HAVE YOU EVER eaten too much of a delicious but unhealthy snack food? You may be entitled to compensation. Class-action lawsuit seeks to hold manufacturers responsible for the deliciousness of their snacks. Share your story with Lentill & Porridge, Attorneys at Law, Sheraden.
MEMORANDUM.
To: Principalities and Powers
From: The CEO
Re: Increasing Production
First of all, let me congratulate everybody on another banner year for Evil up there on earth. Every one of you truly gave 110%, and you all helped make last year extra special. Big hugs for everyone, and you can all expect nice commemorative novelty mugs when the interoffice mail comes around.
Now, I don’t want to sound like a party pooper, but we do face a number of serious challenges in the fiscal year ahead. Lent, Yom Kippur, and Ramadan all took big chunks out of our production last year, so we need to be ready to meet those slack times this year with a cheerful redoubling of our efforts.
I hope I don’t sound too negative when I say that we really weren’t very clever last year. All we could come up with for Ramadan, for example, was a few mediocre bombings and massacres. Hardly inspiring stuff. I want us to be more creative this year. Let’s think outside the box for once.
So I’ve got good news for everybody. It’s time for an incentive program! Whoever comes up with the best idea for undermining these three disgusting orgies of repentance will win a free trip to the Lake of Fire. All expenses paid! It’ll make a nice change from the Pit of Fire, won’t it? The rest of you will be tortured in the usual manner for failing.
So put on your thinking caps and get to work! Let’s make this the year we bury repentance once and for all! Let’s teach the world to be proud of its evil ways! And then let’s get ready for a big party to welcome millions of new Team Members.
Advertisement.
NO-FAULT IMPRIMATURS, nihil obstats, &c. Our staff of trained & fully qualified bishops is at your service 24 hours a day, 6 days a week. The Canon Law Practice of Rufinus & Rufinus, Troy Hill.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR OPERATING THE PYRO-MATE WONDER MIDGET HOME & OFFICE FIRE EXTINGUISHER.
1. ALWAYS call the fire department first. A fire, no matter how small, may spread out of your control more rapidly than you anticipate. A timely call to the fire department may spare you much disappointment later on in the process.
2. Once you have assured yourself that the fire department is on the way, retrieve the Pyro-Mate Wonder Midget Home & Office Fire Extinguisher from its handy Reddi-Stor wall-mounted storage bracket.
A. First grasp the locking clasp firmly with the left hand, making sure to hold the locking tab between thumb and forefinger.
B. Pull up and to the left.
C. With the right hand, hold down the retainer arm, gripping it at a point approximately two-thirds of its length away from the left-hand end.
D. Grasp the Pyro-Mate Wonder Midget Home & Office Fire Extinguisher firmly in the left hand and pull it straight up. DO NOT release the retainer arm until the Pyro-Mate Wonder Midget Home & Office Fire Extinguisher is completely free of the Reddi-Stor wall-mounted storage bracket.
E. Return the retainer arm to its normal position until such time as it becomes necessary to replace the Pyro-Mate Wonder Midget Home & Office Fire Extinguisher in the Reddi-Stor wall-mounted storage bracket.
3. Hold the Pyro-Mate Wonder Midget Home & Office Fire Extinguisher in an upright position. The words “Pyro-Mate Wonder Midget Home & Office Fire Extinguisher, Pyro-Mate Corp., Swissvale” should appear right-side-up on the right-hand side of the Pyro-Mate Wonder Midget Home & Office Fire Extinguisher. If the words “Pyro-Mate Wonder Midget Home & Office Fire Extinguisher, Pyro-Mate Corp., Swissvale” appear on the LEFT-hand side of the Pyro-Mate Wonder Midget Home & Office Fire Extinguisher, then the Pyro-Mate Wonder Midget Home & Office Fire Extinguisher is pointed toward you and will not extinguish the fire.
