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In This Issue

• Water On The Knee
• The Annihilator of Mathematics
• Demonic Speak-n-Spell
• The Fed Interviews Jon Voight
• Letters to the Feditors
• Sam Jenning, or: Eating Children For Profit
• Immigrate This!
• Where In Our Hearts Is Carmen Sandiego?
• The Life and Times of Carmen Sandiego
• Redder Rabbit?
• Good Golly Fucking Gumdrops, I Like Candy!
• The City’s New Hot, Sexy, Superhot Nightclub!
• Where's Waldo?
• Logical Journey into Eugenics
• Think Columbia Sucks? It's Your Fault, Doofus.
• A Farewell to Harms
• A Farewell To Bill
• Tracy Briskit, Fed Queen
• Make Your Own Safe Space!
• Columbia Trail: Safe Space, Bathroom in 347 miles
• Cook with Barney!
• THEY Watch
• The Staff of 21.8
• The Staff of Volume 21

Andres Vedova

A fun and cost-effective way of luring children!

Listen, Jimmy, I know your mother told you never to talk to strangers. But you know what? Your mother’s been paying way too much attention to you lately. It’s always “Tom, Tom, put that beer away, we’ve got to go to open school night” and “Not now, Tom, Jimmy’s friends are over and that creepy little one is watching us.” Point is, Jimmy, your dad needs some alone time with your mom. So, the next time a stranger asks you to get into his car, please, just go with the flow.

    I’m not saying you should run away or anything, but if you got kidnapped it might just work out for the best. I mean, your mother and I haven’t had the house to ourselves in ages and there’s a lot of really cool stuff we want to do. Back when we first got married, I used to surprise her with roses and we’d cook for each other and it was just a great time for everyone. Well, not for you; you weren’t born. But you would’ve liked it, I’m sure. Anyways, I was thinking maybe by this afternoon you could find your way out of here. Let’s see, if we drive over to the park right now I could get ba—Jimmy, Jimmy, don’t start crying. It’s really not as bad as it sounds. I know you like your Mom and Dad, but strangers can be pretty cool too!

   First of all, strangers always want to give you great stuff. Back when I was your age, my parents told me the same thing: “Don’t ride with strangers,” blah blah blah. Do you know how much free candy I missed out on? A lot, Jimmy. A lot. Do you want to miss out on all that candy?

    Besides, there’s a lot of cool stuff strangers can teach you. When you get into high school, you’re going to read a lot of stories about nature and America and jazzmen and misused pharmaceuticals. And you know what? All those characters have one thing in common: they all “ride the rails.” That’s right, riding the rails is a great American tradition and I guarantee you that if you start hanging out with strangers and taking awesome rides, eventually you’re going to wind up around some train tracks somewhere or other.

    Just think about it; you’ll come back home someday, someday far far in the future when your parents are too old to have fun anymore, and you’ll tell us all sorts of stories about the trouble you’ve been up to. You’ll have a beard, Jimmy, a beard! Remember how you kept going on about how cool beards are? No? You didn’t think beards were cool? They scared you? Oh, alright. Well, you won’t have a beard then... but you’ll have a dog! Yeah, that’s right, remember how I never would let you get a dog? You know what, when you’re living on your own, you can have as many dogs as you want! Why, I bet by the time we see you again, you’re going to have eight dogs. No, you can definitely have eight dogs, there’s no law against that, Jimmy. Mr. Roscoe down on Briarcrest has nine dogs and look how happy he is. Doesn’t worry about nothing, that Mr. Roscoe, just lounging around being happy, like that fat-ass bear and that skinny Indian kid in the movie you like so much, singing about “Bear Necessities.” That was a great song, wasn’t it? Yeah, I think I’ll hum a little refrain right now. Hum with me! That’s not the song, Jimmy. What did you say? Well, I don’t think the fat bear would’ve called me a “bad father” and I think he would be a little to carefree to resort to language like that. A “craphead?” Really, Jimmy? I think ten or twenty years down the road when you want to re-establish a relationship with your mother and me that type of language will really make things pretty hard.

    Yep, it’s that time, Jimmy. You can keep saying, “No, no, no” as much as you want but, look at this! Yep, I’m carrying you into that car. Stronger than you, Jimmy. Forgot about that little fact didn’t you? “Wahhh, wahhh,” I can make annoying noises too. And since I have an adult voice, I can make them much louder: “WAHHH, WAHHH.” That’s right, right in your ear, Jimmy. Right in your ear. Oh, you’re going to have a lot of fun…