FADING AWAY

Dear Doc Flinkey,

A few days back, I woke up in the morning. It is hard to believe, I know, but things grew worse. I ate a hearty breakfast, then headed off to the bathroom to take a crap and have a shower. After I toed my turds down the plughole, I got out of the shower and went to the basin so I could shave.

Imagine my surprise to find a message scrawled on the mirror! It said, "I AM FADING AWAY". It also appeared to be written with soap. Thinking that rather odd, but not unprecedented, I carried on with my preparations, and left the house for work.

The next morning, I found a new message on the mirror. It said "PLEASE STOP". Once again, it was written with soap. And once again, I was surprised, but not yet perturbed.

On the third morning, there was yet another message, reading "AT LEAST DON'T JAM ME TOGETHER WITH ONE OF THE COLOUREDS". Now I was genuinely concerned. I looked down in order to gather my thoughts. Suddenly, things fell into place. On the floor, lying beneath the mirror, was a small piece of white soap. Immediately, I had a hypothesis in hand. And, upon drawing back the shower curtain, I received all the confirmation I needed. The soap-receptacle was empty.

It all made complete sense. "I AM FADING AWAY"... what could that be, but a piece of soap having an existential crisis? The piece of soap had left its receptacle during the night, crawled to the mirror, written its plaintive plea for help, and struggled back up to its receptacle. With its second message, "PLEASE STOP", the soap had become desperate. Unless I ceased using it, it would, indeed, fade away. Now for the third message: "AT LEAST DON'T JAM ME TOGETHER WITH ONE OF THE COLOUREDS". This message reeks of resignation. Indeed, by this time, the soap lacked the strength to return to its receptacle, so it just lay there on the floor, exhausted and forlorn.

But what could the message mean? Rummaging around, I discovered an empty packet of white soap. Alongside the empty packet was an unopened packet of purple soap. I now knew exactly what the piece of soap was thinking. It was afraid that, when it became too small to be of use to me, I would pull out a fresh tablet of purple soap from the unopened packet, and simply jam what was left of the piece of white soap together with the purple soap, so as not to be wasteful.

So that is the situation as it stands. I do not believe that I have omitted any relevant information. But I need you to help me decide what to do. Should I respect the wishes of the soap, even though it may now be too far gone to care? And in any case, would it even be possible to nurse it back to health? And, since the third message reveals that the piece of soap is actually a racist, should I not perhaps just jam it together with the purple soap anyway, to show it that whites and purples can live together in harmony after all?

As always, I await your response.

Your devoted patient,
hognogger


Dear Hoggy,

Once again your consternation results from a failure to interpret dreams and/or signs that are so obvious when presented to a third and independent party, to wit, me.

Why is it that songwriters are so, so poor at recognising their inability to include killer phrases in their own lyrics?

Let me explain.

"Imagine my surprise to find a message scrawled on the mirror! It said, "I AM FADING AWAY". It also appeared to be written with soap."

It was a mere smudge - had you been born many decades earlier you could have beaten The Rolling Stones and The Who to some very good lines. Need I elaborate?

"The next morning, I found a new message on the mirror. It said "PLEASE STOP".

The same smear but perhaps The Carpenters were playing over in your head?

"On the third morning there was yet another message, reading AT LEAST DON'T JAM ME TOGETHER WITH ONE OF THE COLOUREDS".

At least you have progressed into the current era! This lyric appears in at least 300 Hip Hop songs and is in fact the title of Eminem's biography.

"The soap-receptacle was empty." How true: a writers block!

The rest of your hypothesis is based on a false perception and is, ergo, false.

But you have also, in your own summing up, exposed your own prejudice:

"And, since the third message reveals that the piece of soap is actually a racist, should I not perhaps just jam it together with the purple soap anyway, to show it that whites and purples can live together in harmony after all?"

And here we get to the root of the matter -

You simultaneously despise Prince and want to have sex with him.

