One thing leads to another.

“I found one!” he announced a few seconds later.

Rodney’s such an idiot! Some higher authority and/or power(s) had evidently granted him a wish. And the nincompoop wasted it on a stupid bottle cap when he could have wished for an entire salmon and a case of wine! And perhaps some asparagus, too, if he worded the request properly.

I told him this, and he agreed he’d made a foolish mistake. As if to compensate, he paid for my burritos and beers at the taqueria.

“I’m getting drunk for Halloween, what are you doing?”

[garbled reply]

“Really drunk? Me too!”

The woman talked excitedly about how very, very inebriated she was going to be on the last day of October. I initially thought her long-term planning was commendable, until I realized that she talked for five minutes about getting “outrageously drunk,” “absolutely legless,” and “totally drunk” without a single mention of any costume.

Ah, youth. I predict she’ll be dressed in vomit.

I actually like the Disney film, White Wilderness. The 1958 movie features dramatic footage of suicidal lemmings hurling themselves off a cliff and into the sea. As a visual artist, I can appreciate how difficult it was to film the lemmings’ mass suicide, especially since the filmmakers faced formidable obstacles.

They made the film in Alberta, Canada, where there are no lemmings. And no sea, either. Also, lemmings are not suicidal, and don’t plunge over cliffs unless pushed over a precipice into a river by Disney employees.

And so, that’s what they did: the Disney crew killed a bunch of lemmings to document the mysterious suicidal lemmings. Ah, that Disney magic!

“There’s no such thing as beer-flavored water,” she informed me.

“Tell me that after you’ve had a can of American beer-flavored water,” I advised.

“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong,” Ruth said. “Technically speaking, it’s water-flavored beer.”

She went on to explain that government regulations require any beverage labeled “beer” to have fifty-one percent of the molecular structure of real beer.

Well, I’ll be. Still, a fizzy chemical concoction with traces of yeast by any other name would still taste the same. Despite the government balderdash, I maintain it’s beer-flavored water.

A pox upon dilution!

I appreciate their honesty and directness. I’d much rather deal with honest acquaintances than scheming associates trying—and failing—to pose as friends.

Stewart’s pleasant and courteous, and doesn’t contact me too often. That may or may not be because I intentionally give him bad advice and incorrect answers from time to time. It’s all part of a sustainable parasite-host relationship.