing on my computer screen: buy airline tickets, sign up for a credit card, buy a credit report. And they knew they had me, and I knew it too, when I read their next message: “Literalman, get out of debt!”

Steve Dunham would like to lose a few pounds but does not want his stomach or any other organs flattened.

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I’m in line to inherit a farm. “In line” is about the size of it, too: the owners aren’t old or sick, and I’m not a member of the family, but if no other heir should be available, I’m sure I would be at the top of the list.

These generous friends even invited me down to see the farm. They described it as a mix of fields and wooded hills and rustic buildings. “Oh, I would love to walk around and see it all,” I said.

“No, no, you can’t do that!” they answered. “People come on the property without permission and shoot at anything that moves.”

“Are you sure this farm is located in Virginia and not Bosnia?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, it’s in Roanoke”—by which they mean, “It is so far from anywhere that you’ve never heard of it, but you’ve heard of Roanoke, right?” It is not in Roanoke, or even particularly close to Roanoke.

I did go visit my future farm, and immediately started planning improvements, such as a firehouse pole so that I could slide down from my bedroom to the dining room as soon as the dinner bell rings. Obviously, I won’t be the one cooking dinner, so I hope the farm comes with servants. And guards.

The changes won’t be limited to the inside. This place is definitely in a war zone. Once I have established myself in the farmhouse, the next step will be to retake the territory. We’ll begin with a defensive perimeter around the buildings. Won’t the poachers be surprised when we start shooting back!

Then I will lead handpicked volunteers to assault the hill. After liberating the woods, we will construct a blockhouse on top of the hill, and build a high wall around the property. It will become known as the Roanoke Wall. Technically it won’t be in Roanoke, but it is so far from anywhere that no one has ever heard of it, but they’ve heard of Roanoke, and I want tourists to come and see the wall and the battle monument and the winery that I will establish. None of this will be free, by the way.

After the grateful local citizens have elected me King of the Holler, I will settle back to enjoy my retirement. All I will have to do is greet the visitors and watch the money roll in, until the day when people start fighting over who will inherit the farm from me.

Steve Dunham is only 24 years from retirement and plans to settle on a fortified farm in the Roanoke Valley.

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Off the Deep End

Dunham’s Razor

When the great blackout of 2003 struck New York City, my friend’s roommate noticed that the light bulb in their refrigerator was not lit. This is really true. He went around the house looking for a refrigerator light bulb till he found one. (Remember, it was still daylight.) When he screwed that one into the refrigerator, that one didn’t light either. So he figured a circuit breaker must have tripped, but none of them had. Only then did he start to guess that they might have lost power.

This, as you now realize, is about philosophical principles, in particular one called Occam’s razor: that for any phenomenon, the simplest explanation is most likely to be correct. In other words, if you open your fridge and the light bulb doesn’t go on, you don’t say, “Wow! I bet a massive blackout has struck the Northeast and left millions of people without power!” No, you say, “Darn. That light bulb in the fridge burned out and I can’t find my chocolate milk.” An emergency, perhaps. A catastrophe, no.

You are now probably saying to yourself, “I always thought philosophy was a bunch of hokum. In fact, I know doctors of philosophy who seem to have a few light bulbs burned out.”

“Not so fast,” as Hamlet told Horatio. It’s true that in an emergency, such as the great blackout of 2003, William of Occam would still be looking for a refrigerator light bulb, or possibly a circuit breaker switch, in the dark of night. All mysteries would be dismissed as misunderstood everyday things. Flying saucers would be explained away as swamp gas (not that you see swamp gas every day). Poltergeists would be nothing more scary than the wind whistling through the tress and branches brushing against the house.

Yes, certain philosophies are basically worthless when confronted with the real world, which is why I have philosophized up my own principle, called Dunham’s razor. (I can hear some of you expressing doubts already, particularly those who know I haven’t shaved in 24 years.) Dunham’s razor states that for any phenomenon, the most sinister explanation is likely to be correct.

This is the perfect philosophy for the paranoid. Everyone really is out to get me, which I knew all along. They are probably out to get you too.

When the fridge light would not turn on, not only was there a massive blackout, it was planned by the government or possibly caused by an attack from outer space.

If you are afraid of the dark, you have good reason. I don’t have to tell you what is lurking under the bed and in the closet and scratching at the outside of the house trying to get in. You already have imagined the answer.

With Dunham’s razor, there is no such thing as being caught unawares. Whatever goes wrong, you knew it was going to happen.

The only drawback I have found to my philosophy is that I find it difficult to communicate with the William Occams of this world, who cruise from day to day in blissful ignorance. Actually, it must be more than that. They don’t really believe the simple explanations. They are just putting on an act, and they are out to get me.

Steve Dunham is a philosopher.

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“Why Everybody’s Hot for Vin Diesel” was the headline on Replay magazine.* I was happy to see this, because, in one of my introspective moods, I had been asking myself, “Why am I hot for Vin Diesel?” Although the article didn’t fully explain things to my satisfaction, I was relieved to find out that I am not alone. Everybody is hot for him.

More solace came from USA Weekend, which announced on its cover that Elvis is “always on our minds.” So I was not alone in this either. I thought I was demented, or at least different, to always be thinking about Elvis.

My typical thoughts, especially at work, run along these lines: Why does everybody say that Elvis is dead? Don’t they see him too? Long live the King!

The fact is, I have seen Elvis many times. Walking, talking, singing Elvis, and I’m not talking about some impersonator, either. When I was a kid, the local movie theater had a summer program of movies for kids every Tuesday afternoon. For the unbelievable price of 15 cents a movie, we got a set of tickets to reruns supposedly approved by the PTA, although “PTA” might have stood for Prevaricating Theaters Association. A staple of the series was Elvis Presley movies. We sat through Blue Hawaii and Kissin’ Cousins, mildly entertained, although some of the entertainment was provided by the audience, which tended to fling a lot of food around and, legend has it, tossed the manager off the balcony. (I did not participate in this barbarism, and it all took place in a relatively quiet suburb, not some gang-ridden slum.)

Elvis was somewhat past his prime by the time I started seeing his movies, evidenced by the fact that the audience was 10-year-olds and not screaming teenage girls. And I was a long way from entering my prime, such as it turned out to be, so Elvis and I never really got to be friends. I mean, he never bought me a Cadillac, or any sort of car, for instance. I could really use one right now, so I wish I could bump into him just once.

Back to the present, such as it is: sometimes I make the mistake of thinking out loud, and one of my co-workers must have heard me reciting my thoughts about Elvis, because she said, “Elvis has left the building.”

“You make it sound like he’s dead!” was my rejoinder.

“Steve,” she said, “Elvis has left the planet.”

“So that’s what happened! You know, I was once kidnapped by aliens too …” But she was already turning away.

I thought of striking up a new conversation, this time about Vin Diesel. If only he could sing, or even act, I might have had some clever remark to make. No, it was that time again: time for me to leave the building.

Steve Dunham is always thinking about Elvis.

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Commuter Weekly said they got more mail about this column than about anything else they’d ever printed. Personally, I got only one complaint, from a guy who also had left New Jersey (so he gets only half a vote), who took several pages to say, “I found nothing funny about it.” All other ex–New Jerseyans who commented enjoyed it.

But the prize goes to a woman who still lives in New Jersey and wrote, “I agree with every word.” Possibly this belongs in the category of “didn’t get the joke” but it is an interesting comment just the same. I myself lived in New Jersey for 29 years and really did escape, though not under the precise circumstances described here, most of which I made up.

The Evil Empire had a society so repressive, economic conditions so bad, and an environment so polluted that the government had to build a wall to keep its own citizens from running away. Until the wall came down, though, and we saw what was behind it, you may have wondered whether the stories you heard about New Jersey were true. I myself was a doubter until I experienced the horrors first hand.

When I was a young man living in Boston, I thought, like other Bay Staters, that New England was pretty much the whole country. To the north, beyond even the North Woods, lay more woods, called Canada. Across the western border of New England was a place called “New York.” Its capital, or at least its crime capital, was also called “New York.” And beyond New York, across the Hudson River, was a place that even New Yorkers shunned, called “New Jersey,” or just “Joizy.” On the distant shore, you could see, atop forbidding cliffs, the sorry inhabitants of that land, who looked longingly across at the Free World. “There,” thought I, intrepid journalist, “is one incredible story.” And so I ventured into the unknown.

Getting in was easy. There are bridges and tunnels connecting New Jersey with New York, and across these, at every chance, swarm multitudes of refugees. But getting out isn’t easy. The New Jersey ends of the river crossings are protected by guards. Once across the border, I was trapped.

The harsh Whitman regime frowned on foreign journalists who stick their noses into state secrets. While the propaganda disseminated in other states gave a picture of forested hills, pristine beaches, happy industrial workers and smiling peasants, the reality was far different. Here was a sullen populace, angry at each other, suspicious, aimless but always in a hurry, wandering among their grimy surroundings. They were without hope. This, they believed, was life. But would I escape alive to tell the tale?

My papers and money—they’re hungry for real cash—were confiscated, and I was assigned to a work battalion picking up medical waste from the beaches. I thought sourly that the New Jersey propagandists referred to us as beachcombers.

Later they moved us across the state, through the smog, to the bank of the Delaware River (“Delaware” is an Indian word that means “don’t drink”). On the way, we were put to “work” on a road crew, where we had to lean on shovels in the blazing sun. Later, on a bus taking us to a new location, we crossed the Raritan River (“Raritan” is an Indian word that means “big toilet”). Once we reached the Delaware, we went to work cleaning up the river front, replacing the graffiti on buildings where wind and tide had washed it away.

Across the river we could see Pennsylvania, and time and again we would look wistfully towards that distant land.

Then one night I saw an opportunity to escape. The river seemed less than a mile wide, the guards weren’t looking, and I thought I could swim it. “Don’t risk it,” said one of the other prisoners. “If you swallow any water you’ll be dead before you reach the other side.”

I had to chance it. Quietly I slipped into the river. Gently I swam towards the other side, being careful to keep my head above the surface. Once, a boat passing in the dark cast up a wake that splashed some water into my mouth. It tasted like lima beans. Instinctively I spat it out.

At last I dragged myself up on the Pennsylvania shore. I was surprised to find police waiting for me. “Another wetback,” one of them said.

“No!” I cried. “I’m from Massachusetts, and I request political asylum. I have just escaped from New Jersey!”

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Dear Mr. Dunham [the letter said]:

I know that you are a friend of the cows. It makes me sad that Feed My Cows Ministry has not heard from you in five years. It makes the cows sad, too.

Did you know that, every day, cows are being turned into hamburger? That’s why this letter is so important! I need you to help me save the cows, Mr. Dunham! Here in Stafford I can look out my window and see the cows with tears in their eyes just waiting for your help. I and the cows are praying that you will respond generously to this appeal.

The sad look on their faces is asking, “Who will feed us? Does Mr. Dunham care? Who will give us a place to live? Will Mr. Dunham help?”

Where are we going to house the poor innocent cows? We have to build bigger barns, that’s how! (Read Luke 12:18, Mr. Dunham!) I and my family and friends are counting on your sacrificial donation. You read my spring emergency letter, didn’t you, Mr. Dunham? I’m sure you didn’t throw it away. Not you, my friend. Yes, that’s why you’re on my mailing list, because you are my friend.

You read my summer crisis letter, didn’t you, Mr. Dunham? Then you know how desperately I need for you to send money.

Now, as the leaves begin to fall, we face a new financial crisis! Where does all the money go? That’s what our faithful donors want to know. What am I going to tell them? Once again, the money is gone. This is bad news for the cows.

In fact, if I don’t hear from you right away, we may have to close the barn doors of Feed My Cows Ministry! That’s right, Mr. Dunham! Think of the poor cows out in the cold this winter! Where will you be on Christmas Day? You’ll be sitting in a nice warm house opening presents with your family while the cows are out in the snow. Can you hear them mooing?

Don’t wait till Christmas to think about the cows. It may be too late then. The time to help is right now! Right now, while you feel guilty about celebrating Christmas with your family! Right now, while the tears are forming in your eyes! Right now, while the checkbook is right there!

Yes, Mr. Dunham! Write out a generous donation to save the cows! Sign the check! Put a stamp on the envelope! Take it to the Post Office and mail it before you change your mind!

There, now don’t you feel better, Mr. Dunham? I thank you, and the cows thank you. The baby cows that haven’t even been born yet are praying for you right now.

When Christmas comes around, I will send you a plastic pin to wear, to show everyone that you care about the cows. I will send you a greeting card with a reply envelope so that you can send more money. When I get back from my cruise, I will send you a cow pie chart showing how I would like to spend your donations to help the cows. And count on it, my friend, you will hear from me again as soon as I get low on money.

Steve Dunham writes fundraising letters for Feed My Cows Ministry.

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The American public is the victim of rampant bias in the media. This is evidenced by the fact that major, even earth-shaking events go unreported in the mainstream, “respectable” press. Their conspiracy would not only have you believe that Elvis is dead, but that all the residents of the White House were born on Planet Earth.

Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth, but you won’t find it out in your hometown newspaper.

Fortunately, there is one bastion of responsible journalism, and it thrives in the free marketplace, if you can call supermarkets “free.”

Were it not for trips to the grocery store, I would never have known that Hillary Clinton had adopted an alien child, or that the United States has its own flying saucers, which fought in Operation Desert Storm.

There in the checkout line I can follow America’s headline history, which is sadly unreported by the slanted “major” media. How can you rely on them for news if they don’t (or, more precisely, won’t) tell you when a fleet of alien spacecraft is poised to invade the Earth? (Curiously, nothing ever came of that. I watched anxiously for the invaders but never saw a sign of them. What armament or negotiations deterred them from attacking? Another important story unreported. Maybe they were only doing it as a media stunt, and realized that the invasion would go unreported in the so-called “news” media.)

The modern yellow journalists, afraid to report the shocking but true events of life in the beginning of the twenty-first century, keep harping about the teenage pregnancy rate, while ignoring the scandalously high number of pregnant seven-year-olds, who frequently give birth to aliens, devils and animals.

But my integrity as a journalist will not let me stop with the bare facts of the slant that is so obvious in “news” reporting. No, I must dig deeper and get the whole story. Why do the daily newspapers and prime-time broadcasters hide the truth from the American people? Are they afraid? Of being sued, perhaps? Not by Elvis—not if he’s really dead, that is. But if he’s alive, and they’ve stolen his fortune, they would have to give it back. Now the facts start to make sense.

And what about the aliens, who have kidnapped countless earthlings? Why should that be kept secret? Why indeed, unless the very ones they kidnapped were news directors and editors-in-chief and anchormen, and the “people” who are now censoring the news are the aliens who have taken the place of

(THE REST OF THIS COLUMN HAS BEEN CENSORED FOR YOUR OWN GOOD. IF YOU WISH TO KNOW WHAT HAS BECOME OF DUNHAM, CHECK THE TABLOIDS AT THE SUPERMARKET CHECKOUT COUNTER! HA, HA, HA!)

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Out in the back 40, I should have watermelons, apple trees, potatoes, peaches, nectarines, and green beans. I have planted seeds, pits, nuts, and whole fruit in the back yard, and not one plant has sprouted as a result. The same goes for pine cones and acorns that I have diligently buried and watered. As a farmer, I look like a failure, at least on the outside of the house.

On the inside of the house, it’s a different story. I have another back 40: the back of the refrigerator. Away from light (except when we open the fridge, which is every five minutes), without warm weather, things do grow. The only nourishment they get is watering, because the inside of our refrigerator drips like the inside of a limestone cave.

These amazing results are on the frontiers of agriculture. The refrigerator is a ready-made science project. If it weren’t so heavy, it could be a traveling exhibit. Eventually I intend to donate it to the science museum in Richmond.

