Crime does not pay as well as a good parking place

An extraordinary thing could have happened to me today. As I was walking home, I noticed how a car slowly followed me. After a certain distance I got fed up, turned around and walked up to the driver. Before I even managed to ask him what he was up to, he pulled down the window and turned to me:

"Excuse me", he asked in a very polite way. "Are you by any chance going to your car? I'm looking for a place to put my car."

"No, I'm not. I came here by bus."

"Oh..." He paused for a few seconds. "Would it disturb you very much, if I asked you to do me a favour?"

"Probably not. What can I do for you?"

"Would you mind stealing one of those cars?"

"What?!"

"Yes, if you were to steal a car, then I could park there."

"And I would go to prison."

"I do not think so. Have you committed any crimes before?"

"No..."

"Well, they will let you off with a fine. First crime and so. I'm pretty sure about that. I will pay the fine of course."

"I would steal a car and.... well, why?"

"To make me happy. I would get a place for my car. I could show you how to break into one. And I'd pay not only your fine but something for your trouble as well."

"Do you ask people this question often?"

"Well, when there is no parking available, yes."

"And they accept it?"

"Some people do. Some people don't."

"And I suppose the people who don't accept it, are the ones who are clever enough to realise that they will get into the same impossible situation, having a car without anywhere to put it."

"Eh... yes..."

"Goodbye."

A very Precious Object

Bill and Bob finally gave up clinging to the remains of their yacht. Bob even had a feeling that it was easier to float without the piece of plastic he had held in his hand, as if it had dragged him down. The island was now much closer, and they had no problem swimming ashore.

"We made it", said Bill. It was not a comment that was supposed to inform Bob of anything in particular. Bill did not doubt that Bob also had observed that they had made it. But he felt that they needed to say something. After all, he had built up a large amount of emotion that needed some outlet.

"Yes", answered Bob. "We made it." He did not have much to add to the subject either, but he did his best: "We really made it."

They had been sailing for about two weeks without GPS and compass. All electronics aboard was broken. There was no way to tell where they were currently, but at least it was land. Hopefully with some people, who could help them contact civilisation.

"What did you manage to rescue?", asked Bob.
"Not much. The shorts I'm wearing."
"Anything in the pockets?"
"My wallet... no, it's gone. Some... no, it is no longer there.... Just this platinum tie clip."
"A platinum tie clip?"
"Yes, I was scheduled for a business meeting next week. No time to go home and change."
"And you needed a platinum tie clip?"
"Well... I did not need it. But it does not take much place, so I thought, why not?"
"Yes, why not? Perhaps we can use it for something."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. Bribe the locals to call for a helicopter or something."
"Yes, I suppose so. What did you rescue?"
"The pair of shorts I'm wearing."
"So far we are even."
"And... Dang! It does not have any pockets."
"So that's it?"
"I'm afraid so... No, wait, a piece of string."
"Why did you bring a piece of string?"
"I did not. It got tied up in the zipper somehow. I'm not even sure it comes from our boat."
"OK. We have a tie clip and a piece of string. I think we need to find people."
"I think you are right."

They walked around what turned out to be an island. It did not take much time, which perhaps was a good thing, but there was no trace of any human beings. Not even the remnants of any old cottage or anything. They walked around the island a second time. This time the other way round. They did not see anything different than they had done the first time.

They went through the usual things people do at deserted islands. They discovered how to make fire. They found edible fruits and coco nuts, and a very tasty kind of bananas. They found ways to fish, and they spent a lot of time watching the horizon for ships.

After a few months, Bill had enough. He had not liked the situation at all, but now he had positively enough.

