Responsible Man

If it wasn't for Responsible Man, nothing would ever get done. Who is there to do it? If it weren't for him, the kids would never sleep, and the wife would never wake up. If he didn't prevent it, the kids would eat all the pastrami. That stuff's expensive! If he didn't put his foot down, the wife might pick up the kids after school, and they had never agreed to that. He will pick up the kids. She might forget or somehow do it badly.

Around the office, Responsible Man makes all the coffee. Others just make a mess, or some thin brown goop that tastes like sand. He also sorts the recycling. What would happen if a bottle remained in the can bin? Not to worry. It's been seen to.

He signals before he turns. He looks both ways before crossing. He brushes his teeth in every conceivable direction. There has never been a flaw in his various performances. He never gets tired of instructing. This is the way to do this. That is the way to do that. You there, in the corner, listen up! He would like to give gold stars to good listeners.

He is generous with his time. If the guy in Austria can't get the printer working, he'll be glad to harangue him about running the script. Did you run the script? I sent it to you. Did you get it? Did you run it? Why didn't you run it? Did it work? Why didn't you run the script?

He's taking care of business. Every day and every night. Responsible Man gets home in time to do everything for everyone there, before he gets back online to do everything for everyone there. He checks his emails often. He checks his voicemails often. He wishes there was something else he could check as well. He wishes he could read people's minds because then he could help them sooner. He could help them before they even know they need his help. But they will. Oh yes. They will.

People Who Are Always Against Something

You see them at every peace march. They have far too many bumper stickers on their cars. If they can't think of a new cause, they'll recycle an old one. Recycling is good for the environment, after all, and since there is nothing new under the sun, never mind.

How come they never report the good news from the war zones? Like, how many people did not get blown up that day.

Those people are always against something. It's either something big and important (Stop killing people, for Christ's sake!) or something small and trivial (how come P & H go together even though everybody knows that those two put together always makes the F sound, so what the heck?). And what is up with those H's anyway - they're often silent, and when they're not, they make no sense. Ha! How come we never protest this duplicity of the H?

Those people. They're even opposed to folks naming their babies whatever they want to! What is up with that? If someone wants to name their boy Pioneer, why not leave them alone? (even if those parents cannot even bring themselves to call him Pioneer, but always refer to him as Kiddo). And Pioneer is such a cute little baby! Who cares what his name is? It could be worse. It could be Ralph.

Those people who are always against something are now even taking a stand against people who are always against something!! Stop the Madness. Bring the troops home now. And while we're at it, no more of this P & H Togetherness. It's an abomination.

The Hobbits

They liked to be crammed together in the very smallest room. The more of them there are, and the tinier the room is, the happier they are. Even better if there are no windows. They are talking all the time, and try to never leave the room. When one goes out, the others talk even louder to make up for him. They know each and every detail about each other. Nothing can be hidden. Since they also control every little thing about the company, they know everything about everybody else as well.

You don't even know they exist, down there on the ground floor, behind the receptionist. You thought that was the shipping room. Cleverly disguised. The heart of operations beats concealed from prying eyes. Peel back the door, and there they are, like termites in a stump. They look up with beady glistening eyes. Fresh meat! A new guy. They tell you all about your password (it's not secure enough), your cubicle (don't get too cozy, we'll be moving you again soon), your bicycle in the basement (did you find that thing in a dumpster or what?).

Standing there and nodding, you get a glimpse behind the scenes. A moving map along the wall shows all activity, everybody everywhere and everything they do. It shifts and moves, a tapestry of life, in this case, GPS devices. They know exactly where you are.

It's superficial data, but they can mine and sort. They see tendencies, exceptions, unusual patterns in the night. A red spot twinkles on the wall. One notices, jots it down. Another winks and tells you they're on top of it, no worries. The noise is deafening, a clatter of keys and songs and voices, always voices., chattering.

Close the lid and walk away. Better not to think too much. Tomorrow they will still be there, and even when they tear the building down someday, they'll be the last ones out, clinging to the wreckage, scampering like roaches among the ruins and the bricks.

The ShapeShifter

You never know about this one. On any given day she could be anywhere from nowhere to all over the place. In the morning she slips through the cracks in the deck. By evening she's stuck in the chair. If the scale is dusty, she might not make it through the door, but if the scale is clean, you might not see her sneak out.