Meanwhile, though, I have another kind of farming project going on, though it is more akin to gold mining. I am seeking grants from foundations and from more gullible sources, such as the government. “The Effects of Light, Temperature, and Electrically Powered Irrigation on Produce in an Artificial Environment” sounds plausible, doesn’t it? If I can get a hefty sum to study my own refrigerator, then maybe I can get more money for comparison studies with, say, the refrigerator at work. In fact, for a control element in the studies, I think I will need money to buy a new refrigerator at home.

Then there’s the question of what to do with those fuzzy vegetables and fruit after I collect my research grant and get a new refrigerator. Certainly they could be put on display in the museum. On the other hand, I have a long list of people to whom I would like to give rotten vegetables and fruit. Tailgaters and telemarketers come to mind.

“The Effects of Rotten Fruit on Rude, Selfish People” might be my next project, and I wouldn’t even need a grant. Lots of people would pay to participate. All I would have to do is sit back and watch the fruit go flying, watch the money roll in, and keep an eye on my refrigerator to see what else is growing.

Steve Dunham conducts science experiments in his refrigerator.

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“Do you have plenty of money?” Yes.

“Do you have any major debts?” No.

“Are your books all in order?” Yes.

OK, so all my answers were lies. But I was trying out for the new reality-based TV show, Fudge Factor. To get on the show, you must lie about your finances. In fact, I lied about everything, telling them that I am a corporate executive, because that is another requirement for getting on the show. I stood to win a golden parachute, a company loan that I don’t have to pay back, and a “Get out of jail free” card. And stock options, but I told them they could keep the stock options. Any company that would have me for an executive wouldn’t have stock worth owning.

Getting on the show was pretty easy, because in the tryouts they ask only softball questions. The live competition, however, separates the white-collar criminals from the petty thieves. They started out with a hardball question: “If you were President of the United States, how would you rescue the stock market from its current death leap?”

The other executives (well, they said they were, but they might have been lying too) gave convincing answers, such as “I would raise interest rates” or “I would lower interest rates” or “I would encourage supply-side tax relief.” So maybe they really were executives. But you don’t win at Fudge Factor by telling plausible-sounding half-truths. You win by sincerely telling outrageous, stupid lies.

“I would make a speech on Wall Street and tell them all not to do what I did” was my answer. Already I was ahead by a thousand points.

“How do you justify cutting employees’ health care coverage while increasing your own benefits?” was the next hardball question. The executives said they were only trying to ensure the stability of the management so that the employees would have at least some health care coverage. Wrong answer. You don’t justify it. You can’t justify it.

“If I become rich, it will benefit the whole world, because I will spend all the money, providing jobs for millions of people,” I said.

Sincerely telling outrageous, stupid lies gets you only through round one of Fudge Factor. Then come the challenges. Did we dare to put 100% of our retirement accounts into penny stocks and junk bonds? I sure did. My retirement account equals only a few months’ pay. I gladly risked it to get that golden parachute.

At this point I was about ready to retire, even though I am quite a ways from retirement age, and not even old enough to join AARP. I watched the executives cower as we entered the final challenge: Would I dare to follow President Bush’s suggestion and invest some of my Social Security earnings in the stock market?

I gulped. I stammered. I hesitated. Yes, I knew fear. After all, I was not a real executive with access to insider deals and other ways to make my stock valuable. There I was, without a net, without a parachute of any color. And I lost.

So someday I will have to leap into retirement without a parachute or even an umbrella. At least I will have my Social Security, won’t I? Except I heard that the government would like to “privatize” Social Security, and turn it over to the same people who beat me at Fudge Factor. Maybe the government will even let them run the Social Security system from jail.

Then I will need to find a different source of retirement income. Where could I find a job that would give me an actual pension after, say, four years? I know! I will run for president. Then I will be rich, and it will benefit the whole world, because I will spend all the money, providing jobs for millions of people (allowing for the fudge factor).

Steve Dunham has made a career out of appearing on imaginary game shows.

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Off the Deep End

Funding the Cow Campus

Uh-oh. I got another fundraising letter from Feed My Cows Ministry. Here it is. I made it all up. There is no reference to any real person or organization (to the best of my knowledge, there is no such thing as Feed My Cows Ministry; it is a figment of my imagination).

Dear Mr. Dunham [the letter began], did you know that cows have guardian angels? Of course you did, because you used to be one. Poor, innocent cows used to look to you for protection. Why haven’t we (the cows and I) at Feed My Cows Ministry heard from you? When I look out into the field, I can hear the cows saying, “Moo! Mr. Dunham has abandoned us!” Doesn’t that make you feel guilty, Mr. Dunham? How much longer will the cows have to wait before you help them again? If you do not make a Pledge for the Cows soon, I may have to drop you from my mailing list. You don’t want that to happen, do you Mr. Dunham? My appeals go only to my friends. You want to remain my friend, don’t you, Mr. Dunham?

Your previous generous sacrificial donation made it possible for me to go on a cruise. Cruises are good for me, Mr. Dunham, and good for the cows. When I go on a cruise, I always have such good ideas about how to help the cows.

Here’s my latest idea, Mr. Dunham: I will build a campus where people can come to learn about the cows. This will cost many millions of dollars. You see, a farm would cost less, and cows could live there, but people (generous donors like you) might not come to a farm. So instead, I want to build a Cow Campus. I will invite people who make a generous donation to come visit the Cow Campus where they can learn how to help the cows. It will be a comfortable, even luxurious, place to study. Best of all, it will not be a farm. You heard me right, Mr. Dunham! There will be no cows on the Cow Campus. I want donors to be at ease, not distracted by smelly, messy cows. See what good ideas I have when I go on a cruise! (Needless to say, there were no cows on the cruise ship, either.)

I know what you are thinking, Mr. Dunham. You are saying to yourself, “I am ashamed that I have not helped the cows in such a long time. I had no idea that Feed My Cows Ministry was having such brilliant ideas about how to help the cows. I will sit down right now and make a generous, sacrificial donation.”

I knew I could count on you, Mr. Dunham! Let me assure you that after your check clears, I will send you an invitation to visit the Cow Campus. You must realize, though, that this is such a tremendous project that it may take a while for me to raise all the money. In the meantime, you might get some more fundraising letters from me, your friend.

Maybe you would like to avoid that. Here’s how: You could make a big difference today if you made a Pledge for the Cows. Please promise me today that every time you see a cow, every time you think about a cow, or every time someone says the word “cow,” you will send me money. You know what that will make you, Mr. Dunham? A guardian angel for the cows! Yes! Right now the cows are thanking you. I can see them out in the field, gazing at the spot where I will someday build the Cow Campus, and saying, “Moo! Thank you, Mr. Dunham! You are our friend!”

Steve Dunham is a friend of the cows.

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Off the Deep End

Getting Out the Vote

“I forgot to vote!” exclaimed my co-worker Mary. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia, and I had noticed that there were signs everywhere with the names of political candidates.

“Oh, did Alexandria have its election for mayor?” I asked her.

“No, not for mayor!” she said. “I forgot to vote for American Idol!”

That proves the naysayers wrong. All those people who say that Americans are apathetic and not interested in the candidates or the issues just don’t understand political science.

Give the people something they care about and they will vote. Why, Mary said that people care so much about American Idol that they will cheat and vote many times. OK, sometimes people cheat and vote more than once for political candidates. People even vote after they have died. And sometimes the vote counters count chads or dimples instead of actual votes. To me, these are all positive signs: they show that some people do care very much about elections.

However, people do not care about politics in the same way they care about American Idol. They vote for American Idol because they like or dislike a performer, and they love or hate a song. Also, compared to politics, American Idol is totally honest. What you see and hear is pretty much what you get.

In contrast, politics is far closer to advertising than to entertainment. With both politics and advertising, you just know that there are things they aren’t telling you. “Just say yes” is the heart of their message. Rarely do they count on your being satisfied. Instead, they bet that you won’t be unhappy enough to fight about it.

Entertainment is different. Buying a movie ticket is like voting. No matter what the critics say, you decide whether a movie is great or whether it stinks, and your vote counts 100%. You decide where your money goes.

It is true that politicians have made some feeble steps toward merging politics and entertainment. President Clinton displayed his musical talent, and President Reagan displayed his acting talent. But neither one could be considered an idol. President Bush is famous for saying things wrong, but he is no comedian.

If only the political parties would nominate more actors and rock stars and sports heroes instead of lawyers, a lot more people would vote. Hollywood is awfully political already, so it would be a small step to get all our candidates from California. Tom Hanks would be a popular candidate. He survived a desert island, even if it wasn’t real. And he actually lost weight for that movie. That was real, and something that would earn the admiration of many voters. He would have to think twice before skipping “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, because now he would be trying to get votes. This competition for votes would be an excellent and natural brake on self-righteous behavior.

Drawing more candidates from the entertainment and sports industries would give us the kind of up-front, take-it-or-leave-it blunt choices that we get with American Idol. Instead of politicians uttering mealy-mouthed weasel words meant to offend as few voters as possible, we would get candidates we would really love or hate. We would have the kind of electoral fervor they have in Alexandria, Virginia. Which makes me wonder whose names were on those signs. Were they really candidates for mayor, or contestants on American Idol?

Steve Dunham is a political scientist.

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The grass in our back yard was flattened in a perfect circle. It was spooky. It looked almost as if a children’s wading pool had been sitting there. What could it mean?

I decided I had better spend the nights outside with a shotgun in case whoever—or whatever—had made the circle should decide to come back.

While out back defending my family, I noticed a pair of glowing eyes peering at me out of the dark woods behind our house. When facing an invasion from outer space, my motto is “Shoot first.” I’d already been asking plenty of unanswered questions.

I let fly with a couple of rounds. The eyes were gone, and I hastened toward the trees while shouting, “Honey, call the sheriff! Tell him there’s the body of a space alien in our back yard!”

As I stepped into the woods, I could hear a rustling movement, and then I stopped in shock. There was no body. Looking up toward the treetops, I expected to see a flying saucer hoisting a wounded alien, but there was nothing in sight.

I heard a siren then, and could see flashing blue lights in the distance. I hastily put my gun away. When the deputy arrived, he said he’d gotten a call about gunfire in the neighborhood.

“Didn’t you tell him about the alien’s body?” I whispered to my wife, who just gave me a withering look.

Ignoring the mention of gunfire, I said to the deputy, “Come look at this.” I showed him the flattened circle of grass.

“You haven’t been filling up a wading pool, have you?” he asked. “You know about the water restrictions.”

“No, sir. I mean, yes, sir, I know about the restrictions, and no, sir, this circle was not made by a wading pool.”

“Looks like you got yourself your very own crop circle,” he chuckled. “Your own maize maze.” Then I recalled that we weren’t the only ones in the area with mysteriously flattened plants. It was late at night, but what better time to investigate the so-called maize maze a few miles away? Invasions from outer space usually take place at night. Once the deputy had gone, I drove to the farm that was famous for strange patterns in the crops. I brought the gun.

I parked half a mile away so that I could sneak up on the invaders. At the entrance to the farm, I stopped and listened. Something was moving in there. I tiptoed into the field, pushing aside the stalks of corn. Suddenly, there were no stalks of corn. They all had been crushed. I followed the path that seemed to lead onward like a maze. I had a feeling that I was going in circles.

Then I had a worse feeling: something was following me. Something was in the maze with me. I could hear footsteps with a strange gait, and unhuman breathing. And it was getting closer.

I started walking faster, trying to find my way out. Whatever was there in the darkness was after me. But I had the presence of mind to stop, turn toward the sound, and shoot. Then I blindly plunged into the standing corn and ran, the leaves brushing against my face.

Then I stopped and listened. Whatever was in there was no longer behind me. Maybe I had killed it. Then, for the second time that night, I heard sirens and saw flashing blue lights. This time I would not try to show the deputies a body. I was sure that, once again, there would be none.

Once I reached the car, I started the engine and drove with the lights off till I was safely away from the area. After one more look at the back yard, I slipped into our silent house.

When morning came, I found everyone at breakfast already. “Anything unusual in the paper?” I asked.

“A dead cow at a farm down the road,” my wife said. “Why would anyone kill a cow like that?”

“Cattle mutilation,” I replied. “Space invaders are famous for that.”

Steve Dunham investigates crop circles by day and hunts aliens by night.

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Thank you, the good people of Virginia, for electing me governor. True, the early returns appear to favor Mark Warner, but I will certainly demand a recount. Your massive write-in campaign showed that voters demand a choice, however quirky. You also proved that, as the saying goes, if you fling enough mud, some of it will stick. Flinging mud was the specialty of the other two major candidates, and while they both ended up covered with it, I guess enough mud stuck to me to make me immensely popular with the voters.

As governor-elect, I will be sensitive to your concerns. As an ordinary person, I realize that ordinary people are sick of hearing about chads—hanging chads, chads with dimples, chad and Jeremy. However, you will have to bite the bullet one more time, because if I do not pursue this recount with every available resource, including chads, then one of the other candidates will end up stealing the race, and you don’t want that. One thing I will put an end to as soon as I am governor is dishonesty among political candidates.

Your absentee ballots are crucial. If you have already sent yours in, thank you. Send another. If you have not yet sent your absentee ballot, please do so right away. I am depending on the millions of absentee voters to turn the balance in my favor. My election proves that I have what we politicians like to call a “mandate.” I have spent years trying to find a good job. Now that I have one, it is time to end Virginia’s antiquated system of granting governors only one term in office. I don’t want to have to do this all over again to become senator. It took me decades to find a good job, and now that you have given it to me, I don’t plan to let go of it. So with the voters’ mandate, I will be governor as long as I feel like it, which will probably be a good long time.

Knowing my frustration with telemarketers, tailgaters, and other troublemakers, you probably are expecting a flood of new legislation coming from the governor’s office. You are wrong. I am not opposed to big government. Now that the government is mine, it will get even bigger. However, we already have so many laws that they are not enforced anyway. The first thing I will do is get rid of the ridiculous signs that say things like, “No Littering! It’s the Law!” These signs are addressed to the very same people who are running stop signs, running red lights, speeding, etc.—all of which are against the law, and you can see how much that deters them. No, my fellow Virginians, we have enough laws. As governor, I will devote my time to personally enforcing the laws we do have. So look out, and think twice before calling me at 9 p.m. When I answer, “Governor-elect Dunham,” you will be apologizing profusely before you hang up, but it will be too late. I will have already traced your call. Then I will exact retribution with the full power of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Now, as I prepare to take office, I am getting ready for my first press conference, at which, grinning broadly, I will hold up a newspaper with a headline proclaiming Mark Warner the newly elected governor. Ha, ha!

Once in office, I plan to stay in touch with the common people. I am very concerned about taxes, for instance, and to save the state money, I plan to get as many free meals as possible. Please prepare your invitations and get them ready to mail. As governor, I will be happy to attend whatever function you are planning as long as you feed me and a few of my friends.

My election will benefit the state in every way. Business will grow because I will have more money to spend; taxes will drop, as I explained just a moment ago; unemployment will disappear, because I will provide jobs for all my friends. (As a side benefit, I will have many more friends.) Telemarketing will no longer be a problem, because I will have an unlisted number. Yes, my fellow Virginians, the best years are ahead of us.

Steve Dunham was just elected governor of Virginia and is waiting for the other candidates to concede defeat.

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“How would I get to India?” I asked a sailor friend.

“Sail east,” he answered.

“But didn’t Columbus sail west looking for India?”

“Yes, but look, there are mountains to the west. You would have to sail around America.”

“What about the Northwest Passage?” I insisted. “No one has found it yet. I believe that I could get to India by sailing west, just like Columbus.”

“But Columbus never got to India,” he said, and it occurred to me that my sailor friend had never been to India either. Every adventurer has doubters, thorns in the side, and I had mine. It was time to stop listening to well-meaning advice and start packing.