Yours ever,
Flink

A TALE OF TWO CRISES

The two pressing issues of our time, are, as you know, water-restrictions and petrol prices. While I used to subscribe to the usual accounts of these problems and their causes, I now know otherwise. Yes, after several days of close observation, and several months of thinking about these observations from my empty bath-tub, I have discovered the underlying, common, cause of both of these vexing ills.

It all comes down to petrol-pump hoses.

You see, many people think that high petrol prices are the result of peak oil, increased demand from the developing world, Arab greed, fuel taxes, or some such thing. This is all quite wrong.

Next time you are getting your tank filled, look around and see how many of the bowsers are operational. My bet is that you will find that very few are. Then, you will notice a further puzzling fact. Nearly all of these non-functioning bowsers are missing their petrol-pump hose. And, as we all know, no hose means no petrol for you. In terms that the boffins would use, it is thus a supply-side problem (but not quite in the way they thought).

So why are the pump-hoses missing? The obvious answer is that they have knicked off somewhere. To test this theory, I camped out overnight at a newly-opened petrol station. At around 4am, I noticed a strange object slithering down a drain. Immediately, I checked the petrol-pumps. Sure enough, one hose was missing. I knew then that my diagnosis of the petrol-price situation was correct.

What of the water-restrictions, you ask? In turn, dear reader, I would ask you this. Have you looked at your garden hose lately? I have, and I can tell you that it has been replaced by a petrol-pump hose. A petrol-pump hose has done some terrible mischief to your poor garden hose, and has usurped its position. Do you know why your water bill is through the roof? That's right... it's because a petrol pump is used to a much heavier flow of fluid passing through it than is a garden-hose. In order to feel properly lubricated, it therefore turns itself on during the night while you are sleeping.

And your house is not unique. It's happening citywide.

So, I have worked out (where others have failed) the true cause of both expensive petrol, and the depletion of our water supply. What I do not know, as yet, is why the pump-hoses wanted to be garden-hoses. If I knew this, there may be some way of coaxing them back to their old positions, and solving both problems in one stroke.

I shall leave this as an open question for my audience of zero readers. I only pray that one of the none of you can shed further light on this matter.

PET FOOD FOR PEOPLE

Dear Doc Flinkey,

Once again, I ask for your esteemed advice in a matter of some delicacy.

A good friend of mine, who has hitherto lived an unimpeachable life, has developed a strange new obsession. And frankly, I am deeply concerned for his welfare.

As a child, my friend had a penchant for dog cubes and cat biscuits. It started when his parents banned him from eating snack food as a result of some minor indiscretions on his part. He discovered that he could get stuck into the animal food without being caught, and ended up liking the stuff so much that he was still chowing down on them after the ban was lifted. His unwitting parents actually thought he was such a good boy for not eating junk food after the ban was lifted, that they rewarded him with a new bicycle. If they had only known the truth...

Anyway, as he grew up, his childhood love of animal food became a distant memory. But, I discovered recently that he is back on the stuff. Moreover, not only is he back on the stuff, but he reckons it tastes great, and that there is money to be made in preparing cat and dog food for humans. He told me that the only reason more people aren't eating cat and dog food is because of the warning on the labels, that reads "NOT FIT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION". Therefore, he plans to start up a business making cat and dog biscuits for humans out of quality butchered meat, rather than whatever happens to be scraped up off the abbatoir floor.

He's got a whole heap of crazy slogans "Frimpy's dog cubes for people - brings out the GRRR in you!". Needless to say, all these slogans are dire. But he's already re-mortgaged his house to finance his new enterprise, and has quit his job at the belt factory. Lately, he's been talking to Dairy Bell about licensing a range of cat-biscuit flavoured ice-cream.

I worry for his children's future.

Please help,
hognogger

Dr Flinkey:

Dear Hoggy,

Not many people know (and those that have known have been found dead on regular occasions!) about the history of the term "NOT FIT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION."

Let me begin at the beginning...

