Friday, April 21, 2006

Good neighbor policy

Hello there, neighbor! So glad you could join me. My name is J.O.S.E.P.H., and you're a guest in my home. Why not come inside and take a tour of my spread. My wife B.O.N.N.I.E. is out at pilates and then she's getting a pedicure, so she won't be back for a few hours. Follow me... watch your step. Our son P.H.I.L.L.I.P. should be along soon too... he's out his part-time job coaching pee-wee hockey downtown.

Would you like something to drink? We have a full refrigerator... and a sidepanel bar, if you know what I mean! Am I right? Something saucy for our guest -- how about a scotch, neat? Or perhaps, a margarita? We also have that microbial fermented plant life in a watery matrix... what do you people call it? Beer! Nice and cold!

Come this way, and I'll show you the entrance to the basement. Watch your head... low ceiling. OK, right through here, past the laundry room, is the honey of it all. I was so excited when we got a chance to build this room, because this was something I've always wanted in our old house. And... here we are!

This is my piéce dé resistance! It was a bitch to drop all the piping necessary into the ground, but that was the only way I could find to harness all that thermal energy from the earth's crust. But I figured, your race is going to choke to an agonizing death on all the carbon fumes latent in the atmosphere anyway, so you won't miss the billions of units of magma-driven heat we're plundering from the mantle.

That pressurized nickel-uranium cistern on the far left is G.R.A.N.D.M.A., and the one next to her is U.N.C.L.E. B.A.R.T. They are the two biggest nutrient consumers -- believe it! They've been there for five years, and I project their gestation will be nearing completion in another seven years. So many mouths to feed, eh buddy? You can relate!

Hey -- where'ya going, friend? You just got here! I haven't had a chance to introduce you to S.P.A.R.K.Y., the family pet... and you have to meet the cousins. Come back! Bring those buttery, dendritic neural sheaths back here!