Q: What are the 2 factors that affect the force of gravity?

A: Cooking time and choice of meat stock.

Oh, gravity? I thought you said gravy. The force of gravy.

Look, the force of gravity is pretty boring, all math and formulas and facts you have to know about the mass of the earth and various celestial bodies. The force of gravy, now that's something.

You can read all about it in my new book, Gravy Force. It's about of team of chefs who form a crime fighting team after a serial arsonist burns down their restaurants. I may be new to writing, but I'm really proud of it. It has a great story and believable characters and page after page of detailed descriptions, mostly about the way a shotgun full of gravy melts the face of a serial arsonist. There are some graphic sex scenes, too. It's a very good book.

Well, it's not really a book. More of a treatment. I guess a glorified outline. I wrote it fast, so it's sloppy and all over the place. Now that I think about it, it's less an outline and more a bunch of notes on a cocktail napkin.

One note really.

Hot gravy kill arsonist.

I've had a hard time moving on since the fire.

Q: What is a song that is about a government that can't be overthrown?

A:  I'll go one better than a song. Here's a national anthem.

Oh grand old Callahanastan,
Your fields are ripe with fruit.
Your women are so pretty.
Your clothes are so sweaty.
Your sports teams always win.

Oh grand old Callahanastan,
Where the work day starts at noon,
The weekend starts on Wednesday,
Moustaches are mandatory,
And Blu Rays are used as currency.

Oh grand old Callahanastan,
Founded so recently.
The people just decided
To surrender all power
After a bloody coup.


Oh grand old Callahanastan
Our loyalties run to you,
A benevolent ruler 
Of an exceptional land.
Please don't murder us

That's the anthem of a stable government. Whoever wrote that song, and their names have been lost to time but we can verify there were actual people, that the song was written by real people and not by the ruler of this country or a close associate, must have really loved the government. When you love something that much, the last thing you want is to see it end.

Fun fact about Callahanastan. The national anthem doubles as the constitution. You may find it weird that the constitution was written by a group of inspired citizens whose names have been lost to time, and not by any member of the government or the ruler himself, and ask why that is, but I would counter that by saying you have used your question for the day.

Q: What types of physical features are in New York?

A: Obviously there are the buildings, tall and close and grey. Streets packed with yellow cabs and town cars and carriages, horns and shouts and pleas for alacrity. The cold wide sidewalks, littered with waste or slick with mud. The people, the missile  launched locals, the post worker bankers, red faced, tie loosened, three drinks into their night, the lawyers, wigless, gaunt, the buckles of their shoes straining against overplumped feet, the students, young and huddled and passionate about everything, the angry homeless lurching toward with palm outstretch, the eugenics robots hovering eighteen inches of the ground scanning the swarthy and the tan, the tall foreign blondes, thin and scraved, running from casting to casting, and of course the stacks of corpses used to buttress the gates of the city against the Mongol hordes.

If my answers confuse you, please understand, I am a time traveler and have visited this city at many times, in many ages. Not being one to keep accurate notes, the times blend together. What year is it, anyway?

Good. Good. Many years before the Mongol hordes arrive. Plenty of time to get a gyro.

Q: What is the death rate of children in Victorian England?

A: Hmmm ... That's an interesting question, especially from someone in your position. I don't have the figures at the moment, but I'd imagine they are at par or slightly lower than the rest of Europe. I had no idea you were so inquisitive.

Hold on a moment. I believe my wife is calling. What's that, dear?


I'm terribly sorry. My wife has taken ill. We won't be able to attend the opening of Mr. Wilde's latest play. As such, we won't need a babysitter this evening. I hope you understand.

You can have the tickets. And your expected pay. And these jewels.

Please put down my daughter.

Q: How do you rid your body of methadone before a test for it?

A: Convince yourself the drug is not in your system. What the mind believes, so will the body. Learn to master this skill and take the test with peace of mind.

It will also come in handy when you need to convince yourself you didn't lose your job.

Q: What purpose does a generator serve in a power plant?

A: Generators are powerful and dangerous, yet, oddly, easily harmed. A wrench in the wrong place, a bucket of water tossed carelessly, the wrong switch flipped, and the generator could just stop working, sending the whole town into blackness and panic and chaos and looting and decades old grudges solved by murder.

Trust me, I spend a lot of time thinking about such a scenario. Not just thinking, but drawing and writing and creating dioramas. I have lots of down time at my job guarding the reactor at the power plant. I put a lot of work into those dioramas. And it pays off. They get quite a reaction. No one expects to see a vivid depiction of their house burnt to the ground. No one expects their house to be the one burnt in the madness. But damage to the generator would affect everyone, even vice presidents of the company who live 14 miles away.

To answer your question, a generator is the ultimate negotiating tool at contract time. But don't forget the dioramas. Nothing inspires a raise like terror at 1/8 scale.

Q: What is the back and forth motion that repeatedly follows the same path?

A: If you're not enjoying this, we can stop and try again tomorrow.

Or adopt.

Q: Can a father keep a child in Arizona if the parents have not filed for legal separation?

A: I appreciate your concern, Daddy, all the hours you devoted to learning the law, struggling to read and write even the most basic sentence because you dropped out of school at 7 to support your family by pretending to get injured in city buses and the steps of government buildings. That couldn't have been easy. I understand that you wanted me to have the kind of life you never could, a life of opportunity and freedom and maybe even college. That means so much to me. It truly does.

But I'm 35 years old now. I can take care of myself.

Daddy, please stop talking to the judge and talk to me.

Q: Is it a crime to collect rainwater?

