Author Archives: Jeremy Rosen

Classifieds: Fabuly 2006

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FOR SALE
Vial of Afipia felis. The patient is dead and I don’t need it any more. Find Dr. Debre for purchase.

FOR SALE
Sumantran Death Flower. Beautiful, fragrant, and will kill you. Johnson Co. Arboretum.

FOR SALE
Modern and stylish communications device. Works only over short distances. Some splicing and puncturing may be required. Assembly necessary. For instructions, please email me.

WANTED
Recorded sound of Purgatory. Already possess authenticated recordings of Heaven and Hell and need this to complete my collection. Contact The Branch Ministries P.O. Box 60 Turtletown, TN 37391
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From the Desk of Raymond Ryles

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Sanitation Comptroller

truck

Let’s face it, the world is full of trash. Everything you buy or don’t eat eventually becomes trash. Without garbage men our cities would be waist deep in filth. And without trucks, the garbage men couldn’t do their job. It follows that without maintenance, those trucks wouldn’t work. Yep, and without an allotment in the annual budget there wouldn’t be any truck maintenance. And of course, there’s the last part of it, the keystone of the whole operation; me. I’m the Sanitation Comptroller.

It’s my job to oversee the filing of the paperwork submitted by the Sanitation Department’s Vehicle Maintenance Division, the V.M.D. as we call it in shorthand. There’s the pink form first, that’s the BM108, the Outgoing Expenditures Report. It’s pink because the white copy goes to the Office of Budget Management, that’s under the City Manager whose name is Tom Roland. There’s another pink form which has no official number, it’s just the Allocation and Resources form. Last but not least is the all important Operations Report, which I get the white copy of. That one gets filed away, but not before I review it.

All of these forms need to be stamped with a date when they are received. The BM108 is always delivered to our office in the City Hall, via the inter-office mail. Reggie, the mail guy, brings that one by because the V.M.D. has their offices on the fourth floor. My office is on the fifth floor, near the handicap restroom. Now, the forms sometimes get mailed via the postal service, but the Operations Report can be mailed or emailed, once it was even faxed. Those get sent over from all the garages where they do the maintenance. There’s one for each of the districts.

Here in the Sanitation Department, we have our own way of dividing up the town. There are six districts, named so for their locations. Each has its own maintenance crews and depots, even though the V.M.D.’s main office is in City Hall, on the fourth floor, remember. It’s a damn fine job and let’s face it, I do a damn fine job. I think that maybe, in a past life, I must have been a Viking, because I really enjoy filing paperwork. Yep, I’m the Sanitation Comptroller.

You know where to find me; Fifth floor, near the handicap bathroom.

dave

“I’m the Sanitation Comptroller. It’s my job to oversee the filing of the paper work.”

Interactive Entertainments for the Bored Masses

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Bursting the Bubble of Complacency in Your Own Home-Town
lemurs

Despite your own mental acumen, there will be times throughout your life when you lay prone under the icy, paralyzing grip of that creature we call Boredom. Therefore, as a public service we offer the following alleviations for your condition. Use them well and wisely and remember that Axes & Alleys, its creators, its parent and affiliate companies are not responsible for the consequences.

Retailer’s Nightmare
Requirements: Backpack or shopping bag, various cans of food, boxes of pre-packaged meals, boxes of crackers, or other non-perishable foodstuffs. Two or more people.

Take the food goods into a non-grocery store, someplace like Petsmart, Home Depot, Borders or Bestbuy. Put out the food as though it’s a sales display. If you enjoy merchandising, you might try to create an end-cap display of canned corn at the Virgin Megastore. Feel free to bring along fake price tags for the items as well.

Ti-Fi
Requirements: Tin cans, length of string, perhaps some hand-crafted Ti-Fi brochures. Two or three people to be sales-reps.

Make tin-can telephones (you know, two tin cans connected by a piece of string). Take it to an area frequented by laptop users, you know, somewhere with wireless internet. Offer to show them the latest in wireless connectivity, “Ti-Fi.” Then pull out the tin can phone and attempt to get them to use it. For bonus fun, try creating a USB attachment.
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On the Subject of Conspiracy Theories

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By Steven Singe

Steven Singe

Steven Singe is author of the book “Why Good Girls Like Bad Boys: Understanding
the Global Currency Exchange Market in the 21st Century.” He enjoys gravy.

I empathize with the conspiracy theorist. These great things happen that affect our lives, the lives of our fellows, the lives of our children and there is very little we can do about it. For some, it seems, that powerlessness manifests in recounting and believing fully such detailed folklore. I feel for their disconnect and their need to assert some control.

It’s hard when you subscribe to some belief, subscribe to it so much that you forget where it came from and where it’s taking you. It seems so important, so consuming. And here people don’t believe you and you have to look at all of these others, others who “should know the truth,” and all you can see is the wool pulled over their eyes by whatever bogeyman entity you hold dear.

Not only do you forget where your belief came from, but anywhere you can find it refers back to another person like you and another and another. That circular chain of whatever you consider evidence coming back around to itself again and again. You see people thinking like you and can’t help but think you’ve found a brother or sister, a right-thinker and an expert of sorts (more on that later). You reïnforce and encourage one another. It all highlights your powerlessness, but gives you some feeling of control.
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