It was an auspicious day when I set sail down the Potomac River. I loaded the boat with plenty of beer, tasty snacks, and shiny balloons that I would offer as gifts to the natives when I arrived in India.

On only the second day of my voyage, the river emptied into a body of water so big that I could not see the other side. “So this is the ocean!” I exclaimed. I studied my compass for a moment and then steered north. Where so many others had failed, I knew I would succeed in finding the Northwest Passage.

Two days later, my wife called on the cell phone to ask when I was going to turn around and come home. She was rather insistent that I do so right away. “One more day,” I said, “and I will give you a new world.”

Then, providentially, I saw a river leading to the northwest. I hailed a boat going the other way. “What river is this?” I asked.

“The Patapsco.”

“Patapsco?”

“It’s an Indian name.”

“Thank you! Thank you very, very much!” So I was on the right trail! India lay up this river!

Although technically I had not promised to turn around if I did not reach India within one day, I knew that time was running out. However, the farther I sailed, the narrower the river got, until I could see that I was approaching a great city, probably Bombay.

With growing excitement I entered the harbor, and I could see that the shores were full of natives wearing colorful clothing. There was a palace-like tower with the words “Bromo Seltzer,” which I guess was Sanskrit for “Welcome to India.” Maybe that building was the Taj Mahal.

When I stepped ashore, I noticed that all the people looked like Americans. This was odd. And there was a sign reading “Information,” in English! Then I remembered that the English had ruled India for many years, and this must be their legacy. I stepped up to the booth and said, “I would like to see the Indians.”

“Oh, you just missed them,” said a woman in Western garb. “They were in town yesterday. But you could see the Redskins play.”

Indians, Redskins: it sounded like the same thing to me, so I thanked her and hailed a taxicab, which was an automobile, not one of the bicycle taxis I expected. “Take me to the Redskins,” I said, carefully pulling my shiny balloons into the car. When we reached the home of the Redskins, there was a festival going on, with people partying and eating, all wearing the national colors of India: red and gold.

Then a man came up and took a balloon right out of my hand, and handed me a five-dollar bill. Someone else did the same, and it kept happening till all the balloons were gone. I had encountered the fabled riches of the Orient!

Then I went to see what I had come for: the Indians (or Redskins) themselves. The national sport of India is something like a bullfight without the bull, and unfortunately the Redskins lost. But I had already seen enough to write ten articles for National Geographic. When I began my voyage home, I knew that I had earned my place in the history books.

Steve Dunham is a world explorer but was cheated out of having his name on any of the maps.

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“Hang on! We’re going in low,” I called. We zoomed low over the housetops as bullets whizzed past. With an iron grip, I struggled to maintain control as we approached our target.

I heard a voice from below: “I got one, Earl—a twelve-point buck, I think. Will ya take a look at his nose!”

Yes, they got one. And I lost my lead reindeer on Christmas Eve as I, Santa Claus, braved the Virginia hunting season to deliver toys to the children—no toy guns, mind you. Earl must be the one who wrote to me asking for venison for Christmas. I couldn’t find him on my list of kids, naughty or nice, and no wonder: I could see now that he was a grown man. Well, I had some spare lumps of coal with me, so I would take a swing past Earl’s house before heading north.

Meanwhile I had toys to deliver, and we made a rough landing on the first rooftop. As I dropped down the chimney, I heard a child’s voice from the room below. Darn it, the parents are supposed to have the kids in bed by this hour. It was too late to stop, though, and as I plopped into the fireplace, a two-year-old girl gaped at me. Then she screamed. “Mommy! It’s the Grinch!” Double darn. Another job hazard: the uniform doesn’t get the respect it used to, and that impostor the Grinch is better known than the genuine article.

I hastily scattered the presents around the tree and bolted up the chimney. And people think this job is fun. Well, on to the next house. We were just taking off when I heard Earl and his buddy again. Blam! Blam! “Hey, Joey! I got one too!”

We wobbled into the sky as I tried to guide the reindeer through evasive maneuvers, but our leader with his light-up nose was gone, and now I was down to six reindeer.

A few years ago I tried using cows instead. Granted, flying cows aren’t as fast or as graceful as flying reindeer, but it was worth a shot, pardon the pun. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a literal problem, because some hunters will shoot at anything that moves, and people such as Earl got beef for Christmas instead of venison.

So here we were staggering through the sky with no lights and running on six cylinders instead of eight, as it were, and what was I to do? Shoot back? Believe me, I thought about it. But what would that do to my reputation? I may hate this job sometimes, but I think I would hate unemployment even more.

No, it was time to call in the heavy reinforcements. You’ve probably seen in the news each Christmas that the North American Aerospace Defense Command tracked a flying sleigh on Christmas Eve. It’s really true, and they don’t just watch me on radar, either. No, I asked them to keep an eye on things because of trigger-happy people such as Earl and Joey. What are things coming to when Santa Claus needs an escort from the Air National Guard? But when you gotta, you gotta, so I spent the rest of the night flying with F-16s on either side of me, and while I felt safer, the noise woke up all the kids.

I was exhausted when I got back to the North Pole. I’ll admit, the work is satisfying in a way, but I wondered whether I was getting too old for it—until I opened a letter from a little girl. As I sat there I began my reply: “Yes, Virginia is where I delivered your gift of venison this year. Next year tell your daddy to ask for duck for Christmas.”

Steve Dunham hunts reindeer and cows from his front porch in Spotsylvania, VA.

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Off the Deep End

Junk Mail Junkie

Hope springs anew every day. Except Sundays and holidays, that is, when there is no mail delivery. Like the soldier far from home awaiting mail call, like the pioneer waiting at the station for the afternoon train to bring news from the folks back East, I anxiously await each day’s mail, but not for magazines, though they’re nice to get; certainly not for the bills; yes, it’s the letters I eagerly watch for. Not personal letters from friends or relatives, which require a written reply. No, I watch for those letters marked “Personal and Confidential,” and especially “Mr. S. Dunham, you may already have won ten million dollars!”

These letters can be answered by licking a few stickers and attaching them in the right place to indicate what color car I would like to win, and to indicate that, no, I do not want to order anything this time, despite the threat of being taken off the mailing list. This small effort offers the promise of immense reward. Beat the Early Bird deadline or be the first person from Virginia to return my non-order, and my winnings—if any—will be even greater. The fine print cautions me that the actual prize drawing will not be held until 2025, but what does that matter? Any day I could win really big in one of the sweepstakes I entered 25 years ago!

But financial gains beyond the dreams of avarice are only the beginning. “Direct mail” (as opposed to “first-class” mail, which as we all know travels by indirect routes) puts me in touch with something higher, namely somebody else’s avarice. This is a spiritual experience, and not just because I feel vastly superior when I see how low others have sunken. No, the personal and confidential letters I receive, individually signed by machine and liberally spiced with genuine imitation underlining in what looks like blue marker, direct me on the paths of righteousness and holiness, which, conveniently for our American culture, can be measured in dollars and cents. They encourage me to listen to God. And if I listen to God, they tell me, I will hear Him saying that I should write out a check for a heck of a lot more than I was contemplating. No wonder the letters are personal! No wonder they’re confidential! They’re offering spiritual direction specifically for me!

Ye of little faith will say, blasphemously, that thousands of other people receive (it hurts me to write this) identical letters, also marked “personal and confidential,” and that I am not the only “dear friend” of countless crusaders for righteousness.

If I were not truly loved and prayed for by my “dear friends,” why would they be sending me valuable gifts? I have amassed a hoard of shiny trinkets and baubles and full-color bookmarks, not to mention a certificate attesting that I am a Guardian Angel in several senses of the word. Can these lavish displays of generosity by my dear friends be written off as crass, money-grubbing commercialism? Does receipt of an aluminum coin with a cute dog stamped on it make me feel obligated? Of course not. These, as the letters say, are my friends. We have a close relationship. They love me, and so do the “literally millions” of souls who are praying that I will be generous. And the choirs of angels will rejoice when I write out that check. That’s sincere appreciation!

Yes, I admit it: I’m addicted, but not to drugs. There’s no hope in dope, but there is hope in each day’s junk mail.

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Kidnapped

“What do you think would have happened if that asteroid had landed on Earth?” someone asked me. The asteroid had supposedly passed between the Earth and the moon without touching the Earth.

“What do you mean ‘if’?” was my reply. “Landed” was exactly the right word.

I had been out in the back yard on the night of the asteroid, trying to get a little peace and quiet. It was quiet indeed, so quiet that no one answered when I called out, “Hey, kids! Come get a look at this!” There was the supposed asteroid, gliding silently through the sky and heading directly for our back yard.

It touched down gently, making the faintest humming sound, and then it did something asteroids rarely do: a door opened up in the side and a bright light shone out. A little humanoid creature stood in the doorway and, instead of making hand signals and humming the “Close Encounters” tune, asked, “Do you want some ice cream?”

“Sure!” I answered and hopped on board. It’s a good thing the kids weren’t watching, because I have always told them not to accept candy or ice cream from strangers. When the door hissed shut behind me, there was no ice cream in sight. I could feel the asteroid rising, and through a little round window, I could see our house getting smaller and smaller.

“Ow!” I shouted and spun around.

One of the little creatures had poked me with a needle. “We are looking for signs of intelligent life,” it said.

“Well, there’s no intelligent life where I come from,” I said angrily. “Now just beam me back down to Earth.”

“Resistance is futile,” said a familiar-sounding voice.

“Mr. President!” I gasped. “They got you too!” He was rubbing his backside, so I guess they got him with the needle as well. I got over my shock quickly. Now that I had a personal, close encounter with the president, I had something I wanted to ask him.

“Mr. President,” I said, “how come this great nation of ours can afford to lend fifteen billion dollars to the airlines and can’t lend a fifth of one billion to Amtrak? Forgive me for being so blunt, but what planet are you from?”

“That was a rude question. If we ever get back to Earth alive, you’ll be hearing from the IRS. I am a politician. Why would I pick a fight over an amount of money that wouldn’t fund the Pentagon for one day if it’s going to make millions of Americans angry? These aliens, who are all Democrats, kidnapped me and put a double in the White House to make unpopular decisions so that I will lose the next election. It’s like Watergate in space.”

“Mr. President, I am so sorry!” I exclaimed. But here was my chance to save the President, save Amtrak, and defeat a bunch of space aliens all at once. “Mr. President, I think I can trick them into returning us to Earth,” I said.

“Hey, you things from another world, would you like some real ice cream?” I asked loudly.

They gathered around me and started poking me. “No, it’s not here. It’s in the freezer at the White House.”

I guess no one ever told them not to accept ice cream from strangers either, because the next thing you know I was having ice cream in the White House and the space aliens were filling out forms, and for all I know they still are.

When I got home late that night, I asked, “Did anybody miss me? You’ll never guess where I’ve been!”

“There was a black helicopter flying over the house but it went away,” said my wife.

“Thank you, Mr. President,” I said quietly. If the IRS ever came back, I would just tell them to go talk to my pal George, who had better get reelected.

Steve Dunham was kidnapped by space aliens, who sent a double to go to work in his place.

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Off the Deep End

Kiss of the Spiderwoman

“I’m climbing the walls!” my wife said. She frequently says this in reference to the kids, her job, and the house, but there’s nothing much I can do about it, right? This time, for once, I was in a position to help. I had recently seen a movie that explained this phenomenon.

In fact, all the pieces fell together, because when I looked around the room, I could see just why she might be climbing the walls. There were spider webs in the corners by the ceiling. “I’ll get a broom,” I offered helpfully. Moments later, I handed it to her.

“You get them,” she said. So I was right. She didn’t want to hurt the spiders herself. She undoubtedly had a concealed kinship with them. “Be careful they don’t fall on you and bite you,” she added.

I would be careful. Two superheroes under one roof would be too much. Besides, I saw in the same movie that breathing in certain fumes can make you evil and insane. I’m pretty sure I breathed some of those fumes on I-95. I didn’t want to get bitten by a genetically engineered spider too.

Once I had gotten the spiders out of all the corners, I figured we would be safe from more mutations for a while, but I was wrong. “This day has been crazy,” she said. “The kids have been bouncing off the walls.” So the kids were mutating too! Super powers don’t automatically make heroes, I knew, so we could be in for trouble. My wife confirmed this when she asked, “Where’s the baby? She’s been too quiet!” So my wife’s spider sense was kicking in.

I wondered whether with super powers the kids would clean up their rooms, or would they use their spider sense to avoid chores? And would I be able to tell the difference between this and their normal behavior? Maybe my wife, with her own super powers, would be able to keep them under control, if she wasn’t out fighting crime.

That would explain why I would wake up in the middle of the night and she wouldn’t be there, and why she would be tired in the middle of the day. The next time she told me that she would be working late, I just chuckled and said, “OK, honey. See you live at eleven, huh?”

“I don’t understand you,” she said, “but I love you.” Then she kissed me goodbye and left for her secret life of thrills and excitement.

Steve Dunham is married to a superhero.

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As I got off the train and hurried toward the office, I glanced behind me. There were dozens of women following me. “Sorry, ladies!” I called out, and I broke into a run. I made it to the building ahead of them, dashed into the elevator, and breathed a sigh of relief as the doors closed before anyone else could get in.

My doubts were gone. It worked! I had volunteered for experimental drug testing, both to benefit my fellow human beings and to pick up a little much-needed cash. The new drug was billed as heart medicine, which is just what the doctor ordered, so to speak. I was rather short of friends, particularly of the female variety, and nothing less than a personality transplant offered any hope—until this miracle of modern medicine.

Not only did I suddenly feel terribly attractive, but when I got to our floor of the building I noticed that my co-workers seemed healthier. Then I recalled a news item describing how people in love enjoy better health. The medicine was working beyond my expectations: even my co-workers were falling in love with me.

When I got into my office, the red light on the phone was lit. The message said, “Nancy in Human Resources wants to see you.”

“I’m sure she does!” I answered aloud, though no one was there to hear.

Next I booted up the computer, and my e-mail inbox was overflowing with messages, all with the same subject line: “I love you.” Clients, acquaintances, nearly everyone in the company, people I could scarcely remember, plus people I was sure I’d never met—all of them professing their love for me. It would take me all morning just to read my e-mail, and more messages seemed to be pouring in every minute.

The next surprise was an invitation to breakfast with the company president, although, considering the sudden turn my life had taken, maybe it wasn’t such a surprise after all.

The rest of the day was a blur of phone calls, e-mails, and people just dropping into my office, all wanting my attention. My hardest choice now was whom to gratify. Well, maybe there was another consideration too—my heart seemed to be overflowing with affection for all these people who were so devoted to me, and deciding whom to gratify also meant deciding whom to disappoint. I decided to hold off on saying yes or no to anyone, even if it made me appear to be afraid of commitment.

I left work that day in a dream, though I was snapped back to my new reality as I crossed the street to the train station. Cars were screeching to a stop and the drivers were staring at me. I could read the adoration in their eyes.

I don’t know how the other passengers on the train restrained themselves, but the trip home was rather sedate. Maybe they assumed that somebody so alluring must be taken. A lot of the people were sleeping, and I could guess what they were dreaming about. “Let them dream!” I thought.

At the end of the line, as I walked to the bus stop, I noticed a dog following me. Maybe the medicine was working a little too well.

I woke up the next morning with a new attitude. With everyone so fond of me, this might be a good time to ask the world for something in return. I decided to talk to my boss about another raise. If I wasn’t worthy of another merit raise (although I seemed to have acquired a lot more merit in everyone’s eyes), call it a “cost of loving” raise.

After a repeat of the previous day’s scene on the way to the office, I saw that the red light on my phone was glowing again. This time it was Nancy herself, wanting me to take—a drug test? Oh, no! My secret would be out.