A: Getting the water the way you did is within your legal rights. Doesn't matter that you used a rusty bucket. Doesn't matter that you plan to use it to fill up water balloons. Doesn't even matter that what you collected isn't even technically rain water. It's flood water. The law doesn't differentiate.

What the law does have a problem with is your illegal streaming of the latest Hollywood movies and UFC events. That's why the cops are here and that's why you're going to prison. Has nothing to do with the rain water.

I admit, the timing is suspiciously coincidental. If I were a betting man, I would wager that someone tipped them off to your criminal activities while you were off collecting the water. Probably someone with his own bookmaking related legal troubles looking to make a deal and also settle a personal grudge.

As you know, I am a betting man. And a cinephile. Maybe you'll remember that the next time you invite half the neighborhood over to watch Magic Mike.

Q: Is SARS a viral disease of humans?

A: Yeah, it's a virus that causes difficulty breathing and is occasionally fatal. Rarely fatal, but it happens. Happened. It was a big thing for a while there. All over Hong Kong. You might recall all those Asians in face masks all over the news. More so than usual.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, that's what it means. You know a disease is serious if they include Severe in the name. AIDS doesn't even have that. AIDS. And that's a bad one. Calling it SAIDS would change everything, not only the pronunciation. Sounds like SADS. Don't know if people would take it seriously if we had called it SADS. Although people took SARS seriously despite it's ridiculous name.

I'm just now noticing the phrasing of your question. Most people would say "Is SARS a viral disease?" and stop right there. But you didn't stop. You had more to say. "Of humans," you said. Of humans. Odd thing to say.

Odder still was the way you said it. Cold. Blank. Monotone. Emotionless.

Tinny.

Like a robot. Like how a robot would say it.

I've always suspected that something was off about you. The way you never engage in small talk. They awkward way you move and dance and play basketball. The way sparks fly out of your head when we make love in the shower.

I guess I should have known. Something so perfect, so beautiful, could never be human.

Do not pretend to cough for my benefit.

Q: What should be prescribed for a cat that has a runny nose and is lethargic?

A: I had the same problem about eight years ago. Drove me crazy. Couldn't solve it. Stayed up all night trying everything I could think of, every home remedy and old wives tale. every long shot strategy, every wild plan randomly chosen from the Bible. Nothing worked. My son still laid on the ground, still and cold and dead as the day that garbage truck ran him over.

I probably should have said this sooner, but when I said "I had the same problem," I meant, "I had a similar problem, expect instead of a cat it was my son and instead of having a head cold and being lazy, he was dead and grey matter leaked from the fractures in his skull." But otherwise, exactly the same.

Anyway, as you understand, seeing a loved one in pain or dead can be a terrifying experience. You feel helpless, like the whole world's crashing down on you.  But I was not going to give up and take my son's condition lying down. I knew what I had to do:  travel to Haiti to try and harness the power of voodoo.

The trip was a bit of a disaster. I angered a local voodoo priest who drove nails into my scrotum and poisoned me with voodoo drugs, turning me into a zombie. They made a movie about it. Maybe you've seen it. RoboCop.

Obviously they changed a few things.

Once I got back to the states, I used all my acquired voodoo knowledge to revive my son. By this time, he was in a bad shape. My wife turned off the cooling system and he began to rot. The vermin got to him. And the neighbors. And the neighbors pets. There was a thunderstorm. We had some flooding. When I got home he was less a son and more of a black son puddle that gave off fumes that would blind you. He was not responsive to the voodoo.

Now, I had two choices: I could stay in that basement, feel sorry for myself, and slowly go blind. Or, I could suck it up, scrape my son sludge off the floor and get on with my life. I chose option B. I got on with my life. Just because I couldn't bring my son back didn't mean I wasn't a father. I had a new son. And another. And another. I didn't stop until I had fourteen children by twelve women. That's how you deal with grief. Once I was done fathering, I left the kids with their mothers, bought this pet shop and settled in for the good life.

It's time for you to face the truth. Your cat's not going to make. Sure I could give you some medicine and some fancy wet food to improve his health and boost his energy. But how long will he last? Ten years? Twelve maybe? Best say goodbye now and move on. What better way to move on with your life than by buying twenty cats?

Please buy the twenty cats. They're only five hundred bucks each.

Ten? Please?

Do you have any idea how much I pay in child support?

Q: Why is lemon rind added to this cake?

Q: Because we're going to turn the Prime Minister into a pygmy goat.

If you had paid attention during our meetings, or done any of the assigned reading, you would understand our plan. And you would have shown up on time, in the proper disguise. What kind of State Dinner invites a plate spinner?

Not in 2012. And certainly not one who spins paper plates. We're not here to entertain the Prime Minister. We're here to make him eat this cake, because, once he eats this cake, he will turn into a pygmy goat. 

That's why we're doing all of this - the disguises, the distractions, the drugging the guards. 

And that's why we added the lemon rind, and the gopher hair, and the volcano ash, and the clippings of  condor talons.

And that's why you should stop eating the cake.

Q: How do you bleed a ford puma coolant system?

A: Couple of years ago I nicked my finger breaking down cardboard boxes in the storage room of an electronic stores. I had, as they say, "fallen on hard times" and my blood didn't coagulate like it's supposed to. Started gushing everywhere, all over the boxes and the floor on my khaki pants, and I started freaking out and kinda crying. I guess "kinda" kind of undersells the moment. I was sobbing, wailing some, my face all red and wet. Snot bubbling out my nose. You could say I lost my composure.

My co-worker Bret, he was the one breaking down boxes with me, he said something to me that made me laugh and took my mind off my pain and the gushing blood, something that put the whole scene in perspective. He said, he looked down at my finger and back up and me and he said, "If it bleeds we can kill it." I found that real funny.  And he said it with kind of a German accent. I found that funny, too.