Before the introduction of manufactured pet foods, most dogs and cats lived off of grains, meats, table scraps and homemade food from their owners. It wasn’t until the mid-1800’s that the world saw its first food made specifically for dogs. An American electrician, James Spratt concocted the first dog treat. Living in London at the time, he witnessed dogs around a ship yard eating scraps of discarded biscuits. A light bulb went off in his head and shortly thereafter he introduced his dog food, made up of wheat meals, vegetables and meat. His company flourished and by 1890 he was taken over by a large corporation and production had begun in the United States as well.

But it wasn’t until the early 1900’s that pet food really caught on. Canned horse meat was introduced in the United States under the Ken-L-Ration brand after WWI as a means to dispose of deceased horses. The 1930’s saw the introduction of canned cat food and dry meat-meal dog food by the Gaines Food Co. During WWII metal used for cans was set aside for the war effort, which nearly ruined the canned pet food industry. But by the time WWII ended, pet food was off and running again, and sales had reached $200 million.

However, WWII was also a period where daily nutrition for humans was difficult to maintain. It was almost impossible to purchase seeds to grow fruit and vegetables and most produce grown was processed for the war effort. Fresh dairy and meat products were scarce. As a direct result, people became less healthy and the the criteria relevant to the war effort rejection process (not fit for active service) extended to include those who were nutritionally deficient. Obviously, a person who could not eat well enough to be healthy was not "fighting fit."

But a quite ingenious businessman (and proprietor of Perry Pee Pet Foods) Mister Perry Peewinkle Esq knew opportunity when it knocked. The fighters that Uncle Sam rejected, made Perry Pee the best. Perry posted prolific notices at armed forces recruitment centres offering the poor souls deemed unsuitable for the war effort a chance to contribute (themselves) to the glory of victory.

Thus the phrase "NOT FIT, FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION" was coined. Note the comma. Yes my dear Hoggy, rejected conscripts and volunteers in their thousands ended up as bully beef and rations!

The only things that have changed since these dark war years is:

(1) The source of the human resources that go into pet food. Today, in Australia, Centrelink is the prime supplier of downtrodden types to the pet food industry.

and

(2) The comma has been discreetly removed from NOT FIT, FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION

Ironically, as a result of dog health problems we’re now seeing a trend toward natural, holistic, raw, and yes, homemade, human-quality pet foods – not too different from the type of foods folks fed their pets before pet food ever existed.

So your fears are unfounded.

Your friend has actually been consuming processed human flesh, not dead horses and pig gristle and his new venture could help to rectify an ethical problem with current pet food processing practices.

THE EPIPHANY OF THE ORGAN

Dear Dr Flinkey,

I have a friend who seeks your aid in a rather sensitive matter.

He works for a well-known international fashion design house (well, OK, he empties the bins and mops the floors, but he is ambitious).

A couple of months ago, he casually mentioned to me that he was thinking of having his penis pierced. Naturally, I was pleased for him, and asked him to pass on my congratulations to his todger.

Last week, our paths crossed for the first time since then. His haggard, mottled face regarded me; his crazed eyes pleading for aid. I could see he was in some discomfort.

It appears that since he put the penis-ring in, his old fella has acquired a taste for accessories.

He first suspected that there could be a problem when he noticed some curious behaviour. While reading fashion magazines in the toilet, as he often does, he would sometimes catch his old fella peering over the toilet seat at the mags. Now, it is not that he minded sharing the magazines - he is a generous fellow, on the whole. It's just that he had to install a mop in his toilet soon after this behaviour started.

Before long, he found himself regularly waking up hung-over, after apparently sleeping with strange women. On the first occasion, he found he had slept with a tattooist, only to discover when he went home to take a shower, that his penis now had eyes, ears and a mouth. On the second occasion, he slept with someone who works at a follicular fusion treatment centre. His penis now has a fine head of hair. On the third occasion, he slept with a hairdresser, and discovered to his horror the next day that his penis had acquired a mohawk. On the fourth, he slept with a doll-maker, and, as a result, the penis now has arms and a leather jacket.

