Shalampax Speaks

Hey, peeps. The word in the halls is that Severedfinger is desperately seeking a new apartment. Apparently, the dust in his current place is now piled so high that he is having trouble squeezing through the constricted space between the top of the dust layers and the ceiling.

He’s also having a particular problem when he returns from the pub after finishing his mostly liquid meal. Climbing up the dust hill behind his door is rather difficult when he’s in the state he is usually in after his thrice-daily sessions at the pub.

Worst of all, he has no idea where his beloved TV is buried.

Someone suggested that Severedfinger should shovel the dust out of his place, but he replied that he doesn’t believe in dusting. He thinks it destroys the karma of a room.

Of course, because we strictly control the population of Shalampax so that the number of apartments is adequate and only adequate to accommodate the population, Severedfinger is going to have a hard time finding an apartment if his place is out of circulation.

Severed finger says that he is willing to room with someone else, but, because his hygiene habits are unacceptable even to Shalampaxians—and that’s saying a lot—I doubt anyone would be willing to take him in as a roommate.

Good luck, Severedfinger. I guess this proves that there is a limit to the validity of the old Shalampaxian saying, “Dust is a man’s (or a woman’s) best friend.”

Hey peeps, here’s a freakily weird story for you.

During one of our near-constant storms, a massive wave washed up on our shores, as they frequently do. A couple of hours later, the inclement weather subsided sufficiently for Pigsface to dash outside briefly to catch a bit of air.

(Just to be clear, in Shalampax, the term “inclement” refers to any weather that is just short of catastrophic, catastrophic, or beyond catastrophic. Weather that is any less calamitous than that is referred to as “pleasant.”)

During his brief stroll outside, Pigsface, a couch potato who is unemployed because Shalampax is oversupplied with couch potatoes, spotted a bottle. How it survived the storm is a mystery. Double-hulled steel ships are usually no match for the jagged rocks surrounding our island and our near-perpetual super-gale-force winds. But somehow, this bottle was intact.

The bottle was corked and well-sealed with something resembling wax, but much sturdier.

When Pigsface managed to remove the cork, he extracted and read a message that had been placed in the bottle.

Are you sitting down? The message was a printout of an email. We were able to trace the email address of the recipient. It’s someone in Oregon, USA. Guess what the email message was? It was spam sent by Spams R Us, Shalampax’s largest spam company.

Here’s the ironic part. Shalampaxians normally never receive spam. Almost all of the world’s spam originates in Shalampax and our spam companies don’t send spam to their fellow Shalampaxians. Publicly, they state that this is a courtesy granted to their countrymen and countrywomen.

In truth, that’s not it at all. Our spam companies assume that all Shalampaxians are cheap bastards and bitches who almost certainly would never buy any of the stuff promoted in spam unless the “buyer” could cheat the spam company out of the price of the item.

That’s what the spam companies thought. However, it turns out that they were wrong, at least in the case of one Shalampaxian. Pigsface is now the proud owner of a bottle of Spams R Us’ Macho Man Super Male-Enhancement Lotion.

Good luck with that, Pigsface.

Hi peeps. A couple of weeks ago I told you that, because she had lost so much weight that she could no longer serve as a role model for the rest of us to look up to and feel good about our own obesity and lack of fitness, Tuboflard would lose her job as Chief Medical Officer. Well, my prediction came true. She’s unemployed.

This is a major problem for her because it turns out that, not only were morbid obesity and a sedentary lifestyle her only qualifications for the Chief Medical Officer job, but they were also her only qualifications, period. Tuboflard can’t find another job, but she has herself and her triplets to feed, clothe and house. Her future looked bleak.

Fortunately, a solution appeared in the nick of time.

Not quite a week ago, Snotontable told you about Spams R Us’ new division, which offers a fully automated, unstaffed, “customer support” call center that other companies can employ on an outsourced basis. That business is already soaring, but, much to the surprise of Bloodynose, CEO of Spams R Us, there are still one or two companies that think there is an advantage to having people who customers can talk to when they call for support.

This sort of thinking baffles Bloodynose because he is certain that having staff actually deal with customers who need support decreases the productivity of the customer-support function to a ridiculously low level. Nonetheless, he hates to give up any business, so he wants to meet these companies’ insistence on having humans answer some of the calls that come into the call center.

