My Friend The Mailman

Hanging out with the mailman was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Greater than sliced bread, but greater than fresh Italian bread? Forget about it. It changed my outlook on life, and ever since the first time I saw that guy wandering around my property, I've always felt a kind of kinship with said mailman. When I first saw el mailmano (henceforth referred to as "Doug") I thought he was a wild bear. My neck of the woods is home to bears, leopards, bridge monsters, and Ron Howard, so it wasn't that much of a stretch. Plus, Doug was seven feet tall and covered with a thick layer of fur (or maybe it was a just an overcoat. You be the judge). So at first I just walked right up to him with a handful of berries and spent about ten minutes talking in gibberish to see if he would respond to my gentle voice and eat the berries (which were poisoned, by the way. I hate bears) right out of my palms.

His refusal of my tainted offer, and the fact that he reported me to the police for tapping his phone, made me reevaluate my hatred of the bear race and the way I lead my life, in general. I came to realize that over the years, I've lost more than I've gained. And I'm not talking about weight. I'm talking about the little things: picking your teeth with a toothpick instead of a rusty nail, holding a hand to your head to get better reception on your iPod, going to Seaworld and punching a whale. I mean, I've punched a whale, but it wasn't in Seaworld. And it was in self-defense, for those of you "concerned" (wink, wink) at the thought of some colorful rogue running this way and that, punching random whales.

They've given me a lot of flak for my pro-whale-punching agenda in the presses. Steve Jobs sent me a letter of marque about it, though, but I turned him down. I fight whales because I hate them, not because some Apple bigwig offers me ten thousand dollars a blowhole. My standing rate is forty thousand, and if I don't have my principles, then what am I? Some kind of spineless Remora, beholden to the dorsal fin of the whale of industry? I'll never redact, I won't submit, not until the whale apologists recognize what those monsters did to Pinocchio's family. Only on that day will I, the Taker of Gist, accept such a paltry fee.