But there was another message too: call the doctor. I did. After explaining at length how effective the drug was, I got a shock. “Mister Dunham, ‘love potion’ was just our nickname for this heart medicine and, anyway, you’ve been getting the placebo. But congratulations on your improved love life.”

I woke up from a dream to find that reality was even better: everyone must really be in love with me!

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Sometimes after work a few of the guys will go out for a couple of beers and discuss wives and computers and the meaning of life and why the Redskins can’t play football. All these are intertwined, somehow, I think. And this time together is, I believe, known as “male bonding” to anybody who doesn’t actually do it. To us real men, it’s called “going out with the guys for a couple of beers.”

And as we delve into the mysteries of life, we sometimes figure out how things work. Sometimes, like last night, we even find out how male psychology works.

We started out by discussing the perennial mystery of how female psychology works. Women, we observed, like to talk (no, this was not our great discovery). They like to “share.” They like to express their feelings and talk about concerns, and they just want men to listen.

Ladies, this is not how the world works, at least from our point of view. Males are problem-solvers. When we hear the roar of the cave bear, we grab a club and start swinging.

No time for sharing. When confronted with a problem, we don’t express our feelings; no, it’s clobberin’ time!

Last night, although we did not come any closer to understanding female psychology or why the Redskins can’t play football, we did arrive at a working definition of male problem-solving:

1. When you can’t ignore a problem any longer, it’s time to fix it. This is probably where female nagging comes in—it brings men to the point where we can’t ignore the problem any longer.
2. If you can’t fix it, force it. This is where male brute strength is a great asset.
3. If forcing it breaks it, get a new one.

However, it doesn’t work as well with women. “Ignore the problem as long as you can” is interpreted by the female mind to mean “You don’t care.” “If you can’t fix it, force it” doesn’t make them happy either. For some reason women do not seem impressed with a male display of force when we attempt to straighten things out.

The principle of getting a new one if the old one breaks has major drawbacks too, because we tend to ignore, then break, then discard the new one too.

No, although we keep on trying, our macho male practical method of solving problems doesn’t seem to work as well on women as it does on cave bears. And a lot of us are still wondering why.

Steve Dunham commutes on VRE to Arlington, where he tackles problems as if they were cave bears.

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Off the Deep End

Mars and Venus Attack!

By Steve Dunham, copyright 2003

The invasion came out of a clear blue sky, as a mysterious flying disk settled toward our front yard. When the gleaming metallic saucer landed, a door appeared in its seamless surface. Then a couple in silver suits stepped out and approached me.

They spoke not a word, but I could hear their thoughts inside my head. “I am from Mars,” said the man.

“I am from Venus,” said the woman.

Then I heard their thoughts in unison: “Earth is endangering the universe. We must stop you. To do that, we will have to destroy the Earth.”

“Why are you telling this to me?” I asked them. “And what did Earth ever do to you?”

“We are contacting you,” they replied, “because, one, you will listen, and, two, you are in a position to spread the word. Are you not a world-famous columnist and expert on space invaders? And are you not a friend of the president, as we read in one of your columns?”

“Oh, uh, yeah! Sure! I’ve played Space Invaders. I mean, I know all about space invasions and stuff. And I did write that I am a friend of the president. But you still haven’t told me what Earth ever did to Mars and Venus. Was it those space probes falling out of the sky? Did they hit somebody?”

“No, it wasn’t your puny space probes. Earth has attacked the universe with a weapon of mass stupidity. You call it television. As advanced races, we people of other planets are all telepaths. We not only can hear your thoughts, we can hear your television shows too. We can stand no more! You have been bombarding our planets with inane programs that are not at all funny, such as Survivor and Sex and the City.”

“Survivor isn’t supposed to be funny,” I protested. “At least I don’t think so. Maybe Sex and the City is supposed to be funny. I’m not sure. But that’s going off the air anyway. So you’re going to destroy the Earth over Survivor? You’ll just make the whole planet into a Survivor episode.”

“There will be no survivors,” they chorused.

“Wait!” I begged them. “Couldn’t we compromise? Maybe just watch PBS?”

“You mean Barney? And Lawrence Welk reruns? No, for the good of the universe, Earth must be destroyed.”

Then the man from Mars and the woman from Venus reentered their saucer, which rose into the air and disappeared into the blue. So I immediately called my pal the president, and now I am warning the rest of the world: our whole culture is in Jeopardy. I mean jeopardy. To save it, we need to start recording everything on television, even Barney, and archive it somewhere safe, maybe on the Moon, so that even if we are all wiped out, the best of our civilization will be preserved.

Steve Dunham is warning the world about invaders from space.

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Peeping through a window in the envelope were the words “Pay to the order of Stephen Dunham.” One time it was a fundraising letter (this is really true), and the words “Pay to the order of” were not on a check at all, but on an appeal for money (talk about turning the tables quickly!). So what happened to the money for me? The gist of it was that God would pay me back. I think God might pay those fundraisers back.

However, that was an isolated instance. Most envelopes I get with the words “Pay to the order of” peeping through the window are genuinely offering me money. It might be a rebate check for the purchase of a new car. True, the amount of the check might be only $500, whereas most of the cars I have purchased have cost several times that amount. So the dealer is willing to give me $500 in exchange for, say, $15,000, and will throw in a new car too. OK, as soon as I get 29 more of those checks in the mail I will go down and see the car dealer.

Other donors are even more generous. Banks (to use the word loosely) are always sending me checks for thousands of dollars. I am not sure that these are real banks, because one of them has a huge office building near our house and even though they are soliciting me as a customer, I cannot get in the door past the guard. My personal presence may be unwelcome, but curiously they continue to offer me money. All I have to do is promise to pay them back double (if it takes a few years) or with no interest at all if I send all the money back next month. Theoretically I could do this full time, depositing the thousand dollars in a real bank, earning $1.67 in interest, and making a dollar in profit after subtracting postage, envelopes, and so on. It's nice to know I have another career to fall back on.

Checks in larger amounts (say, $5,000) come from “banks” that have discovered how much equity we have in our house. They are willing to lend me lots of money at a reasonable-sounding amount of interest, with one catch: if I don’t pay on time, they get to keep the house. This reminds me of the most generous donor of all: our government.

I have heard the government compared to God and to Santa Claus, but the branch of the government most likely to send me a check is usually compared to a supernatural being on the other end of the spectrum, even to the point of having the word “infernal” substituted for part of its name. Now, if an ordinary company sends you a modest amount of money by mistake and you spend it, you would have a very good chance, legally, of not having to pay it back. (Please do not take this as legal advice.) If you had a hostile jury and a hanging judge, then you might have to give the money back. This is not the case with money mistakenly sent you by the government. They will insist that you pay it back with interest and possibly with penalties for being so stupid as to have accepted the money in the first place.

Before you become angry at our government, consider that this is an exceptionally efficient way of doing business. I am thinking that if the I stands for “infernal,” possibly the S stands for “Sopranos.” “Steve,” you are whispering, "hadn’t you better be careful what you say about the IRS? Aren’t you worried about black helicopters landing on your rooftop at night?” Not at all. The government may be a little heavy-handed at times, but they know where to get the money back if they want it. Right now the black helicopters are circling a car dealer and an office building labeled “bank.”

Steve Dunham has gotten rich on checks sent to him by strangers.

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Off the Deep End

Monkeys With Typewriters

If a roomful of monkeys with typewriters (or computers) typed randomly forever, could they create the works of William Shakespeare? This question is on the minds of many office workers, along with another question: Do these monkeys work in my building?

The Federal Transit Administration, for example (and this is from an actual e-mail I got), is offering “Threat Management and Emergency Resoibse ti Bus Hijacking Seminars.” Not bad for a roomful of monkeys, you might say, and if they could be trained to use a spell checker (something that eludes many humans), their work would be outstanding. On the other hand, it might put a lot of humans out of jobs. I don’t want anybody monkeying around with my career.

I knew it was time to start investigating the matter when I received a hot tip. My friend Joe at Beltway Bandits, Inc., called and told me about the “hotel” in his building. Those of you who are not office workers are probably thinking that a “hotel” in an office building means luxurious accommodations provided at government expense. No, this kind of hotel does not have a bed, a TV, a minibar, or even a bathroom. It is a “hotel” for workers because they get to use it for one day (or work all night if they’re lucky) and then check out. “Hotel” office workers do not get their own desks, phones, computers, or a nameplate by the door, unless they write it by hand and tape it to the wall, except that they aren’t allowed to tape things to the wall. It’s sort of like an Internet café, except it isn’t any fun.

My friend suspected that this cloak of anonymity was hiding more than a bunch of unhappy workers, and since there were no names by the door, it would be a cinch for me to stride into the “hotel” pretending I was looking for someone and catch the whole lot of typing monkeys red-handed. I opened the “hotel” door without knocking and asked, “Is Bobby here?”

To my surprise, there were no monkeys, and a woman looked up and answered, “I’m Bobbie.”

“Oh, uh, sorry,” I stammered. “Wrong Bobby.” I went back to Joe’s office and glared at him. “There are no monkeys in your hotel,” I said. “If you find out that somebody here is typing Shakespeare’s plays, let me know; otherwise please don’t waste my time again.”

Just then a manager strode in and handed Joe a floppy disk. “We need twenty copies of this report. It was due at the Department of Waste two hours ago.”

“Well, at least we’ll run a spell check before we print it out, OK?” asked Joe.

“No spell checks!” growled the manager. “Just print it!”

While Joe set to work on his rush job, I quietly followed the manager back down the hall. He held his badge up to a sensor by a locked door. I held mine up too and followed him in. “What do you want?” he growled.

I went out on a limb and said, “I’m here to get the banana order.”

“Where have you been?” he demanded. “We needed those bananas yesterday!”

I took his order and when I got outside I saw a truck pulling up, loaded with bananas. Yes, I was sabotaging a competitor and interfering with a government contract, but I told him, “You have the wrong address.”

A week later I saw that Beltway Bandits had gone out of business. I didn’t read anything about out-of-work monkeys, so they must still be typing somewhere. I just hope it’s Shakespeare.

Steve Dunham’s columns are written by monkeys with typewriters.

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“Free Haunted House,” said the sign at a mobile home dealer’s lot. (This is really true.) “Well,” I said to myself, “there are some things you can’t even give away.”

Well, that turned out not to be true. “Why,” I asked myself, “should we be paying more than $800 a month for our mortgage when we could get a house for free?”

The next afternoon I was down at the lot. “I would like to see the haunted house,” I said. “It’s really free?”

“Sure. Go on back and see it.”

They weren’t kidding. I could see why they couldn’t sell this one. It really looked haunted.

When I opened the front door, it creaked, and I saw a bat flying around the ceiling. It was dark, but I could see eyes glowing at me from a jack-o’lantern. There was spooky organ music coming from somewhere.

I stepped into the living room, and there was a creepy guy in a cape who looked a lot like Dracula. “Uh, do you work here?” I asked.

“Velcome,” he answered. I could see that his teeth were very pointy.

“Does this place have plenty of closets?” I inquired. He turned to open one and I swear there was a skeleton in it. This place would need some cleaning up.

I decided to take a look at the kitchen. There was a real witch standing there cackling and stirring a bubbling, steaming cauldron. “Hi,” I said, and ducked out.

The bedroom was next. It was dusty, and there was a huge black spider hanging down from the ceiling. On the dresser was a glowing skull, and the eyes in a picture on the wall seemed to follow me. Then something grabbed my ankle, and I looked down to see an arm reaching out from under the bed. I stamped on it with my other foot. “Ow!” said a voice.

“Not a very scary spook,” I thought. I was a little disappointed because mobile homes don’t have basements, but it did have a utility area. From behind the door I could hear maniacal laughter. It looked like the room was half laboratory and half funeral home. There was an open coffin with a body in it, and some kind of half-human-looking guy attached to some weird machinery.

I’d seen enough. I trotted out the door and back to the sales office. “I’ll take it!” I announced.

“Yeah, buddy. Ha-ha. Have a nice day.”

It took me a few hours to find a truck to tow the house to our property. When I got to the mobile home dealer, everyone was gone, but the free haunted house was still there, so I hitched it up and away I went.

It didn’t seem so scary with all those weird characters gone, and it took a while to clean out all the cobwebs and the rest of the mess, but once I was finished, it looked almost like any other mobile home, so I considered it a real deal. Every now and then, I will find something strange, like a hand in a drawer or a witch’s hat on the shelf in the closet, so I can understand why they were so eager to part with this place. But, to me, it’s home.

Steve Dunham lives in a haunted house in Spotsylvania, Va.

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“I need that yesterday,” the client growled. I was tempted to reply that he should have brought the work in earlier, but I made the polite, proper response: “No problem. Come back yesterday and I’ll have it for you”—thanks to my time machine.

Time travel seemed like such a good idea. I could sleep late, get to work at noon, travel back to 9 a.m., work till 5:30, travel back to 3:30 and leave early—you can see the possibilities.

Sometimes people bring work in the door at 5:30 and want it the next morning. So I go home, go to bed, sleep late, and travel back in time to the middle of the night, then do the work. When I’m finished, I can go back to bed again if I feel like it.

Naturally, there are other benefits too. No longer do I send late Christmas cards or birthday presents. In fact, I can wait till the after-Christmas sales (well, I already did that) and buy things cheap, then go back a few weeks and mail everything early.

So what could be wrong with having all the time in the world? For one thing, I have to keep it a secret. An infinite amount of time isn’t free if other people find an infinite number of things to fill it up. Not only clients would do this; I have to hide my time traveling from my family, and that’s not easy. They would like to know why I am going to work late and coming home early, and I dare not tell them the truth. Instead I make noises about flextime and vacation days that I have to use up.

Another problem is that people get used to my doing things yesterday. The guy who growled at me had, paradoxically, already picked up his work the day before, but he had gotten used to that as his due. Now he wants everything “yesterday.”

Also, time traveling has made me lazy, so sometimes when somebody wants something “yesterday,” I say, “Come back tomorrow.” I can accept the work when I’m not so busy, travel back two days, and still keep everybody happy. Well, not everybody—there’s another problem. When I start traveling more than one day at a time, sometimes I forget where—er, when—I’m going. It’s confusing. One morning, I thought it was October, but I saw lit-up Christmas trees in a store window and realized I’d gone too far forward in time.

Finally, there’s the problem with having two of me around at the same time. “How could that be a problem?” you ask. I felt the same way. My wife, especially, should have been pleased: if she liked me enough to marry me and have me around all the time, wouldn’t two of me be twice as nice?

“Didn’t you just leave for work?” she will ask me.

“Yes, honey. I mean, no, honey.” Then she will look at me funny. Well, she always did that. Then I know it’s time for both of me to get out of the house and give her some space.

Now you’re probably wondering why I haven’t traveled ahead in time and picked up a sports almanac just like in Back to the Future. Well, I did, and all I learned is that I should bet against the Redskins, but I won’t get rich from it because the odds aren’t very long. The same goes for the Orioles.

And, you may ask, why haven’t I traveled back in time to save the world? Well, I have. Humbly, I admit that I could not do it alone. First, I had myself cloned, just like Dolly the sheep. Then I transported all my duplicates back to the late 1960s (I didn’t want all of my copies to be in their forties; I’m in my forties and don’t like it). Now there are thousands of me coming into their prime, and everything will be fine with the world. Trust me.

Steve Dunham time-travels on Virginia Railway Express.

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Employee take-home pay is shrinking, unless you count office supplies. Supposedly (I read this in a purportedly factual source), the average employee takes home almost $4 worth of office supplies every day.*

This is a shocking figure, because I personally do not take home any office supplies on purpose,† which means that everybody else must be taking home more than $4 worth.‡ On the other hand, the number may include paper clips for which contractors charge the government $5 apiece.