"Give me the piece of string", he said.
"Why? It is useless."
"Not to me."
"What do you want to do with it? It is too short to tie anything securely. It is too weak to use for fishing. It is not enough to make new clothes. It is useless."
"If it is useless, give it to me."
"Oh no! I like it."
"So what do you use it for?"
"Nothing. I just play with it."
"I have seen that. I also want to play with it. I also want to tie it around my fingers, pull it between the thumb and the index, tie a little useless knot and then untie it."
"Well, you cannot. It is mine. You just play with your platinum tie clip."
"One cannot play with a tie clip. One can only clip ties with it. And there is no tie to clip on this island."
"Well, tough."
"Listen, I give you my platinum tie clip for the piece of string."
"Never! That's ridiculous."
"I know it is ridiculous. Your piece of string is not worth 2 cents, and the tie clip cost me 500 dollars."
"It may have cost you 500 dollars, but here it is not worth even 2 cents. It is useless and boring."
"Come on! Let's swap. Once we are saved you can keep the tie clip."
"No way. Who knows if we ever will be saved?"
"I give you the tie clip now, and 10,000 dollars, when we are saved."
"I cannot use 10,000 dollars here."
"No, but you will be able once we are saved."
"If we are saved."
"OK, if we are saved. 50,000 dollars?"
"Nope." Bob may not have fully realised the amount Bill offered, but he was not going to give in under any circumstances.
"My car. My house. My shares. Every single cent on my bank accounts."
"Including the Swiss ones?"
"Of course."
"You really do not think we will be saved, do you?"
"We may..."
"Or not."
"... or not", Bill agreed.
"Then I do not see any reason to give you the piece of string."
"Out of kindness then? Because we are stuck here together, and we need to help each other, we need to co-operate to be able to survive, and you can help me out of my desperation by simply giving me the piece of string. An act of charity?"
"For charity?"
"Yes!"
"And for all your fortune?"
"Yes! That too."
"And the tie clip?"
"Absolutely!"
"OK then."
"Really?"
"Yes, here it is."

Bill grabbed the precious string with eager hands, and tied it around first one finger, then around another one, and not only was he smiling. He felt genuine happiness, for the first time for several months.

Later that afternoon, a ship came and saved them.

Bill today lives in a cardboard box in a shady part of his home town. He still has the piece of string. He still is very happy.

This Message is for You

You know there is something strange coming along, if you see someone looking one way and walking another. It is usually because the person, who may be your cousin, is very cautious, and because he tries to avoid being seen. Your cousin, whose name is Bob, the other day inadvertently scratched the door of another car, a Pontiac B67 Vital, and this made you look for ways to mend the damage to help him. You know the owner is a half-professional football player, and you know he does not take scratched car door lightly. Entering the proper search terms in your favourite search engine you stumbled upon this web page, where you, to your dismay, do not find any useful advice on car repair. This makes you really annoyed, and you feel like tearing the web page in pieces. My question to you is: why this anger? Would it not be enough to just look elsewhere and then update the comment section below with the proper instructions? You really need to control your aggression.

Uncompletely true

They ran into each other at Berlin Hauptbahnhof. He was just between trains to get back home after a long day's work, while she for once was in Berlin just as a tourist with the sole purpose of enjoying herself. It was an unusual thing for her, but since she left the city for Leipzig a few years earlier, she had come to see the country's capital just as a source of tiresome business trips. She now wanted to turn around that picture in some way. But it was even stranger for her to see Robert again.

"Robert!" she exclaimed. "You are here!"

"Maria!" he answered. "What are you doing in Berlin? I thought you had left for ever."

At that moment all the memories of what they had been through together came back to her. It was as if every moment, every day and hour piled up in her consciousness within a few seconds.

"Not for ever, Robert. Not for ever." She did everything to prevent her tears to show, and she turned quiet.

"But what the ..." Robert finished the phrase with a word, one could not properly write down. It was a very unusual swear word, but still very efficient. "Could you not have called in advance?"

"I had forgotten you. I do not know how I ever could. But I did not think of you. Please, forgive me."

Robert answered with another expression that is unfit for print, but it was not in any way accusing.

"Do you want to..." she asked, mentioning something that really is not very important for this story.

"Now?" He raised his eyebrows a few more centimetres than she had thought possible.

She replied something I do not want to type, and without hesitation he answered: "Really?"


Finally they had to part, but they exchanged addresses to keep in touch.


As soon as Maria came back to her apartment in Leipzig, she got his message:

"Dear Maria, If you..." something "with several..." something "definitely..." and then a few pages later: "perhaps."

He had forgotten to sign it, but she immediately knew it was from him. She got all upset and sat down to write a reply. But as so often in this kind of situations, she did not know how to express what she wanted to say. She did not even know what she wanted to say. Ten days later, a bright Saturday at 9.37 in the morning, when birds were singing the praise of long forgotten bread crumbs, she finally sent her reply. It was full of things that would be improper to publish considering their right to privacy. Suffice it to say that he merely glanced at it when he received it.

It was not out of lack of interest, but he received it in the middle of an important business transaction, and that one took all his attention. He vaguely registered that he had got the reply, but he did not actually read it until three days later, after a good lunch with his brother and nephew at a Mexican restaurant not far from the main post office.

