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In This Issue

• Confessions of a Dangerous Broccoli Head
• English Majors, Decades Later
• How to Spend Your Time After Co-Founding Apple
• The Cyborg Army of Death
• Salvation is a Prophet Away
• Chris Tucker to Play James Bond
• The Fed Point–Counterpoint: You Just Stabbed Me
• What Would You Do-ooh-ooh...
• Loose Lips Sink Credit Reports
• Bowling as Symbolism
• The Wonders of the Undersea World
• It is Imperative that You Spoon that Fruit Indiscriminately
• “They” Watch Reality TV, Drink Coke Blak for Fun
• Behind the Scenes at MythBusters Headquarters
• Good Night, and Good Luck
• Campus Bureaucracy Replaced With Rube Goldberg Machine
• The Seeker
• Tales of the Inexpressible
• The Most Trusted Name in News
• It Swings Both Ways
• They Watch
• The Fed Index
• King Kong Returns

There are some moments we all share and never verbalize in front of anyone... until now.

Case in point: "so-are-we-done-now" war of silence.

Me:  But yeah, I more or less feel good about what I did.

F-Buddy:  Yeah, it was a fucked-up situation and you needed out.

Me: Yeah.

F-Buddy:  Yeah.  Well I'm gonna pass out now...

Me:  Yeah, I'm prety beat too.

One and a half minutes of pure silence pass.  

The guns are all silent now... all quiet on the conversation front. My mind recedes to the inane. Remember that time I pushed the baby stroller full of asps into traffic? And the look on the face of the woman who ran out to intervene?  Even the coroner cracked up, and he's usually stone-faced.  I start to fade out, with visions of sugar plums and venomous North African serpents dancing in my head when suddenly, a voice brings me back to the hell that is concious life.

F-Buddy:  So do you still want to get pancakes in the morning?

Me:  Yeah, sure.

F-Buddy:  Okay cool.  I like real syrup... not that Log Cabin bullshit.

Me:  Yeah, they're two totally different things.

Okay, so at this point, the agreement to cease conversation has been breached by the pancake inquiry.  As a result, I am left hanging there in the dark, wondering if there is a mutual wish to cease further conversation.  Due to a lack of any codified terms for resolving such moments, I stay awake because I think it would be rude to pass out before I am sure my fuck buddy is done talking to me.  Since "re-goodnighting" her would exceed the nightly allotment of goodnights and would lead to an awkward feeling, we both lie there in an auditory detente. Indeed, it is much the same feeling one has when bidding a companion a good evening outside the doorway to a bar and then walking four blocks in the same direction.  I am now listening hard enough to hear any indication of the consciousness of my bedmate.  Is the breathing uniform?  Is there any possible sound of snoring?  No, nothing. Maybe she thought my support for her real-syrup superiority claim wasn't good enough.

Five more minutes elapse.

Okay, now I'm annoyed.  I mean, Jesus, even if you aren't ready to go to sleep yet, at least give me some type of "convo over" smoke signal.  Hell, fake snore; start mumbling something about another dude for all I care.  Just do something so weird that it makes me believe no concious being would do it in front of me.  I'm fucking dying here.  I've got to be up at six.

Fuck it, that's it. I'm going to make some noise. See if I can stir her into snoring.  That'll solve it.  Okay. Open nightstand. Close nightstand. Fuck, man, nothing, not even a wisp of breath.  Okay, I'm done waiting; I'm getting up and walking around. Here I am walking across the room for no apparent reason... la dee da... oh, board creaked... uh oh.  What the fuck? Still being a hard-assed hold-out, I see. This is worse than the time I told you about your sister's birthmark.  If this is all part of your own little ruse to fuck with my head, then well played, my little trollop. Well played indeed, you vindictive hussy.

Okay, desperate times call for desperate measures. Gonna do the ol' "nudge and act natural" move.  Wow, I hope you're not awake. This's gonna look like an awkward summer camp experience if you still are. Okay, still nothing.  No sheets rising and falling. No breathing sound. Oh man, thank God.

I am awash in a blissful cocktail of the self-righteous relief for guessing correctly.  You aren't mad at me; you're just dead. Oh, wait... you conniving bitch.  You did this on purpose didn't you? You knew that the garbage man comes by at at 5 AM.