We stood around that storage room laughing and bleeding - me bleeding, him not, both of us laughing - for what seemed like hours but was probably only about ten minutes. By the time we stopped laughed I had stopped crying, and, wiping the snot from my nose and wrapping some paper towel around my finger, I looked him in the eye - rare for me at the time - and said, "Bret, you're a real funny guy. How do you come up with this stuff?"

I'll never forget the way he looked at me. He stopped laughing and his face went slack and he looked at me like how you would look at a slow child or a dog that shat all over your Wonderbread and he said, "That's from Predator."

And it stopped being funny.

And I started crying again. Like how I'm crying right now. And he kept looking at me in that way, the same way you're all looking at me right now.

When announced that I would end today's class with a Q&A session about automotive maintenance  I didn't expect any of you to ask anything that would trigger such a painful memory and reduce me to such a helpless state.  But here we are.

That's going to be all the questions for today. We still have about eight minutes left before the bell rings. How about you kids play a game of Seven Up while I curl up into a ball in the corner? Those of you without thumbs can come join me if you want.

Q: How much money do you need to start a photography business?

A: These days, not that much. You don't have to pay for film or processing or prints. If you have the right phone, you don't even need to pay for a camera. If you have the right clients, you don't even need lights or talent. Just so we're on the same page, the right clients are recent high school graduates rushing into marriage. Get enough of them and you can start shopping at the nice mall.

All you need to start a photography business is the will to start and a couple of dollars in your pocket. Starting a philosophy business, now that's a different story.

The philosophy business has been in a bit of a downturn for about the last 80, 90 years with no end in sight. The big philosophy firms aren't hiring like they used to, most of the top philosophers have gone independent, and every year there's a whole crop of new philosophers coming out of America's liberal arts schools all ready to capture the essence of life in one simple metaphor.

Used to be a man could toss on his toga, bang out a few aphorisms or paradoxes, pocket some money and go hot the gruel house. I don't have to tell you how much it has changed. The modern public lacks a thirst for knowledge. They no longer question the great existential dilemmas of our time. What is the purpose of life? How does a man live his life? Do we make choices or are they thrust upon us by great unseen forces that live deep in the bowels of the internal combustion engine? Are there demons in my cereal?

People today don't care about these questions. Don't want the answers. You could stand in their living room all day shouting the answers to the great mysteries of life and writing theorems on the walls and, where you would once get praise and cherished looks of enlightenment and patronage and sexual favors,  now all you get is laughed at and asked to leave and shouted at and told to leave and screamed at and begged to leave and surrounded and pepper sprayed and brought to the station and questioned and told to take off your toga and admitted to the mental hospital and kept for evaluation and given pills and told to take them and told to obey and asked to remain calm and to keep back and to listen because this is your last warning and pepper sprayed again. And at the end of it all they hand you a bill.  A bill. They used to hand you offerings, burnt meat and the hearts of enemies. Now try getting the heart of an enemy after a good rhetoric. Even ask for one and they'll look at you like you're a crazy person.

It's like the whole world has gone mad.

Q: How do you get the smell of smoke out of your clothes?

A: That smell never comes out. You're better off throwing them away. I'll get a trash bag.

I'm really sorry I started that bonfire in your car. I really wasn't thinking. Well, I was thinking, but about making s'mores, not about setting your car on fire and ruining your clothes. Man, that was weird. I didn't even have any marshmallows. Or chocolate. Or Graham Crackers. Or sticks.

Don't worry. I have something you can wear. It's not like you're going to have to walk around my place naked.

Unless you want to.

Joking. I was joking. Totally joking. Unless you want to.

Joking. Seriously. I'll go get some clothes.

Really sorry about that fire. Good thing we happened to be right by house when your car caught on fire. That sure was lucky. But you said you always wanted to come over and hang out, or at least I imagined you saying it. It sounds like something you'd say.

There really aren't any cabs around here.

Anyway, it worked out that you're here, and we're alone, and I happen to have a box of wine chilling in the fridge, and I just got Irreversible from Netflix. You like foreign films, right?

Anyway, I think this sudden irrational car fire might just be one of those stories we tell our grandchildren. Not our grandchildren, of course. Not like you and I are going to make love and fall in love and have children and they'll have children and someday we'll watch those children and they'll ask how we met and we'll look into each other's eyes and kind of laugh, and smile, and smile with our eyes, you know, and we'll turn to them and kind of argue over who should tell the story and I'll say, "Well, I really wanted s'mores ..." I didn't mean anything like that. I meant we'd tell our own grandchildren, separately, if they ever ask us about setting a car on fire. That's what I meant. I was just joking about that other thing, about making love and spending the rest of our lives together.

Unless you want to.

Joking. Totally joking. These tears are part of the joke. I have a dry sense of humor.

Q: How many people in the US die from bear attacks a year?

A: Not enough. Not nearly enough. Last year there were 4. The year before, 3. That's it. More people die trying to catch foul balls at baseball games than are killed by bears each year.*

And that's the problem. With so few deaths each year, people fail to take bear attacks seriously. Bears are celebrated in this culture. Worshipped. You can't walk three blocks without seeing a T-Shirt with a cartoon bear, or a sports team named after a bear, or comic book featuring a crime solving bear in a suit who spends his weekends doing pro-bono work in family court.

Bears should not be worshipped or celebrated or even caricatured. They should be shot. Or stabbed. Or hit with a car. Whatever it takes.

