Good people, you are now reading at a licensed gun owner. That’s the truth—except for the license thing. I’m still studying for the exam.

And if you think having a gun doesn’t change your life, you should shoot yourself right now. Oh, that’s right—you don’t own a gun! No, my friends, gun ownership changes everything. Colors are brighter, things taste better, people are truly scared of you wherever you go. Sometimes I don’t even have to show them the gun, the bulge in the side of my jacket is enough to get me a front place in line.

Lest you think it’s pure fear that gets us gun owners the good life, it’s not. Respect. People respect gun owners, because they have taken the biggest step in self-defense that pansies and left-wingers don’t have the stomach for. But if the local police department’s riot force comes swooping on them down for the big martial law takeover, who do you think they’re going to call? Not Ghostbusters, ‘80s nostalgia fans.

I went gun shopping originally just so I could protect my life, my car, my house, and my wife, in that exact order, from my insane fascist neighbors, the Dickenses. I soon discovered that danger lurks everywhere, and only gun owners can see it all around us. With a little help from the gun store guy. Did you realize you could be walking down the street, minding your own business or participating in a foot race around the world, and someone can simply walk up and stick a knife in your face and demand all your money? And get this—if you give them all your money, they could still kill you anyway. There’s no law says they can’t. Well, that was all I needed to hear to be put in a proper paranoid frame of mind. I asked for—nay, demanded I get my gun right then.

Most gun owners have to wait about a week for a background check and all to go through, but the shop owner said he was giving away guns for every purchase of his special $900 bullets. I worked out the math and it turns out it’s about the same price as buying the guns and the bullets, and since it was a free gun, I didn’t even have to wait for the background check! Score: Rok Finger.

The gun owner tried to convince me a derringer would fit my own personal “style,” but did you know those things were the smallest in the store? What’s the point? Why even have a gun at all? Why not just go full-blown pussy and buy a taser or something? Not yours truly, nor me. No, good people, Rok Finger needs the kind of false security only provided by a long barrel .357 Magnum. Now who’s dangerous, invisible stalkers in the night? Me, that’s who.

Not that owning the IROC-Z of guns has been easy. I bought a holster for it, only to realize it doesn’t fit in the holster. So I stay up all night and, with Camembert’s help, refit the damned holster, only to find out I can’t walk properly with the gun in the holster—damn my otherwise perfect height! All that trouble of getting a long barrel gun and I had to saw it off in the end anyway. But I understand that makes it more illegal, which makes it more exciting.

I was also dismayed to find out you can’t reuse the bullets. I must’ve wasted about 79 shots before I realized that. I had been picking up all my bullets so I could recycle them—well, I never could get back those 8 shots I fired into that bus. Only then did I find out you have to buy new bullets every time you want to shoot something. Yeah, it’s kind of a rip-off.

And the best thing ever, now that I’m on the porch most of the night shooting at random animals, I don’t see my neighbors so much anymore. None of them, on any side. I suppose the Dickenses are inside their house, shades drawn, reevaluating their takeover of our block.

So sleep tight, neighborhood. Rok Finger’s on watch now.

At War With the Jonses
And those little miniature dwarf spies of theirs leave their riding instruments in the yard all day long. For quick and easy get away, should the FBI ever come in, guns blazing, to finally do their job. I’ve called them three times now and all I’ve gotten is a tap on my phone and a flower delivery van sitting outside my house. Where are those damned flowers anyway? They should have been here four days ago.

The Concert for New Orleans
Basically what it is, my celebrity friends and Alec Baldwin all got together and decided to play songs, read poems, and do all sorts of interesting crap for charity.

I’m Fresh Out of Haitian Cigarettes
But, alas, they’re all gone now. I’ve never been much of a smoker, really, even though I like to try new things and I always do what people on TV do. These are good, though, I smelled them at a party the first night I was in the country and knew I had to try them. Still, as I said, they’re gone now. I finished the last one two days ago and have been, how you might say, “jonesing” for a new one ever since.

To Hell With This Desk
What’s wrong with it? I’m glad you asked, using me as a proxy. Its drawers are too small, for one, and it only has one. So indeed the term “drawers” isn’t even inaccurate. Small drawer. And a bumpy surface… why, my own penmanship makes me vomit. I can’t stand to look at it. It’s all because of the desk, believe me.