TRIPPIN' ON THE GULF COAST

I just returned from the Gulf coast, where I had a marvelous time. I won first place in the Sand Sculpture contest at the beach. I constructed a very large refinery, complete with gas burn off towers and shoddy maintenance records. The judges thought the oil and tar balls added a nice touch of realism to the whole thing. I would have taken a photo, but some government people came in a bulldozer and scooped it all up into a dump truck. Then they said it never happened, and if I didn't shut up, my family and I would be institutionalized for the rest of our lives. I reminded them that we are all a bunch of certified crazies, and there isn't an asylum built that we can't take over. If they put all my relatives in the same building there would be such a conflagration as to stagger the imagination. Before you can ask, "Who ordered all these Margarita machines?", we'll be running the joint. We're talking wholesale inmate releases, weekend passes for the rest, staff reductions, and deficit spending becoming the new Standard Operating Procedure.


We'll also have the best looking lawn of any nuthouse around, because we know how to talk to the plants. That's why they're on our side. Keep that in mind during any attempt to retake the facility.


Which brings me to this week's POTW. Salt on the rim. About a weeks pay for a Roman Centurion. Life is good. Enjoy it.

THE GOSPEL OF ST. SAM

A Reading from the Book of Economics

1. Thus it came to pass, that the Lord gazed upon the Profit Sam as he wandered across the vast wasteland of the Retail Desert, parched of bargains, for it was devoid of markdowns and sales.

2. And the Lord spake unto Sam, saying, "Build thee an Ark of a store, and bring forth the products of the land in all their glory, and give them exaltation. For I shall smite The Man of Facturer for his Anti-Trust sins, and he shall lament his predatory ways."

3 "Verily, I say unto thee, I shall bring forth a great flood of cheap stuff, such as Man has never witnessed, and he will be hip-deep in those who have not their documents, toiling for 2 pieces of silver a day."

4. "Behold, a great wailing shall be heard excuviating from the boardrooms of the damned. And they, too, shall be forever cast into the depths of defective merchandise and venomous service, as from the serpent, swadled only in the unravelling crap that matches not."

5. So the Profit Sam did as the Lord commanded, lest he appear as the Eunuchs of the Temple, barren within the loins.

6. Thus it came to pass, that the wicked decried their fate, adorned in lead-tainted robes whilst standing before the temple of the unemployed. For they sought covenant with the bargain, and it was defiling.

7. Tho, as the pagans harvested dung in the fields, their masters lamented the extirpation of the 401K's within the tabernacle, and became fearful. So began the building of the great walled tribes, dividing the chaste from the teeming throng of untouchables.

8. And the deep discounts did appear before Sam, and he brought forth the price rollback, and the people were joyful. For even the Pharaohs did extoll the Door-Buster markdown, knowing the pagans sought to possess a bargain, even if they did need it not.

9. For it was the Crusade to lay to waste the Palace of Overhead that did smite down the craftsman, and they were banished to the Valley of the Homeless, then brought before those in judgement. And they asked of them, saying, "Why doest thou hide thy chariot of Pontiac, Heathen? Does thou try to deceive the repo priest of the temple?" And they mocked the idealist's, and their scriptures, and kicked sand upon the sandals of the umpires, and were scornful.

10. And lo, a darkness fell across the whole of the mall, and the money changers became fearful, and sought loan extensions from the temple leaders, but were rebuked by them, and chastised for their own tribute.