So that you know I am not crazy, let me share a personal story. I used to have a son. I no longer have a son. He was killed by a bear. Bear attacks account for 100% of the deaths in my family.**

And yet no one seems to understand the terror of bear attack. They weren't there. They didn't see my little boy dripping honey, stuck in that wood cage, suspended in the forest, his eyes full of fear as he heard the bear approach. They didn't the bear ripping him apart with its teeth and claws, cracking his skull like some kind of giant, honey-glazed Cadbury egg. They couldn't hear his screams, his cries begging me for help, begging me to drop the camera and save him. No one saw it. And they still refuse to watch, despite all the time and money I have spent editing and scoring the video. I haven't even sold a single DVD.

What will it take for this nation to learn?


*Statistic possibly false.
** Not counting deaths by erotic asphyxiation. 

Q: What does CRNP after nurses name mean?

A: In most cases, it means Certified Registered Nurse Practitioner, a lot of fancy words that mean a nurse has been trained and tested and knows enough about medicine to not kill someone when inserting an IV. That's in most cases. My case is different.

Those letters after my name don't mean anything. There's no acronym to decode, no riddle to solve. They're just a name. My name.

My name is Nurse Lisa CRNP.

My father swore off vowels after a disastrous appearance on The Wheel of Fortune. You've probably seen it. He really wanted that ceramic dog. He never really got over it.  The dog, that is. And his disastrous loss on the show. Nearly every day after school I would wonder home to find my father staring at an empty spot on the carpet, petting an imaginary ceramic dog, muttering, "I'd like to solve the puzzle, Pat. I'd like to solve the puzzle, Pat."

It wasn't the best childhood.

When I was 8, my father swore off vowels and changed our name from Curniape to Crnp. When I was 12 he turned against uncapitalized letters, after a incident at work involving the New York Times crossword puzzle. My mother wouldn't let him touch my first or middle name. "Who'd want to marry someone named NRS LS CRNP?" she said, "Who'd want to take that in? She's got enough problems already, Dan, what with the homeliness and the odor and the vacant stare. Give her a chance."

I didn't overhear that conversation, by the way. She said all that in my presence. Frequently. She worked it into toasts. And birthday cards. And conversations with strangers. Saving my name was the defining moment of her life.

It meant a lot to her that I was called a nurse, even if I didn't become one. More consumed with title than accomplishment, my mother. She named my older brother Doctor and my younger one Noted Ladiesman. They work in meat.

She would have loved for me to actually become a nurse. But it wasn't meant to be. I don't test well. And I can't remember anything. And sick people are the worst. All the moaning and crying and soiling the sheets. Who wants to deal with that?

I'm only in this hospital because of the weather. Can't stand the rain. I'm only in your father's room because someone a doctor said, "Nurse, come with me." Once I realized he wanted an actual, trained nurse I had already been helping him for twenty minutes and was too embarrassed to say anything.  In his defense he was probably confused by my outfit. And my name tag. But I look great in white. And the name tag saves me from the crippling awkwardness of introductions.

Look at me, talking your ear off.

You'll have to excuse me. Your father had a lot more blood in him than I expected and I need to figure out how to get it back in before the doctor comes back. He seemed like kind of a neat freak.

Q: How were the nuclear reactors removed from the USS Nautilus during her restoration to museum status?

A: Here's the thing, and I hope you can keep this quiet. I don't want one word of this spreading to the other tour groups. Some of them can be pretty jumpy. But you folks look like the type who can keep a secret. Besides, tomorrow's my last day. It's not like they can do anything to me. Anyway, here's the thing:

We never removed the nuclear reactors. We painted them over with scenes of sea life. Apparently, that was enough. As long as no one said anything, we could call this thing a museum, place some stanchions out front and start charging admission.  Just so you don't think we were heartless, we paid attention to our guests, making sure that their flesh didn't start burning or their eyes didn't begin to glow luminescent in the dark passages. We take our jobs seriously here. Our business depends on repeat customers.

Can you imagine the conversations? "How was your visit to the USS Nautilius Museum?" "Well, my hair tuned green, my skin broke out in volcano sized boils and the baby melted." "So nothing from the gift shop?" Who would want to come back? No one. That's why we keep a careful eye on every guest who wanders near the reactor and why we monitor the integrity of the ship every six months to make sure no radioactive material has leaked out.

We would monitor it more frequently, but most of the inspectors wind up rather deformed. Most of them, anyway. The rest wind up rather dead. Hard position to fill, as you can imagine.

That concludes our tour.  On your way out, please visit our gift shop. I recommend one of our glow-in-the-the-dark dolls. Just make sure you keep them away from food and children.

Q: What is 3 challenges in Puerto Rico?

A: As a traveling businessman in Puerto Rico, you will face the following challenges.

Challenge Number One: The language barrier. Many Puerto Ricans are stubborn and insist on speaking in Spanish. Often, they will pretend that they can't speak or understand English, making it near impossible for them to understand your demands, no matter how loud you shout while waving your gun.

Challenge Number Two: Local Law Enforcement. The Puerto Rican police operate under a Shoot-First-Ask-Questions-Later-Then-Shoot-A-Few-More-Times-Just-To-Be-Safe policy. Such a policy can impede the day to day business of the typical entrepreneur abroad. More than once I have been in the middle of a complex negotiation, about to reach a break through, only to have the police arrive and ruin hours of hard work with their sirens and gunshots and bullhorn-amplified demands that I release hostages.

Challenge Number Three: Geography. Puerto Rico is an island, limiting escape routes. No matter which way you run, or how man cars you commandeer, you will eventually reach the ocean. And that means a lot of swimming. On a map, it might seem like Puerto Rico is right next to the Dominican Republic, but maps, like informants, lie. The Dominican Republic is dozens of miles away, too far for even the strongest swimmer, even when he is not burdened by bags of gold and small, attractive hostages.

