Work has been hectic, and I’m still in full self-pity mode, but there has been social alleviation lately. Say what you will about crises; they show you who your friends are. Since… The Incident, I have been amazed by the people I considered friends who haven’t even bothered to pick up a phone. Fortunately, I have also gotten support from people I never would have expected.

One of those people came into town from Texas this weekend, a woman who was a mutual friend of Kelly’s and mine who now navigates between the two of us with Kissingeresque diplomatic skills. Since she has been an outstanding source of support, I did what I could to make her stay in town a pleasant one. Despite my typical grumpiness, I think I pulled it off well enough.

It was wonderful to see her, of course, because she was definitely a breath of fresh air in my weekend routine of taping Star Trek and checking my e-mail. Not only was it wonderful to see her in town, it was also pretty cool to actually see her. In all honesty, there have been about six women in my life who have caused a serious whiplash-style injury to my neck just from the sheer force of my eyes popping in and out of my head when I first saw them. (The cartoon characters make it look like fun, but it is not.) Two of those women are currently competing for the title of my Her, and one of them was my Texan visitor. Not that anything’s gonna happen there or anything; it was just nice to be in the company of a lovely young lady for once in a great while. I almost wanted to take her around and knock on people’s doors and say, "I do have friends! Look!"

Sadly, the only interesting story I can think of to tell about the day was when we went to feed Kelly’s cat. Kelly had gone out of town, to Texas strangely enough, and I offered to feed her cat while she was away. (True to form, I argued vehemently against buying the cat and then fell in love with it.) I know what you’re thinking: "You fed her cat?! Are you the biggest tool in the box?!" All I can say in response is: yes, and it’s even worse than you think. She did not ask me to feed the cat. It was completely my idea. I offered to feed the cat so she could go on a trip with her new guy to meet the family and whatnot. I had always planned to go to Dallas with her… I guess I always assumed there would be time.

At any rate, we fed the cat, who is about four feet taller than she was the last time I saw her. She also defecates quite a lot more than the last time her feces was my problem.

So, speaking of s***, I finished my feline duties and began a note to show I’d been there and that everything was fine. And as I wrote it, I thought, "wouldn’t it be funny to write that I took the Nintendo? Just to freak her out?" You see, when last Christmas came around, I didn’t think I had enough cash to buy decent jewelry like a meaningful ring. I did want to get something really nice though, something that would really be enjoyed, something we could enjoy together. Something symbolic with a somewhat meaningful intention and price tag (this is America, after all; meaning is determined not by effort, but by cost) but also fun. I opted for the Nintendo.

So now, she’s playing my Nintendo present with another guy. They’re racing Mario karts, they’re hunting dinosaurs, they’re f***in’ bonding as a couple with my f***in’ Nintendo. I can only assume that they periodically have the following conversation while playing:

HIM: Who won that last game, and who was the loser?
HER: We both won, and Jim was the loser!
BOTH: Ha ha ha, Jim is foolish!

This thought is the second most infuriating thought I have with regards to the breakup. Even now, the Nintendo is a symbol to me. I have broached the topic of getting it back, with very negative results. I sort of forgot about it; the biggest tool in the box still sees friendship potential, and wouldn’t want to ruin it by making a big thing out of pettiness over what was a gift, which is essentially what I’m doing right now.

(Although, in my mind, that gift was given to the woman I was going to grow old with. The women I will grow old with does not have it. A friend of mine who kind of pisses me off has it.)

Anyway, so I turned as I wrote the note and said to my guest, "Wouldn’t it be funny if I wrote that I stole the Nintendo?"

And she replied, "Kelly took the Nintendo to Dallas with her."

Now, there is still a part of my mind that wants to believe she just took it so they would have something to pass the time with during their stay. There is, however, that pesky inner monologue, saying, "She took it because she expected you to steal it! You offered to feed her cat, and in return she essentially said that it was you who could not be trusted! Eat that!" I am anxious to hear which part of me is right.

Then I said, "Well, if I can’t be trusted to keep my hands off the f***ing Nintendo, then I guess I need to take back those borrowed CDs while I’m here!", only to find out moments later that she had taken my CDs on a trip across the country as well.

It is currently cool down time.

