It doesn’t show.

Or maybe it’s not true; Arnall only studied the Brits. Personally, I enjoy the end of January; I won’t have to deal with weeks of alleged holidays for almost another year.

I suppose that different species took different evolutionary courses: monkeys run around naked in the woods without worrying about work; humans live in dirty cities in order to commute to vapid cubicles and die from cancer and diseases related to obesity. But, since I am not learned in the ways of science, that’s only a guess.

Who could have possibly foreseen that decades of killing unwanted female babies in China would result in a dearth of eligible brides today? So much for central government planning. There’s even a shortage of ghost brides for dead bachelors, which has led some Chinese entrepreneurs to murder women as a business enterprise.

Yang Donghai, a farmer in Shaanxi province, bought a poor family’s daughter for twelve-thousand yuan. The woman thought she was getting into an arranged marriage, which I suppose she was. Yang killed the woman, then sold her corpse for sixteen-thousand yuan, or a five-hundred dollar profit. Later, he and a couple of partners murdered a prostitute and sold her body for eight-thousand yuan.

The police put an unrepentant Yang out of business.

“I did it for the money; it was a quick buck,” Yang explained. “If I hadn’t slipped up early, I planned to do a few more.”

Ruthless businesspeople always scare me, even if I’m an unsuitable bride, dead or alive.

In addition to the bottles of wine we poured down our gullets, David spilled some more on the manual for my synthesizer.

“What should I do?” David asked as he examined the small puddle.

“That’s a stupid question,” I replied. “Don’t you remember what we learned at Interlochen? If you make it, sign it.”

And so, I now have a smelly, wine-stained technical reference volume signed by a dear friend with poor judgment when it comes to pouring wine. (Well, that and a few other endeavors as well, but my lips are sealed while he’s out acquiring another case.)

Wanda’s telling Annie her chicken was almost certainly raised in an inhumane factory farm, with four debeaked chicks stuffed inside a cage with less floor space than a sheet of paper.

“I know that,” Annie said nonchalantly as she took another bite of her taco.

“Then why do you support such an industry?” Joel asked.

“Eating chickens raised in meat factories is the humane thing to do,” Annie replied. “I’m sure this bird I’m digesting was glad that death ended its pathetic suffering. I’d hate to think of eating a chicken that was enjoying a good life in the barnyard until someone chopped off its head for my taco.”

“What do you think, David?” Wanda demanded.

“I think tacos are too small,” I answered. “The burritos are a much better value.”

“Of course, dear,” she replied. “Perhaps you can finally appreciate why I never let you have a sword when you were living at home.”

“I always wondered about that,” I said, even though I don’t recall ever coveting a sword. (It’s important to lie to one’s parents; keeps them alert and engaged.)

We went on to discuss chainsaws, and the incident with that nasty Mister Pirkle’s favorite rocking chair. I still delight in the smell of teak converted to sawdust.

Again, it cannot be gainsaid that the greater number of those who hold high places in our poetical literature are absolute nincompoops—fellows alike innocent of reason and of rhyme.