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- Newsgroups: talk.bizarre
- Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!csus.edu!netcom.com!cliftonr
- From: cliftonr@netcom.com (Pope Clifton)
- Subject: My Good Deed
- Message-ID: <1992Dec31.003237.2378@netcom.com>
- Summary: Another Xmas tale
- Organization: t.b, t.p.d, & a.d
- X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
- Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 00:32:37 GMT
- Lines: 63
-
- I decided spontaneously to do at least one good deed for Xmas this
- year. Scott, Hawaii expatriate that he is, has lamented the dearth
- of crack seed* on the mainland, so I would send him some as a gesture
- of solidarity.
-
- I bought four big packages of assorted crack seed (Yick Lung Li Hing
- Mui, sweet mango, Obachan's Prune Mui) and stuck them in a big envelope
- with mailing labels for his address and my return address. I stuck it
- in the mail. Something happened.** Scott receieved a package containing
- a tape of Barry Manilow music labeled "Kath."
-
- For the record, I would never willingly inflict Barry Manilow on anyone,
- not even my worst enemy. I believe in mercy-killing, but not torture.
-
- So much for this year's good deeds.
-
- Yours from the State of Confusion,
- -- Clifton
-
- ==================================================================
-
- * Crack seed is local Chinese "candy" -- dried fruit, often with the
- seed still in it; usually salty, sometimes sweet, sometimes sour,
- most often all three; flavored with Chinese spices, liquorice, ginger,
- anise. Powerful stuff, hard to acquire a taste for, equally hard to
- give up once you've got it.
-
- ==================================================================
-
- ** The mundane hypothesis:
-
- One of the Post Office's hired gremlins peeled the mailing labels off
- and put them on somebody else's package to someone else.
-
- Alternative hypotheses:
-
- 1) Scott and I are actually in two parallel universes corresponding
- through a trans-temporal packet network gateway. The Clifton in his
- universe is a Barry Manilow fan, and thinks the Scott he communicates
- with is the same; the Scott in my universe (or whoever lives at his
- address) was doubtless surprised to receive a package of crack seed
- out of the blue.
-
- 2) Yick Lung Li Hing Mui can spontaneously decay into a Barry Manilow
- tape. Although it does have a warning that it is carcinogenic, I would
- think a much stronger warning would be required by law in this case.
-
- 3) The U.S. Post Office has acquired a Gooleytron and is testing it on
- random packages. Expect big surprises in the coming year, once they
- put the rest on line.
-
- 4) My doppelganger did it; naturally he would have the same handwriting
- as me, and could have filched the package from the office shipping
- department by impersonating me. However, I thought I ditched him in
- Chicago when I left college there.
-
- 5) I am suffering from fugue states in which I commit atrocities too
- hideous for me to consciously recall, such as this.
-
- --
- cliftonr@netcom.com Home: +1 808 521 9073 Work: +1 808 625 3234
- Clifton Royston, Pope of the Church of the Subgenius in Paradise
- "Have a revelation, the first one's free/Soon to be addicted to eternity" - HMR
-