He read the message carefully but absentmindedly, and it was only the third time he read it, that he fully understood its implications. Like so often in this kind of situations he picked up the same book he always used to clear his thoughts. The book is a very well known one, but for different reasons it would not be right to write down its name. Even though he knew it almost by heart, he had difficulties concentrating on the reading. His thoughts only circled around Maria and her message.

For a few weeks he tried to ignore her message, but in the end he could of course not resist the temptation - the urge - to write a reply.

The reply did not contain anything that is in any way secret, so I could write it out in full here, but it really would not make any sense, as you did not get the opportunity to read the original.

However, the result was a perfectly happy ending for all involved, including Robert's nephew.

The story of Owowowowowoooowaaah

Yesterday, I against my habit opened my spam mail box and browsed through some of the titles. One of them seemed even stranger than the other ones:

"Locked in a cage. Need help to get out."

The content of the mail was the following one.

"Dear Sir, because I gather you are not a madame." (So far the author was right.) "I, and my entire family are in a most embarrassing situation. We are locked in a cage at the zoo of x-town. Perhaps I should not be complaining, because we get nourishing food, good health care and we have enough space to get a decent amount of exercise. However, the mere feeling that we are locked in is frustrating. None of us has been able to travel around. We have not seen other countries. We do not even have access to a simple television set.

We share this cage with a large amount of birds. It is an aviary, where the public are allowed to walk around freely. However, there is a lock that verifies that an inner double door is closed before they open an outer one, so we have no way of getting out.

We have tried to call the attention of people of course. We have tried to communicate with them, calling for their compassion. But so far, they have not even shown any sign that they would understand us. It is as if they were speaking a foreign language.

Luckily, today, I managed to grab a laptop from one visitor's bag. He got distracted by some birds, and it was child's play to open his bag and take out the laptop. Luckily his bag also contained a few heavy books, so he did not notice that the bag got lighter. Just to make sure he would not notice anything unusual, I put a number of small pebbles in the bag.

The zoo has a secured wide area network, and I managed to pinch a piece of paper with the password from the pocket of one of the employees.

I googled for people who seemed to have compassion, and found your name. I implore you to help us. I, and the rest of the Northern lesser bamboo lemurs here will be eternally grateful, if you help us out.

Please, do not send any money. Just come to the zoo with a big empty rucksack. You will be able to get all of us out in just a few trips.

Yours faithfully
Owowowowowoooowaaah
(Northern lesser bamboo lemur)"

Wary of this kind of mails, I at first intended to delete it straight away, but in the end, I decided to at least verify it. The story sounded mad, but one never knows.

I went straight for the aviary at the zoo. It was a colossal building at the far end of the African section.

Before entering, I read through the list of species that was displayed by the entrance. Just as I had thought. There were no Northern lesser bamboo lemurs at all - just Southern lesser bamboo lemurs. Furious at their attempt to deceive me, I rushed in. I looked around inside for a short moment and spotted a bridge over a small pond. According to a National Geographic program last week, that is just the kind of place where those little rascals hide things. I grabbed my laptop and left without even saying goodbye.


Not a Northern lesser bamboo lemur at all.

Profitable work

One day at work, I made an embarassing faux-pas. In the men's room, I looked over a door to see if a particular place was free, instead of pulling the handle to feel if it was locked. The doors are not very high, and it seemed so much easier to look over the rim than to noisily pull the handle. If I had thought about it, I would of course not have done it, but my thoughts were elsewhere, and I am not very good at multi-tasking, so there I was, gazing down over the edge of the door on one of my colleagues, who, to my astonishment, was watching a film.

He probably did not even see me. His head was bent down over one of those mp3 players that can show films with impressively high resolution. I realised that this was a strike of genius. He had clocked in. He was at work, so to say, and yet, here he sat watching a film of his own choice, minute for minute, perhaps hour for hour.

I badly wanted to do the same thing, but there was one problem. I do not have one of those little electronic devices. "You could buy one", you say? Not really, because I loathe them. Modern technology and electronic devices frighten me, so I stay away from them.

However, there is a solution to everything, if you only look for it.

The following day, I went in to the men's room late at night with a bucket of paint. I painted the walls and inside of each door with a nice matte white.

