Intermission
 
    This is the intermission, which, when you're watching some boring play or being forced to sit through a completely pointless production of an opera written by some guy who's been dead for two hundred years and you're sure was killed for writing just this particular opera, is an opportunity to get up, stretch out all the kinks you've developed trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in, and go to the bathroom.  In short, a break from drivel that pretends to be culture, that you only went to so your friends would think you were smart and well educated and have good taste, and they only went for the same reasons, and the only reason that they said you should go is to torture you in the same way and because they didn't want you to know that they hated it.  So all of this has been going on for hundreds of years.  Morons keep writing horrible operas (is there such a thing as a good one?) and stinking plays, and poor idiots like us keep going to them so people wont think we're stupid.  Go figure.
    Which brings me to this book.  This book is not really anything like those plays and operas.  When you get bored with this you can throw it away.  Or at least put it down.  It also has other redeeming qualities.  You can tear the pages out and use them to start fires when you're stranded out in the wilderness, or, if the emergency is very urgent, you can use it for toilet paper.  (It's better than tree bark, believe me.)  You can take out the wire for the binding (or is that plastic?  In that case use it for a funky hair ornament or barrette.) and use it for an antenna for your TV, if it's broken, and the vinyl covers can be used to patch that awful 70's vintage couch you have downstairs in the guest room after the cat scratched on it.  What the hell?  It couldn't look any worse.
    All this before you even open the front cover (I didn't say when you get bored reading it.)
    If you're willing to go to this extraordinary effort, this book has even more to offer.  Remember, you have to read a book now and then, or your friends will think you're stupid, and the books with that guy with the big yellow hat and the monkeys don't count.  Inside, this book has a number of humorous stories, a few real stupid ones, and one or two that most people would find offensive.  All of which puts it in a class with all of those operas and plays.
    Or at least you might think so.  If you didn't think that this kind of writing had some sort of socially redeeming value, you wouldn't have read enough to get to this intermission.  Either that, or you're related to one of the contributors, in which case you're reading this with that 'boy, this is weird but I can't tell them that so I'll just say something like "It's different." or a blatant lie like "This is really good!"' kind of attitude and you don't count.  (Or maybe you do count, because you might be the only people who actually read this.)
    But despite all of the culture and mental stimulation this work has to offer, you still have to stretch those kinks and, yes, go to the bathroom.  Go on.  I'll wait.
    ...Ya back?  Feel better?  Well, like all intermissions, you got back early and this one is still going on.  Except, of course, those intermissions that are much too short.  Those are the ones that you run out to the "rest" rooms (have you ever wanted to rest in one of them?) stand in line with fifty or sixty other people who have the same bladder control problem you do for about 15 minutes, hear the orchestra start to play again, give up, go back and sit down, and hope you can hold it.  Which really adds to the enjoyment of the event.
    At football games you get a half-time show.  This is so the players can rest, not you.  They figure that you've been sitting on your rump while these huge guys have been out on the field hammering their heads together like a sex crazed heard of bighorn sheep, so you don't need a break.  Anyone who has spent long periods sitting in the bleachers in Mile High Stadium would rather be butting heads.
    One of my favorite ways to get through the half-time show is to bring a lot to eat.  Then I just sit and scarf while people that are too far away to even distinguish whether or not they are male, female, martian or amoebae (Come on, do you think I can afford better seats?) dance and sing and partake in other un-understandable rituals on the head butting field.  That'll work here too, just don't drip any on the book.
    And then there's all of you who will be reading this in bed.  I've always found better things to do in bed (I meant sleeping!!  Where's your mind at?) but some people think it's the perfect place to read, so this is the point in the book where you start to doze off and pick up where you left off tomorrow night.  Maybe we should have had them print this page on orange paper so you wouldn't need a book mark to find your place.
    One more thing, a little more on (No, not a little moron.) the serious side.  I haven't read this book in its entirety because I'm writing this to go in the book, so at the time I wrote this the book hadn't been finished yet.  But I have read a great many parts of it.  Some of them were even written in my humble presence.  I liked some more than others, especially the uvula episode, but all in all I enjoyed them, and I hope you're enjoying them too.  They may or may not be great writers, but they are great guys, and if you look real close read between the lines a little (OK a lot), I think you'll be able to see that.  Maybe it's even a little more obvious than that, but like I said, I haven't read the book.
C.T.
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