A Nutcracker Waxes Passionate About His Profession

Oh man- look at that bowl of roasted nuts over there. What a great looking mix... The large, rounded shapes of the walnuts are in stark contrast to the smaller, sleeker almonds, and the deep brown of the chestnuts provide for a nice break from the light tan of the rest of the nutshells. Clearly, whoever roasted this nut mix is a professional, a life-long lover of nuts who knows exactly what they want and doesn't waste their time on anything else, as evidenced by the complete (and welcome) absence of brazil nuts and cashews. Notice also the lack of peanuts- while delicious in their own right either out of the shell or in butter form, they are neither a true nut nor a holiday nut, and therefore have no place in this mix. Despite the festive ceramic bowl with the christmas tree motif, I suspect that these nuts were not placed there just as decor. No no- these nuts were meant to be enjoyed. To get at the sweet nutmeat inside, those shells are going to have to be dealt with quickly and efficiently, and that means that I'm going to have to crack 'em. God, I can't wait to crack those nuts.

Now, I know that some people prefer not to use an ornate nutcracker like me. Some people like to use those silver nutcrackers that crack the nut in your hand. Some people think that nutcrackers like me are gaudy ornamentations better suited to festooning mantlepieces than cracking nuts. Let me tell you something, though- people who think those things are impatient savages. They would sooner eat a tin of mixed nuts from the dollar store than take the time to roast a holiday nut blend of their own design. In the same way that a vintage bordeaux ought to be sipped rather than gulped, a fine nut ought to take time to eat. How else could one possibly hope to enjoy the rich texture of the meat, or the subtle lemony overtones, or the complex bouquet unleashed when the nut is cracked? They can't, quite simply put. This is why I am so useful- I am a liason between nutlovers and the nuts they love. I help them focus on the process of eating a nut, from start to finish. Without me, they may as well have a packet of stale beer nuts from the local pub. I also add an air of professionality to the nut proceedings- note the beefeater hat and many-buttoned jacket. I do not wear these things because they are comfortable, or stylish. I wear them because they allow a nut to be presented with the dignity that it deserves. I wear them because I am a nutcracker, and I love what I do.

You have no idea how much I love cracking nuts. There is nothing in the world as satisfying to me as putting a nut in my mouth and gnashing my teeth down on it so hard that the shell splinters. Don't let me give you the wrong impression about my nutcracking, though. There's a lot more finesse required for nutcracking than most people realize. Very few nut connosieurs use the brute force nutcracking methods of days of yore. After a while of smacking at nuts with hammers, it just gets old. It's too messy, too imprecise. With a hammer, it's so difficult to gauge the true force with which nuts are cracked, and cracking a nut too hard might damage the meat inside. Walnuts, for example, don't require very much force to crack at all. Crack a walnut too hard, and you'll be digging through bits of shell for seven, maybe even eight minutes before you find the meat you seek. But, if you crack a walnut just right, the shell will split down the middle, allowing you to pluck the meat out and eat it in one satisfying bite. Almonds, of course, are different beasts entirely. If you want to, you can really take out your pent-up frustrations on an almond. You see, the meat's almost as hard as the shell, so you can really go nuts when you crack an almond! Heh- sorry... That joke always goes over huge with the nutcracking crowd.

Look, you seem skeptical. Don't let me pressure you into anything. It was in no way my intention to flap at the jaw like this for so long- I guess I got carried away. It's nice to be passionate about what you do. It provides a sense of fulfillment that I'm afraid most people don't get to experience, and I pity them. Every time someone puts a nut in my mouth, I nearly jump with glee at the chance to crush it. I am so lucky! Not only am I a nutcracker, but I love cracking nuts. Each nut in my mouth is it's own adventure, just waiting to happen, and I am like an unshaven and relatively young Harrison Ford, only I crack nuts instead of using a whip to swing over chasms. If nuts were moons, then I would be the United States and Russia during the 1960's, for my passion for nutcracking is so great that no one nation could contain it. If nuts were the golden fleece of mythological lore, then I would be Jason and the Argonauts, willing to do anything for the sake of cracking nuts. I would go to the ends of the earth and back again for nuts. You know why? Because I love what I do. Now then, won't you have a nut?