The day after was the first day of my active skyving. I told my boss I would make a short break. I then went to my car and picked up my 8 mm film projector, and rushed to the men's room. I switched off the light. That was not easy, as it is lit automatically, as soon as anyone moves in the room, so I had to loosen a lightbulb or two. I then went into one of the four toilets and set the projector up. There were no electric plugs, but I had brought a car battery that should produce enough current. The projector started with a happy crackling noise, as it slowly warmed up. I carefully attached the film roll and stretched the film through the machine. After a few minutes I could finally see the pictures of Casablanca projected on the inside of the toilet door.

At that instance someone opened the door to the men's room.

"Close the door!" I shouted.

The person quickly obeyed. He (I assume it was a he), seemed to feel his way through the room. I temporarily switched off the sound to hear what he was doing. I did this somewhat reluctantly, as Ingrid Bergman had one of her better lines at that moment, but the intrusion was disturbing.

The man (or boy) just washed his hands and then left the room, and I could go back to Bergman and Bogart.

Inevitably, within less than half an hour, someone else came in and tried to use the toilet next to mine. I asked him to flush quietly, and he apparently tried to follow my advice, but there is no volume control on the flush, so I missed an important line.

At 4 pm, I had watched the film twice, so I packed everything, to get some work done, before it was time to go home.

The following day, my boss called me into his office. There was a lot of talk about egotistic behaviour and not showing enough responsibility and respect for my colleagues. However, we soon came to an agreement:

My boss painted the mirror in the men's room white. We put the projector on top of the divider between two toilets, and through holes in the doors, each visitor could watch the film perfectly. My boss got the task to sell pop-corns to the audience, and we share the profits 50/50.

Lunch in the countryside

Last weekend I went to a small village up in the mountains together with a friend of mine. The village has just one restaurant, and unfortunately it is a gourmet place, where one has to make reservations in advance to be sure to get a place. So we did.

To be on the safe side, we asked in advance if we had to wear ties, and to my dismay that was so. In addition they did not allow jeans, so we had to abolish my friend's plans of getting some pocket money selling trousers to the other guests during the meal.

The problem with the tie is something I have been able to handle before, and my method worked this time as well. The trick is to wear a tie when you enter the restaurant. You then make sure you carelessly bend over one of the lit candles so it starts burning. You make sure the flames are bright and nice. I usually do this by first dipping it in the restaurant's finest scotch whisky. It is important that the waiters see your problem, so I usually climb a chair screaming and waiving the tie around, as if I am trying to extinguish it. In fact, I waive it only so slowly that the flames get more oxygen, until I throw the tie in the ice bucket for the rosé wine. After this, the waiters usually do not insist on your putting on another tie, and you can eat comfortably without anything throttling your neck.

An additional problem here turned out to be that the restaurant did not allow sports shoes. It seems strange to have a restaurant close to a hiking trail, where people are not allowed to wear sport shoes, but that was the rule. My friend, who had that kind of footwear, politely took them off and left them in the cloakroom during the meal. His painted red toe nails looked very nice against the polished brick floor. Everyone agreed about that, except an old lady at the table next to ours, who offered him her own black stockings instead.

The meal was excellent. He had a sandwich de caviar d'esturgeon iranien, and I had a burger de foie gras.

Lost luggage

Last time I left Seattle, it was for a trip to Vientiane (ວຽງຈັນ) to check out some Laotian Buddhist temples. As I was waiting for the bus to the airport in Seattle, I saw the software billionaires Dick Baites and Eve Palmer. I was sitting behind them in the waiting room, and inadvertently I picked up my parabolic microphone and directed it at their conversation.

They were going to a business meeting in Portland. To my surprise they were plotting how to get there as cheap as possible, but I could not hear the details. They left for a short moment with their large trunk. A few minutes later, ms. Palmer came back alone, with the trunk on a trolley. She checked it in at the counter and got a receipt for its transportation to Portland. Ten minutes later she boarded the bus and was gone.

My flight to Vientiane was not particularly interesting. I had brought a stack of DVDs to watch as we were crossing the Pacific, but the batteries of my laptop went empty after just ten minutes, so the rest of the time I watched out the window and counted clouds.

The passport formalities went surprisingly smoothly, with immigration officers an order of magnitude more polite than their American equivalents.

The only surprise came at the luggage belt, where a large trunk appeared - exactly the same size and colour as the one Eve Palmer had checked in at the bus station in Seattle. It even had her name label on it. From the inside I could hear desperate knocking.