Take her to dinner, and it might be croutons and water or maybe it's pasta and beer. The ShapeShifter is never the same weight twice. You never can tell about her.

Better not question too closely. She could be touchy or not. She's either obsessed or couldn't care less. She veers from size to size without so much as a warning. At least she could give us a sign! Her friends would like to know what's up.

The ShapeShifter glides from program to program, from What Would Jenny Do, to Watch What You're Doing, to I Can Do This By Myself I Know I Can. It's vegetable medleys for dinner and lunch, and a crust of bread for breakfast.

She's beautiful big and beautiful small, she's beautiful in between. She never thinks so, though. She has pants for every occasion. She even has names for them. If it's summer it's time to get in shape. If it's winter, it's also the time. In the spring she has much to look forward to. In the fall she never looks back.

The ShapeShifter changes from morning to night, she fluctuates day after day. You smile and you nod and you say "why yes, dear", whenever she alludes to "the fact".

The Old New Guy

The Old New Guy is cautious. He's been The New Guy too many times before. Always getting stuck doing the dirty jobs. Always volunteering because he wants to make friends, fit in, get along. Not anymore. Let them do their own dirty jobs, he tells himself. He defeats the New Guy expectations. They want me to smile, but I won't. They think I'll be nice but I'm not.

The Old New Guy settles into his desk and surveys his surroundings. Which one of these people is going to be trouble, he asks himself. Usually the first friend you make is the one person no one else likes. That's why that person's so friendly to the new guy. The new guy doesn't know the history, he doesn't know better. If you don't watch out, that first one will be coming around every day and wasting your time.

They expect you to make the coffee, he reminds himself, so he announces that he's kicked that little habit. There, that'll do. They expect you to bring in some doughnuts, so he lets it slip out that he's been on a diet these days. No obligations. No welcoming lunches. The Old New Guy's sorry but has other plans that day and the next.

It's not like the end of the world if you don't get along right away. Give it time. Let it sort itself out. The Old New Guy sits back and watches, he finds out who's who and what's what. He overhears snippets of gossip. He monitors the [social] group emails. He hears who's the loudest, who's most annoying. He prefers the people who don't always smile, who don't need to know who he is right away. In meetings he volunteers nothing.

He'll ask a few questions, especially the boss and the one guy who seems the most threatened. Put fears to rest. Seem interested. Involved. Keep the head down, do the work, do it well. And then, when the situation is ripe - he'll give it a week, maybe two - and when no one expects it at all, he decides how he wants to fit in; and he does, like a lion among deer, on the prowl.

The Best Friend

He looks at you with sad eyes when he sees you talking with someone else. He is the one you love. He is the only one who loves you truly for who you are. No one else even knows the real you, so why are you talking to them? What do they have that he doesn't have?

Do you remember the time when he was there and only he? Don't you remember what he said and what he did? You laughed, and it was just the two of you. Those were the days.

There were no girls back then, remember? Girls wouldn't even look at us. They laughed at our names, our shirts, our shoes. Girls were bad and even now, that woman you married, do you really trust her? She doesn't know what you've been through, or who you've been, and what it took. She's only seen your wallet and your car.

That look he gets it drives you nuts. Leave me alone, you shout, for just one minute, will you? please? For heaven's sake. You remember all the times he tagged along, you couldn't get rid of him, always in the way, underfoot. You felt sorry for him. No parents at home who cared. No other friends. He helped you with your homework, helped you get a job one time.

That was long ago. This guy's gone nowhere. Look at you, you're on your way, you've got some irons in the fire. Things are going to change and soon, but this guy's got to go. Look at him sulk because you had the nerve to answer your bloody phone when it rang!

He steps aside, hangs back. The Best Friend knows but can't accept. You don't like him anymore. Those days are gone for good. Do you have to fucking move to another state? Christ! He shows up like an idiot dog, with his stupid grin, his dumb ideas, his worn out welcome - "yo yo Yo".

Yo fucking yo.

Goodbye.

Adrenaline Girl

Breathless, of course, but never in a hurry. Adrenaline Girl doesn't need to breathe. Her heartbeat generates enough oxygen on its own to power a small village. She wills her beamer over the mountains, and you'd better hang tight. Don't be squeamish or she'll drop you off the edge. No time for small talk. The Girl is on the move.

