Q: What does a s mean in math?

A: An 'S' on a report card means 'Satisfactory'. You have achieved satisfactory results in math. Not the smartest kid in the class, but not the dumbest. You're right in the middle with most everyone else.

But here's the weird thing. Teachers give grades like 'S' and 'S+' and 'U' in elementary school, in subjects like basic arithmetic and penmanship and playtime. You're in the 12th grade. High school teachers traditionally award letter grades, A's and B's and C's, to indicate a specific level of achievement.

In fact, if you take a careful look at your report card, you will see that in every other class you have a letter grade, except in math, where, right on top of a glob of moist Wite-Out, you have an 'S' written in pen.

This means one of two things. One, you received a grade so poor in math that you didn't want me to see it, so you doctored your report card in the hopes that I would fail to see through your ruse. Considering the rest of your report card is C-'s and D+'s, that must have been one poor grade. Two, you failed math so spectacularly that your teacher felt that a simple 'F' insufficiently expressed your incompetence, that the letter wasn't low enough, that he had no choice but to grab your report card from the printer and write, by hand, a new, incredibly poor grade. .

Either way, I'm going to stop saving for your college tuition.

Q: When did hades get a three headed dog?

A: He's always been a long, sir.We've kind of lost count. It's hard to keep track of time down here. You ought to know better than anyone how long he's been here, sir. He is your dog.

Yup, you asked for him and everything. Made a bit of scene if I recall.

We all thought it odd that you would want a giant three-headed dog to guard the underworld, ever patrolling the shores of the River Styx to prevent all souls from returning to the land of man. That seemed like a lot of work for a dog. A lot of long, lonely hours. We tried to talk you out of it. We suggested a titan or a basilisk or a minotaur, something that wouldn't require so much care and attention. But you insisted on a puppy, even though we all knew you'd get bored after a few years and forget all about him. Since you kind of run things around here, we got you your damn dog.

And you haven't fed it once. Or taken it for a walk, or played catch with it, or anything. Do you have any idea how much work it takes to care for a three headed hell hound? We've been out there for centuries, chopping up pedophiles and cat jugglers, using their bodies for food and their heads for sport - he likes when we shoot the heads in the air with a catapult. He tries to see how many he can catch at once. His record is six. We do it all so he feels loved, so he doesn't think that his master doesn't love him anymore. But his master never loved him at all.

I hate to be the one to say "I told you so," because I know you'll banish me to some mountain where I'll be tied to a tree and have my eyes regrow every morning so birds can pluck them out at night. But know that I am thinking it. Already you probably already know that. I think. Sometimes I'm not quite sure where your powers begin and end; the available literature on the subject often contradicts.

We named your dog Cerberus by the way. We weren't about to let you name him, not after the debacle of naming the River. Thank Zeus we were able to talk you out of calling it the River Kansas.

Q: Where are the farming areas?

A: Right over there, across the street, next to the row of birches.  Everything before the creek and after the road is available. Lots are two grand each, 3 for 5. Just so there's no confusion, everything under the house is available, too. We're tearing that down tomorrow.

Now, I know what you're thinking: "Isn't that my land he's pointing at? Did he just say he's going to tear down my house?" Just so we're on the same page, the answer is yes.

Before you start making vacant threats or winding up to punch me take a moment to read over these legal documents. As you can see, I hold title on your land.

While you were at the grocery store, I had you declared legally unfit to own property. Wasn't all that hard to do. Once I showed the judge all those saved episodes of Toddlers & Tiaras on your DVR, he signed the order in what I'm told was record time.

Bet you wish you hadn't gone to the store for those Cool Ranch Doritos.

Q: Can you get addicted to both legal and illegal drugs?

A: You sure can!

Legal drugs are easier to get. Illegal drugs provide a quicker high. If you want to sleep walk through the work day keeping friends and co-workers and loved ones - especially loved ones. Know what I mean, fellas? (Most of the men are nodding. The ones who aren't nodding I assume to be not yet married or newly married.) - distant behind a wall of feel good fuzz and numbness, yet don't want to risk losing your job, legal drugs are the way to go. If being popular with strangers and staying up all night and feeling great about yourself sounds like your idea of a dream weekend, use illegal drugs.

If you want to be popular and disconnect emotionally from everyone around you, use both. There's a theory that suggests the best way to achieve popularity and lasting happiness is to avoid addictive drugs both legal and illegal. I doubt the proponents of this theory have ever been the guy with a pocketful of coke at 4AM when the party's threatening to die due to lack of drugs. Oh, the people you will meet and the places you will go.

As you might have guessed, I choose to be addicted to all drugs - crack, pot, booze, Adderall, Spice, PCP, Oxymorphone, caffeine, nicotine, and whatever horse tranquilizers I can scam from the vet techs in 5C - and I don't regret a minute of it. Not the nine-martini lunches, not sitting in the corner of the the club until the lights come on and I'm asked to leave, not the anonymous sex with ladies of dubious gender, not the restraining order filed by 5C, not the open weeping during conference calls, not the brawl with the bathroom mirror, not throwing the water cooler at Mr. Benson, not losing a fight to Mr. Benson, not the tazing or the pepper spray or the forced oral copulation in the holding cell, none of it. My life's been a non-stop party, and if you don't mind, your honor, I'd like to end this hearing right now and get back to it.

Q: What is the purpose of the Strive Program?

Q: The STRIVE Program helps the terminally unemployed find jobs by teaching them the tools necessary to be a productive member of the modern workforce. We do this by Striking Them Repeatedly with Increasing Violence Everyday until they get off the couch and get a job.

If you have a son or daughter or uncle or brother who spends all day sitting on the couch watching TV, making excuse after excuse about how, "You need a graduate degree these days," or "It's a competitive hiring environment," please give us a call. We will be at your home within hours, subjecting your loved ones to increasingly savage beatings, starting with open handed slaps, continuing with phone books and cherished childhood toys, ending with baseball bats and lead pipes, until they haul their ass down to McDonalds and fill out an application. Their excuses will not work on us, mostly because they will be drowned out by all the screams. And the laughter. We enjoy our work and we're not ashamed to admit it.

We've never had to use the lead pipes. Most people get off the couch once we reach for the cherished childhood toys. There's something about being beaten with a Man-E-Faces action figure that makes them see the error of their ways.

Our program boasts a 100% success rate, as long as you don't count the deaths. Which we don't. Many of those people had heart problems or weak spines. Since they wouldn't offer much to an employer anyway, we refuse to let them taint our statistics. I doubt they'll be missed. I would assume. I wouldn't actually know. We make it a policy not to stick around the house for too long after the beating. People get weird after seeing a family member beaten like that. You'd think they'd thank us, but usually they're too busy crying and calling us monsters and tearing up the bill and threatening to call the police.

We're not monsters. We are businessmen. Businessmen who sometimes dress like monsters in order to persuade someone back into the work force. And if they'd bothered to read the fine print, they would know that they have waived the right to press charges, as well as forfeited all potential royalties from the sale of beating videos.

The videos are huge in Finland.