Last night, my next door neighbor broke up with her boyfriend. After one year and eight months, she had decided she had had enough of his crazy family, she had had enough of his friends, and most importantly, she had had enough of him. He had gone over to a friend’s to watch pornography and drink rather than be with her, and he had been rough with her when she confronted him with it. That was the last straw; she decided that he needed to take back all of his things and get out of her life for good. He did not take it well; like all of us tough guys, he was reduced to sobbing tears.

I do not know all of this because my neighbor and I are friends. On the contrary, I have never spoken to her in my life. I would not recognize her if I was asked to pick her out of a lineup, and the lineup was held in her kitchen. I know all of this because the heartfelt, frank exchange of ideas that constituted the bulk of the breakup occurred right outside my apartment at 3 a.m.

I would have been much happier not knowing. The fact that there exists in this world a relationship where a guy can turn to his partner and say, "Steve and I are gonna go watch pornos" is bad enough; I think the fact that they then interrupted my sleep to include me in the debriefing pushes them into a category all their own. I tried very hard to blot it all out with the old pillow-to-the-ear trick, but the muffling effect was diminished somewhat when the sound of their screams shattered all the glass in my windows. (That’s going to do wonders for my heating bill, too.)

Was I raised dysfunctionally? Someone help me: how mad do you have to be to yell at the top of your lungs at another person for an hour in the parking lot at 3 a.m.? You live in the apartments; you know how easy it is to hear. You know nobody’s listening to anything else at 3 a.m. What’s going on in your mind to make this situation become a reality? In all fairness, I guess they had to be outside for her to throw all his stuff out the door (also loudly).

And I know she was conscious of it, because she did something I have heard defiantly obnoxious people do many times before: when shushed, she retorted loudly, "I don’t care if everybody hears! I don’t care if everybody knows! I hope somebody does call the police!! I’m not ashamed! I’m not afraid!!"

You should be, Sleepy Me thought. I’d kill you in your sleep, except you don’t seem to need any.

I had two sets of thoughts as it all went on, as the big burly potential wife-beater sobbed pathetically outside my bedroom window. The first set began with at-leasts.

At least Kelly didn’t throw my stuff at my head.
At least nobody else had to witness what a wreck I was that night.
At least I got dumped for being not good enough, rather than for being actively bad.
At least he can pinpoint what he did wrong.
At least nobody else in the apartment complex knows about me watching pornos.
(Joke.*)

Because, you know, even if it’s happening to two people I never met, it’s all about me. Obviously.

The other thought I had was a rerun, or more like an echo. The first time it really occurred to me, I was on a plane leaving New York City. Fearing that it would be a mistake to rely on a cab to take us to the airport, my coworkers and I had rented a car a month in advance. It would pick us up from the convention center two hours early. We would have plenty of screwaround time in the airport. Magazines would be bought. Dinner would be eaten.

Needless to say, given the above buildup, the car was an hour and a half late. By the time it arrived, we had called the company every ten minutes for an hour. They kept giving us updates: "He’s in traffic on 12th…. He’s on 10th now…. 9th…11th… 43rd… 6th…." Until it became clear that the driver was actually in some kind of hot air balloon or teleporter or something, because he was in Philadelphia for a while. Anyway, the car eventually got there, and Dan yelled at the driver, and the driver laughed. And we got into the car, and as we drove, Dan called the driver’s boss and began telling the driver’s boss how much the driver sucked as the driver drove us towards the plane that we would only catch if the driver made it so. As Dan yelled, Jerry and I looked at one another as if to say, "Oh, there has GOT to be a better way to handle this."

We got to the airport with thirty seconds to spare. We ran like Olympians through the concourse. I beat my luggage with an umbrella upon learning that, if it didn’t fit into the x-ray machine, it wasn’t a carry-on (and if it wasn’t a carry-on, I would have to check it and possibly miss the plane). We bought no magazines; we ate no meal. We dodged strangers and yelled. We had to leave the pregnant lady behind, after the car stopped and she screamed, "Go on without me!" like a refugee from a bad war movie.

And as I entered the already full plane and soaked in the hateful glares of the prompt passengers who were waiting for us and tried fruitlessly to cram my huge bag into the overhead compartment ANYwhere I could, I thought about college. Or, I thought about Evil and Demonics in Christian Tradition (Why Bad Things Happen to Good People 101). It was a class I had. In that class, I studied the awful things that befall people and tried to make sense of it. In the end I decided that, although I had seen some terrible stuff in my time, and none of it ever seemed to make sense, looking back I wouldn’t change the way things had gone down. All of the injuries and accidents and arguments and lost friends and deaths had shaped me into the person I was, had taught me invaluable lessons about life. I was pretty satisfied with my conclusions.

