[Editor's note: The following material originally appeared in "The MT Void", the club notice of the Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society and is reprinted with permission. Mark's Remarks Copyright © 1989 Mark R. Leeper. These short bits originally appeared in the following issues: Volume 5, Number 50; Volume 6, Number 1; Volume 6, Number 4; and Volume 6, Number 36 respectively]
There is a nasty rumor going around that a number of our members are, in fact, dead. AT&T has discovered that the dead are not covered by affirmative action and in fact has been discriminating against the dead on a salary basis for years. It is their contention that You just do not get a good day's work out of a corpse and that, on the whole, the living give you a much better day of work. (Actually a Mr. B. Samedi was the lone dissenting Opinion in this regard.)
Now, I have nothing against dead members and rarely will you catch me speaking ill of them, but r want to get some data to give these people to prove that at least 70% of our members, by my estimate, are in fact living.
[Editor's Note: Mark then gives instructions about completing an attached renewal form.]
It is a funny thing. I keep getting the same comment on the renewal forms. People say I cannot attend the meetings, but I like to receive the notice." It is as if we sit there at the meetings and say "Where is Fred Apfel? He has been getting the notice for six months and hasn't shown up to discuss a book yet."
The sad fact is that of about 190 members we get about seven or eight to meetings. The rest we say nasty things about at the meetings, but don't expect that they will ever show up to defend themselves against the outright character assassination.
Our next Middletown meeting is going to be a little different. (well, same doesn't seem to be doing us much good!) Till now we have been meeting in conference rooms with most of the attendees bringing their lunch. The problem was that brought lunches are limited to what you can bring in a paper bag. we of the science fiction club know that the proper use of paper is to print science fiction on, not to wrap food in. So next meeting we will eat in the Middletown cafeteria itself. took for us near the windows toward the center.
In any case it should be easy enough to find us. Usually when Evelyn eats, it attracts some attention from the nearby tables. I am used to seeing Evelyn eat so it doesn't seem all that strange to me, but we often get people at other tables staring when they forget to be polite and this close to the window we may also get a dog or two coming to watch Evelyn eat and to howl.
Let me tell you something that happened a couple of years back. In all marriages there are fights and Evelyn and I were having a particularly nasty one. (To those who know Evelyn and me I need hardly add that she was 100 % wrong, but that doesn't matter here.) About 10 in the evening we just couldn't stand the sight of each other. I went into the bedroom, grabbed her pillow, and marched into the den with it.
"Take it," I snarled.
She just glared at me, thinking that things were worse than she thought if I was ordering her to sleep in the den. Things had never been anywhere near that bad.
"Take it!" I told her again. She did.
"Now hit me with it as hard as you can." Her frown turned into an impish half-smile as she swung it and hit me.
"Harder!" I ordered.
She caught me one that knocked me back an inch or two, clearly enjoying herself. I knew she couldn't hurt me with a pillow. I was better off; she was enjoying herself. End of argument.
This message is brought to you in the hopes that the United States has begun a long and successful Olympic losing streak. There are all kinds of ways to hand other people pillows.