These challenges nay seem insurmountable, but I assure you that with the proper planning and execution, they can be overcome. The rewards are worth it. Now put on this ski mask and get out of the van. The guard just fell asleep.

Q: Can you use a street car on your train set?

A: Sure. Why not?

It's your train set to do with as you wish. You can use a street car or a trolley or a subway or any other train like thing that runs on tracks. Hell, you could even use a goddamn Transformer. It's not like your train set has any artistic unity.

It it were my train set, I'd have a different answer. That answer would be "No." An incredulous, wide-eyed "No" followed by a clap of the hands and a deep disappointed sigh. I'd probably shake my head slowly while looking down at the floor to highlight my disappointment. There's a chance I might cry.

But it's not my train set anymore, is it? No, you had to make sure of that. You had to do whatever you could to take my train set from me. Eating. Sleeping. Soiling. Growing. Always growing. It seems like your whole life has been dedicated to forcing me to spend money on you. To spend money I had to earn money. To earn money I had to get a job. A job that kept me away from my train set.

When your mother got pregnant I knew that there would be sacrifices, that someday I would have to give up my toys and be a man. But I thought I'd have more time. At least more than 16 years.

Congratulations, son. You win. The train set is all yours. Forever. Fill it up with streetcars. Cover it with oatmeal. Do whatever the hell you want.

Just do me one favor. In court tomorrow, when you're called as a character witness, remember all the nice things I did for you. Like the time I gave you my train set. Or that time when I reminded you about giving you the train set. Or the time I let you come up with my alibi. Actually, don't mention that last one. If you do, re-word it so I sound more like a great Dad and less like a premeditated arsonist.

Q: How do you track aliens?

A: Stay silent. Stick to the shadows.

Step lightly. Training in Ninjutsu helps. If you cannot afford a trip to Japan to study under one of the great masters, at least wear all black. And buy some throwing stars. The metal ones they sell down in Chinatown, not the cheap plastic kind.

Learn their methods, their routines. They come out at night, and surround themselves with packs of beasts and warriors and occasionally princesses.

Lure them into the darkness with some Earth candy. They are partial to Reese's Pieces and Peanut Butter Cups and Snickers. Don't waste  your time with apples or popcorn balls. That will only anger them.

Once you have them alone, it's time to pounce.

A-HA!

Now that we have slain the dread alien, let us remove his hood and see his horrible face. But don't look directly, for your eyes might ...

Huh.

That doesn't look like an alien at all. That looks like a small human boy. Another small human boy. I could have sworn it was an alien.

Damn. This happens every October.

Q: What are two techniques paleontologists use to determine the ago of fossils?

A: 1) Radiocarbon dating. Using  a series of complex measurements and equations, we calculate the amount of Carbon-14 in a given fossil to determine its age.

2.) Floyd's Theory of Fossil Decomposition. Using a ten sided die, we choose a number from one to ten, throw a bunch of zeroes after it and call it a day. Named after Floyd, the security guard who invented the process the night he wanted us to leave early. Apparently he had Lakers tickets.

We use the first method if our boss is watching, or if we're dating the fossils of one of the more popular dinosaurs, like a Tyrannosaurus Rex. The second method comes in handy on Fridays or  when someone discovers a pile of Apatosaurs.

Q: What is the percentage of 4 out of 6?

A: Sixty-six point six percent. With the six repeating obviously.

If you played baseball and hit the ball four times out of six, you'd be the Best Ballplayer Ever, better than Ruth and Cobb and Williams combined.

If you played basketball and made four out of every six shots, you'd be an Excellent Ballplayer, one of the best ever. A guaranteed Hall of Famer.

If you played quarterback in the NFL and completed four out of every six shots, you would be a Great Ballplayer with a long career and many trips to the Pro Bowl.

4 out of 6 for most any athlete translates to a long, successful career.

But you are not an athlete. You are an obstetrician. Delivering four out of six babies without dropping them makes you a Terrible Baby Doctor.

Q: What is the coldest city and temperature currently in the us?

A: It has to be where I am right now, on the balcony of my suite at the Radisson Hotel  in Nashville. I've only been out here a couple minutes and I am already freezing. I have never been this cold. I cannot stop shivering. I can't feel my feet. Or my legs. Or my hands really. Much of the below neck portion of my body is pretty numb.

This sudden cold front is rather strange. A few minutes ago it was sweltering. Sticky sweaty hot. So hot I was naked. With a woman. In the bed of my suite at the Radisson Hotel in Nashville. We had the air conditioning set to 65 but we were still sweating. And panting. Occasionally moaning. It was pretty damn hot.

Then some guy walks in the room yelling some stuff about being her husband and watching us all day and having enough evidence to win a fortune in the divorce. I couldn't make out most of what he was saying. We had the TV up real loud. And the woman was laughing pretty hard. Something about her pre-nup. The husband's face went red. He was hot, too. Everyone was hot. It was like an oven in there. Why is it so cold now?

I know I heard something popping. Five or six loud pops, like firecrackers. Then I got even hotter. Warm burning down in my stomach. Someone must have pushed me because I fell through the sliding glass door. I had no idea it was so cold out here. I wish I had grabbed my robe.

I hope I don't freeze to death out here. I've really never been this cold. I'm sure the nice lady in there will bring me out some blankets. Just as soon as she gets through making up with her husband. They're such a lovely couple. I'm glad to see them work things out.

Q: Why is not day all over the world at the same time?

A: You have angered the Sun Gods. They will not shine on you again unless you follow their rules.

First, you must forfeit all your material possessions. You don't have to go all crazy with it and give everything to charity or set it all on fire. Packing everything into small, light boxes and leaving  them at your neighbor's door will suffice. Your neighbor North of you, not the other guy. Giving anything to your neighbor to the South will only anger the Sun Gods more.