4. Carefully note the location of the fire. You may find that, by this time, the fire exists in more that one location.
5. Grasp the Insta-Lok locking pin firmly with the right hand and pull it straight toward you. Retain the Insta-Lok locking pin for future use: it will be necessary when returning the Pyro-Mate Wonder Midget Home & Office Fire Extinguisher to its Reddi-Stor wall-mounted storage bracket.
6. Turn the arming lever approximately 75 degrees counter-clockwise to the “READY” position.
7. Remove the childproof cap from the Pyro-Mate Wonder Midget Home & Office Fire Extinguisher nozzle:
A. While pushing in firmly, squeeze the sides of the cap at the points marked S.
B. Turn the cap counter-clockwise until the triangular arrows on the cap and the body of the nozzle are aligned.
C. Push the cap away from the nozzle with both thumbs, placing one thumb on each side of the triangular arrow on the cap. Retain the cap for future use.
D. Remove the foil seal imprinted “SEALED FOR YOUR PROTECTION.” If the seal is punctured or missing, DO NOT USE the Pyro-Mate Wonder Midget Home & Office Fire Extinguisher. Return the Pyro-Mate Wonder Midget Home & Office Fire Extinguisher to your Pyro-Mate dealer for a replacement.
8. Place the index finger of one hand firmly on the Power-Jet trigger, using the other hand to support the weight of the Pyro-Mate Wonder Midget Home & Office Fire Extinguisher.
9. By this time the fire department should have arrived and extinguished the fire. Replace the childproof cap on the Pyro-Mate Wonder Midget Home & Office Fire Extinguisher nozzle.
10. Turn the arming lever approximately 75 degrees clockwise to the “NOT READY” position.
11. Carefully replace the Insta-Lok locking pin in its locking position.
12. Replace the Pyro-Mate Wonder Midget Home & Office Fire Extinguisher on the Reddi-Stor wall-mounted storage bracket, reversing steps A through D in section 2.
13. Since the seal is now broken on the nozzle of your Pyro-Mate Wonder Midget Home & Office Fire Extinguisher, contact your Pyro-Mate dealer immediately to order a new Pyro-Mate Wonder Midget Home & Office Fire Extinguisher.
Advertisement.
IMPROVED DECIMAL CLOCKS in the latest styles. Tell time the rational way. Ask about our new 1,000-day One-Year Kilocalendar. Rationalistic Chronometer Corp., Fairywood.
DR. BOLI’S COMPREHENSIVE HERBAL.
No. 1 in a Series of 253,486.
DANDELION (Taraxacum).—The dandelion is one of the most useful of all herbs. The young leaves may be eaten raw in salads, or steamed and dressed like spinach; the older leaves may be boiled instead of steamed. The flowers have a fresh and sweet flavor much prized in jellies and in the well-known dandelion wine. The flower stems may be twisted into long ropes that were formerly employed in the rigging of sailing vessels. The roots make a useful substitute for ivory at a time of year when parsnip roots are difficult or impossible to obtain; once dried and ground into a powder or flour, they are often employed in the manufacture of plaster. Treated with lye, the root flour becomes a volatile explosive sometimes used in excavation work. Trained from a young age, dandelions can be taught to memorize and recite long passages of poetry, though not with much expression, for which reason the nodding wild lettuce, a close relative of the dandelion, is usually recommended for the more dramatic works. Dandelions are tolerably good mechanics and may be profitably employed in repairing bicycles and light farm machinery. When patching trousers at the knee, a dandelion seed sewn into the patch is said to bring good fortune.
Advertisement.
MAKE EXTRA CASH with our All-N-1 Home Engraving and Printing Kit. Wide selection of special papers and inks included for that authentic touch. The All-N-1 Supply Co., Central Northside.
From DR. BOLI’S ANIMAL ALPHABET.
L is for the Lemming, who was chastised by his mother
(She’s on the left—it’s hard to tell one lemming from another)
For following his teenage friends, no matter where they wandered.
(She laid especial emphasis on all the time thus squandered.)
“But everybody’s doing it!” the Lemming interjected.
“That’s no excuse,” his mother said. She paused, and then reflected:
“If everyone jumped off a cliff——”
(Note: I left out the rest.