Legislature Proposed By Socks The Cat During The Clinton Administration

The Feline Medical Leave Act

Insofar as people prefer cute kitties, and cute kitties must be healthy kitties, I, Socks the cat, hereby propose the following: mother cats must be allowed to take extended leaves of absence from their places of work so that they may take care of the business of raising cute kitties. I would like to remind those who oppose this proposal on the grounds of lost profit from productivity that cute kittie calendars have been the single highest grossing domestic export for the past six years. By passing this legislature we can ensure that the supply of cute, happy, well-raised kitties will be sustained. Meow.

Fleacare Reform

Whereas the systems in place to deal with human maladies have been updated with some regularity since their inception, the systems in place to attend to feline maladies are grossly outdated. In response to this, I, Socks the cat, propose that from here on, state governments shall provide a 2% yearly funding increase into state programs for flea and tick prevention. As these parasites afflict not only cats, but the humans they come in contact with as well, it is in the best interest of all involved parties that the populations of these arthropods be monitored continually and culled when necessary. To underscore the urgency of this item, it shall be piggy-backed onto the wildly popular Hairball Maintenance Act of 1996.

Spray Bottle Bill

The universal feline aversion to water has been exploited for decades to serve what is ultimately a human agenda. Countless cats across the nation have been sprayed by spray bottles as punishment for actions which are out of their control. As established by the Feline Behavior Protocol study of 1992, all cats have an uncontrollable desire to scratch at the arms of couches and to climb certain curtains. As spraying cats with water will not alter their base nature, I, Socks the cat, hereby propose to establish a 3-day waiting period on the purchase of spray bottles. During this time, those who wish to purchase spray bottles will have to undergo background checks to see whether or not they have a history of hyrokinetic feline admonishment. Those who fail the background checks shan't be permitted to purchase further spray bottles. In the meantime, a 4% tax shall be levied on spray bottles to help provide funding for behavioral research into this most feline of afflictions, so that the couches and curtains of this great nation may remain as pristine and untarnished as our great tradition of human/feline cooperation in the name of democracy.

Snippets From Tales Of Victory And Triumph Nobody Cares To Hear

"...So there I was, playing Tetris with a screen so full that I was almost done for, waiting for one of those long blue pieces so that I could clear a few lines. But then I got a Z-piece. And then an S-piece. And then another Z- I was about ready to put down the controller and call it quits, when, all of a sudden, I got two long pieces in a row, cleared 8 lines, and moved onto level twelve. Now, if you thought Tetris was hard in level eleven, then wait'll you hear about level twelve. I had a T-piece to start..."

"...And that's when I noticed that I had one less white sock than I should have. Nobody was home but me, so it couldn't have been stolen out of the dryer. It's still in the dryer, I thought, that's why I can't find that sock. Knowing the gravity of the situation, I steeled myself for what I had to do next- I had to put my bare hand in the dryer and feel around for my missing sock. Believe you me, not even the Maytag repair man had ever seen a dryer so fierce..."

"...One car went past me, then another, then another. I looked both ways, then realized that I had my window of opportunity. I could see a station wagon in the distance, so I knew I had to act right then. I don't know what came over me- I guess you'd call it an adrenaline rush- but I walked right across that street without ever looking back. Needless to say, when I made it to the other side I was petrified, because the station wagon came zooming by where I had been standing just a few seconds earlier..."

"...I pushed as hard as I could, but couldn't get it to budge. Frantic, I turned the aspirin bottle over to read the instructions- maybe I was trying to open the wrong kind of cap? As it turns out, I was. It was one of those ones where you have to push the two tabs in on the side. Now, I don't know if you've ever tried to perform a precision operation such as this with a mild headache, but it is not pleasant..."

"...The sound was maddening, deafening almost. Fueled by the sort of crazed determination only experienced during fits of insomnia, I crept towards the bathroom, ready to do whatever it took to stop that toilet from running for the rest of the evening. The tile was cold on my bare feet- cold like death, but I had already turned on the lights so I could see what I was doing, and I sure as heck wasn't about to turn back after that..."