You see where I am going with this... Lately, the penis has been listening in on his private conversations with its tattooed ears, and looking at things it shouldn't see with its tattooed eyes. He is terribly afraid that one day his penis will start talking with its tattooed mouth. And goodness knows what it might do with its new arms. The penis is quickly becoming self-sufficient. All it requires now is a set of legs, and it will be able to walk out of his life forever.

What can be done? I hold grave fears for my friend, should this situation not be resolved in a timely fashion.

Yours ever,
hognogger

Dr Flinkey: Dear Hoggy,

Please do not be alarmed. This is in fact the fifth time this month that I have been approached in regards to this exact same complaint.

What people fail to realise is that peni are very sensitive creatures. Rub them the wrong way and they can become quite aggitated. They will often let loose with all kinds of dribble before withdrawing into themselves.

Also - as peni have been known to sometimes go off on their own - the addition of legs will not make much difference.

They are also headstrong little fellers. Once they have made their minds up to act, there is little chance of them stopping.

The solution is to go back to the initial issue - what change was introduced to the life of this penis that caused the behavioural problems?

The piercing of course. You cannot just go and pierce your knob without consulting with him about earrings, studs or sleepers. What is his preference?

But is is not too late.

I suggest that your friend start of with a nice gift. A single diamond stud will do nicely. Have him wrap it and leave it somewhere the penis will find it. Inside the cover of a porn mag is an obvious place. Make sure there is a card telling the penis how much he valued as a member of the family.

My hunch is the penis will be very pleased.

Your friend can then take him shopping - I believe large 60's style plastic hoops are back in fashion.

THE RESIDENT OF THE BRICK

Dear Dr Flinkey,

I don't know whether this will get through to you... I am transmitting via rather unorthodox means, but I will take the risk, as you are my only hope.

One morning last month, I awoke feeling rather lethargic... my first impulse was to stretch my tardy limbs, in the hope that this would enliven them and allow me to make my way out of bed.

But they weren't there!

In fact, nothing was there... I could feel nothing.

It took a couple of days for the indescribable horror to reveal itself. I was no longer in corporeal form. I shan't bore you with the tedious details of this realisation. The upshot is that my soul, or whatever it is that happens to form the seat of consciousness, is now located in a single brick near the back door of my house.

But my body lives on, animated by some other purpose. As to the origin of that purpose, I cannot say. For, surely as ever, my body continued to move around the house and go to work, just as it ever did. It even persisted in putting out the rubbish bins for collection at the appropriate time.

However, something is amiss - some strange force animates it. I know this now beyond all doubt. One evening last week, while stuck inside my brick, I observed my body sitting on the steps near the back door. It was carrying a suspicious package, which it laid beside it. The body then produced a hook. It proceeded to shove the hook up a nostril. In sheer captive terror, I watched as it drew my brain out of its protective shell, piece by piece, until there was no remainder. If that was not terrifying enough, it then proceeded to tamp at least fifty packages of white powder (via my nostrils) into the awaiting empty cranium. Then, it simply arose and returned inside, as if nothing had happened.

I have not seen my body for five days. I can only conclude that it is using my brain-case to conceal drugs, and has left the country.

And yet... greater horrors lay in store. I have discovered that I am not alone. The bricks adjoining my own are not unoccupied. Other souls are locked inside. They gibber. Is this my fate?

I now suspect that the house is playing some nefarious role in this mystery. Clearly, the gibberers are past occupants of the house. Like me, they have had their souls evicted from their bodies.

What is going on? And how can I escape from this brick, and reclaim my body before it is too late?

Or is it too late already? The cat ate what remained of my brain days ago.

Please help,
hognogger

Dr Flinkey: Thank you for your enquiry.

I started to imagine how you managed to type your plea for help when you have no physical form (apart from your brick skeleton) but it made my brain hurt so I stopped.

Assuming that this is a real problem, and not made up, I will provide the professional assistance you are, obviously, in dire need of.

First - let's review some apt lyrics:

"When we grew up and went to school, there were certain teachers who would hurt the children anyway they could
by pouring their derision upon anything we did
exposing any weakness however carefully hidden by the kids.