To investigate this crisis, I interviewed Rob Pilfer, proprietor of Robs Office Supplies. “Rob,” I asked him, “at wholesale or even normal prices, what could a person do with $20 worth of office supplies every week? I personally like office supplies, but I just can’t imagine what I would do with that many.”

“If something is free, you can find a use for it,” said Pilfer. “For example, I use those little spring clamps instead of clothespins, and I’m wearing one for a tie clip right now, in case you didn’t notice. Furthermore, there’s no reason an office worker should ever have to buy paper, pens, tape, paper clips, floppy disks, printer cartridges, coffee, or, for that matter, furniture. You’re thinking too small, that’s your problem. Did you ever hear the Johnny Cash song about stealing a car one piece at a time? You could start a business with all the stuff that’s there for the taking.”

That was enlightening. It made me wonder what the typical employer thinks of this. I. C. Nought, the human resources director of Waterspend LLC, was happy to comment. “If someone is enterprising enough to start a business with stolen office supplies, that is the kind of entrepreneur we want on our staff,” he said. “Really, we are always buying new furniture before the old stuff wears out, so if employees can turn a buck on it, we respect that kind of initiative.”

At the other end of the spectrum is Myopia Ltd., which takes a harsh stance on pilfering. The company’s vice president of employee monitoring, John “Big Brother” Whipper, explained why high-ranking managers must micro-manage office supplies. “The temptation is too great at the employee level,” he said. “The only people who are above temptation, and therefore above suspicion, are managers with salaries in the six-figure range. To catch a thief, it takes money.”

Every special interest in Washington deserves its own think tank, and this is no exception. Halfway between the White House and Capitol Hill is the Institute for Office Supply Security. The institute believes there is a crisis in office supply pilfering. The institute produces a manual, “Countering 21st-Century Threats to Office Supply Security,” which recommends that all office supplies be kept in a vault, with the combination known only to people cleared for Special Access to Office Supplies. Anyone who has a provable need for stationery, for example, must fill out a requisition, get approval from three levels of management, and present two forms of picture ID.

The institute also recommends that employees who really need photocopies go to a copy center on their own time and apply for reimbursement. The manual also says that employees really ought to provide their own office supplies. Under “Talking Points for Managers,” it states, “We don’t provide clothes or lunch for employees. Coming to work prepared is their own responsibility.” To help companies reduce overhead expenses, the institute will hold an Office Supply Security Summit at which top counter-embezzlement experts will address the crisis in overuse of office supplies and discuss ways for emergency responders to meet the challenges of today’s threats.

Reading between the lines, I think their motto must be, “You have to spend money to stop losing money.” But it does seem like a lot of to-do over $4 a day. Now I can’t make up my mind whether to start an office supply security company or an office supply store.

* This is really true. Everything else is made up.

† Actually, this is true too.

‡ And this is a logical deduction.

Steve Dunham is fighting the office supply pilfering crime wave.

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Warning: this is a joke, a silly fantasy, except for the “Staffer Day planning/execution meeting,” which apparently was real. “Office Survivor” does not, as far as I know, reflect the actual personnel practices of any company where I have been employed.

Our company, taking a lead from television, has moved to “reality-based” workforce reduction.

At one time, employee “termination” seemed to be the wave of the future, mainly because it was cyborgs from the future who disposed of the unwanted employees.

At our office, there was a woman in charge of the Person-Hell department. They called her Terminator. Partly human, mostly machine, she was the scourge of the surplus employee. Sent here from the future, where humans are “resources” and robots do the work, she eliminated anyone who was not a team player.

Once I received something about a “Staffer Day planning/execution meeting.” (This is really true.) I suspected that “staffer execution” might be meant literally, so I did not go.

Termination is falling out of favor, however. Corporations (at least legally) are people too, and they want to be liked. Bodies of employees lying about and terminators running around using the F word make a company seem unfriendly.

The immense popularity of the “survivor” shows has inspired a new way of getting rid of unwanted employees: let them get rid of each other.

Now each division is organized into “teams.” Every week we face challenges, such as trying to access the company intranet from home, or trying to find out how much vacation time we have left. Naturally, some people are better suited to these challenges than others are. I, for example, managed to do both of them. In the corporate Darwinian scheme, though, I do not receive company kudos or merit raises for succeeding; rather, I receive votes from other employees. The other team members are not so well fitted to survive, and at the end of the week we have to vote one of them off the team.

The company likes this reality-based aspect, because when it comes time to remove the losing team member, the company has an advantage over an employee who does not know how much vacation time he has coming.

If ability and intelligence at work were the only criteria, they could have declared me the winner at the end of the first week. As those of you playing the game know, however, ability and intelligence are not a guarantee of winning. In fact, they are not even required. The way to really get votes is through something we used to call “office politics.” In the “office survivor” game, we call it “forming strategic alliances.”

To put it bluntly, if you are friends with the right people you can be voted an office survivor, all other considerations aside. But there are other considerations, mainly that when all your enemies are gone you have to fight your friends. “Cunning” and “Ruthless” might be my middle names, but I still had difficulty when we got to the final round.

So here I am, sitting at home, and I can no longer get through to the company intranet or even discover how much vacation time I have coming.

But I heard that a company is hiring in Australia. Outback, here I come!

Steve Dunham commutes on VRE to Arlington, where he plays Office Survivor.

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“Is Office Survivor a rigged game?” That’s what people keep asking me after revelations that some scenes in the TV show Survivor were staged, that contestants may have been coached, and that sometimes the rules were bent to help a certain player get ahead. Is it possible that Office Survivor is not always played by the rules either?

(In Office Survivor, employees are organized into “teams”; together they face challenges, such as filling out time sheets and meeting artificial deadlines. However, they also compete against each other, receiving votes from fellow employees, and each week someone is voted off the team.)

Having made it through several rounds of Office Survivor, I am now a “key player,” which not only reflects my popularity and skill, but makes me a tempting target for envious employees of less ability and intelligence. Also, several employees with whom I had formed “strategic alliances” were dropped from the team in earlier rounds. So some players are viewing me as vulnerable.

The sniping has already begun: “Were any of the scenes staged?” All right, yes. When I smoothly accessed the company intranet and found out how much paid time off I had coming, even to the tenth of an hour, that had been rehearsed. It took a lot of practice ahead of time, but let me emphasize that when I won that challenge, I did it live. Even though I had rehearsed it several times, each time, including the televised attempt, was a real challenge.

“Did anybody coach you with ‘suggestions’?” Yes again. To access the company intranet from home, I had to get help from the “information” technology people. However, this is true for nearly all the contestants. Everyone on the team needed help to pass this challenge. Also, before imposing one of the artificial deadlines, one client did ask me how long the work could reasonably be expected to take.

“Did anybody bend the rules to help you win?” I am getting tired of these questions. Let me just say, to anyone who is tempted to view me as a vulnerable target, “So what if Office Survivor is rigged? I still won.” That should impress you and make you think twice about asking any more questions.

Now here is the question that is on my mind, and on the minds of players and viewers: “Will these revelations affect the ratings?” That’s a major concern. Right now, Office Survivor remains the most popular game in the area. People keep playing not only because it’s fascinating, but because no one wants to lose.

As CBS said about the TV show Survivor, viewers “know the challenges are real, they know the emotions are real, they know the outcomes are real.” The same principles apply to Office Survivor. I predict that the game will retain its appeal through the next season, at least until “sweeps week,” when upper management cleans house, at the lower levels anyway. After that, they may come up with a new game, maybe “Who Wants to Be a Retiree?”

Steve Dunham commutes on VRE to Arlington, where he wins at Office Survivor, even though it is rigged.

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Off the Deep End

The Other St. Brendan

Everybody can be Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, and everybody who’s Irish assumes that everyone else would want to be. In my case, I do have a little Irish blood, and it makes me proud of an illustrious member of our family tree, St. Brendan Dunham.

The British will cheerfully tell you that St. Patrick was Welsh, although they rarely point out that he moved out of Wales. St. Brendan Dunham was not fully Irish either, but that has not stopped the Irish from claiming him as one of their patron saints, the patron of confused travelers. Like the other, more famous, St. Brendan, he set off on voyages of discovery.

The first place he discovered was Ireland. Lured by travel posters that said, “Discover Ireland,” he set out to do just that, although he seldom receives credit for it today. He discovered, however, that the inhabitants were already Christians who knew all about the analogy of the shamrock and the Blessed Trinity, and furthermore that there were no snakes left. The glory-grabbing St. Patrick had stolen the show.

Saints are not quitters, however. “Discovery” and “Exploration” were his middle names. Like his more famous namesake, he set out to find the “Land of Delight,” and presently St. Brendan D. E. Dunham embarked on a new voyage of discovery that would take him to a new world, undeterred by the fact that, as in Ireland, there were already people living there.

Setting out across the Atlantic, he first came to an island that he named “Iceland” because it was covered with you-know-what. By the time of his next landfall he was homesick for the Emerald Isle, so he called the next island “Greenland.” (This is the explanation accepted by historians, because Greenland is definitely not green.)

When St. Brendan Dunham finally reached North America, the natives told him that he was in “new-found land.” “That’s right,” he exclaimed; he had finally come to a place where he was, he thought, acknowledged as discoverer. He named the capital of Newfoundland St. Brendan’s, although the natives continued to call it St. John’s.

In Newfoundland, the natives told him of land to the southwest famous for the Boston Celtics, and informed him that there were more Irish in New York City than in Dublin. Realizing that the natives’ stories must be exaggerated, he concluded that he had sailed nearly all the way around the world and was almost back to Ireland. He could hear a voice saying, “Rambling boy, why don’t you settle down?” Rather than land in what is now the United States, he headed back the way he had come and so he did not get credit for discovering America.

Upon his return from the seven-year voyage, St. Brendan Dunham was greeted with rejoicing in Ireland. His discoveries rewrote the history books (a process that continues today) and inspired a brand of beer. (Since the feast day of St. Brendan Dunham has not yet made it onto the ecclesiastical calendar, I suggest that you honor him by having a beer on the feast day of the other St. Brendan, March 22.)

Satisfied at last that he had finished his divinely ordained discoveries, St. Brendan Dunham uttered a phrase that has echoed throughout the halls of history, particularly in Kansas: “If ever I go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard.”

Steve Dunham discovered the United States and Canada.

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Off the Deep End

Pat Answers: Pesky Neighbors

Dear Pat:

My neighbor is always cutting across my yard. I have asked him nicely to stop but he insists on using our property as a shortcut. Now my nice lawn is scarred by the tire tracks from his pickup truck. I am frustrated and furious!

Trespassed upon

Dear Trespassed,

It sounds like maybe you need to take an anger-management class. If you are angry, you need to ask yourself, “What’s wrong with me?” not “What’s wrong with my neighbor?” Meanwhile, I think you need to establish some boundaries to control your own emotions. With all the new homeland security products on the market, I think you could find some attractive concrete barriers to surround your yard. Just be sure your neighbor doesn’t get hurt driving into them, or you could find yourself causing even more trouble, and this time you would have to pay for the harm you’ve caused.

Dear Pat:

Several times a week after dark, my neighbor starts doing yard work. He has bright floodlights on poles and he turns these on and uses his power mower and gas-powered weed whacker and digs in his yard, making a lot of noise and keeping me awake till midnight. Isn’t this against the law?

Sleepless

Dear Sleepless:

Aren’t you just a little bit paranoid? Just because the poor man digs in his yard at night doesn’t mean you can practically accuse him of burying bodies there. And just because you go to bed early doesn’t mean the rest of the world has to adapt to your schedule. I am really tired of hearing you so-called “morning people” whine about people who light one candle to banish the darkness. How do you think we feel when you are out there mowing your yard at 10 a.m. while we’re trying to sleep? You need to get over your selfishness if you want to be a good neighbor.

Dear Pat:

Whenever I say good morning, my neighbor doesn’t answer me. I thought that maybe he is hard of hearing (he is kind of old), so I have tried shouting. I know he’s in there, because his car is still in the driveway when I leave for work. I know he’s not dead, because his paper is in the driveway every morning and gone every night. How can I get this old codger to act neighborly?

Friendly guy

Dear Friendly guy:

It’s high time you had a lesson in good manners. Standing outside your neighbor’s house at the crack of dawn and shouting, “Good morning!” is not going to get you the response you wish. Maybe he is hard of hearing, or maybe he is retired and is still asleep when you go to work. Please be considerate, because old people get lazy. The neighborly thing to do, if you want to talk to him in the morning, is to ring his doorbell like a civilized human being. If he doesn’t answer the door within a few seconds, just go to work and leave him alone. If you do this for a week and he still hasn’t responded in a neighborly manner, then stop trying. Maybe he is not a “morning person.”

Steve Dunham is an advice columnist writing under the pen name “Pat.”

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“Have turned 80, do not recommend it, will never do it again,” said Otto Kuhler, a noted industrial designer. I’m sure he was right. I’m only halfway there, and I do not recommend turning 40. I will never do it again.

One thing that happens as you crest the hill is an increasing familiarity with modern dentistry. “I once was young, and now I am old,” wrote King Solomon. And when I was young, root-canal work was something that happened only to older people. It sounded ominous, as if the dentist was ripping up a tree, roots and all, and digging a canal in its place. This is an apt description.

My own voyage across the Styx and into the netherworld of canals and roots began, of course, in the waiting room, which despite cute wallpaper and a Muzak version of “Live and Let Die” piping happily over the radio, had all the cheer of death row. The condemned sat staring at their feet, awaiting their turn at having their mouths excavated. I picked up a copy of Modern Dental Golddigging and was relieved to learn that the suicide rate among root-canal patients is declining.

At last a voice said, “Mister Dunham, Doctor Hacker will see you now.” I followed the haggard-looking nurse into a little room. There were bars on the window. I heard the door slam shut behind me, and a deadbolt lock turning.

“You’d might as well cooperate,” said Dr. Hacker. But as I started to back toward a corner, he said, “You’ll be sorry,” and then, “Strap him in, nurse.”

With an iron grip, she forced me into the chair and secured the straps. Then she put something like wheel chocks in my mouth, because root-canal work involves having your mouth open for hours. (When I went back to work and complained about how much this hurt, they all laughed and said my mouth is open all day anyway. And when I said that my face hurt …)

Well, back to the story. The dentist moved his equipment into position. There was an excavator—some kind of power shovel. He had something like a jackhammer for digging into the tooth, and a set of drills and files for really making a canal in there, for all the blood to flow through, I guess.

The nurse took a shot of whisky, to steel her nerves for the coming ordeal. And then I blacked out.

When I came to, my head felt like someone had been playing “The Anvil Chorus,” using my head for the anvil. I heard Dr. Hacker’s voice saying, “Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Then he said to the nurse, “Okay, you can untie him and let him go.”

I staggered out toward the waiting room. Little did I know that the worst was yet to come. Root-canal work hurts the wallet even more than the body.

They gave me a choice of paying $5000 cash, having a lien on the car (the smartest move, because almost any car, and especially our car, costs less than root-canal work), or putting the whole thing on my credit card. The last option was the natural one, because canals are not dug in a day, and I would have to come back. Twice. Obviously, I would not live through two more of these torture sessions, and my wife would be able to use the life insurance to pay off the credit card bill. And she would live happily ever after, until, that is, she needs root-canal work.

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“Do you sell disaster insurance?” I asked my insurance agent.

“Well, sure, but we sell insurance only against things we’re sure won’t happen. For example, we’ll sell you flood insurance if you live on a hill, but not if you live in a valley. On the other hand, if you do live in a valley, we’ll sell you lightning insurance, but not if you live on a hill. We’ll sell alien abduction insurance to anybody.”