That’s where Tuboflard comes in. Her triplets are now just over one year old and they are not yet talking. This makes them the perfect candidates to handle the phones in the call center. Because they can’t yet talk, they won’t be able to waste any time actually dealing with customers’ ridiculous problems, yet they will fulfill some companies’ demands to have humans answer the phones.

Problem solved. Or, rather, two problems solved. Bloodynose gets his customer support staff, without incurring a drain on customer support productivity. And Tuboflard gets some income coming into her household. It’s not often that things work out so well here in Shalampax. It’s surprisingly pleasant when they do.

I don’t know what will happen when Tuboflard’s kids learn to talk, but, for now, it’s the perfect solution for all concerned. Except, that is, maybe the customers who call into the customer support call center. But who cares about them? Why are they bothering anyone with there petty little product problems in the first place?

That’s all for now. Catch you on the flipside, peeps.

Hey, peeps. Are you sitting down? If not, you might want to do so before you read this because I’ve got news that will knock you off your feet. You wouldn’t want to hurt your ass when you fell, now would you?

Tuboflard, Chief Medical Officer at the Shalampax Medical Clinic — or I should say former Chief Medical Officer, but more on that later — has lost weight; a lot of weight. Whereas in the past her weight technically qualified her as a not so small building, she’s now packing only 180 pounds on that 5′ 8″ body of hers.

There’s still no chance that Tuboflard will be mistaken for anorexic, but, without having to stand too far back, most people’s peripheral vision is now more than adequate to take in the full width of her. In the past, most rooms in Shalampax weren’t big enough to allow people to stand far enough back for that.

I asked Tuboflard if she would be changing her name now that it no longer fits her, but she said, “No, my parents gave me the name before they knew I was going to qualify for nation status if I wanted it. The name didn’t fit then; it doesn’t fit now; I might as well keep it.”

I couldn’t quite follow her logic, but to each his or her own.

Of course, because she no longer has enough mass to significantly effect the tides, Tuboflard must vacate the Chief Medical Officer post. Her only qualification for the job was that, when we compared ourselves to her, she made the rest of us feel good about our obesity and lack of fitness. Now that she’s in better shape than most other Shalampaxians, she had to go; no doubt about it.

The Shalampax Medical Clinic is currently looking for a replacement for Tuboflard. If you are thinking of applying for the job, being a size that can be seen from space with the naked eye would be an obvious plus, but it would also be helpful if you chain-smoked and lived a perfectly sedentary lifestyle.

If that’s you, please apply quickly. The rest of us desperately need you to help boost our self-esteem. And I do mean hurry. You probably won’t be around long to fill — and I do mean fill — the position.

Hi peeps. I’m sorry about being negligent in publishing transcripts of the recordings of Openfly’s conversations with Marie. I haven’t been able to get anyone to pay to have the transcriptions done. I funded the first few out of my own pocket, but enough’s enough.

I convinced Openfly to pay for this transcription, but she didn’t commit to covering the cost of any more, so I can’t promise when I’ll be able to publish the next one.

In this conversation, Marie tells Openfly about her need to explain to Shalampaxians where babies come from. I must admit that it makes my parents’ generation of Shalampaxians look terribly stupid. And you know the old saying, the apple doesn’t fall from the tree.

The following is what Marie told Openfly:

“No offense, Openfly, but when I landed on your island, the people there were ignorant beyond belief. They didn’t have a clue about some things that pretty well every adult in the rest of the world considers to be the most basic of common knowledge.

“For example, they didn’t seem to realize that there was any relationship whatsoever between sex and having babies. In truth, because of their lack of anything I could make out as a language, I’m not sure what they thought about how babies are made, but sex apparently didn’t enter into their concept of the process.

“I’ve read on the Shalampax Web site that they thought that their god, Paahlm, placed babies in women’s bellies, but I’m pretty sure that belief was a more recent invention. I’m convinced that when I arrived they thought that a pregnancy was something that just happened like getting acne or having a bird poop on your forehead.

“I supposed I shouldn’t be surprised they didn’t make the connection between sex and babies. I don’t know if it’s still true today, but Shalampaxians back then screwed every chance they got. I thought I was sexually overactive, but they tired me out. Rabbits would be embarrassed about their frigidity compared to these people.

“Because they had sex constantly, but babies were created only occasionally, I can see how they might not notice a pattern.

“You would have thought with all of that unprotected sex going on, the Shalampax population would have exploded. But they hated the thought of taking care of children.