I didn’t think you’d like it much. It just left me depressed.)
M is for the Manatee,
The floating bovine of the sea.
I spoke with her the other day
While diving near Ozello Bay:
She hopes you’ll visit her there soon,
And play with her till half past noon.
But she’d be glad, she told me, if I wrote
And asked you not to bring your motorboat.
From Dr. Boli’s Encyclopedia of Misinformation.
Bridges. Bridges are generally built from the top down.
Rats. By means of standard conditioning techniques, it is possible to induce a belief in the Tooth Fairy in laboratory rats.
Advertisement.
NEW PYRO-MATE Wonder Midget Home and Office Fire Extinguisher uses homeopathic technology to attack the causes of fire rather than merely addressing the symptoms. Send for free illustrated brochure, “Nature’s Way to a Fire-Free Home or Office.” Pyro-Mate Corporation, Swissvale.
A HISTORY OF THE REMARKABLE VOYAGE LATELY UNDERTAKEN ON BOARD THE CELEBRATED LEVIATHAN.
Written by Sir John M——, from his own journals.
The Sixth Day.
UNRELIEVEDLY HOT AND sunny; and though the high sails caught wind enough to keep us moving, not even the slightest breeze was perceptible on the promenades. The sailors took advantage of the calm to catch up on their gambling, but most of the rest of us kept to the shade and remained as inert as possible. I had my supper alone in the evening and retired with Bonsecours, whose Voyages I read till well past midnight, after which the heat abated just enough to allow a fitful slumber.
The Seventh Day: Tea with the Duke.
More heat today, and the wise or fortunate among us restricted our activity to the minimum; but the rest of us had an invitation from the Duke for tea, and one cannot decline the Duke’s invitation for any reason short of death. Not that the Duke would ever have remembered whether I had been present or not, but there were others who would have noted my absence, and it is the business of a diplomat always to make a good impression.
“Ah! Sir John,” the Duke greeted me when I was presented to him. “I believe we may have met once before.”
“I believe so,” I replied.
“Thought so. I never forget a face. Fine weather today, isn’t it?”
“Very fine,” I agreed.
“No clouds and no pirates,” he continued. “That’s the sort of weather we like. Nasty business with those pirates the other day, what? Good thing we had one of our diplomat chappies on the spot to sort it all out.”
“Good thing,” I agreed again.
That was as much of me as the Duke had time for before he had to repeat the same performance with some other humble functionary; but I observed him from time to time, noting that he appeared to be the only one of us completely unaffected by the heat. He simply refused to perspire. The rest of us more than made up what he lacked in moisture. I mentioned the Duke’s cool nature, with some expression of admiration, to his butler.
“His Grace does perspire on some occasions,” the butler replied, “but more frequently he forgets to perspire.”
“Forgets?”
“Yes, sir. Perspiration requires a certain mental concentration on his part.”
This evening a light breeze brought almost the whole citizenry over to the starboard promenade, where I met Lord and Lady Darkwood. Lady Darkwood made cheerful conversation as always; but her husband was more than usually gloomy, and more than once glowered at me with an unsettling frown.
I retired with Bonsecours again. Tomorrow we should be in sight of the Cannibal Coast, and then our explorations begin in earnest.
The Eighth Day.
Storms last night, and fog all day. We had expected our first view of the Cannibal Coast this morning, but in fact I could hardly make out the railing along the promenade, and the sea itself was entirely invisible. I sat outside my door on the promenade and read Bonsecours, though the pages began to curl in the dampness. Just about an hour before sunset, the fog cleared rather quickly, and the golden light of the declining sun illuminated a shore lined with palms, with rolling hills behind and a hint of towering mountains in the distance. Tomorrow we shall send a landing party, and I have asked the Duke that I may be included.
From Dr. Boli’s Encyclopedia of Misinformation.
Misinformation. The line between information and misinformation is much more permeable than generally supposed.
Neutron. Science has at last succeeded in splitting the neutron into subparticles that are even more neutral.
Squid. Giant squid are really quite small except for the tentacles and head.