But as I sat breathless, friendless, and loveless in the plane home, that class came to mind, and one question kept sitting there in my mind like a rude guest. It came back when my miserable neighbors shared their pain and took my sleep last night. Actually, it’s been hanging around a lot lately.

I just thought, "What am I possibly supposed to get out of this?"

That’s the pesky part of believing in an ordered universe. What good could possibly come from that miserable escape from New York? What was I possibly supposed to learn? Next time, trust the cabbies?

I was up at three in the morning basking in the misery and tragedy of strangers. Why? The whole thing just seems so pointlessly painful on so many levels. Why? For the at-leasts?

What temporal Circle of Life gymnastics could possibly occur to make me ever look back on my life and say, "Gosh, I’m glad Kelly destroyed every hope I had for the future. Whew! That sure taught me a lot!"?

That question is the only reason I get out of bed in the morning. The only reason I can stand the thought of going through the motions, the thought of meeting new people to dump me, the thought of going on with my "life" without that person most central to it actively participating… every time I think about what a mess I am because of all of this, all I can think is, "I can not WAIT to hear the punchline for this one. God—if that’s Your real name—You have got a lot of explaining to do."

For the moment, God ain’t saying much. I haven’t seen much of Him lately. I think He knows I’m mad at Him.

*"Jim is a pervert" jokes closed captioned for the humor impaired.

---

Move Toward the Light, Sparky November 10

I lectured my dad today. Another breath of fresh air.

I won’t bore you with (many of) the details. It’s like this, see: my dad is rich. RICH. He accumulates vast amounts of wealth. He uses this money to create piles, which he then uses primarily to support taller piles. The object of this game is to save enough money to "retire," which is accomplished by working so hard you die. Then the piles are thrown to people at random, usually people who work for the government.

Now that I don’t live with them or owe them any money, I don’t usually care what games my parents play with the piles. They can stack the unused money as high as they want. Currently, however, my mom is using the oldest computer in the world, a computer that I believe was used to break coded Nazi transmissions from the Rhine in the mid-forties. It is Sparky, the computer I got when I went to college. Several years ago. The most memorable thing about this computer (besides vague things like, "I remember when this used to work") is the incident when it was struck by lightning after my freshman year. I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself. Ever since, Sparky ain’t been quite right.

So, Sparky is old, Sparky is crappy, and Sparky needs to be put down. Mom needs a new system. This would be easily achievable, but it involves reducing pile size by 1/64000000. This is against the objective of the game. So, Sparky gets a daily workout when what he needs is an EKG and some bed rest.

And I mean, it’s not like he’s not gonna be able to retire. He will never say, "Whew! Finally ready to say goodbye to the grindstone… wait. What’s this…? I’m $2000 short! Now I have to work till I’m dead! Oh, if only I still had that $2000!" And it’s not like Mom’s going to be affected by the missing money if (God forbid) something should ever happen to Dad. She couldn’t live off of the savings as it is. Nobody but Dad knows where the money is; Dad keeps track of it on a computer even older than Sparky, a computer made of twigs. It’s so old he’s the only one who knows how to use it.

Anyway, today my mom wrote me an e-mail to brief on current events in the family, and it was like, "I hope you get this. The monitor is almost entirely yellow, and I can only make out every third letter. Well, I have to go; the processor is smoking again. Talk to ya later!" So, I finally broke down and wrote my father an impassioned plea. I even infused it with corny dad-humor to help my case. Hopefully, the insanity will soon stop:

Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 13:39:21 -0600
To: dad
From: Jim Ski
Subject: Time to turn off life support!

I have made a decision for you.

It was a very well-built computer. It survived virtually a direct hit with a bolt of lightning without even losing any data. It went on to give the family five more years of happiness, despite virtually daily use. But now, now its usefulness is at an end. I, the most qualified PC doctor in your community, have examined the patient and found that its vital signs are flagging. It is slower and feebler than ever. Its monitor flickers yellow. It is going senile, no longer able to perform the basic functions it is kept around to perform. And therefore, I have given it about one week to live.