Erno Rubik Challenges The World

Behold! Look at what I, Erno Rubik, have created- A cube! A Rubik's cube! Tremble in fear, mere mortals, for your day of reckoning has come. What I hold in my hand may look like a simple child's toy- something you would give to a toddler to keep them occupied while you chat on the phone- but no! It is far more... Hidden behind this innocuously colored facade is a puzzle who's solution remains just beyond your grasp in perpetuity. The challenge is simple- arrange the panels of the cube such that each side is composed of a single color. But go on and try- I assure you that you will fail, for I, Erno Rubik, have created this cube and therefore only I, Erno Rubik, can tame this beastly puzzle! Cower before my cube, beg for mercy, and perhaps I shall grant it to you. Otherwise, fear my fiendish cube!

This cube is my payback to the world for having ostracized me for so many years. People fear what they do not understand. Therefore I, a man of exceeding intelligence, have been unwillingly made into a recluse due to years of being held at arm's length by the ignorant masses who could not fathom the depths of my brilliance no matter how hard they tried. As a boy, I was mocked and teased because I mastered arithmetic well before the other pupils in my class. The rest of the Hungarian children in my grammar school did not understand how I could grasp concepts such as multiplication tables or prime numbers so easily, and so they shunned me. Girls would not kiss me, for they thought me to be a vampyre who sucked people's brains to heighten my own intellect. By the time I was in college, professors refused to have me in their classes, for I would only complete homework assignments in a base-six numerical alphabet of my own design- and why shouldn't I? It is far more efficient than this clunky and cumbersome 26-lettered alphabet which you peons insist on using. Even today, as a full grown man, I have been forced to stop drawing blueprints for 7-dimensional buildings in order to keep my job as a professor of architecture. Well, I am tired of dumbing myself down for you all. That is why I have invented the cube.

Go on. Hold it in your hand. Do you not find the colors mesmerizing? Of course you do- I selected each hue myself, the wavelengths precisely tuned so as to cause maximum excitation in the visual cortex. Once you see it, you feel compelled to turn it over, to examine all sides of it. You are fascinated by it. Notice the disarray. The blues are not next to the blues! The reds are next to the whites! Yellow and green are scattered about like wildflowers in a cow pasture! What's that orange doing there? You are disgusted by it, yet somehow you cannot look away. A morbid curiosity possesses you. As you turn, slowly you begin to notice something- the cube is not some static representation of chaos. No no- far from, my friend. It turns about several axes, allowing you to move rows and columns of color about. You have control over this cube.

But you are no fool, are you? Aware of how unsurmountable a task it would be to try to align all six colors simultaneously, you decide to break this problem down into chunks. I'll start with the blues, you think. Already, you are defeated! The second you solve one side, you shall have to unsolve it to solve another, and then unsolve that side to solve yet another, and another, and another, and another! Your mind reels from the strain of it all- you have independently solved six colored sides of the cube, yet the cube on the whole remains unsolved to you! Staggering backwards from the force of it all, you assume that you are close to a complete solution, but you could not be further from the truth. Do you know why? You must solve each side simultaneously! But you can't! You must do so, but it is impossible to do so! What a condundrum! What a paradox! Not since Alexander the Great was presented with the Gordian knot has humanity been confronted by such an intractable problem!

...Or so it would seem. If Erno can do it, you think, why cant' I? Surely I am as clever as that Hungarian geek. Maybe you are- but there's only one way to find out. Pour yourself into my cube. Let the puzzle I have created capture your mind. For every second of my life that I have spent alone, pining for companionship, the rest of humankind shall spend an hour alone with my cube, consumed by it. Conversation will cease, as would-be socialites devote themselves to solving my fiendish puzzle, and the globe shall fall silent save for the gentle click-clacking of a billion cubes being rearranged in vain. You shall all be forced to become recluses as have I! I shall teach you to shun me! I shall have my revenge for each wedgie and wet willie I received as a child! Instead of being snubbed, I shall be revered as a god for I have created something that the mind of man can never hope to understand- the Rubik's cube!