But in the town it was well known
When they got home at night their fat and psychopathic wives
Would thrash them within inches of their lives!

ooooooooooooo, oooooooo, ooooooooooo, ooooooooo, ooooooooo, ooooooooo,oooo.

We don't need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.

Wrong, Guess again!
Wrong, Guess again!
If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding.
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?
You! Yes, you behind the bikesheds, stand still laddie!"

I have no doubt you were derided as a child. In fact, in light of the frequency and scope of your predicaments, you deserve a certain amount of derision as an adult.

The fact that you hid your weaknesses from peers and teachers, only to have them subsequently revealed by the teachers, has now come back to haunt you. Had you made your weaknesses overt, you would have baffled teachers and destroyed their evil plan to expose you. Further, peers would have left you alone - totally alone. The act of drawing attention to yourself would have led to your being isolated from those whould would otherwise deride you.

Teachers would have still been thrashed by their fat wives but they would not have had you as a target for bullying.

As a result of your submission to the system - you are just another brick in the wall.

Pink Floyd fans saw this as a metaphor when in fact it was quite literal. The only unknown for all is the timing and circumstance of the inevitable baked clay incarcaration. This is why there are others in your wall. They heard the lyrics as well and were automatically doomed to the same fate.

I hope the solution to this problem is self evident.

No?

Well, in light of your absence of brain matter, I will spell it out.

1. You or a friend should obtain an analogue copy of Just Another Brick in the Wall (digital will not work) and record it onto a computer audio work station.

2. Save the file as "Llaw eht ni Kcirb Rehtona Tsuj"

3. Open the file in a wave editor.

4. Reverse the wave and loop it.

5. Put the loop on continuous play (so that you can hear it from your brick.)

Once you have heard the song in reverse the exact same number of times you have heard it forwards, your body will come close to the wall and you can spirit yourself back into the body.

The downside is you will have no brain. That being said, I doubt anyone will miss it.

The upside is that, if the drugs are still in the brain cavity, you are in for an unplanned trip.

- Flink

THE MOUND OF TESTES

Recently, I have been having some problems with my friends. You will see how Dr Flinkey solves these problems... this post, and the post above, have been of inestimable value to me in my practice. Problems such as these are commonplace. The words of the Great Dr Flinkey have forged a path for me, and my own patients now think I am a genius!

Dr Flinkey made the darkest night clear, and, in addition, some of my very own delusions were laid bare.

****************
Dear DocFlinkey,

I come to you bereft, and in depsperate need of your aid.

I have a good friend who lives in the outback. The thing that has most sustained him through his life is his deep and abiding interest in sheep testes. In fact, he is an avid collector. I always respected him for having something in his life that he found fulfilling.

But now, I am concerned. In the past two years, his hitherto sensible hobby has become an obsession. He has been sourcing sheep testes from all over the world, and is getting a regular supply from several dealers on ebay. He even mortgaged his house so that he could buy more testicles.

Speaking of his house, the last time I was there, it was getting remarkably full of testes. The last time I spoke with him, he said that he was running out of space in the house, and had now taken to storing them in his car. That was months ago. Try as I might, I am unable to contact him.

My greatest fear is that he has either starved to death (having filled his car with testes, and being unable to drive to the nearest town for food), or has suffocated under a mound of testes.

I am most upset.

What do you advise?

Your concerned patient,
hognogger

Dr Flinkey:
Hmmm.

Let us work though this.

You friend has a hobby.

It makes his life fullfilling

You now see this as an obsession.

Whereas you spend 20 hours per day on a music website, dressed as a tortoise, telling a fake doctor about your troubles. (I will not mention the fact that you have a blow-up doll for a girlfriend and that you sing songs about her and upload them for others so that they may ridicule you.)

I concede that many of you questions are, on face value, directed at bettering the life of your friends.

However, there are underlying currents or themes in your questions. (Let's call them "cries for help.")

1. A self-perception that you are disfigured, mutilated or have bits of your body regularly falling off or hiding from you.