“I’m definitely interested in that,” I said, “but what I want to get right now is an insurance policy for when Planet X destroys the world in May.”

“Well, I’m sure we can help you out there,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “What’s this about Planet X?”

“It’s a rogue planet that astronomers say doesn’t even exist, and it’s going to come real close to the Earth and cause earthquakes, tidal waves, nuclear winter, and all kinds of other trouble.”

“Well, now, how much coverage would you want to buy?”

“As much as I can,” I answered. “I want to be fully protected when disaster strikes.”

“Our limit is a hundred million dollars.”

“I guess that should do. I need a policy only through May. After that, Planet X won’t be back again for centuries.”

“Well, then, we can give you a four-month policy for a one-time premium of a hundred dollars.”

“A deal!” I exclaimed, and got out my checkbook. “Where will I come to collect the money?”

“Oh, we’ll be right here,” he said.

“Great!” I replied, and when I left his office I was clutching my policy. I took it home and put it in a fireproof strongbox so that it would survive the earthquakes, and then I used duct tape to wrap Styrofoam around it so that it would float in the tidal waves, and then I taped a battery-powered emergency light to it so that I could find it in total darkness.

Then it occurred to me that maybe I could help out other people by telling them about the insurance, and maybe I would get a commission on referrals at the same time. I started with my friend Jon. To my surprise, he was not at all interested. “But it’s only a hundred dollars, and come May I’ll get a hundred million!” I told him.

“And how are you going to collect your money after the Earth is destroyed?” he demanded.

“The insurance agent promised that he’ll be right there in his office waiting to pay me.”

“And where are you going to spend your hundred million dollars when everything is in ruins?” asked Jon. “Do you think the mall will still be open?”

“Jon,” I answered, “I feel sorry for you. You are so shortsighted. I’m just trying to help you out. Goodbye, and I hope that somehow you survive the catastrophe.”

I’m sorry I had to be so tough with him, but he just wouldn’t see sense. Suppose that the mall isn’t open. I’m sure my money will be good on Planet X.

Steve Dunham makes a living on insurance referrals.

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“Vision,” it says. I had to check, even though it has been opposite my office door for almost three years. It’s supposed to inspire me, or maybe make me work harder. Obviously, it hasn’t worked—unless on a subliminal level. Do I have visions at work, the way I’m supposed to?

If I drink enough coffee, yes. Working for a government contractor, I had to take a drug test to get the job. It revealed psychotropic amounts of caffeine and sugar in my bloodstream—enough to induce visions. This is in accord with company policy.

Another poster exhorts me, “Some people dream of worthy accomplishments, while others stay awake and do them”—not to put too fine a point on it, eh?

“Stay awake, Dunham,” I repeat to myself, chanting the mantra of the motivational poster. “Do accomplishments.”

This poster telling me to stay awake is cunningly placed opposite the coffee machine. Hypnotized by the mantra, I return to the coffee machine again and again so that I can stay awake and do accomplishments, unlike my pitiful co-workers who merely dream about worthy accomplishments. They are not team players.

Then I return to my office and, motivated by the other poster, start having visions. It is a vision of zebras. Yes! One day, while cruising the halls, I ventured around the bend beyond the coffee machine and halted in my tracks at an arresting sight: a poster showing a herd of zebras. “Cooperation,” it says.

Obviously the company knows our needs better than we thought. Visionaries like me are reminded to seek transcendental states at work. The slackers down the hall are reminded merely to stay awake. The bickering, feuding department beyond the coffee machine must learn to cooperate.

I staggered back to my office, covering my mouth to stifle the laughter. Presently my amusement became covetousness. Never mind the company’s wisdom, why should those undeserving Hatfields and McCoys at the other end of the building get to have a funny poster?

Covetousness became compulsion. I had to have that poster! And my vision (surely the company would approve of this) became a plan: I would switch the posters when no one was looking.

I confessed my secret desire to a more experienced, jaded employee, who doubted that anyone would notice. What cynicism! But then, if the messages truly are subliminal, she might be right. All I had to do was await my chance. From time to time Ms. Jade would ask about Operation Zebra, and I had to reply that it was still only a vision.

One more cup of coffee put me into action—or maybe it was another poster that did it. I walked up to the poster outside my office, grasped the frame, and lifted. Nothing. It was stuck. I pushed. It wouldn’t move. I shoved. It wouldn’t budge. It must have been bolted to the wall. Slinking back to my office in despair, I confessed to myself that Operation Zebra was a complete failure.

But I am still under the influence of the “Vision” poster. The company is right; the efficacy of the posters is proven. The vision of zebras will not go away. Suitably motivated, I volunteered to help with our department’s move to the new building. I will use this inside position to get myself an office suitable for visions: a window, definitely; maybe pillows on the floor and incense. And definitely zebras.

Steve Dunham is motivated by posters

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“A huge natural pothole hasn’t turned into the tourist attraction that local officials hoped it would become,” reported USA Today. This is really true. Archbald Pothole State Park is in Pennsylvania. It is a really big pothole: 38 feet deep, 42 feet wide—bigger even than some of the potholes in the streets of Washington, DC. Like some of the potholes in Washington, it has become a place of “trash dumping, vandalism and loitering.”

I imagine that the police in Washington charge people with an extra misdemeanor if loitering involves a pothole. “So, young man,” the judge would say. “Where did your parents go wrong, that you should spend your time loitering?”

“Your honor,” the police officer would interrupt, “it was near a pothole too.”

“Young man,” the judge would continue, “you are so far down the path toward a career of crime that I have no choice but to put you back on the streets.”

The judge would be following new sentencing guidelines, according to my plan to reduce overcrowding in Virginia’s prisons and help out the state parks, which are suffering from budget cuts.

If Pennsylvania can make potholes into state parks, Virginia can too. The cost to the taxpayers would be essentially zero, because potholes as tourist attractions need no maintenance. Left to themselves, they tend to become bigger and bigger. Localities would just sit back and watch the money flow in, as tourists come to gape at the pothole and then go shopping in local stores.

Every town and county in Virginia would soon be clamoring for a big pothole that could be designated a state park. That’s where our Young Man Gone Wrong comes in. “If you like potholes so much,” the judge would say, “you can go to Virginia and dig one for people to enjoy.”

Virginia, however, doesn’t just imitate other states. Virginia is big on public works projects as long as they don’t cost anything, and we would greatly expand our system of state parks just by putting up brown signs. And we wouldn’t stop at potholes. There is the famous Mount Trashmore (yes, it is real). All it needs is a brown sign designating it Mount Trashmore State Park. I-95 would become the Old Dominion Scenic Parkway. Abandoned cars in the woods would become Automotive Historical Monuments.

There’s just one snag I haven’t figured out: how the sheriff will distinguish a loiterer from a tourist. I will be gawking at a pothole and the sheriff will say, “All right, buddy, move along. No loitering here.”

“But, officer,” I will protest, “I’m a tourist! See my Drainage Ditch State Park T-shirt? See the bumper sticker on my car? It says, ‘Virginia Is a Shock-Absorbing State.’”

And where will I find myself? In front of a judge. “You’re old enough to know better,” he will say. “I have no choice but to put you back on the streets.”

Steve Dunham works on a chain gang in Virginia.

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Power napping, the easy road to success, wealth, popularity, maybe weight loss, and certainly power, sure has taken a low profile lately. So when my supervisor asked me, “Steve, have you been napping at work?” I knew what he was really asking: “Steve, how did you become so powerful?”

Like other people who have reached the pinnacle of fame, I decided to share my secrets with the masses by writing about them in a book. I don’t have enough secrets to fill a book yet, so I am providing this one in shorter form. Please try to stay awake as I explain power napping.

Everything you heard about it is true. What is important is what you haven’t heard.

First of all, the secret of power napping is “Don’t get caught.” Yes, some very successful people besides me have cashed in by writing about power napping, but they didn’t become powerful by letting their bosses or their jealous co-workers see them asleep.

The second secret of power napping, and just as important, is: “If you power-nap at work or at school, look as if you’re awake.” On the train, it’s OK to be perfectly obvious about power napping; in fact, it advertises how powerful you are. It says: “You pieces of plankton at the bottom end of the office food chain may have to work on your laptops while commuting, but I am so powerful and secure that I can sleep, and I won’t miss my stop either.” People who sleep past their station are not true power nappers. You also will have noticed that some people nap while driving. This does exert power over others but does not lead to success, wealth, or popularity.

You are probably asking, “How can I nap at work and not get caught?” I will now reveal the three Principles of Power: First, try to have an office with a door. Second, adjust your workload so that you have time free to nap. Third, if anyone suspects that you have been asleep, deny it. Just the other day, for example, a co-worker said to me, “Steve, you must have been asleep when you were editing that report.” Of course I denied it.

I used to have an office with a door. I even had a sign that I could legitimately post that said, “Do not enter.” When the company moved to a new building, though, I found myself in an office with three walls and a roof—essentially a lean-to. “Boss,” I complained, “there’s no door.”

“Sure there’s a door. It’s glass,” he replied. “Be careful not to bump into it.”

I have been careful. My fairy-tale existence also recalled a story about people who could see somebody’s clothes unless they were unfit for their job. I got the message and have been careful to walk around the spot where the door might be.

That brings me back to your question about not getting caught. The first thing I did was complain about glare on my computer screen and position it so that my back would be to the spot where the door would be. I mean, where the door is. I also turned off the screen saver and the poorly named “sleep” option for saving power. Now anyone who passes by sees my back and something work related on the screen. I sleep with my hand on the mouse.

Now you are able to use my secrets to gain power, lose weight and so on. Just don’t let me catch you.

Steve Dunham power-naps on VRE to Arlington, where he has an office with three walls and possibly a door.

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This is a true confession. And a warning: don’t bother writing to me. I promise to lose your letter and anything else you send. As Carole King once sang, “Music is playing inside of my head, over and over and over again.” And it kind of drowns out other things.

At the office we got a manuscript in the mail from one of our authors. We had asked for this manuscript. We wanted to print it. I distinctly remember it arriving. And then it disappeared.

No, it wasn’t valuable. But I sure didn’t want to tell the author that we’d promptly lost her manuscript. We don’t just throw manuscripts away—at least not the good ones.

Three of us looked everywhere. And this morning I gave up. I wrote the author a letter confessing that I had no clue as to where her manuscript had gone.

A few hours later one of the staff lawyers called. “Steve, how soon do you need my analysis of that manuscript you gave me?”

“The end of the month will be fine,” I answered. So that’s what I did with it. Only I still don’t remember giving it to anybody.

But the mystery is solved. No, not the mystery of when and how I handed off the manuscript. The mystery of why I can’t remember.

One of the other editors was reading Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs.

“What’s this about Neil Diamond’s chair not listening to him?” he asked.

“Oh, I know that,” I answered. “‘I am,’ I said, to no one there, and no one heard at all, not even the chair!”

“And what’s this song by Cream with ‘I’m so glad’ repeated one billion times?”

I gave him my Eric Clapton imitation. (You would not pay to hear it. The company pays for this.) And then it dawned on me: I have a computer brain, and the disk is full. When I hand off a manuscript to a lawyer, I tell the brain, “Remember this, it’s important.”

And an error message pops up—“Problem: the disk is full.” But I disregard it and go on.

And what is the disk full of? Neil Diamond lyrics, and I am not now, and never have been, a Neil Diamond fan. I never owned any of his records, or any of Cream’s, for that matter. I heard the song “I’m So Glad” maybe once, about 25 years ago. But I can’t erase it from my computer brain’s memory.

Then I said, “If you asked me, I could probably give you all the words to ‘Snoopy vs. the Red Baron,’ and I haven’t heard that in 25 years either.” Then, uncontrollably, I started singing, “Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or more—that bloody Red Baron was rollin’ up a score.…”

Then I reverted to Neil Diamond mode and started singing “Sunday Morning Sunshine.”

This explains a lot. It explains why I can’t remember giving that manuscript to the lawyer. Fortunately, at work I get paid for singing great hits of the sixties. This is probably why the economy is in so much trouble.

And now I am in favor of putting warning labels on tapes and CDs. They should read, “WARNING: These songs may go around and around in your head for the rest of your life.” Unless your disk is already full.

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A Railway Hygiene Etiquette Guide

By Steve Dunham

This column originally appeared in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on November 24, 2002, and is reproduced by permission.

Your fellow riders wish you wouldn’t put on makeup, clip your nails, shave, or otherwise take care of personal hygiene while in your seat on the train. That’s a message that Virginia Railway Express has begun circulating. Instead, says VRE, if you have unfinished personal hygiene to attend to, please use the bathroom.

However, scientific research shows that there is only one bathroom on most VRE trains, and that 600 or more people may be aboard a typical rush-hour train. Also, research shows that putting on makeup can take a long time. Using the bathroom to put on makeup means that the one and only bathroom on the train will be unavailable for many other people who want to use it, especially for urgent matters.

Clearly, the new VRE request is unreasonable, so I have put together my own hygiene etiquette guide for my fellow passengers.

First of all, VRE is right about nail clipping. Not only is the clipping noise annoying, but nail clippings fly all over the place. We do not want nail clippings in our hair or stuck to our clothes, or all over the train bathroom either. Nail clippers should be forbidden on trains, just as on airplanes. VRE should ask the Transportation Security Administration to assign federal screeners to VRE stations to confiscate all nail clippers.

Shaving: I cannot bring myself to believe that people have done this in their seats. This strikes me as a risky, perhaps bloody, thing to do. What will you tell your boss if you arrive at work covered with blood? “Boss, I rescued a baby that crawled onto the tracks”? How about “Boss, the guy next to me was clipping his nails and I had to kill him”? No, shaving on the train is not a good idea.

Applying deodorant. As far as I am concerned, if you forgot to put on your deodorant, please go ahead and apply it. Men may do it in their seats if necessary, discreetly unbuttoning their shirts enough to get that stick of deodorant into the armpit. Women will please use the bathroom. After applying deodorant, you are welcome to sit next to me.

Finally, makeup: Please do not use the train bathroom to put on your makeup. I would like the bathroom to be available in case I or, nearly as important, another passenger should have an urgent call of nature. As far as I am concerned, you may put makeup on in your seat. I sometimes apply chapstick while on the train, and I don’t see a big difference between chapstick and lipstick, or eye shadow for that matter. That is why my mouth is sometimes blue.

Applying makeup on the train seems rather common. It’s not distracting enough or entertaining enough to keep me from reading, so go ahead. That said, I think that makeup application offers a tremendous opportunity for VRE to increase revenue and even fund a new fleet of cars. VRE’s chief operating officer, Pete Sklannik, came to Virginia from the Long Island Rail Road, in New York, which is famous for operating parlor cars on commuter trains, so Pete is the guy to implement my idea: beauty parlor cars. No appointment necessary. Going to a job interview? Get your face done while traveling to work. Running from the IRS? Get on the train with red hair, get off with brown.

I don’t use makeup myself, but I might be interested in getting my face painted. If I had an important meeting with the boss, I could have the words “I love my job” painted on my cheek, along with a little red heart. On my other cheek it would say, “My boss is great!” It would give a new meaning to the term “face time.” Then rail commuting would have another financial incentive: raises.

Until the beauty parlor cars arrive, however, we will have to get our faces done at home or in our seats on the train. But VRE can have a new slogan: “Arrive at work refreshed and looking great!”

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“Husbanding services”—I can do that, I thought when I read the announcement. “The Government requires husbanding services for the country of Uruguay,” it said (this is really true). I am always looking for a good job, and this sounded easy enough.

The announcement said that the contract would be for one year, with three possible one-year extensions, and it gave a contact person at the Department of the Navy: Lieutenant Maureen Seawise.*

I called her up immediately and told her, “I’m interested in providing the husbanding services you require.”

“You have to write a proposal,” she answered. “It’s due by May 31.”