Possible Uses For A Narwhal's Tusk

• If teamed up with another narwhal, two tusks may be used to knit narwhal scarves from colored yarn.
• If at a kabob party with a skewer shortage, the tusk may be used to spear delicious combinations of meat, peppers, and onions for narwhals to eat.
  
• If outfitted with a small paddle on the tip, the tusk may be used to flip pancakes at narwhal brunches without having to worry about being spattered by hot butter on the griddle.
• Narwhal tusks may not be used to pick up narwhal water balloons. That's just ridiculous.
• If a narwhal's frisbee is lodged in the branches of a tree, the tusk may be used to dislodge it.
• If trained as a geologist, a narwhal who can feel slight trembles in the earth's crust may use his tusk to etch out the intensity of these trembles on an ice floe, creating a rudimentary seismograph.
• If natural peanut butter has been purchased at a narwhal health food store, the tusk may be used to stir the oil back into the peanut butter so that it is easier to spread.
• If y=mx+(a narwhal's tusk), then a narwhal's tusk may be used to represent the y-intercept of a line in a Cartesian graphing system.

Film Noir Monologues In History: Archduke Franz Ferdinand Arrives In Sarajevo

Some days are better than others. Some days you're king of the world and folks can't line up fast enough to carry out your orders. Others, you're one of the folks. This was one of the others. I had been demoted from archduke to errand boy and sent to Sarajevo to babysit a few generals during some routine military exercises. Thing is, I was the wrong man for the job- I've never been a fan of calisthenics and I don't like changing diapers, but the fact that the situation had me unbalanced didn't enter in to the equation. I was playing second fiddle to the first chair back in Vienna, and the conductor didn't care whether or not I liked the tune so long as I kept the brass in line. Forced to play a piece I didn't care for, I did what any musician would do- I spent the entire trip down looking for some inspiration in the bottom of a bottle, but all I found was a hangover in two movements- a major headache and a minor ability to keep my breakfast down. Just my luck.

As if things weren't grim enough, I had heard it through the grapevine that a couple of bad apples were looking to set down roots of their own. A group of Serbs calling themselves 'The Black Hand' wanted a piece of the pie all for themselves. Problem was, it was sitting on Austria-Hungary's windowsill and we weren't about to let it go without a fight. If it did come to blows, we had Germany in our corner ready to knock out to whatever punch-drunk featherweight was foolish enough to step into the ring. The whole thing was a powder keg waiting to blow and The Black Hand seemed as though they couldn't wait to strike a match. I figured they figured that a fancy fella like Franz Ferdinand could be a fine fuse, so if it were up to me I'd lay low and let the policy do the talking. But it wasn't up to me- it was up to Vienna, so they sent me down to Sarajevo. Just my luck.

Sarajevo. I hate this place. Sarajevo was like a undercooked bratwurst. From a distance, it looked like something you might be able to cope with, but the second you dig your teeth in and break the surface you find enough blood to make your stomach turn. If Sarajevo were a person it'd be a ditzy dame with long legs and a cross to bear- pretty to look at, but beauty's only skin deep. And this day, this other day, Sarajevo wasn't even looking so pretty. I even did some sightseeing with a pair of beer goggles and still couldn't figure out for the life of me why the suits in Vienna cared about this place. Good thing I wasn't the one calling the shots, because I would have put Sarajevo in front of the firing squad long ago. At least the feeling was mutual- The Black Hand made sure to show me every hospitality, all the way from ominously anonymous death threats to a dagger in the door of my hotel suite. I don't get much of that in Austria, but I guess it's the little cultural differences that really make traveling worthwhile. A smaller man might have let the extra attention go to his head, but I saw the bigger picture and wasn't convinced that I was the star of the show. Not that you could tell from the way I was acting- tomorrow I'm going to the Sarajevo town hall for an official reception. Maybe I'll be lucky. Maybe it'll be one of the good days. Most likely it'll be one of the others. Maybe I'll be really lucky and some nut job will put me out of my misery so I don't have to spend another day here, but nah... I'm not that lucky.

