This page last updated 19 February 2003

Con-Foundation

by Richard Schwartz (rex@kf6.so-net.ne.jp)
1980-ish

 

Co-Confoundation - It is unknown why Veri Seldom established a second, secret base on Planet R, commonly called Star's End* ... Presumably, the renowned cheapskate got the second one at a discount ... it is also possible that he had grave reservations about the success of the first one (cf. Hedging your bets) ...

* because that's what the word 'star' ends with.

The door to the Stereo Speaker's office flew open, and Apprentice Speaker Sor Genital barged in. "Stereo Speaker" he said, "the Seldom Plan is worthless!"

"Is it?" he replied. "Well then, the hell with it."

Author's Final Word
(End Word? Rear Word? What's the opposite of Foreword? Backward?Afterward?)

This parody was actually written well before the internet age. When I set out to post it on the net, I had to make some hard decisions about which dated jokes to leave in and which I should update so they would be dated fifteen years from now. In the end I removed most of the references to Menudo and pet rocks, but you'll notice I couldn't bear to part with the hilarious running gag about swine flu. I also left in the references to "hanging chads" and "pregnant chads" which seem eerily prophetic considering that I wrote it back when George W. Bush was drunk at the controls of National Guard jets and Al Gore was flying a typewriter in Viet Nam.

Actually, I wrote the original on an Apple IIe back in the mid- to late 80s. I reveal this mainly lest I be accused of plagiarizing some subsequent wit. My source of inspiration for this present work was, in addition to our fallen leader Asimov himself, the late great Doug Adams whose "Hitchhiker" series was then and still remains the pinnacle of sci-fi comedy to which all others can only aspire. Any similarities between his jokes and my own – I should say, anything that reads like I'm copying over his shoulder – is not only intentional and advertent, but I probably couldn't write it any other way if I tried. Everything else is original with me. If you notice (as I have) that some of the jokes have been used elsewhere since then, it only means that great minds think alike.

Send your petty, pusillanimous, anal retentive criticisms of minor points you don't have the capacity either to understand or appreciate to rex@kf6.so-net.ne.jp