Second, you're going to have to show loyalty to the Sun Gods in the form of a sacrifice. Again, there's no reason to overdo this. The Sun Gods don't expect you to sacrifice your children or your wife or anything. A few cows will do, as long as they are well butchered, free of fat and grilled to a temperature of 125 degrees.  Once you've sacrificed the tender filets, leave them on a table in your backyard. The Sun Gods will help themselves.

Third, no matter what you hear coming from the backyard, you must never leave your house. The Sun Gods are shy and vengeful. They quickly anger at the sight of man. The sight of women is a different story. Feel free to send out your wife and attractive adult daughters and their friends. But be warned, the Sun Gods hate the sound of human clothing. It would be best for the sake of humanity that the women arrive naked. And slightly tipsy. Sober, uptight humans ask too many questions of the Sun Gods. Too many questions make the sun explode.

Fourth, you must trust what I have told you. I speak on behalf of the Sun Gods. Few know of their existence. The world is full of cynics and skeptics who will insist that the Sun Gods don't exist. Do not believe these people. They are merely jealous of your relationship with the divine. You will be able to spot them easily. They will approach slowly, with concern in their voice, trying to convince you that my voice is not coming from the Mystic Plains of Light and Thunder but from a speaker embedded in your walls. While the Sun Gods frown on human sacrifice for the purpose of proving loyalty they do condone the murder of heretics. But they will not condone said murder if you own your home. Some of these ancient religions are a little weird like that. Just to be safe, you better sign over the deed to a complete stranger. Someone completely random, like, oh, your neighbor.

North side.

Q: How do kids feel if they can't bring their phone to school?

A: Angry. Really, really angry. Often to the point of violence. If not that, at least yelling. Load, constant yelling that goes on for hours.

Kids rely on their phones. For today's youth a phone is more than a status symbol. It's a best friend. A buddy. Someone to cheer you up when you're feeling maudlin. Someone to remind you that you are not alone, by showing you naked pictures of internet celebrities. Someone to use as collateral to prevent a beating in the locker room. Those kids, the ones who make friends with the phone, those kids yell.

The kids who get angry are the kids who see their friend as more than a friend. They see their phone as an employee. They don't want their phone. They need it. Drugs may sell themselves, but not if potential buyers can't reach you.

There are a lot of opportunities to sell drugs for the modern high school student. Because teachers are sad. And they do a whole lot of self-medicating.

Q: What films have money in the title?

A: For recent films, there's One For the Money, starring America's Sweetheart and famed appreciative collaborator Katherine Heigl. She's the girl from Knocked Up. No, not the one married to Jud Apatow, the other one. Yes, she's still starring in movies. I have no idea why either.

Of course, there's Moneyball, the story of how math turned the Oakland A's into a team that doesn't make the playoffs into a team that makes the playoffs once or twice, only to lose.  And Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps, the long awaited sequel to 1987's Oscar winning Wall Street, starring Michael Douglas and Shia LaBeuf, who is contractually obligated to appear in every sequel under the mistaken assumption that people want to see him do things other than get punched in the face or shoved into a tire and rolled down a hill into a pit of asps.

If those three films don't satisfy your "films with money in the title" craving, take a trip to the video store and rent Money Train, Money Talks and Two For the Money. After that triple feature, you'll never want to see another movie with money in the title again. Or any movie. Or people. You'll probably want to turn off the lights, crawl into your closet and have a nice long cry while your consider that the people responsible for those movies continue to get paid to act in and make movies despite the clear and overwhelming evidence that acting in and making movies are things they are bad at.

Or you could save yourself some time and some damage to your soul and watch my movie, Please Give Me Money. I made it specifically for my parents, but anyone can enjoy it.

My parents cut me off after grad school. They said that after 14 years of college, it was time for me to make my own way in the world. They said the same thing after I got my PhD in Philosophy six years ago, but when I didn't get a job with one of those big philosophy firms, they kept supporting me. I assumed they'd do the same this time. But they seem to be keeping their word.

My movie's pretty good. Here, let me show you some of it.

Here I am starving. There's me panhandling on the bus. My mother will be horrified. When I was eight she made me promise never to ride the bus. I've got some great footage of me rooting around a dumpster for food, too. And then there's the climax: Scenes of me calling all my Dad's old mistresses and telling them that my Mom is really sick and my Dad is all lonely and in need of affection. They should drop by any time.

This might turn out to be the biggest movie ever made.

Q: What are some factors that endanger the future of the Chesapeake Bay?

A: For starters, commercial expansion. This area used to be pristine. Clear water. Nice beaches. Air that filled the lungs, made you feel capable of anything.  Then the office buildings moved in. Everyone wanted a bay view to impress the clients. Everyone needed places to park and places to eat. Soon the whole Bay became one slab of concrete, broken up by the occasional golden arch.

With the expansion came the pollution. Cars dripping oil. No-bid sewers mucking up the water. Restaurants burying their rotten bacon in the sand.

Honestly, even with the expansion and the pollution, it wasn't that bad. You could still get out on the water for some parasailing or jet skiing. Still some spots on the beach where you could set up a towel to tan or read a book or woo a potential lover, as long as you avoided the bacon graves. Simple tip: look for the assembled carrion and move away.  We still had a nice, quiet beach community.

Then the Civil War  reenactors came and it all went to hell. Someone decided that Chesapeake Bay would be the perfect place to reenact great naval battles of the War Between the States. I was unaware that the Civil War had naval battles, but I'm not exactly a huge Civil War buff. Had no idea they had submarines, either, but apparently they did. I doubt the actual submarines were tinfoil-wrapped canoes weighed down with cinder blocks, but that's all the reenactors could afford. Probably should have sprung for a real submarine. Or at least some scuba gear. I thought the beach full of rotten bacon smelled bad. That was nothing compared to a bay full of floating bloated fake Confederate corpses.