2. A firm belief that you and your "friends" cannot solve their own problems. As a result, you are consumed by irrational fears.

3. You hear otherwise inanimate objects moving around and talking to you.

4. You seek help from a cyber-doctor, with no qualifications, in the full knowledge that there isn't a sane solution in the offering at any stage.

5. You like the word "testes."



Lets face it.





You know the solution but you are too afraid to admit it.





You are...












in Frankston.

Hognogger: You think my friend is dead, don't you...?

Dr Flinkey:

It was my way of breaking it to you gently.

Instead of ramming it home.


(There you go - a little pun to lighten the load.!)

Hognogger:
Well, they held the funeral for my friend the other day; shortly after receiving your lovely words of consolation I received the call from the police.

It was a very sad occasion. The government official, the gravedigger and the 6 other corpses waiting to go into the the same plot, were very moved when I gave a brief eulogy and sprinkled some powdered sheep testes over his cardboard box as it was lowered into the ground.

Anyway, later that evening I returned to the gravesite, as I was a little concerned for my friend. He had been placed at the bottom of the plot, with 6 other corpses on top of him and only a cardboard box for protection. He had always been a man who valued his privacy, and I felt that the least I could do for him was to dig up the grave and reshuffle the contents so that he was on the top of the pile.

Can you imagine my surprise when, after shifting the soil, hefting the other 6 bodies away, and opening the shattered remnants of the cardboard box, my friend's corporeal remains were nowhere to be found, and in his place was........

A mound of sheep testes.

Shocked, I quickly piled the other 6 bodies back into the grave and covered them over.

What is going on????

Dr Flinkey:
The answer, as stated, is obvious.

Take the expression "you are what you eat" and work backwards from the contents of the cardboard box.

If you still don't have a clue, watch a rerun of some Chevy Chase "vacation" movies.

Hognogger:
Oh my...

The things I am seeing.

I now see things as I never have before.

I visited my dear friend's house the other day to see if he had returned home. My vision blurred momentarily, and the old images fell away. I was no longer in the outback, nor was I walking past the gate to the front door of my friend's house.

I was standing at the threshold of the State Museum of Sheep Gonads. There was a man standing beside me, and, seeing that I was disturbed, he gestured to a nearby car, and said he would "take me home".

We arrived, and he motioned me inside. But this was not my home as I remembered it... it was a hospital for the infirm of mind. He took me to my room. Naturally, I immediately went to the phone, in order to call you. But as I grasped it, I realised that what I had in my hand was not a phone, but an empty can of baked beans attached to piece of string. The piece of string stretched out before me, and disappeared, through a tiny hole in the wall, into the adjoining room. Gasping, I ran out of my room, and my eyes fixed on a name-plate. The name-plate was on the door of the adjoining room. The inscription read "Dr. F.K. Flinkenstein".

All my delusions were falling away... I was now seeing the world aright (no doubt, as a result of your ministrations over the years).

And the terrible truth struck me... My friend didn't collect testicles. He, himself, was a mound of sheep testes... an exhibit in the Gonad museum. Over the years of creeping delusion, I had anthropomorphised one particular exhibit at that museum until it seemed to me to be an old friend. I imagined that pile of gonads to be a fine and admirable collector of sheep testes, and constructed an elaborate back-story detailing our shared history... the day we met in the crutching yards, the beers together at the local, and so on...

When I told you that my delusional friend was in danger of dying, you collected the mound of testes from the museum, put them in a cardboard box, called me on the baked-bean-o-phone, while impersonating a policeman with a thick Slavic accent, and informed me that my dear friend had died. You then arranged a sham of a funeral, and secretly celebrated. For you knew that there was deep psychological significance in my coming to believe that my friend would die. The real death was the death of my delusionality.

I would like to thank you, dear doctor, for all that you have done for me, and for all that you will do for me as I continue towards recovery. I hope that I will continue to make good progress over the coming years, and will be fit to leave the ward some time prior to 2015.

Your most grateful patient,
hognogger

Dr Flinkey:
See, I told you it was obvious.