Diary Of A Would-Be Gumshoe

November 18th, 1986
Dear Diary-

I did it! I'm so proud of myself. After a very arduous year of training at the prestigious ACME Detective Academy, I have graduated. The Chief handed me my badge and my papers today, so now I've got official 'Rookie' status. I've even got my first case, and it's a big one- some sticky fingered crook has nabbed the Eiffel Tower. Can you imagine? The Eiffel Tower! How did nobody see them take it? Oh well, I guess that's what I'm here for- to crack this case wide open! That's all for tonight. I've got to get to the airport, as I have to be in Paris tomorrow morning to start gathering clues.

November 20th, 1986
Dear Diary-

What a day! I landed in Paris last night and started looking for clues this morning. As soon as I walked into the sports club, a knife flew in front of my face and thudded into the wall next to me. I was scared silly, but when I phoned back to ACME to ask what was going on, they told me that it was probably just a V.I.L.E. henchman trying to scare me off the trail. Exciting, huh? Anyhow, I found out from the sports club that a suspicious person with blonde hair was asking about kayaking through fjords- initially, I suspected that my target might be headed to the northern countries, but i wasn't certain. Intrigued, I took my sleuthing to the library and found out that another suspicious person was "looking to travel to a country with "a red and blue cross flag." After consulting my World Almanac, I figured out that the crook is headed to Oslo, Norway, and now I'm in hot pursuit! Thank goodness I majored in geography as an undergrad, otherwise this job might be really taxing.

November 21st, 1986
Dear Diary-

V.I.L.E. must really be running scared, because when I got to the marketplace this morning, a gun popped out from behind a curtain and fired a shot at me. I should be laying low, but who can rest when there's so much sleuthing to be done? I went to the Oslo museum today. After asking the very friendly museum attendant if they had seen any suspicious blonde men, I found out that a blonde gentleman who arrived in a limo had been asking about "arthropods of the Sinai desert." Duh! He's going to Egypt. Just to be sure, I asked around the marketplace and found out that a blonde man who rode in a limo and had a tattoo was asking about "Nubian baskets," so off to Egypt I go. I'm going to go through our criminal dossiers on the plane and try to narrow down who my crook might be. Originally I thought it might have been Ertha Brute, but the suspect is a man. I also thought that it could be Nosmo King, but Nosmo King doesn't have a tattoo. I'll have to do some deep digging to get to the bottom of this one. I can't wait to arrest my first V.I.L.E. crook!

November 22nd, 1986
Dear Diary-

What an awful day. I feel like such a fool. I solved the case- I figured out that it was Ihor Ihorovich who stole the Eiffel Tower. His profile lined up exactly with the clues I collected, especially when an airport attendant in Cairo mentioned that a man traveling with a croquet set had been through just a few hours before me. I wasn't thinking straight- I knew that even just one arrest would get me promoted to Gumshoe status, and I rushed into it. I found out where Ihor Ihorovich was staying, so I went over there to slap a pair of handcuffs on him. Stupid me, I had forgotten to get a warrant from the Chief, so I couldn't search him for evidence, and I'm certain that if I had searched him I would have found the Eiffel Tower. Oh, the humiliation! I had Ihor Ihorovich in my sights and he slipped through my grasp, so now the good people of France have lost a monument. No matter. I'm going to learn from my mistakes. V.I.L.E. may have gotten away from me once, but they won't get away again. I'm going to nab them all. Someday, I'll even be the one to put Carmen Sandiego, their ringleader, behind bars. Heh- she'll have to trade in that red trench coat for a striped jumpsuit if I have anything to say about it! I think Chief knows how disappointed I was with the Eiffel Tower caper, because he's sending me out on another assignment next week. It looks like somebody's stolen the Empire State Building, and I'm guessing that V.I.L.E.'s fingerprints are all over it.

Wildebeest Wanderlust

Hey, other wildebeests- aren't you bored? I know I am. We've been grazing on this same stupid patch of grassland since November. I don't know about you gnus, but I'm really starting to go stir crazy. I've been going to the same stupid watering hole every night for months now, and I'm totally over it. Sure the weather's not too bad here, and there's plenty of cute Impalas to grunt at, but I just want a change of pace, you know? Call me crazy, but I say it's high time we did something fun and got out of this place. You know what that means... Road trip!!!