“They might not have seen the link between sex and babies, but they did realize that when a woman’s belly swelled she was going to have a baby. There wasn’t a lot of food around when I arrived, just raw fish and coconuts, so no one was getting fat. A woman’s swelled belly meant only one thing and they knew what that was.

“Because they despised taking care of babies, whenever a woman’s belly began to balloon out, she usually had the heaviest person she could find sit on her belly until the baby aborted. So, rather than being surprised that the population didn’t explode, I’m amazed that it didn’t die out entirely.

“The funny thing is that, if they had figured it out, Shalampaxians could have practiced the rhythm method of birth control with foolproof effectiveness and, from what I’ve read in Shalampax Speaks, they still can.

“As you know, Shalampaxian women’s vaginas turn bright red whenever they are ovulating. It’s the weirdest thing. I’d never heard of that trait before I got to Shalampax. I’ve done some research since and, among humans, it seems to be unique to Shalampaxians.

“I did eventually explain to Shalampaxians that babies result from sex, but that lesson wasn’t an easy one to teach because when I started to teach it the Shalampaxians hadn’t yet learned much English. I had to pantomime it.

“I made a circle with the thumb and forefinger of one hand, and then thrust my other hand’s forefinger in and out of the hole repeatedly. They quickly figured out what I was referring to with that gesture.

“The problem was pantomiming babies. I tried the traditional rocking of cradled arms. But they didn’t get it. Shalampaxians didn’t want to have anything to do with babies. Men never picked them up. Women picked up babies only to breast feed them. Other than that, babies were left on the ground, only to be grabbed when they might otherwise be blown away by the wind. And the adults weren’t even particularly conscientious about that.

“So the cradling in the arms charade meant nothing to them. I was only able to get my lesson across to them when a woman finally had a baby while I was there. With a baby on board, I could do my finger thrusts in the hole and then point to the baby. After I repeated that enough times they eventually got it.

“I’m sorry to say this Openfly, but when it came to babies—and a number of other things—your people were complete idiots.”

That’s it for now, peeps. Till next time.

Hey peeps, Openfly has now had her second set of two simultaneous cosmetic surgeries. As you’ll remember, last time she had a nose job and a tummy tuck. This time it was her lips and thighs.

She still requires considerable healing of her surgical bruises and scars, but, according to Openfly, “I’m already starting to see a little bit of symmetry in my body, which was totally lacking prior to the surgeries.” I don’t think she has a clue what the word symmetry means, but she seems to be happy with the results.

Openfly is also moving forward with getting her business going, as is required to qualify for a U.S. investor class visa and, after that, a green card. Openfly’s purchase of the land adjacent to Marie’s hippie-retro commune closed as planned. Crews are already demolishing the buildings that were on the property to make way for her New Age paraphernalia manufacturers’ outlet mall.

The previous owner’s use of the land was a surprise to Openfly, but she could have easily discovered that had she asked any of the residents of Marie’s hippie-retro commune—or done a more thorough inspection of the land and buildings before closing the deal.

All of the plants were gone when Openfly’s crew arrived on the site, but the crew found equipment leftover from a major marijuana grow-op. And the aroma in the buildings was unmistakable. It turns out that the previous owner of the property was the sole supplier of pot to the residents of the commune. Presumably he also sold his wares elsewhere, but that’s unclear.

Many of the retro-hippies asked Openfly to restart the operation so they wouldn’t have to go farther afield to get their pot supplies, but Openfly refused. Much to my surprise, Openfly has decided to live in America totally aboveboard and within the law. She even intends to pay all of her taxes! This just goes to prove that you can take the woman out of Shalampax and you can take Shalampax out of the woman. Go figure.

Between her surgeries and getting her business going, Openfly hasn’t had much time for anything else. As a result, she hasn’t been involved at all in the “reunion” of Marie and MadMadMargo. (Is it appropriate to call it a reunion considering that MadMadMargo was put up for adoption at such a young age that she couldn’t possibly remember Marie?)

Openfly’s unavailability is probably beside the point because Marie and  MadMadMargo had asked Openfly to respect their privacy. The upshot is, Openfly wasn’t able to tell me how MadMadMargo and Marie got along.

I’m very curious about how the reunion went and whether Marie and MadMadMargo plan to visit Shalampax. The only information we have about that is the very brief comment that MadMadMargo left on December 28^th, in which she said she’d tell us more in a day or two—I haven’t heard from her since. I hope she’s OK. With any luck, MadMadMargo is reading this and will drop us a note to fill us in.

Bye for now, peeps.