If you agree with my views, then congratulate yourself: you're an A-student; you're totally clued in.

If you don't agree initially, but if I think I can bring you around with my clever arguments, then there's hope for you yet.  With my help you'll find your way out of that maze.

If you don't agree with me at all and are never likely to, well, you can just go to hell.  It's not worth even bothering with you.

So what's it going to be?"

A few days later, as the Fates would have it, another client said 'there's more than one way to skin a cat'.  Again, whose cat are we talking about here?

I looked around and found that cats are really persecuted by heaps of cruel sayings and phrases:

1. Why do they say that someone running very fast is moving 'like a scalded cat'?  Who threw that boiling water or flaming oil on that cat in the first place... and why?!

2. When they say something's so funny, 'it's enough to make a cat laugh', aren't they implying that cats have a poorly developed--or even retarded--sense of humor?

3. What about 'letting the cat out of the bag'?  Who put it in there in the first place... and why?!  Did anyone you know bother to call the Humane Society?  Probably not.

4. And, finally, if they don't make strings for musical instruments out of *cat's* gut, why do they call it catgut?  Why not be honest?  Why not call it ' stretched-out-and-dried sheep intestines, horse innards, or ass tripe'?  Yeah, now I can hear you saying, 'What?!  I was listening to music played on those horrible things?  How icky!'  But, be honest, why was it 'okay' when you thought you were hearing tunes arising from the desiccated bowels of cats?

There are, sadly, many more such examples of the linguistic violation of the feline nation, but I haven't the heart to enumerate them all.  Please, please, let's all just stop it right now!"

What is a famous brand of chewing tobacco?
A. Black Man                        B. White Man
C. Yellow Man                      D. Red Man

So, knowing the answer, I savored the moment.  I Asked the People.  99% said 'D'.

When Rejuice said 'Are you absolutely sure you want to trust the audience?', I said, 'You're right.  Let's Phone Home.'   Binny Jean, one of my second cousins once removed, answered the phone.  She also said the answer was 'D' and that she should know because she was the one who had to kiss Elmore Trotter every day for thirty years before he succumbed to mouth cancer.

Let me be honest, folks.  I'm a smoker (Kool) and not a chewer.  But I sell tobacco and tobacco-related products in my hardware store.  And I knew all along the answer was D.  So you can imagine my shock and horror when I used my Fifty/Fifty and the two remaining answers on the board were B and C!

I complained to Rejuice.  I said, 'Where's D gone?  The answer is D. Red Man!'

Rejuice told me to pick between B and C.  Now, folks, there ain't no way that White Man or Yellow Man is the name of a chewing tobacco.  Clearly Rejuice, or at least the people who write up the questions, were wrong.  (I didn't want to say it at the time, but I think it's highly likely that Rejuice isn't even really an American citizen, although he tries to make you think he is.  This would go a long way to explaining his obvious ignorance of American chewing tobacco brands.)

But no matter what I said to complain, they just kept repeating, 'the decision of the judges is final' and I lost a lot of money.  And so here I am, bringing my complaint before you good people of SATA.  If anyone here can help me get my rightful winnings off that Rejuice fellow, I'll give them $10,000."

I mean, where's the pathos in that?  At least they could have told my beloved wife that I'd met an heroic end on the battlefield or in some sort of state-sponsored group-sex experiment gone terribly wrong."