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.

Hey peeps, I’ve got some earth-shattering gossip for you. Manexposinghimself, Shalampax’s Prime Minister, isn’t saying much about it publicly, but his friends tell me that he has come up with a foolproof plan for bringing about lasting world peace. And I’m not talking about only eliminating wars. Manexposinghimself’s plan would also end localized fighting among groups, one-on-one violence, and just bitchy, vociferous arguments as well.

If carried through to fruition, this infallible peace plan would absolutely guarantee that Manexposinghimself will be awarded next year’s Nobel Peace Prize. There wouldn’t even be a contest.

What is this plan that he has, so far, refused to discuss publicly? Details are starting to leak out.

A source I cannot name was at a soiree at Manexposinghimself’s home and overheard Manexpsoinghimself say, “Indolence is the answer. Lazy people don’t formulate battle plans. Lazy people don’t declare wars. Lazy people don’t join armies. Lazy people don’t murder. Lazy people don’t rape. Lazy people don’t fight. Lazy people don’t mug other people. And lazy people don’t commit burglaries.

“No. Lazy people watch television, but only if they can switch channels with a remote. Otherwise, they nap. In short, an idle world is a peaceful world. All I am saying is give sloth a chance.”

According to my source, Manexposinghimself’s roughly sketched out plan calls for him to begin a massive campaign to promote extreme indolence to all of the people of the world.

Of course, because of the arrest warrants sworn out against him in pretty well every other country, Manexposinghimself would have to mount his campaign from Shalampax. However, he figures that the Internet, coupled with television and radio broadcasts produced here, would be adequate to get the job done.

Think about it. No more war. In fact no more violence of any type. The Nobel Peace Prize would be Manexposinghimself’s for the asking.

Ironically, Manexposinghimself’s altruism might, in the end, cost him the Peace Prize. I’m told that, after he looked at his plan more closely, he realized that there was a serious flaw in it. His global slothfulness campaign would require considerable work on his part. Thus, he would be setting a bad example for the world.

The word I’m getting is that, rather than setting a bad example, he is seriously thinking of forgoing the Nobel Peace Prize. Instead, his current thinking is that he will stay home and watch television, with his remote control firmly in hand. In doing so, he’ll be a role model for the rest of the world. However, that’s not something that the Nobel committee is likely to notice. And that’s a shame.

I’m sure that all of my peeps reading this are well aware that Tuboflard, the Chief Medical Officer at the Shalampax Medical Clinic, is, to say the least, considerably less than enamored with her role as a mother of triplets. Thus, it will come as no surprise that Scurryingcockroach, a recent visitor to Tuboflards’ apartment, was shocked when she saw only two of the triplets playing in their baby litter box. The third infant was nowhere to be seen.

Scurryingcockroach feared the worst. (Or the best, depending on your point of view. Most Shalampaxians consider children to be a terrible bother.) Being still of child-bearing age, a panic set over Scurryingcockroach when she realized that, if Tuboflard had killed one of her infants, Scurryingcockroach herself might suffer the misfortune of being chosen to fill Shalampax’s population gap.

Without proof, Scurryingcockroach didn’t want to confront Tuboflard with serious allegations of evil behavior. However, Scurryingcockroach was eager to make those accusations, particularly in public, because her life is rather empty and she takes her entertainment wherever she can find it.

Excusing herself to go to the bathroom, Scurryingcockroach began a thorough search of Tuboflard’s apartment. If discovered during her hunt for the missing baby, Scurryingcockroach planned to say that she got lost on the way to the bathroom.

In retrospect, Scurryingcockroach needn’t have prepared an alibi. After getting up in the morning, Tuboflard usually immediately settles into a chair next to the well-stocked refrigerator that she installed in her living room. Tuboflard almost never leaves her perch until late in the evening, when she gets up to change her adult diaper and go to bed.

Consequently, there was little chance that Tuboflard would have gotten up from her chair. All she inferred from Scurryingcockroach’s lengthy absence was that Scurryingcockroach must have been suffering from diarrhea. Being Chief Medical Officer, Tuboflard knew that this was a common ailment in Shalampax due to the condition of the food in Shalampax’s grocery store and restaurants.

Not finding the third baby despite a thorough investigation, and knowing that no one else in Shalampax would consent to take care of any of the little brats, Scurryingcockroach confronted Tuboflard with allegations of wrongdoing. Tuboflard became alarmed because she knew that, if the baby was not found, Tuboflard might be charged with infanticide.

In Shalampax, infanticide is only a misdemeanor, but it is still a crime, so Tuboflard made the incredible effort of shifting her body so she could turn enough to scan the entire living room from her perch.

Tuboflard did not immediately spot her third child, but her motion was enough to solve the mystery. Scurryingcockroach saw that the missing child was not missing at all. Instead, she had been playing happily, but unnoticed underneath one of Tuboflard’s rolls of fat. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view), there was enough of an air pocket under there that the baby had no trouble breathing.

With great regret at having reason to do so, Scurryingcockroach apologized to Tuboflard for accusing her of wrongdoing. Scurryingcockroached then shuffled morosely off to her own apartment.