Renewing the red THE AMIABLE Idiot piek- ed up the Reader's Divestin his dactor's affice. Ho was better than (hinking about urine samples. The magazine was remarkably fresh fora doctor's office, almost ats new as the furniture The instant his eye fel! on its cover display, the Amiable [diot Knew he had discovered a classic, Ui was like chatneing upon che first pressing of an original Caruso 78 record, It was like fins ding a black pearl ina can of Snow's New Enulind Clam Chowder. He stole the magazine and took it home to show his wile. “A classic,’ he shouted, fling- ing wide the door and knocking over the mop and pail she had rarelessly placed behind it. “Behold, heart of my heart, a classic Reader's Digest story, one thar deserves 10 be sealed in a time cupsule for opening 500 years from now, at which time there will still be a Reader's Digest printing the same type of article.” “Pick up the squeegee and mop up the water,”’ she said. Classic beauty appealed to her Jeast when she was cleaning house. “Here itis, emblazoned in hammer and sickle scarlet on the front cover, Hearken to the words. ‘CASTRO, COCAINE AND THE A-BOMB.° “f didn't bother to read the story all the way through but the main theme is that Castro is sell- ing cocaine to get money to build the atomic bomb with which he is going to conquer the United States of America."’ “Tf you haven't read it all, how do you know everything it says?”’ ‘Because every classic Reader's Digest story says the same thing. The Bolsheviks are at our gates and we wot not of our peri}."’ She removed the Reader's Digest from his hands and put the mop handle there instead. “Mop. Then squeeze into the bucket. Then do it again. Then do it again and again.” “A classic,’’ he cried again. ‘‘It ranks with the great traditional Digest story ‘How | Wrestled a Grizzly Bear for the FBI and Found God.’ “Consider, dear Jalapeno Lady, the vision ef these editors. The Soviet Frapire has disappeared and all the commissars have con- verted to capitalism and are selling bagels at sidewalk stands in Moscow and Irkutsk. “Every nation in Eastern Europe has abandoned Godless communism and is pursuing Godless self-interest. “The entire Bolshevik conspir- acy has disappeared as though it had never existed. Yet here on this continent the Reader's Digest ed- itors expose to us the horrid truth that we must soldier on against the Red Horde yet. ‘We have Mr. Castro and his band of sugar-cane cutters who are sapping our moral fibre by dealing drugs in the high schools and threatening every city in the United States and Canada with nuclear winter." Sensing her gelid eye upon him, he began mopping, something he has never been spectacularly good at. 4 a ieee ad Paul St. Pierre PA His wife opened the magazine and began (o read. He circled to her rear, where she was less able to strike, and peeped aver her shoulder, She was not reading about Cuba conquering the U.S.A, As so often, she showed no ap- preciation of fine old things. Had he carried home an original Adirondack arrowback chair in mint condition she would have complained that it didn't match anything they had. “Here is something more inter- esting than politics,’* she said. ‘Ht explains why we call a mile a mile.” “We don’t call ita mile. We call it one point six kilometres.” “Do be quiet!” He wasn’t, (are e apan 5 Bes weet ES SsCare “re, sameot is saa miles were better ahd thant of Casal faut sobitvel as te vO Metre fess Christ would hase biatd 1 diet ples Iyanorinas Hina, ais as sere the case in thir hotise, she reads “Sr ancient Rome there wis a unit of hind measure called mille passuim, a thousand paces. Since one piece was considered to be five feet. the nuillia, as thes started called i, was $000 feet.” “Preposteraus, © he cried We fanow tora bier Ghat the ancient Romans were tiny litde guys, practically allot them under five-footfive. No Roman had a stride of five feet. Must of them couldn't even dump that far when seared." “Tt says so right here in your classic Reader's Digest.” Further,” he continued, a thousand five-foot broad jumps still adds up onfy to 5,000 feet. A mile is $,280."" “That's explained also, The British used the furlong, which was 625 feet, and thea they changed it to 660 feet and that is why there are 5,280 Roman paces in an English mile.” “U's crypto-comnuinisin, "he shouted, ‘There's a Bolshevik mole working within the Reader's Digest.” But he was just ploughing the ocean. 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