We PC doctors swear to an oath. In fact, we swear quite profusely, usually when it is time to pay for the computer. We see the price tag and say, "Geez! I'll tell ya this much: this thing had better last a long time!" Well, I have made good on my oath, but there comes a time when a system is being artificially kept alive and just plain needs to be compeuthenized. For "Sparky," the five year old IBM PC, that time has come.

50 Mhz processors? 28.8 modems? Windows '89?? These things do not cut it in the go-go 90's. The newest version of AOL does not even install on Sparky. Since it seems to me that Mom does about three things with her average day, two of which involve the use of the computer, it seems almost cruel and unusual to everyone to keep Sparky alive.

Aside from my professional medical opinion, there are also more practical concerns. If Sparky is replaced, mom will forever stop complaining about how slow her computer is, focusing instead on complaining about how hard it is to operate the new one. The change will do you both good. In addition, given the Asian Flu and the recent drop in consumer confidence, it is more important than ever to stimulate growth and keep the economy moving by spending large amounts of your money. You should buy a new computer for the good of the nation.

Imagine that the new computer can last five years, as Sparky did. Given that, if the cost of the new one is $2000, you are essentially spending $1 a day. One dollar is all it costs to bring hope into a person's life... isn't hope worth a dollar a day?...

I must add at this point that I say these things completely selflessly. It's not as though Mom will stop calling me every week with computer problems; the old "I think it's broken" problems will simply be replaced by "I don't know what to do!" problems. Also, I am not suggesting that I get a new system and she get mine; I am comfortable with my system, and I think we all get enough hand-me-downs in our lifetimes.

What I have decided for you is this: you have to go and buy your wife a new computer. It will have a processor speed of 300 Mhz or more. It will have at least 32 MB of RAM/DRAM, preferably 64. It will have a 56k modem. It will have a monitor big enough for a 53-year-old nearsighted woman to use in comfort. You must go and buy this without comparison shopping or haggling or waiting another moment.

Why must you really do this? For NO reason whatsoever.

You must do this for no reason, other than the fact that you love your wife and have more money than the Vatican. You love her so much that it doesn't even matter that you just bought her an anniversary gift. You must buy it just because, just so you can both look back one day and say, "remember when we went out and bought that just for the heck of it?" She may not ever act with proper gratitude; she may nitpick your unbelievable act of generosity; but after thirty years, it's not like you couldn't see that coming. Pretend it's a wet bar or something.

In conclusion, just to take your mind off of the burdens that come at these difficult times, I want you to know that I will handle all of Sparky's funeral arrangements.

I will continue to send this message on a regular basis until its prescription is followed. This will be your only warning. Thank you for your time.

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---

Hey, Gay Dude! November 21

Every so often, a well-meaning friend will ask, "Say, Jim! How ya feelin'?"

Let me put it this way:

These last few days, I have been thinking a great deal about something that happened to me this summer outside my apartment. I realized a while back that I don't talk about my apartment or my neighbors very much. That is not because nothing happens between my neighbors and me, but because our interaction is typically kind of unpleasant and lingering, like some kind of reverse mouthwash that's painfully minty in the morning and leaves you with a smelly mouth all day long.

I went through a phase during late summer in which I'd basically hibernate in my apartment for days at a time, returning home right after work and staying there until the next workday beckoned. It wasn't the kind of life you write stories about (which is part of my excuse for that huge gap in these pages a few months ago), but it was what I needed. During the hibernation time, I became acquainted with the Neighbor Children.

At the risk of sounding like the unpleasant old man down the street who takes the softballs hit into his yard, the Neighbor Children were miserable, wretched little trolls. I felt kinda bad for them at first; I mean, they were part of a family of like four or five people, living in the same kind of apartment I do. With that in mind, I was always somewhat understanding when they would run around the parking lot right outside my window like suddenly uncaged animals, screaming at the tops of their lungs for hours on end. Kids need to play. I remembered being that age. If I'd lived in an apartment like this when I was five, I'd have taken up LSD just to make my bedroom look bigger. I don't know how I feel about kids almost literally playing in traffic, but I always told myself that their folks were keeping track of them by listening for the sharp, unrelenting shrieks they produced until sunset every single day.