I hesitated before opening the trunk. It definitely was not mine. But after the belt had rotated three times with just this knocking trunk left, I pulled it over and opened it.

Inside was a somewhat distressed Dick Baites. He had been watching films on his media player for hours, and he had realised that he was about to be late for the the meeting in Portland. He had, however, not realised that the transportation company mistakenly had delivered his trunk to the wrong side of the Pacific for the meeting, and he was perturbed by the news.

But you do not become CEO of one of the biggest software conglomerates for nothing. You have to be quick to adapt to new circumstances. Baites and I spent the week together walking between temples and sharing vegetarian meals with the monks.

Dialog

a: I think I have done something stupid.
b: Why?
a: I did not know it was going to be stupid when I did it.
b: No, why do you think it was stupid?
a: What was stupid?
b: The thing you just did.
a: How do you know it was stupid? How do you know what I have done?
b: Ok, sorry. What is it you have done?
a: Well, I woke up this morning, had corn flakes for breakfast, brushed my teeth...
b: No, no, the stupid thing.
a: Which stupid thing?
b: You said you thought you had done something stupid.
a: Well, why do you think it was stupid?
b: I do not. I do not even know what it is yet.
a: Aha! So you are accusing me of stupidity out of ignorance!
b: Look, I am not accusing you of being stupid. I do not know if you have done anything stupid. I am just trying to figure out what you have done.
a: Why? Would you like to repeat it?
b: I do not think so. It sounds like it was something stupid.
a: Surely not.
b: Ok, surely not.
a: -
b: -
a: So you want to repeat it?
b: I do not know! What was it?
a: Now, you are showing your ignorance again.
b: Ok, I am ignorant. You have done something, and I do not know it. But I have done things you do not know of.
a: Like what?
b: Well, like today, I brought my lunch sandwich in a glass jar, in case it would rain.
a: That sounds pretty stupid.
b: I suppose it was a little stupid. I fastened the lid so tightly that I could hardly open it again.
a: So you are the stupid one.
b: Well, I did one stupid thing, but you did something too.
a: What?
b: I do not know.
a: Stupid and ignorant. I do not know why I waste my time talking to you.

Oblivion

I had spent a few weeks on remote trekking in the Alps. When I came back to Milan, everything was the same. Almost. There were a lot more signs all over the place. "To open the door, turn the handle", and "please pay your bill before you leave the restaurant" and such things.

I did not think about it until later in the afternoon, when I looked at television sets in a shop. They had the news channel on. The announcer seemed agitated, and I switched the sound on, to hear what was happening.

"Reports from Turkey of horrible atmospheric cataclysms are now confirmed from Greece as well. The sun has gone below the horizon and shows no signs of coming back. The countries have gone dark, apart from lamps that for some reason light up the streets and houses. The streets are full of panicking people. The prime ministers of these and apparently many other countries have gone out with public announcements asking everyone to stay calm. The opposition in Greece asks the government to resign, as it clearly is not up to the task to handle this big crisis..."

It was the normal news hour and an announcer I had seen plenty of times before. He was one of the most boring persons I knew, and yet, he participated in this strange joke.

"Could you explain that to me?" I asked the shop keeper.

"It is a mystery, isn't it? Why would the sun go under the horizon? Poor people! I really hope nothing like that will happen here."

"What do you mean 'will happen here'? The sun sets every day. It set yesterday, and it will set today and tomorrow again."

"How do you know?"

"How do I know? I saw it happening. Do you mean you never saw a sunset?"

"I do not remember. Yesterday? It was a very long time ago, wasn't it?"

"Are you nuts?"

"I do not know. What was the question again? The impedance in the loudspeakers? Let's check the catalogue. I keep forgetting that kind of things."


Exasperated I left the shop and sat down at a café to have an espresso. It was already getting darker, and people around me looked increasingly nervous and looked at the sky. More and more of them took out their cell phones and called each other. The man at the table next to mine called his wife:

"Are you listening to the news? What is happening? Why is everything turning dark? They should call in the army to fight this thing!"

And he left without paying, presumably rushing home, even though I saw him run back and forth three times before he took up a map, which apparently told him where he lived, because he ran off into a small street and did not come back.

More and more people ran around panicking, and I was soon the only person calmly sitting down. Even the waiters left the bar screaming.

Most people ran around haphazardly in all directions, but an elderly lady came running straight at me.

"Do you remember?" she shouted.