I've got everything all figured out, so hear me out on this. If we're going on a road trip, then we're going all out. Go big or go home, you know? Now, I'm not looking to forge lasting friendships with a couple of my closest buddies this summer. I'm looking to party all night, every night for the next few months, and I'm looking to do it on the move. We've got a chance to do something awesome with this road trip, so we had better do it right. For starters, we get a bunch of us together, and I mean a bunch. Like a million. Maybe a million and a half. No joke. But don't worry, recruiting the rest of the herd won't be hard at all- not once they hear that we're going to all the hottest wildebeest party locations! I'm talking Tanzania, Kenya, and, of course, Masai Mara, where all the hottest co-ed gnus go to get down! Woo! I don't know about you gnus, but I'm gonna Seren-get me some serious action with a she-debeest once we get there. After all, what happens in Masai Mara stays in Masai Mara.

Now, I know what you're thinking- you're worried about predators. Cheetahs, Lions, Hyenas... Sure, they'll be trying to harsh our mellow the whole trip, but you know what? I don't care. That's right. You know why? Because we're gonna travel in a huge herd. The more the merrier. If we just agree at the outset that everybody's got everybody else's back, then everybody's back is got by a million other everybodys. I've never met a carnivore who could take on a million wildebeests all by themselves, so what have we got to worry about? Yeah, we might lose a few of the sick or old to some of the more aggressive hunters out there, but truth be told, we'd lose just as many to river crocodiles if we stayed here at Ngorongoro. Besides, if we stay here any longer, we'll die of boredom, because there's no way we're gonna have as much fun here as we will on a road trip. Also, we'll be in a protected game reserve the entire time, so we won't even have to worry about poachers, and trust me- when you've got a hide that looks as good as mine, you've gotta worry.

So let's do it. Let's not mope around here for the rest of the year. Let's get out there and show Africa what we're made of. I say we go gnuts! Let's grunt and eat grass and stampede all night long until both of our toes on all four of our feet are sore. Let's charge at safari buses and veer off at the last second. Let's remember that we only have 20-25 years on this earth, and let's try to make this year the best one yet. And, most importantly- let's make sure that everybody on the Serengeti knows just one thing- we are not just another bunch of meek wildebeests. We're wildbeests. We're fungulates. We're awesome- and this road trip will be too.

Let's roll.

Having Survived A Harrowing Encounter With The Farmer's Wife, One Of The Three Blind Mice Has A Harrowing Encounter With His Own

I should have listened to my mother. When we were dating, she told me you were no good. I remember her exact words. She said, "That Justin is one of the dumbest mice I have ever met. If you marry him, you'll be sorry." And to think, to think that I stood up for you- because you were blind! "He's not dumb, momma," I said. "He's not dumb, he's just blind." Pfft. I should have known better. As if four years of marriage didn't already give my mother enough evidence for a lifetime of I-told-you-so's, now you decide to stay out late with your drinking buddies, come home in the morning without your tail, and claim that the farmer's wife attacked you with a carving knife, turning you into an amputee. I've never seen such a sight in my life.

I don't even know where to start. You were supposed to be home by eight o'clock yesterday to take care of the litter, and you weren't. Strike one. I have no problem with you going out for a drink with the boys after work once in a while, but I have book group the first monday of every month and I had to miss it this time around because you and your idiot friends were out painting the town red. I hope you're happy with yourself. How many times have I told you that Pat and Tim are nothing but trouble? Honey, I'm happy for you that you've found friends through the support group for blind mice that you joined, I really am. However, I am not happy in the least that those friends are boozehounds with bad ideas. I swear, I don't know what goes through that stupid little head of yours sometimes- like the time you three tried to run up that grandfather clock. The clock struck one, you all fell down, and I'm the one who had to spend two weeks lying to your boss on the phone every morning because you had broken your leg and couldn't go to work. I don't know how I put up with you.