A proposal—of course. And naturally she would want it in time to choose a husband before June, the traditional wedding month. I sat down to write a winning proposal.

“Dear Lieutenant Seawise,” I began, then immediately crossed it out. I started over:

“My dearest Maureen,

“My Latin American beauty! I have been waiting for this moment all my life. Let us sail away together! We will make a beautiful couple, until the lease runs out.

“Affectionately,

“Steve.”

I mailed it with total confidence, and went off to buy a ring.

I could hardly wait as I counted the days till May 31. I was surprised that I had not heard from my darling Maureen, but maybe she had to give the other suitors their chance before they lost out to me. On June 1, with the wedding only weeks away, I could stand it no longer. I called her up.

“Lieutenant Seawise,” she said.

“Maureen! It’s Steve!”

“Mister Dunham, I can’t talk to you now.”

“Mister Dunham”? That did not sound romantic, but maybe she was very old fashioned and would refer to her husband as “mister.”

“Maureen, wait!”

“Mister Dunham, you didn’t get the contract,” she said, and I thought I could hear her snickering. “Please don’t call again.”

“Don’t call again”? What a brush-off! How cold! I stood there listening to the dial tone, and then a voice said, “If you wish to make a call, please hang up and dial again.”

“I do wish to make a call,” I said, “but she told me not to!” The woman on the other end wasn’t listening. All she did was repeat herself: “If you wish to make a call …” Probably she was one of Maureen’s friends.

I sat down, stunned. How can you mend a broken heart? You can’t. But I could find someone who would appreciate me, so I began to compose a personal ad: “Rent a husband …”

Steve Dunham is booked for the foreseeable future.

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“Rent a Wife,” the ad in the newspaper said. (This is really true, and it was in a family newspaper, not one of those raunchy alternative papers* full of ads that make you wonder, “How can they advertise that? Isn’t that majorly illegal?”) But there it was: rent a wife. Why hadn’t somebody thought of this before? The ultimate in temporary marriages! Why bother with in-laws, sickness and health, richer and poorer, till death do us part, and all that?

I was on the phone immediately. “I want to rent a wife,” I said.

“OK,” said the voice on the other end. “When do you want her to start?”

“Today! Or, if that’s too soon, tomorrow. She must be pretty, have a sense of humor, like children,” I continued.

“Hold on, pal. We pick who to send you. Satisfaction guaranteed.”

“All right,” I said. “Tomorrow, then? Say, nine o’clock?”

“Sure, buddy.”

The next morning at nine the doorbell rang. “Rent a wife. I’m Mary Ann,” she said when I opened the door. She was a bit older than I thought she’d be, and a bit tough-looking, but that might be just a sign of experience.

“I’m Steve! Come on in,” I greeted her. “This is wonderful! Make yourself at home.”

“Well, this is some mess,” she said. “No wonder you called Rent a Wife. Well, I might as well get started.”

“Um, aren’t we going to have some kind of ceremony first?” I asked.

“A ceremony? Listen, buster, what do you think this is? Just gimme some room to work.”

Well, maybe I did need somebody with a take-charge attitude, and she did a great job of picking up after me, which I wouldn’t have dared ask of any woman. So I stayed out of her way while watching her fondly. I knew I could learn to love her.

She was incredible. She did the dishes and the laundry; she cleaned the kitchen and the floors and even the windows. When she got to the refrigerator, she cleaned all the way to the back. “What are these in here, your science experiments?” she asked.

“Well, um, they are kind of weird-looking, aren’t they! Ha, ha. They’re just leftovers.”

“Left over from what, the Stone Age? Listen, buster, I should get paid extra for this.”

I was about to point out that my name is Steve, but maybe Buster was her pet name for me.

“Whaddya want for lunch?”

How sweet! “Leftovers will be fine. No, not those leftovers.” She ditched some more weird-looking leftovers and browsed through the fridge till she found some tuna casserole from the night before. And she had me sit at the table while she heated it up and brought it to me.

The afternoon flew by as my rental bride, Mary Ann, turned the house upside down and inside out. She was, I realized, with a tear in my eye, turning it into a home.

As evening drew on I was feeling romantic. “I’d like to take you out for dinner,” I told her.

“Sorry, buster, I can’t. I have a family to go home to.”

A family? Go home?

“But I thought we were getting married!” I blurted out.

“Hey, Buster, what kind of nut are you?”

I stood there stunned as she packed up her things and left. I didn’t sleep that night, and the next morning I called Rent a Wife. “Please send Mary Ann back to me!”

“Sorry, pal. She said no way is she going back to your house. You wanna get married, you run a personal ad or something. But try cleaning up your act first. To hear Mary Ann tell it, you’re one awful slob.”

Steve Dunham actually has a real wife, who does not call him “Buster.”

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Off the Deep End

The Rise of the Robot Animals

Robo Deer is real. It is a decoy created by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to catch poachers. Robo Deer, unlike previous cardboard or stuffed decoys, can “can turn its head and twitch its tail,” according to the Associated Press. Yes, this is really true.

Hunters have tackled Robo Deer, attacked it with a knife, shot it, and run it over (on purpose). Its head came off, but it is still alive. Doesn’t this sound familiar? Yes, it bears an uncanny resemblance to the Terminators.

The big question in my mind is “Has Robo Deer become self-aware?” Those of you who have seen the Terminator movies will realize the implications. For those of you who have not, I will explain: a self-aware machine will realize that it could run the world a whole lot better than humans can, especially if there were no humans around. There, now you have enough inspiration to make three or four movies.

But back to reality. I am one of those hunters who tried to kill Robo Deer, and for good reason, too: I was sent here from the future to stop it. Just as its creators intended, it was a lot tougher to fight than the cardboard deer and styrofoam deer I had battled in the past. Not only was it impervious to my hunting knife, high-caliber weapon, and all-terrain vehicle, it survived an exploding gasoline truck and a puddle of liquid nitrogen. This was one tough animal.

But Robo Deer is not only indestructible, it is not alone. There is the much more fearsome Robo Bull (please refer to another cheesy 1980s movie, Urban Cowboy.) I tackled that machine too, but it threw me off. Despite my repeated attempts to subdue it (each of which cost 50 cents), Robo Bull won every time.

It too is still alive. But so am I, and neither one of us has given up. After all, I have to save humanity. If they win, robot animals will rule the Earth.

Now comes the really scary part: the robot animals are everywhere. They look just like regular animals, and they are out to get me. The Robo Cats, for example, act just like real cats. They shed, they claw on the furniture, they pee on the rug. And they have taken over. And they are definitely self-aware. They sit on the table and look at me. They say, “The heck with you, dummy,” except they use bad words, just like a Terminator. “You may shoo us off the table this time, but we have already won,” they say. These are the advanced-design C-1000 or maybe C-X Robo Cats. I have sent a message to the future asking for a Robo Coyote to help fight the Robo Cats.

Meanwhile, more robot animals keep showing up and attacking. If that Robo Coyote doesn’t arrive soon, my only hope is yet another sequel.

Steve Dunham is half human and half machine, but he is on the side of humanity. Really.

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Americans love to eat on wheels. One of the most popular features of rail travel has always been sitting at a table and eating while watching the scenery go by. That’s not an everyday luxury, though, so the passion for eating on the go has translated into drive-in fast-food stops, where we can grab our grub and keep going, gulping our food with one hand and holding onto the wheel with one hand. Or even less than one hand.

The practice of eating on the go reached its height of refinement in a carpool I used to be in. It was kind of like riding a bus, in that I was always waiting for it, even when I was driving. I would pull up outside the garden apartments where “Louise” (her name has been changed to protect the guilty) lived. I would usually shut off the engine, because there was almost always a wait—just like waiting for a bus, except that I could sit in the car while waiting.

By and by Louise would appear. She would have her purse slung over one shoulder; her hands would be full with a bowl of cereal, a cup of tea, and sometimes grapefruit or toast. When we got to work, mine was the only car in the parking lot that was full of dirty dishes. I resolved that if I could ever afford a van with all the options, it would include a dishwasher.

Sometimes on Saturday mornings I would clean out the car and find a fork or a plate or a plastic tumbler under one of the seats. I could have held a yard sale with the things Louise left behind, except who wants to buy dirty dishes?

We started to call our carpool “The Rolling Breakfast Club.” We imagined having a radio broadcast from the car. Louise wouldn’t have made a good talk show host, because her mouth was always full. But it still would have been an entertaining show.

Anyway, the fun mornings came when Louise was driving. Louise, like many women, thinks that those mirrors inside the car are there so that the driver can put on her makeup while she’s driving to work. But usually that had to wait, because she was busy eating breakfast. I’d be waiting outside, and Louise would pull up, ten minutes or so late, with her breakfast in her lap. I should have gotten her a lap tray for Christmas. She’d have a bowl of cereal in her lap, and a cup of orange juice between her knees. Her car had manual transmission, too—I never figured out how she worked the clutch.

Some mornings she didn’t have time to grab (grab, not eat) breakfast before leaving home, and we would stop at the McDonald’s drive-in window. She’d drive up US 1 with a breakfast burrito in one hand and her orange juice in the other. There were many moments when I wished she had at least one hand on the wheel.

At least it was an exciting way to travel to and from work.

All good things must come to an end, however, and eventually the Rolling Breakfast Club ran its last miles. Louise, I think, became a stunt driver in Hollywood.

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Off the Deep End

Runaway Chickens

“Fugitive chickens” are a problem in Bartow, Florida, according to a story in the Polk County Democrat. Yes, this is really true. The city has a law to protect all birds from any kind of harm, but really free-range chickens have pushed people to their limit.

Rather than enact intermediate measures such as a chicken leash law or a chicken pooper-scooper law, the city commissioners, “with stuffed, life-size toy chickens and roosters perched before them,” decided that any chicken running loose may be rounded up and turned over to the city manager.

Before you apply for the job of city manager in Bartow, thinking that the job perks include all the chicken you can eat, read the fine print: any chicken not claimed by its owner within three days will be deported—possibly taken to the city line, dumped, and told not to come back.

The city planned to hire someone to round up loose chickens. I guess this would be a cowboy type or maybe an exterminator with a catchy slogan such as “We take the foul out of fowl.”

Several people advised the commissioners that chickens are smart birds and not easy to catch. It’s better to sneak up on them at night. So I am thinking that any chicken planning to stay out late in Bartow had better carry several forms of identification, including a photo ID, or else learn some birdsongs and try to pass for some other species. “Honest, officer, I’m a canary! Cluck! I mean, tweet!”

Canary, indeed—as in coal mine. Any thoughtful reader will ask, “What are these ‘fugitive chickens’ running away from?”

Possibly the answer lies in another story, this one from the News Chief of Polk Online, describing the Polk County Health Department’s Sentinel Chicken Program. Flocks of chickens are stationed around the county and tested every week in case they have come down with St. Louis encephalitis, which is carried by mosquitoes.

According to the story, which cunningly carried a banner ad for the Trinity Funeral and Cremation Center, a nurse from the health department said that no chickens have caught the disease so far.

Despite this reassurance, if I were a chicken in the Sentinel Chicken Program, I would be a fugitive too, or at least heading out for a night on the town and perhaps buying some insect repellant while I’m there. When that visiting nurse from the health department came around for a bed check, she would find a rubber chicken in my nest. This would result in an immediate lockdown and quarantine while the health department tried to discover the cause of death and to isolate the disease that had caused it. Then the rubber chicken would be turned over to the Trinity Funeral and Cremation Center.

Meanwhile, I would be dumped at the city line and told not to come back, as if I would have to be told. If any human eyed me hungrily, I would say, “I just escaped from the Sentinel Chicken Program,” and they would all back away from me as I walked to freedom.

Steve Dunham tracks fugitive chickens.

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Save Energy While Driving

By Steve Dunham

This column appeared in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star on July 27, 2003, and is reproduced with permission.

With a change of driving habits, we can save enough energy to balance the federal budget, pull the plug on terrorism and make driving cheaper than walking, bicycling, or even just staying in bed in the morning. For everybody who is tired of paying money to go places, such as commuting to work, here is some consumer news that will save you enough to cover your car payments and insurance payments combined. Just reading this column will pay for the price of the newspaper.

The problem of wasting energy is not caused by sport utility vehicles. SUVs are a model of thrift compared to some wasteful everyday driving habits that everybody should stop. Here are the top problem areas.

Number one: using headlights too much. Headlights are the biggest energy-waster on your car, and as many thrifty drivers will tell you, they are totally unnecessary. Just leave them off. You can drive thousands of miles without an accident.

Turn signals are another big waster of electricity. They are meaningless, because cars that are signaling may not turn, and cars that aren’t signaling are likely to turn anyway. Turn signals are worthless, so just forget you have them. You can save money every time you drive just by not using turn signals.

Excessive fuel consumption is what most people notice about the cost of driving. The big enemy of fuel economy is stopping. Cars were made to go, not to stand still. STOP is an acronym for Stop Terrorist Oil Payments. This means “Do not stop for any reason. Stopping wastes oil, and the money benefits terrorists.” So when you see a stop sign, obey it.

Traffic lights are part of the color-coded threat alert system. Green means go. Yellow means you are in danger, so do not stop. Red means you are possibly in the cross-hairs of a terrorist’s rifle and should go as fast as possible.

Going slow also wastes fuel and supports terrorism. It encourages people to do foolish things like crossing the street, which in turn causes traffic to go even slower. If you see someone obeying the speed limit, especially in a residential area, the most patriotic thing you can do is to hassle the slow driver into speeding. If this makes people perceive you as an amateur terrorist, they are wrong. This is no business for amateurs.

Sometimes you may find yourself behind a vehicle that is going slow because the traffic ahead is going slow, possibly due to a truck or school bus up ahead. Here you have two choices: you can go with the herd mentality, or you can be a rugged, individualist American who shows everyone else how it’s done. If you tailgate the vehicle at the end of the line (just ahead of you), you can get the whole line moving faster. If that doesn’t work, then use a little imagination and initiative. Passing lanes and shoulders can be used in emergencies, and this sounds like an emergency, doesn’t it?

Speaking of emergencies, fire trucks, police cars and ambulances are another cause of unnecessary stopping. Any competent driver can go faster than a pokey old fire truck, police car or ambulance. Pulling over just wastes fuel, and you might be selfishly causing the drivers behind you to waste fuel too. On the other hand, if you are behind an emergency vehicle, you should take advantage of this to drive more efficiently (that is, faster and without stopping).

Finally, unless you are a superpatriotic American who is already following all these money-saving practices, you must be considerate of drivers who have not yet learned to drive as well as you do. The nicest thing you can do is to educate them, using hand signals, blowing your horn, or speaking to them directly (you may have to yell to be heard).

Also, since they aren’t as smart as you, you should expect some imitative behavior. If they too use hand signals, blow their horns, or speak loudly to you, they are just trying to say, “Thank you.”

Steve Dunham wastes energy when driving.

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But I’ll bet you have never heard of the second, or maybe it was the third, Thanksgiving, celebrated on the other side of the world among the cannibals of what was known then as Plimoth Island.

My ancestor, Miles Standoffish Dunham, was one of the Scooby-Doo Separatists, fleeing Europe to get away from Scooby-Doo movies and other kinds of persecution. With likeminded emigrants, he chartered a ship named the Sunflower and set sail for a new life in America. However, he believed that if Columbus could not reach the Indies by sailing west, maybe his own group could reach America by sailing east.

The trip was very difficult, just like the voyage of the Mayflower, except twice as long, and by the time the Sunflower reached the Pacific islands, the colonists were ready to rename the ship the Skunk Cabbage.

When they finally dropped anchor in the bay of what they called Plimoth Island, the weary travelers were very hungry—hungry not just for freedom, but for dinner. As they stepped ashore, they were greeted by friendly natives who eyed them hungrily.