The Bay's seen better times, but we're a strong community and we could have pulled together, fished out the corpses, poured quicklime on the beach, driven off the office drones with calculated violence, burned everything to the ground and started over. We would have done it, too, if that that damn Cowboy Godzilla showed up. Now, we don't officially know if that's his name, or if he's a Godzilla, or even if he's a cowboy - there are no giant horses in sight - but he's big, green, scaly, he breathes fire, he rose right up out of the ocean, and he's wearing a giant steel cowboy hat. The name seemed to fir.

I've been living on the Bay for 56 years and I've never seen anything endanger it's future like that Cowboy Godzilla. On the bright side, the bodies of the drowned reenactors have formed a dam that have slowed him down and kept him from reaching the shore. Hopefully, it holds up until Tourist Season. I had a bunch of Cowboy Godzilla Spring Break t-shirts made that I'm going to sell over at the hot dog stand. They have a drawing of Cowboy Godzilla lighting a bong with his fire breath on the back. I think they'll be pretty popular with the college kids, and even more popular with the people who want to be popular with the college kids. Which is everyone.

Q: Do you have to pay outstanding debt if in jail for murder?

A: That's a really great question. Do you have a problem with the knives you ordered? They're high quality knives, made from the finest German steel, and you seem to take such glee in sharpening them.

No problem with the knives. Just don't feel like paying for them? Is that it?

Okay.

That's really a question above my pay grade. I'm with Collections. That sounds like a problem for Legal. I'll be happy to pass your question over to them. Just as soon as I slowly back out of your home.

By the way, when you ordered those knives, did you happen to also order our DVD series "How to Become a Champion Knife Thrower in 8 Days"?

Q: Are horses killed for glue?

A: That's a myth. It's been years since horses have been used to make glue. Paste, maybe. A cheap brown paste used to wallpaper shanties. Or gruel. But not glue.

But your horse wasn't killed because of what we wanted him to be. He was killed because of what he was. A loser.

There's no rule that says a horse can't play football. And there's no rule that says if he's going to play, he better damn well be good. Things like that are understood.

Q: Does the brain secrete during sleep?

A: Now I'm no Doctor - I wear this lab coat mostly for comfort, partly to help keep track of what I've been eating for the past week; everything stands out against the white - but judging by the sheets on your side of the bed, your brain secretes something. That something appears to be a combination of sweat, bacon grease, AstroGlide, tears, hair tonic, ant-wrinkle cream, and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream from Ben & Jerry's. If you look at the magic marker outline I drew to indicate your side of the bed, you can see that the residue has collected where you head rests while you sleep, meaning it can have come only from your brain. No other explanation makes sense.


Incidentally, your brain secretions are not as delicious as they sound. Although I am not a man of science, acts of science are expected of me due to my dress and demeanor. I do not like to disappoint. 


Now that we have concluded that your brain does secrete, you might want to see an actual Doctor. Could be cause for alarm. You also might want to see a sleep specialist. You are a very sound sleeper. So sound that someone could sit on your chest while dipping handfuls of bacon into a pint of ice cream with one hand while masturbating with the other, crying the whole time. In theory.

Q: How can you volunteer to work at the white house?

A: Just show up at the front door and offer to help. It worked for me.

Yes, I was arrested, but it certainly wasn't because of my helpful attitude and can-do spirit. My lawyer thinks it has something to do with the animal pelts I wore. Some hadn't been cleaned properly and, well, they stunk a little. Apparently people were turned off by the faces mounted on my shoulders and back, specifically the faces of their recently buried loved ones. How foolish of me, thinking that the sight of a friendly face might help ease the stress of a long work day. You'd think I would have been treated as a hero, handed a Medal of Freedom and given an immediate audience with the President. At the very least, you'd expect some applause. Maybe a hug. Instead, they yelled. And cursed. And threw things. With remarkable accuracy. At no point was any consideration given to the amount of work I spent building my suit of pelts: researching family trees, scouring obituaries, digging up graves, carefully removing the faces without slicing off any distinguishing features. It's like none of it mattered.

Hopefully you can learn from my mistakes. Wear a suit. Maybe call ahead. Show up during business hours, instead of 3AM. Save the faces until you've met everyone and know a little about their relationships with the deceased.

I've made a lot of  bad decisions in my life, but there's only one thing I wish I could do over again: My visit to the White House. Well, two things. I regret all that time I spent caring about The X-Files. That shit didn't lead anywhere.

Q: How do presidents get citizens to vote for them?

A: By promising to do things that they will never do, have no intention of doing, are incapable of doing, or are impossible. In everyday life, such statements would be called "Lies"or "Outright Fraud"  but in the charming world of Presidential elections, they are called "Campaign Promises" or "Politics as Usual."

A Presidential candidate is not judged on his experience, which is often lacking, or his record, often spotty, or even his prior public statements, often contradictory. Instead he is judged on his ability to make you believe that he believes the words currently coming out of his mouth, even though you know these words are not true and will be forgotten as soon as he is elected. In a normal person we would consider such a trait "Pathological Narcissism" but in a Presidential candidate we call it "Electability."

If a candidate cannot win over the public with his fake sincerity, he will often resort to something known as "Negative Campaigning" or "Attack Ads" which you would recognize as "Character Assassination" or "Slander." Suggesting that a fellow human being, someone who has dedicated his life to public service, would trigger a nuclear war or put senior citizens to death or institute white slavery might seem beyond the bounds of human decency, and reveal its suggester as an unreliable, unscrupulous schemer, but this is what wins elections, tearing the other guy down.