THE CAR WASH OF PURIFICATION

Dear DocFlinkey,

Unhappy at the trajectory my life was taking, I resolved to do something positive.

Pooling all the funds I had stolen from others, I bought a car wash business.

The first few weeks of operation were difficult, and it appeared that my car wash was not particularly adept at cleaning cars. A car would go in one end and come out the other scarcely any cleaner. Needless to say, business was hardly booming.

Then one day, a miracle occurred.

An obese drunkard staggered into the car wash. I tried to stop him, but it was too late. The man who emerged into the light on the other side was scarcely recognisable. He was thin, sober, and overjoyed! It seemed that the car wash had scrubbed away all those layers of blubber, and leached out all the toxins in his system. Naturally, I thought nothing much of this. However, two weeks later, the same man drove up in his flash new car with a hot young woman at his side, and thanked me profusely for changing his life.

"Haven't even wanted to eat any unhealthy food, or touch a drop of booze since!", he exclaimed. "And I won the lotto the next week!"

It was only then that my mind creaked into action. Several weeks later, I knew what I must do. I applied for a government development grant, and the car wash was reborn as a weight loss and detox facility. And they came; they came from the public bars, they came from the brothels, they came from McDonalds. And I cured them all of their various maladies and gross maladjustments.

Things were going so well! Today Tonight and A Current Affair started a bidding war over my story. People began to think well of me. And I was doing such good deeds that I began to think well of myself!

That was until a week ago. You see, the car wash does not minister to the obese, the drunk and the lecherous by means of magic. No, all of that filth, all of those toxins do not vanish into thin air. They collect inside the car wash, and the residue has to be cleaned out daily. I bought an old storehouse for this very purpose, and stored the waste in vats, lined row upon row.

One evening, I was carting the latest waste deposit to storage, when upon opening the door, I was met with a living horror. Some of the waste had escaped confinement and was coalescing into what can only be described as a grotesque parody of the human form. Before my eyes, an Ooze-Man was gathering, composed of all the filth, fat and scum that my car wash had excised from humanity. I put on a pair of rubber gloves and scooped up the ooze, returning it to the vats.

I went home, and gave the matter no further consideration. However, the next evening, as I opened the door of the storeroom to make the day's deposit, I discovered that some of the vats that ought to have been full, were empty. Some of the ooze had clearly escaped and managed to form itself into some unknown number of Ooze-Men, before exiting the premises.

The Ooze-Men are among us. Where, I do not know. But it does not bode well. Those creatures are composed of an evil mixture of human lard, frustrated carnal desires, alcohol, nicotine, and miscellaneous other drugs. I fear that they do not have kind intentions.

These Ooze-Men must be located, and soon, without causing a general disturbance among the populace. And so it is that I turn once again to you, Dear Doctor. How can their reign of terror be halted before it has begun?

Dr Flinkey : Vote Liberal.

Hognogger: Indeed, I did vote Liberal at the last election, on the understanding that they would halt all reigns of terror before they had even begun.

But the Ooze-Men are at large. This matter is now clearly too serious to be left in the hands of the Government.

Dr Flinkey: I advise you as follows.

1. Take the cast of Worlds Greatest Loser to the pub and get them smashed.

2. Place them on an open truck.

3. Drive the truck through the car wash.

4. When the former fat obnoxious drunks emerge as slim beautiful people, remove the slime from the car wash and place it in the storeroom.


What will happen is scary but effective. The slime will form into Super Oozemen who will hunt down the Oozemen and eat them.

Problem solved.

Hognogger: That is a masterful solution. There is only one small detail that concerns me.

What of the Super Ooze-Men after they have mopped up the Ooze-Men? Once the Ooze-Men have been eaten, the Super Ooze-Men, being composed only of the lard and alcohol from the World's Biggest Losers, will have only two governing purposes - to drink, and then, to eat.

They may never be satiated. Once they have drunk all of the alcohol in existence, they may eat the World...

Ah... forgive me. The pupil is slow.

Once the World is devoured, *all* problems will be solved.

You truly are the master.