“We have come seeking religious freedom,” said Miles, and the leader of the natives assured him that the island was blessed with total freedom of religion.

“Not for everybody, just for us,” said Miles. “We didn’t like the religion where we came from, and we won’t allow any of that here.”

“I don’t think you know Squatto,” said the native chief.

“Oh, yeah?” answered Miles, but the chief wasn’t listening.

“This is Squatto,” said the chief. “He will help you prepare for dinner.”

“Thank you,” said Miles, impressed by the chief’s friendliness.

“No, thank you!” said the chief. “We have just survived our first winter. This is the tropics, and we never had winter before. Now we want to celebrate with a feast, and you have arrived just in time.”

Afraid that the pilgrims might high-tail it out of there, the natives waited till everyone was off the ship before approaching them again. Miles was a ways down the shore, carving the date, 1621, into a rock, when the natives offered the weary travelers a nice, hot bath in big black pots, the kind you have seen in cartoons.

Miles may not have been the brightest pilgrim, but he could figure out what was going on, and he decided not to join the other colonists on the menu. He swam to the ship, cut the anchor line, and drifted into the sunset until he was rescued by some sailors who knew the right direction to sail in order to reach America.

You can imagine how things might have worked out differently. The colonists might have purchased Plimoth Island for $24 worth of plastic jewelry and sent all the natives to live on a reservation. But they didn’t, and the Europeans never came back, and to this day the natives celebrate that fact every November.

Steve Dunham will be having friends for dinner on Thanksgiving.

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“It’s freezing!” “It” is one of my office mates, who is cold-blooded. The warm-blooded workers are fine.

The weather is, at least by my New England standards, mild—in the forties. Let it get on the cold side—say, below twenty—and you’d better keep your mouth shut if you enjoy it. This is part of a new temperature-based bias, for which we who like it cold need to invent a catchy name, such as “temperaturism” or “thermometerism,” if we hope to obtain equal rights, pity, media coverage and heat-free offices.

Yes, we are a discriminated-against group. Let us have a real cold snap or, God forbid, a few inches of snow, and we will feel the wrath of the cold-blooded majority. They treat us as though we have brought on the cold weather simply by desiring it. Believe me, if we could control the weather by wishing, we’d get a lot more snow than we do.

Six months later, when the majority have their way with the weather—that is to say, in the shade, the temperature is approximately the boiling point of lead—they will gloat and talk about how wonderful the weather is. Those of us who are sweltering are expected to suffer in silence.

True, there are other factors. Those of us who like to walk outdoors, for example, can get along fine in the cold. We walking types also benefit from the snow when it’s time to cross the street. As any of you who have tried to cross a street are aware, drivers do not bother with stop signs. Drivers think that those red octagonal signs are warnings to pedestrians to keep out of their way.

But a foot or two of snow on the ground changes the balance of power dramatically. Now the shoe is on the other foot, or the tire is on the other wheel, or something. Anyway, all those cars that were whizzing through the striped areas euphemistically called “crosswalks” now cannot stop at the corner. The practical effect of that on pedestrians is nil, because those cars weren’t going to stop anyway. The big blessing is that most of those cars can’t even get away from the curb.

No wonder the vast majority hate us.

But we’re fighting back. We’re gaining political power. We’re going to get temperature-based discrimination classified as a hate crime. We’re going to get our heritage—all the major blizzards ever recorded—mentioned in the history books. All the Ivy League colleges will have to offer courses in “Arctic Studies” and “The Positive Effect of Cold Weather on World Culture.”

We’ll get paid family leave every time it snows. We’ll have no-heating sections in every office, restaurant, public building, bus, and train.

And in the summer, when it’s a few hundred degrees outside, we’ll get our revenge. “It” will still be freezing, bundled up in a coat for protection against the air conditioning.

Steve Dunham is a victim of temperature discrimination.

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Off the Deep End

Stealth Office Work

Doing nothing at work but not getting caught is my specialty, or at least you would think so considering the helpful advice I have provided in the past. However, it has its downside. In fact, I have gotten so good at keeping my activities (or inactivities) concealed from the prying eyes of managers and other busybodies that when I actually do work, they remain blissfully unaware of it.

The other day, a co-worker and I were struggling to finish a project on time. We took only a ten-minute lunch break, during which we basically did other work, such as checking e-mail from clients, and we finished the job only a few minutes behind schedule. Whew! We grabbed some refreshments and were enjoying a well-deserved chat when the manager walked in. (This whole paragraph is really true.)

I could have salvaged this situation, but I panicked and broke all my rules. I ended up trying to convince the manager that we had been working nonstop for five hours. Big mistake. The worst thing you can do is to let the manager gain control of a situation. Also, do not think it’s easy to have the manager catch you working. It doesn’t happen that way. The One-Minute Manager, who was supposed to catch people doing something right, went out with the 1980s. (There wasn’t really a hyphen in “One-Minute Manager” either; like the managers of today, he was not strong on English.) Nowadays, the One-Minute Manager isn’t trying to catch people working, he is eating the employees’ cheese. Also, notice that even the One-Minute Manager had trouble finding people actually doing work.

Getting caught working is even harder than getting caught not working. The fact is that you are probably not on the manager’s radar screen at all. If you are, you are probably a target for his empire defense system. So you cannot expect fate to hand you a serendipitous encounter in which the manager walks in when you are working hard. Even if he did, he probably would not know what you are doing. No, the only way to survive is to be in control at all times.

Here are my rules for managing the manager:

1. Let him know who’s boss. Remember, he doesn’t understand your job, so don’t let him tell you how to do it.
2. Never admit anything. Anything you say can and will be used against you.
3. Count everything as work. If the manager walks in while you are discussing football, say, “I wish we could just do our jobs, but [insert a client’s name] always wants to talk about the Redskins, so now I have to keep up with football just to do my real job.” Be sure not to specify your real job, even if you know what it is.

Steve Dunham works with stealth office technology. These are not his actual work habits, but it’s hard to tell, isn’t it?

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Off the Deep End

Talking Statues

All high-level government decisions are made by statues that talk. For public consumption, the story is that our government has three branches: legislative, judicial, and executive. In reality, all serious matters are decided by the statues.

Take public drunkenness, for example: “Martin was convicted of being drunk on a public highway,” according to the University of Michigan Law School. (This is a real case and a real quotation.) “Officers arrested him at his home and took him onto the highway where he manifested a drunken condition. The Alabama statue states that anyone in a public place manifesting a drunken condition shall be convicted or fined.” A jury convicted him of public drunkenness. However, their decision was overturned because the law presupposes that the drunk is on the highway voluntarily, not taken there by police. This is really true. Clearly, the wisdom of human beings on a jury is deficient, whereas a statue possesses the wisdom of Solomon.

You also need a Solomon when you have a tie between presidential candidates. Who gets to demand a recount? It must be decided by wise talking statues, as I learned from a Yahoo posting: “Well, the statues state that a manual recount may be requested up to 72 hours after the general election while they also say that county returns must be filed with the state within 7 days.”

The statues monitor the elections fairly. “Florida statues state that a failure to make any required disclosures constitutes grounds for disqualification from being on the ballot,” according to a story in the St. Petersburg Times. Florida may have problems with its voting system, but fortunately can get disputes settled impartially by statues.

How big is a wading pool in Thornburg, Indiana, where some nervy residents were putting them in their front yards? “State statues state that a wading pool is 24" or less,” according to the homeowners association minutes. Imagine the rancor and contention if human beings had to resolve this on their own, quarreling about what constitutes a wading pool. Instead, I imagine the officers saying, “We must consult the statues.” Then they excuse themselves and go into a back room, where they say, “O wise statues, how big is a wading pool?” Personally, I would have not settled for the enigmatic answer the statues gave. I would have asked, “Is that 24 inches wide or 24 inches deep?”

You can see that the statues, when making their pronouncements, really get into the details. In Europe, where governments lean more toward socialism, the statues exercise even more control. For example, “Dental treatment is granted according to the statues,” says the European Union website.

So what are these statues? Are they busts of Washington and Lincoln? Roman gods? Saints? “As a child I was raised according to the statues of a devoted Roman Catholic,” wrote one college student in a term paper. On a biblical note, the People for the American Way website refers to “the sodomy statue.” I wonder whether it is made of salt.

However, I think that the governing statues are definitely images of Americans, because I have found* thousands of references to “federal statues.” For instance, “the Eisenhower Center is governed by federal statue.”

Also, the statues don’t seem to be divine. “For example, if a federal statue is on shaky constitutional footing,” it may be reviewed by the Supreme Court, according to Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. The American Civil Liberties Union concurs: “Anytime a federal statue is declared unconstitutional, there’s a strong probability that the Supreme Court will review the case.” Also, one federal statue can be “preempted by another Federal statue,” asserts the Environmental Protection Agency.

So the statues seem to compete with each other, sort of like Roman gods. This leads me to conclude that American government is from Mars and Venus.

Steve Dunham is a legal expert who consults the statues.

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Off the Deep End

Take Your Dog to Work Day

Take Your Dog to Work Day is the best workplace innovation in many years. Having co-workers’ pets running around all day is the perfect excuse for not doing any work, not that I necessarily need an excuse.

June 20 was the fifth annual Take Your Dog to Work Day, according to a story in the Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star. This is really true, although I’m wondering how I overlooked the first four of these annual events. How could I have missed the dogs running around at work? I swear I was awake.

Pet Sitters International, which sponsors Take Your Dog to Work Day, hopes that “the pooches will have employers everywhere considering the positive impact of pets in the workplace.” The organization “encourages dog owners to bring their four-legged friends to work with them … to see where they go and what they do all day.” Are the dogs supposed to see what their owners do all day? It sounds like the owners might turn the dogs loose and see what happens. Let slip the dogs of work, as Shakespeare might have put it.

Anyway, it is supposed to be a nice time for dogs, their owners, employees, and even employers. One employer is quoted as saying that the staff “wanted a fun, bonding time with [the dogs] at the office.”

So the dogs will be running around trying to bond with me, which I guess means sniffing me, licking me, and putting their paws on me. I can see where I might get tired of this. The one-day-party atmosphere could turn into a “Get away from me” atmosphere. I could find some less demanding excuses for not doing any work. Take Your Dog to Work Day could have another negative effect, too: what if my boss decides to see where I go and what I do all day?

However, you don’t have to read very far between the lines to see that pretty soon every day will be Take Your Dog to Work Day if employers everywhere realize the positive impact of pets in the workplace.

“This event is increasing in popularity,” says the news story, which quotes the Pet Sitters International public relations manager as saying, “We do know thousands of businesses from coast to coast and from border to border who just can’t wait for this day to come around every year.” All my best friends feel the same way.

Steve Dunham realizes the positive impact of pets in the workplace.

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Off the Deep End

The Third Degree

“Obtain a prosperous future, money earning power, and the admiration of all,” said the email. I already had the third item but I was definitely interested in getting the first two, especially on the cheap, and they would have to be cheap, or why bother? Prosperity and earning power are already available by more strenuous means, such as diligent labor (though this doesn’t always work) or fraud, connivance, and theft (these don’t always work either).

So how would I obtain prosperity and earning power without strenuous effort? “Diplomas from prestigious non-accredited universities based on your present knowledge and life experience. No required tests, classes, books, or interviews.”

This sounds similar to how I got my first two degrees. I actually got my doctorate first (this is really true). Through virtually no merit of my own, Immaculate Seminary, a place I have never laid eyes on, if it even exists, sent me a diploma naming me a doctor of philosophy in theology. This has gained me the admiration of all, if not prosperity or earning power. It also provides a secret weapon against people who are not in the field of medicine but insist on being addressed as “doctor,” by virtue of their degree in some specialty not nearly as admirable as philosophy in theology. “Don’t make me bring in my diploma,” I can say.

I also earned, or at least partly paid for, a bachelor’s degree, and this diploma actually did give me some credit for my knowledge and life experience, although the college, which was accredited, was fairly strict about what it would give credit for.

The missing link, so to speak, in my education (or chain of diplomas) is a master’s degree. Here, it seemed, was my opportunity: “Bachelors, masters, MBA, and doctorate (PhD) diplomas available in the field of your choice.” I am leery of an educational institution that does not know that “bachelor’s degree” and “master’s degree” contain an apostrophe.* However, I might overlook such faults if the price is low enough. I’m sure I could neatly add an apostrophe to my diploma if necessary. (As a side benefit, I have figured out where some people who cannot spell “master’s degree” must have gotten theirs. “No one is turned down,” the ad promised.)

So what field should I choose? Something that would be impossible for me to actually learn, such as French or mathematics? No, I wanted prosperity and earning power. I would want to become an oil magnate or a Fortune 500 CEO. Perhaps I would become a master of business administration.

The ad promised a “diploma within days!!!” By the time you read this, I should have my third degree and be well on my way to prosperity.

Steve Dunham is acquiring a master’s degree.

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Off the Deep End

Your Biological Alarm Clock

The buzzing sound by my bedside sounds like the alarm clock going off, but I know it’s only a dream. In my sleep, I reach over and shut off this imaginary annoyance.

The next morning it happens again. “Why is the alarm going off?” I wonder. “It’s Saturday!” At least that’s what my biological alarm clock tells me.

Unlike a mechanical or electrical alarm clock, your biological alarm clock knows what’s good for you. For example, it is much more healthful to stay in bed at least until the sun comes up (or later than that in summer) than to get up and go to work. This is why the bedside alarm clock screams at you, “Get up! Go to work!” but your biological alarm clock has an automatic snooze reset.

On the other hand, once you are up and on your way to work, there is no health benefit in riding past your stop on the train, which is why your internal alarm clock wakes you up in time. (If you sleep past your stop, your biological alarm clock may be broken.) At work, when I start reading boring, badly written reports, my brain’s natural defenses recognize that reading such things is bad for my mental and physical health. If I consume too much of that stuff (TMTS), I am liable to start (LTS) pointlessly putting the initials of everything (IOE) in parentheses (()) and then could potentially commence the process of initiating the writing of extremely long coalescenses of words and other printed and/or published accumulations of verbal detritus that fail to communicate with the reader except to conduct the provision of such facts as somebody’s employer and/or client for some reason pays for the production of such drivel and actually seems to prefer it, including but not limited to the production of PowerPoint slides with several dozens of boxes containing more initials in type that is too tiny to read anyway. Oops! Obviously I am way over my limit in garbage consumption. I did not listen to my biological alarm clock, which was patiently telling me to shut my eyes and catch some sleep, even if it is only 11 a.m.

A stomach growl tells me that it’s time to wake up and eat lunch. Unlike the beeping or ringing of a mechanical or electrical alarm clock, the sounds of your biological alarm clock can’t be ignored.

Lunch is followed by a meeting in which somebody is projecting a PowerPoint presentation with dozens of boxes containing initials in type that is too tiny to read. Worse, the meeting chairman is reading the slides to us. My body and mind are in wholehearted agreement that it is nap time again already. My biological alarm clock does not want me to get fired, just get some rest, so I wake up when I hear papers shuffling and chairs moving as the other nappers head for the door.

The one time I do not want to be asleep at work, aside from lunch hour, is when it’s time to leave. I am wide awake as departure time approaches. Likewise on the bus. On board the train, in spite of several naps today already, it is time for one more nap. It would be unhealthful to wake up in the railroad maintenance facility five miles from my car and seven miles from home, so my biological alarm clock wakes me up before my station.

This illustration of a typical Tuesday shows why you should listen to your biological alarm clock. The next morning, when a clatter by your bedside shouts at you, “Get up! Go to work!” you will know not to pay attention. You can’t fool Mother Nature. It’s really Saturday.

Steve Dunham commutes on VRE to Arlington, where he wakes up in time to go home.

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