If the traditional techniques of treachery, deceit and betrayal fail to capture the imagination of the voting public, a candidate has only one weapon left: stealing the election. But that requires a lot of political capital, the kind only a political  dynasty with a considerable fortune built on bootlegging or shady oil deals could posses. And dynasties like that only come around every 40 years or so.

Q: What do the cabinet do for the president?

A: The cabinet advises the President on the issues facing America. As essentially his top Lieutenants, they do his bidding across the land and ensure the country runs smoothly. They hold many meetings and give many speeches. In many ways, they are the face of the administration.

The Secretary of State is the nations top diplomat, and handles America's overseas affairs.

The Secretary of Defense manages the military, and works to keep our country safe.

The Secretary of Commerce works with the President to insure America's business stay in the black and we don't have another of those pesky recessions.

As for your position, well, I must admit I'm at a loss. I'm unfamiliar with the duties of the Secretary of Chocolate Pudding. I'm not really sure such a position exists. Let me take a look at your paperwork.

I see the problem here. Your so-called orders are nothing more than a giveaway from the Jello people. There's not need to be embarrassed. This type of thing happens all the time. LAst week we had a man insisting he was the Secretary of Sexy Ladies, but after three hours of shouting we convinced him he was just Vice President.

Q: Can you get TB Tuberculosis from touching surfaces or clothing of a infected person?

A: Of course not. What gave you such a silly idea? Just because I am sick with TB, along with your sister, your cousin, our maid, the dog, most of the fish, and even some of the plants does not mean it spreads so easily. Come on now, a disease that lives on counter tops and clothes? Is it spread by little wizards who stay behind and cast sickness spells on anyone who happens to cut meat or wash laundry? Do they have tiny little wands and tiny little pointy wizard hats? You have quite an imagination. Your mother would get a big laugh out of your crazy ideas, if she were still able to laugh. Or breath. Or live. We should probably taker her out back. She's starting to attract vermin.

I have no idea how it happened. One minute she was perfectly healthy, hand washing the sheets from my sick bed while I stood coughing in the corner. The next minute she had come down with TB and was soon coughing blood. Must have been something she ate.

Honestly, I have no idea how TB spreads. All I know is that your tiny wizard theory is laughable and will never be spoken of again. I am not a doctor. I will never be a doctor. I will never speak to a doctor. We'll deal with this outbreak the same way we deal with every problem we've ever faced as a family: Locking the doors, shutting off the lights and waiting until it's over. It got us through the LA riots, it got us through the Rapture, it got us through your uncle being gay, its good enough to get us through a series of strong chest colds. This too shall pass, son. Soon, we'll be on the mend, although it may be too late for some of the plants. And your mother, obviously. But the rest of us will be one big happy family soon. Now come over here and give me a hug.

Hold on a minute.

Ack! Ack! Ack!

 Huuuhhh-chuuuuk!

Eh. Eh. Eh.

Ugh.

Wheeeeew.

I always thought "coughing up a lung" to be a figurative term. At least we have something for dinner. Your mother was getting a bit gamy.

Q: How long did they stay on the moon and where did they land?

A: Details are scarce. Most of our equipment malfunctioned during take-off when Mitchell spilled his can of Jolt on the control panel. Radio contact was limited; we had no way to monitor their health, nor their progress. The giant electric map we commissioned to track their approach to the moon took D batteries. Would have been nice to know that when we picked it up from the cartographer. Someone won't be getting his "I Helped Put a Multicultural Team of Americans on the Moon and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt" T-shirt. Actually, no one will be getting them. The manufacturer left town with our down payment. I'm sure people will enjoy a hastily scribbled Post-It with the same message just as much. Remind me to make those.

Obviously, we have no idea where they landed, but we can assure you it was on the moon. We suspect somewhere near the top and around toward the back. That's were Frank threw the dart on our scale model. He's got pretty good aim. According to the flight plan, they will drive their moon rover, a converted golf cart loaded with dumbbells, directly to the Sea of Tranquility, where they will destroy all traces of previous moon expeditions and claim the moon for our county. This all depends on the moon rovers, but we assume they'll work fine. We spent all last weekend on them, tying down the weights and covering them with decals. Gene could barely lift it once we were done, and he's the strongest guy in the space program.

Earlier, you asked "How long did they stay on the moon?" Your question, being in past tense, makes me think you believe the team is back on Earth, their mission completed. Such a belief is mistaken. They're still up there. We can't really say how long. All the clocks in here stopped working once we pulled out the D batteries and everyone had their cell service shut off due to non-payment. Those are the kind of sacrifices you make to send a man into space. The weekly celebratory keg parties don't pay for themselves. That money has to come from somewhere.

Don't worry though. Our team will be back soon enough. They have everything they need to get back home. Parts. Fuel. Instructions. Everything. All they need to do is build a new rocket from the spare parts of their lunar module, find a heat source, and, using Professor Bernheimer's formula, convert moon rocks into rocket fuel. The only way the plan could fail is if they damage some of the parts or lose the formula. And there's no way they would be dumb enough to -

Oh boy.

Heh. Heh.

How about that? While  answering your question, I reached into my pocket for my grocery list - after our conversation I'm going to the grocery store - and I couldn't find it. But I did find the slip of paper with Professor Bernheimer's formula. Which means our team on the moon will try make space fuel with a list of toiletries and fruit.

Man, that is a gutbuster.

Don't tell anyone about this, okay? This could be a real black eye for the Berkshire County Space Program. And we'd been doing so well.