According to commune answerbot Griswald Dreck, Hummus is made by grinding up live hummingbirds, a small, otherwise useless beast high in Vitamin E, and mixing the pasty remains with lemon juice. Hummingbird farmers were understandably thrilled by the news of the election, vowing to ramp up production by bulking up on their supplies of taser guns and pooper scoopers, the main tools of the trade used for catching hummingbirds.

Marketed in America under the name “Tasty Paste,” hummus is ranked as our nation’s 347th favorite snack food, just behind gum wrappers and candy cigarettes. A small subset of Americans are said to be enthralled by the exotic snack, daring the purchase it whenever the grocery store is entirely out of sour cream, guacamole and Frito dip.

The election’s results have brought renewed attention to the controversial practice of nations electing their favorite foods, a ploy that hasn’t seen the light of day since the United States’ own disastrous 1984 election, when Americans shocked their corporate overlords by electing pizza over presumed-winner hamburgers in a landslide, shaking the towers of power down to their very foundations.

The Palestinians, known as “Pallies” to friendly neighboring nations, have always shown a tendency to go against the grain, particularly when western interests are involved. From their preference for turbans over the more-profitable baseball cap, to their refusal to buy into the worldwide tanning bed craze, Palestinians seem to exist solely to disappoint American businesses hoping to peddle their wares overseas.

Observers await news from the White House on whether this week’s election is an invadable offense, or merely another reason to kick Arab people in the nuts behind the political scenes.

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One day, Ginger and I might have kids. She turns ghost white at the mention of it, and sobs uncontrollably, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. And I want these streets to be safe for them… little Rokina and Walter Payton II. If I can make the streets safer through a little violence and intimidation, all the better.

Of course, don’t expect the government to work with me on this, especially not at a local level. My first attempt to make the streets safer was thwarted by the police and fire departments, who immediately came over and moved all the heavy furniture away from my neighbors’ front and back doors. They wouldn’t even leave the boards covering the windows—“fire hazard” this and “illegal confinement” that. Cut crime off at the source, I say. But if that option wasn’t available to me, I had other ways to skin a cat. Oh, you can’t skin cats by the way. Police are practically domestic terrorists organizations, if you ask me.

The first thing you really need to do if you’re going to oppose crime, assuming you can’t acquire cool animal-like super powers, is a good intimidating costume. My wife, Ginger, came to my rescue with a fantastic military man outfit just in my size. As you realize, since children are not allowed in the military in this country, I cannot always find camouflaged fatigues in my size. Actually, if children were allowed in the military, I probably wouldn’t even have to be out there doing this. But as I said, Ginger made me this snappy Green Beret outfit, only the beret is actually red. She made it for the bedroom, but I say it’s good enough to wear outside. And you can see the fear creep into the teenagers’ faces when I stomp up and down the block looking like a smaller John Wayne.

Knowing the streets is the first step in protecting them. Actually, the costume thing is the first step. But knowing them is important as well. I patrol these streets three to four times a night, or five times, if the infomercials are too boring. It’s worked wonders, since I now know all the neighbors’ routines and which have very fast dogs that will chase you away from their houses, even if you’re wearing very stylish camouflaged fatigues. It’s required paying dues, since my house has been robbed three times this past week while I’ve been doing my patrols, but nothing is won without sacrifice. Except perhaps Powerball.

Come to think of it, I could reduce the likelihood of being burglarized and speed up my patrol times if I had a snazzy bike to do my patrols on. I could get it done in, like, three minutes flat. I’m that fast. And I have seen a fantastic bike just like my old one laying out on the neighbor’s lawn next door. It might just be time for me to confiscate a bike in the name of justice again. Until next time, fight the good fight, people.

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The closest scientists have come to explaining the need for sleep has been to document what happens when you don’t get any, subjecting some poor underpaid bastards to days of insanity-fertilizing sleeplessness. Rarely, if ever, has there been a more satisfying way to give money to people you strongly dislike.

After the first 24 hours without sleep, the average person retains most normal functionality, only with any asshole personality traits magnified by a factor of four. Normal people become assholes, assholes become giant assholes, and giant assholes are usually shot by research staff to prevent further incident.

After a second day of sleeplessness, motor skill coordination becomes impaired, which makes sleep-deprived Jai Alai one of the most entertaining sports to watch. Thinking becomes slower, and internal mathematical calculations are always off by five. Social skills erode further as well, causing most normal people to act like Gilbert Gottfried. Phone numbers and birthdays are nearly impossible to remember in this state, and anything softer than a dumpster full of broken glass begins to look like an appealing place to lie down for a nap.

Day three is best glossed over. Imagine a mental institution on “Free Cocaine Day,” add a wolverine that’s been soaked in gasoline and set on fire, and dub the whole thing poorly into Cantonese. Smart researchers usually schedule their days off to coincide with Day 3.

On day four, subjects seem to start acting normal again, only until researchers realize they have swapped personalities with each other, and underwear. Subjects in this state have a difficult time speaking in anything less than a full-throated scream, and most express a desire to learn square dancing. A spontaneous understanding of Japanese is often reported.

By the fifth day, complete bladder control is lost, and internal monologues are involuntarily spoken out loud, a hilarious fact that leads many scientists to subject their subjects to five days of sleeplessness even when two or three would have done the job for the research’s sake.

Day six is a nice break for the researchers, since everyone suddenly falls into a coma and dies. Reduced appetite is also reported.

Scientists didn’t understand the importance of sleep until the early 20th century, prior to which people only slept involuntarily, like when you doze off behind the wheel of a carriage and trample sixteen epileptic children while dreaming of pastry. This fact helps to explain the whole of history prior to the year 1900, from the horrors of colonization, to wars, numerous creative forms of public execution, and the widespread belief in Jesus. It also explains how people used to get so much done in a day; however this was something of a small consolation for the millennia of balls-out worldwide insanity.

A few native cultures have always understood the importance of proper sleep, as evidenced by their completely boring histories. Eskimos, Jamaicans and Canadians have long been distinguished by their lack of berserk rampages of bloodletting, a fact not coincidentally tied to their shared cultural heritage of long, restful nights of sleep.

What we do understand about sleep, however, does explain another popular question every third smartass who rides the elevator with Griswald Dreck feels the need to ask. This pertains to the oft-repeated but seldom understood notion that human beings only use 10% of our brains. What most people don’t understand is that this figure is an average. If you subtracted the small number of cogent individuals using large portions of their brains from the mix, the truth would be revealed that most people actually only use about 2% of their brains, which becomes even more frightening when you realize that it takes 1% of your brain to remember to breathe. The average person splits up the other lonely percentage point between the sections of the brain responsible for channel surfing, being hungry, and thinking Jeff Foxworthy is funny.

Incidentally, cows use up to 4% of their brains, and university research has shown cows can chew bubblegum and roller-skate at the same time. Food for thought.

So why do we use so little of our non-cow brains? Because they’re there? Funny answer. But in truth, the reason is that the rest of the brain’s vast potential is reserved for sexual fantasies and plotting out the upcoming night’s dreams, a very complex affair since it is exceedingly difficult to weave talking penguins, long-dead historical figures, and inappropriately sexualized elderly relatives into the same dream scene. This takes up most of the brain’s energy and is the reason everyone gets tired in the afternoon, that and eating four pounds of bacon for lunch.

So sleep shall remain a mystery, unless some berserk sleepless madman conquers the world tomorrow and decrees that we’re all living in a dream world we return from only during our sleeping hours. Then? Not so much a mystery, by decree of the king. As Roger Daltrey observed on The Who’s final album, “Who Cares?” in 1984:



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