So you're with your knucklehead boozehound friends, decide to ignore your duties at home, and stay out drinking all night instead. Two strikes, Justin, two strikes. But that wasn't enough, was it? Nooooo... It wouldn't have been enough for you just to come home late reeking of alcohol. You had to try to pull some dumb stunt before you got here, didn't you? Who's lamebrain idea was it to go into the farmhouse anyway? What did the three of you expect to accomplish there? Keep in mind that I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt in assuming that you had a plan at all. I wouldn't put it past the three of you to have run in there mindlessly just to say that you did it. Really, it doesn't matter what your plan was- even if you had the most noble of intentions, it is always an awful idea for three blind mice to chase after an armed human! It would be a bad enough idea if you weren't blind, but in your condition it is just inexcusable. You're lucky that she only cut off your tails! Oh, and by the way, how ridiculously inebriated were the three of you that she was able to slice off your tails so cleanly? Were you passed out when she found you? Your tail is not large, and carving knifes have never been regarded as precision instruments. I can only imagine what she thought when she found the three of you stumbling around in her kitchen. What an embarassment. You three are such stooges sometimes. I want to line you all up so that I don't have to waste the time slapping each of you individually- and don't think that Pat and Tim's wives are letting them get off any easier. I already spoke with Heather and Nora. We are all on the same page, and it is not a happy one, believe you me.

Let's recap, shall we? You forgot to come home. Strike one. You forgot to come home because you were out drinking with your idiot friends. Strike two. You forgot to come home because you were out drinking with your idiot friends, and because you were drunk you got your tail cut off with a carving knife. Strike three, Justin. You are in big trouble this time, do you hear me? I am fed up with this kind of behavior. You are staying home with the litter every night for the next month whether I am here or not, and you are not allowed to leave this mousehole for any reason other than to go to your job so that you can support your family. Can you understand that? Has your head stopped spinning enough for me to get through, or do I need to stamp it out in braille for you? Get out of here. Go wash up. It's bad enough that our children have to hear their father tell them that he lost his tail because he's an idiot, but I don't want them to have to endure your whiskey stink as well. And put some gauze on that tail stump of yours- it's just unsightly.

Romance On The Periodic Table

Beautiful Chlorine-

It is I, Sodium. Sodium, from the alkali metals. Chlorine, I do not mean to be forward, but I can keep my love for you a secret no longer. I adore you. I crave you. Now, I may not have the rank or stature of Neon, or Xenon, or any of the other noble gases, but keep in mind that I would never spurn you as they have. Nor will I harass you for ages only to use you to suit my own ends, as does Hydrogen, that loathsome lothario. He would bond to you and then discard you as soon as Hydroxide came back into his life, just as he has done to all of the other halogens. I wouldn't do that to you, Chlorine, for I know your true worth. I know what makes you react, and I know that sometimes you don't care for suitors; that you just want to be diatomic. I understand that. I would never force myself upon you, but I think that you and I could really make a marvelous salt together. When you ionize, you have the loveliest valence shell of any element, and any fool that can't see that isn't worthy of your company. I wish to bond with you, Chlorine, and I hope that you wish to bond with me, too.

Eagerly awaiting your reply,

Sodium

Dear Sodium-

Yes! Yes! Oh, sweet lord, a thousand times yes! Ever since I was a little girl, I have been hoping to form the sort of bond that I now know I can form with you. I've been through so many acidic relationships of late- Hydrochloric, Chloric, Perchloric- and I've hated them all. Never once have I felt that I could create something long lasting in those relationships. With you, fair Sodium, with you I feel that I can truly be appreciated. Together, we could make such a beautiful halite arrangement, our ions closely packed into small cubes as we snuggle electrostatically for years on end. Every element will be envious of our crystal lattices, and we shall never want for anything besides each other ever again! I love you, Sodium, and can't wait to bond with you. Meet me at my favorite restaurant, Erlenmyer's, on Saturday night at 6:00 pm sharp. I'll be wearing a cute little 1s²2s²2p⁶3s²3p⁵ configuration. I can't wait to see you!

xoxoxoxo

Chlorine :)