Do you enjoy fun? I'm sure you do! And a large portion of what experts consider to be fun is composed of practical jokes, or in other words, doing horrible things to the people close to you in order to inflict permanent physical or psychological damage.

Everyone's familiar with the usual practical jokes: balancing a bucket full of water atop a slightly ajar door, leaving the top of the salt shaker unscrewed, planting a rabid wolverine under someone's pillow, etc. Those are all great and all, but you can only see a rabid forest creature ferociously maul your roommate so many times before it starts to become uninteresting.

So what to do when you're running low on ideas of how to scar everyone you know for life? Here's a suggestion: make them think they're going to die!

The following is an attempt to duplicate the letter that the great and omnipotent deity who owns us sends to us just before we die. For example, somebody would get this letter in the mail and then a piano falls on their head, or someone reads this in their e-mail and then proceeds to autoerotically asphyxiate.

If there is somebody you would like to see sniveling in their bed with their eyes wide open and clutching a wooden ruler like a bludgeon to fight off the grim reaper, then copy the following text and e-mail it to this person, or print it out and send it to them through non-internet e-mail without a return address.





To: ________________

From: All-knowing Divine Creator of Existence

Re: Your future status in this plane of existence



Now first let me say that you've been a great asset to the abstract concept of existence. You've done everything that we hoped you would do, and then some. We couldn't have asked for more from a complex life form.

You brought an energy to the human race that just wasn't there before you entered the world, and for that you need to be commended. However, we aren't here today to tell you how great you are and blow sunshine up your ass.

I don't think I need to tell you that this is a very bad economy. Companies all over the world are letting go of employees. You probably already know what this is about, but I should probably spell it out for you: Your services are no longer required on the planet Earth.

I know, I know; it's harsh. You're being fired from life. You've had better days, but don't get too down. This isn't your fault; it's just that existence is being downsized and you just happen to be one of the most unnecessary people in all of existence.

Now don't take it the wrong way. This does not at all mean that we don't value your years of production. You've produced enough carbon dioxide during your run to provide life to a small, sick tree for a small fraction of its life. And how could we forget all the waste you've produced? All that feces doesn't come cheap, no it doesn't, so don't think we don't appreciate that.

If we ever need someone to enter the human race, contribute nothing to the planet except crap and gas and do nothing except barely graduate from high school, spend a lifetime working at Kinko's and fall asleep on the couch while eating corn chips and watching Comedy Central every night, we'll give you a call. It might happen.

Who knows? We're always looking for new temps, and you might just be a perfect fit for us down the road, even though you clearly aren't a perfect fit for us at the current time. But there's always the possibility. What if there's a nuclear war in the future? We'll need somebody, anybody, to repopulate the human race after total Armageddon. And we happen to know that that's something you've always wanted to do.

And you can always use us as a reference in your search for another existence to exist in. If we ever get a call asking about you and what, if anything, you ever did to benefit and advance your race, we'll make sure to include that time in middle school when you beat 23 other 12-year-olds to win the remedial spelling bee, even though you cheated. We'll also make sure to leave out the vast majority of your accomplishments, because we really respect you.

Really. We do. We want you to find another great dimension you can exist in, just as long as it isn't this one.



Signed,

The Alpha and Omega