"Remember what?"

"Yesterday!"

"Yes, of course I remember yesterday."

"Thank heaven! There is at least one sane person in the city."

"What is going on here?"

"I thought you remembered yesterday?"

"Well, yes. Yesterday I was crossing a mountain from Switzerland, where I spent most of last week."

"Oh", she said. "Alone?"

"Yes...?"

"I see. That's why you have not been affected."

"Affected by what?"

"Oblivion."

"Oblivion?"

"Yes. And don't say you have forgotten what that word means."

"No, no. But oblivion is a state. It is not a decease, is it?"

"I should probably explain. Last week oblivion started spreading like a decease. People started forgetting virtually everything. It spread as quickly as Ebola, but whereas Ebola limits its expansion as it kills off everyone who gets it, this oblivion never killed anyone. It just slowly crept up on people, who saw it coming to friends and neighbours, so a large number of reminder notices were written. Those pieces of paper are what keeps civilisation running right now. However, no one apparently thought it was noteworthy to write down that the sun sets every day, so people panic every day. It is nothing to worry about of course. They will soon get tired and sleep, and when they wake up tomorrow, they will have forgotten that it ever was dark."

"How come you are not affected?"

"I got stuck with a tricky sudoku in my apartment, so I stayed alone for several days. When I got out the contamination had affected everyone else, but the incubation period had apparently passed."

"Ah, that explains it."

"Explains what?"

"Sorry, what are you talking about?"

Therapy needed

"Bob, could you come to my office for a minute?"

Bob approached the chief editor's office without much enthusiasm but with plenty of confidence. He knew that he had written more articles than most of his colleagues the last few months, and he knew that they usually were more accurate than the other articles. Still, the chief editor had a way of giving bad feedback much more often than good feedback, so he felt something was going on.

"Bob", the c.e. began, as soon as the door was closed and they both had sat down in the comfy sofa which usually was reserved for customers and information sources which had a high risk of going to jail for their disclosures.

"Bob", he continued, because he wanted to be sure that this part of the message came through. He was not trying to keep any distance to his employees, but addressed them by their first name - at least when other people were listening. As no one else was listening here, it was clear that he really meant "Bob" when he said so. He looked at Bob and thought about saying the name a third time, but he suddenly felt unsure if Bob preferred Robert or Bob, and decided against it.

"Not everything is perfect. I think you know that."

"Definitely. Just look at the weather."

Bob's attempt at a joke fell rather flat, as the weather indeed was perfect that particular day, with a clear sun that gave a beautiful spring light without any excessive heat.

"Yes... no... I was not thinking about that."

Bob remained quiet. So did the chief editor unfortunately, so there was an awkward pause.

"Bob, I have read your political column for quite some time now. It is very lucid."

"Thank you."

"Ehm... for what?"

"For saying that it was lucid."

"That was not meant to sound good."

"It was not?"

"Of course not. Who wants lucid opinions? You argue so convincingly and clearly, that no one can disagree."

"And...?"

"If no one disagrees, there won't be any debate."

"Ah..."

"Without debate, we will not have long article series where people throw insults at each other. People want insults. Not that they say so, of course. No one would admit it. But if there are insults, there is interest. People will raise as one man, and shout different opinions on the subject as a choir of ad revenue generating angels."

"Oh..."

"You just tell the truth. It is so incredibly boring with truth."

"My wife says the column is very well written."

"And she is bloody well right. Why on earth do you stick to so elegant prose?"

"Eh...?"

"People want to feel superior. They want to laugh at us journalists and our miserable prose. That makes them feel good."

"Oh...."

"Don't oh, eh and ah me, young man! I mean Robert. Eh.. Bob! Or Robert."

"Bob is fine. That is my real name."

"There we are again! 'Real name'! Try to be interesting! Lie a little to keep me interested, to start a discussion, a debate, an argument. Please, say something I can disagree with!"

"I am sorry, but I have a hard time to think of anything."

"I know you have, but why do you admit it? Spice it up. Pretend you have something. Oh, this is futile. You will go on a therapy from next week."

"Why? What kind of therapy?"

"There is a company that has specialised in removing perspicacity and lucidity from the minds of people. After a few sessions, you will lose most of your common sense, and soon you will be able to write outrageously interesting articles again."

"You must be joking."

"I am not, Bob. I hope you appreciate it."

"Oh, sod it!"

"Thank, you Bob."