At any rate, it was understandable for a while. It was summer, there were no classes, and the kids needed to play somewhere. After a while, though, the yelling that initially made me think of my own games of cops-and-robbers eventually just made me think of the cops. And it wasn't just the yelling; after a while, they started to play fun games like "who can hit the railing the hardest?" and "who can bang on the most doors?" These games, like drums and Nintendo, are only fun to the people playing. They are certainly not conducive to sleep.

Nevertheless, I stayed out of their way. I minded my own business. I never imagined that the children would someday repay me by destroying my self-esteem.

One Saturday, after a morning of bad TV and chatter from outside, I went to see my then-girlfriend. As I went outside, the chattering from the balcony above became more agitated, as if someone had walked up to the cage and started mimicking the twisted little chimps, daring them to get off their tire swings and do something about it. "Bar bar bar!" they yapped, and as I often did from inside my apartment, I wondered, "Just what the hell are they so excited about? Are they even saying anything?" (When Timmy and Adam, my oft-mentioned cousins, are screeching, it's usually some variation on "hi-ya!" or a curse word they've picked up.)

I got into my car. I rolled down my window and started the engine. I started to recognize the faint traces of words. I fastened my seat belt. I released the emergency brake. The sounds were starting to take shape. They were talking. They were talking to me.

I drove away, and it all fell into place. They were shouting at me.

They were shouting, "Hey, Gay Dude! Why don't you ever leave your house, Gay Dude? Don't you have any friends? Hey, Gay Dude! Ha ha ha! Gay Dude!…."

I almost turned the car around. "Gay Dude?! What the hell is that?!" I had just been mocked by a group of people that could not have had a combined age of 12. I felt like I was back on the playground, covered head to toe in snowballs. I mean, six year olds didn't even mock me when I was six! Have I actually become a bigger dork than I was then??

It upset me on levels I didn't even think existed. Was I just the victim of a hate crime?… Could they even know what a Gay Dude is at that age?… Did they hear that from their parents?… Are their parents going to come kick my ass?… Can't their parents hear them taunting strangers out on the stoop?… Who the hell says "dude" in 1998? When did Keanu move in upstairs?… Oh, hey, wait a minute: I'M NOT GAY!… yeah, I'm wearing a Hawaiian shirt and driving a purple car, but, dammit!… Do kids still call people "gay" as an insult?!… No gay person has ever said an unkind word to those kids!… I've never said a word to those kids in my life! Never ratted on them, never bothered them, never came outside to indulge my urge to paddle them…People suck!…

In the days since, I have been very sensitive about the issue of my sexuality. Those kids @#%$ed up my whole self-image. Lately, the sensitivity has been more pragmatic than anything else; women who think you are gay, as a rule, do not try to date you. And God knows I'm not making the first move again for about 30 years. The lesson I have learned from the whole incident: you can make the most profound, lasting impact on the lives of complete strangers without even meaning to. Those kids didn't give a @%#$ about me, and they probably never gave any of it a second thought. They played Bang the Railing all day, taunted Gay Dude downstairs, then went in for some juice and never thought about it again. They moved away awhile later, I think, unless somebody finally shot them.

(You wouldn't think it reading these pages, but I absolutely love kids. I already know I'm going to adore my own, should they ever exist. It's just all these other little brats that keep bothering me.)

*****

A few months later—yesterday, as a matter of fact—I went to see a concert with my friend Michelle. Michelle is the kind of person who actually has a hard life, rather than the matinee melodrama that passes as my stress. Michelle once dropped out of college and is now clawing her way back to graduation while working full-time as a wage slave at a nearby theatre. She has a "car" that is powered primarily by karma and that she could never even hope to replace when her luck runs out. Three weeks ago, her two roommates (engaged to one another) moved out of the apartment. They made no mention of their plans to do so; they left her a note and a $700 a month rent bill. They took half the furniture, some of her stuff, and her cat. Yesterday, she had to pack up all her things and move them to her boyfriend's parents' garage. She is now literally homeless; she resides on the couch of her boyfriend's pal. Just in time for finals. As a testament to what kind of person Michelle can be, she chose this exact time in her life to do me a favor and get me a front row ticket to the Barenaked Ladies concert through her theatre clout. She escorted me to the show, despite the fact that she had moved all her worldly possessions hours earlier and was probably about to go "home" to the most depressing night she'd ever had.

Of course, if that was my situation, I'd probably rather be at a concert too. It was still very nice of her.

So, we arrived at the show and I was treated to the nicest seats I've ever had to anything. We were in the front non-orchestra pit row, "a safe distance from performer sweat," Michelle promised. Still, as I sat down, I remarked to her, "Wow! We're so close that shouting, 'You suck!' would actually impact the performance!" I felt very powerful. Before the night was over, I would see that power used for evil.

The opening act was a guy named Rufus Wainwright. It did not take long to see that Rufus was not gonna light the crowd on fire with his antics. He was full of nervous laughter and uneasy twitches. He paused a lot, and in the pauses you could hear the sound of people checking their watches.

Almost. We heard something else instead.

About three songs from the end of Rufus's set, the frat guy two seats down from me decided that he didn't like Rufus very much at all. He thought to himself, "This flamboyant man has come to my town and tried to entertain me! How dare he! I came down here in my Anheuser-Busch ball cap and my khakis to see a rock concert! He has a lot of nerve, coming here and trying to make people happy! He needs to be taught a lesson!"

(At least, that's what I guess he must have thought. I mean, do people really think about heckling? Do people really think? What the hell motivates these humans? Another topic for another time, perhaps.)

The lesson that Joe Frat decided to teach us all was a simple one: entertainers who are not famous need to be punished. So, during one of Rufus's nervous pauses in his desperate attempt to get us to clap or breathe or something, Joe Frat implied very loudly that Rufus enjoyed having sex with other men. In essence, he called Rufus a Gay Dude. If the Neighborhood Children had known the word Joe Frat used, they'd have used it on me. It's all the same big swastika. Anyway.

The thing is, as I prophesied to Michelle, we were close enough to be heard very clearly. The word hung there in the air, thick and heavy, as if someone had suddenly unfurled a huge banner that just said "HATE." The world froze like a haiku, this little ugly moment in time photographed and captured eternally.

"What?" said Rufus, scanning through the lights for a trace of Joe Frat. "What did you say??"

Oh God. Rufus is gonna come down and kick some ass. That was just what the evening needed as a kickoff.

"Shut up!" shouted indignant people at Joe, now suddenly big Rufus fans for the first time all night. I felt so tense, you'd have thought I came with the guy. I kept waiting for somebody to throw a chair. I was ashamed for humanity for the first time since the Star Trek convention, for many of the same reasons.

Rufus did one more song and left the stage. He thanked "some" of us and beat it. And, at the time of the slur, his little sister was onstage performing with him. I mean, can you even imagine? I'd rather get pantsed on national television than see something like that again.

Michelle returned from the restroom, having missed the whole thing. Soon after, Barenaked Ladies came out and performed several songs in a row. The crowd was pumped. People were on their feet. The whole scene was almost forgotten, but sadly not quite. The band decided to dwell a bit.

"We have a very special guest with us tonight," said the guitarist after the first few numbers. "We have with us a time traveler! From the fifties! Or from some other time when it was considered acceptable to ridicule people for their sexual orientation!"

A cheer went up from the crowd as the singer began to talk about tolerance and then, as they often do, Barenaked Ladies launched into a somewhat impromptu freestyle song/rap, which this time turned out to be about gay-bashing. For a brief moment, I was rather glad they were standing up for ol' Rufus. But then an odd thing happened.

As they sang, the guitarist from a few yards away looked at me—looked right at me—and smiled and winked, sort of nodding his head. It was the sort of wink I have delivered myself a time or two. It was a wink that said, "I'm smiling to show you that I'm not bothered by how much you suck. Hi. How's it goin'. You suck."

Oh good God. They heard the taunting coming from over here, and somebody pinpointed it, and they think it was me! Barenaked Ladies think I'm a Nazi!

I looked over at Joe Frat. He was clapping wildly and shouting, "Yeah! Tolerance! Woooooooooo!"

I felt so bad, I almost started to think that it had been me after all. And the whole time, I just wanted to say to someone, "But… I'm Gay Dude!"

Between the strangers I've encountered lately and the people I've known for years, the world is starting to look like an ugly place indeed. Be good to one another, children. One day you're Gay Dude, the next day Barenaked Ladies think you're a Nazi.

(I know it's weak, but something this long had to have a moral. I'll try harder next time.)

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