Give her a minute, she'll do a hundred things. Give her an hour and the sky's the limit. She never looks back. Adrenaline Girl powers past obstructions, obfuscations, concrete barriers, anything at all between where she is now and where she is now. And now. She's already there.

The Girl could hold a job but the job could not hold her. She's done so many different things, why bother with a resume? If you need to know, just ask. Have a need? Consider it done. She has already solved your problem before.

There is no detail too insignificant to be overlooked rapidly and forgotten. Adrenaline Girl does not require memory. She can process on the fly. She whips around the corner, and everything is new. She holds no grudges, burns no bridges, she doesn't even remember your name.

You can catch her in your rear-view mirror, but only for a moment. Then she's gone and you don't know which way she went. Time moves ahead. People come and go. Quickly. Always quickly. Don't stop now. Just go.

The Pre-Bereaver

The Pre-Bereaver is sad before it happens. He knows it will all end badly. He's seen this kind of thing before. He understands. One cannot be too careful.

No ounce of prevention can avert it. No pound of cure will relieve. These things happen. They are bound to.

The Pre-Bereaver has a special day each week he sets aside for mourning. It takes time to savor each loss, every failure, the end.

Do not ask what is the matter. It's nothing, really, he will say. He is never completely out of pain.

Large attempts are doomed. Small affairs are best put off. The time is not propitious.

He consults his little gray notebook. Every awful event is duly noted. He sighs. It was meant to be.

At the airport, his flight is delayed, then cancelled. He misses his train. The busses hardly ever run at this time of night. The car is in the shop. No wonder, then, he never arrives.

At the store, they just ran out. The special on the menu is nothing that he likes. He prefers crab. They only have salmon.

The clothes won't fit, and then they'll shrink, but it's just as well, because he would've looked terrible in them. He's never been photogenic.

You will know him when you see him. At the office party, he's the one in the corner, consulting his watch.

His wife will never leave him. He needs her too badly.

His sons never call. Their girlfriends don't know they have a father.

The greatest tragedy - he fell in love when he was very young, and since then, nothing else has ever come close. He adores his wife, and she is the only recipient of his smiles.

The Roundabout

The Roundabout sweats a lot, in every situation. He is unusually salty and moist. On winter days he wears both scarf and hat. In summer he wears suits. He is always the last to squeeze into the subway car, with much commotion and apology. Everyone makes way for The Roundabout and hopes he moves along so they're not stuck standing next to him.

You can tell by the look in his eye when he's about to launch. The Roundabout begins every conversation with exasperation. Several blinks of a countdown, and then the request. He wants to ask you a question, only one, and he promises it won't take more than a moment. He bursts into the office and is always in a hurry. You'll be glad when it's over, but it won't be unless you're lucky and something else comes up, because once he starts the Roundabout cannot be stopped.

He only wants to ask one question, but he will never ask that question. Too many other questions intervene. He has to back up and preface it and tell you why he needs to ask that question. This entails a story, which is long and involved and makes no sense whatsoever. At first you might have guessed what the question was going to be, but soon you give up trying. You have no idea.

Soon he switches tracks, then switches tracks again. He sweats some more as he realizes he's forgotten why he's pestering you. The story he's recounting is too complex. He gets lost and cannot find the way. He sits there in your office, sputtering, blustering, pretending that he's getting there. You of course have other work to do but you can't get around this obstacle, this blockage, this living exclamation point.

There will come a time when you deliberately don't invite him to some function, and he'll be sad. You'll wish you'd thought of it sooner, because after this he no longer appears at your door. He knows that you don't like him, and all those questions were merely pretexts for a visit. He had wanted to be your friend. He's sorry to have been such a bore. He has big sad eyes. You wish he'd look away.

The Sultan

I met him at a downtown business luncheon, featuring as guest speaker a famous United States Senator. We sat around a big table and moments after introducing himself (as Duncan McSomethingOrOther), he informed me that he had both a wife and a mistress and they all slept together in one big bed.

He was the manager of a discount bookstore, he said, and both his wife and his mistress were also on the payroll. Neither of them did any work whatsoever, he declared, and the owner of the store had no idea. None whatsoever. The owner of the store was actually sitting at the same table and still had no idea. He was rather out of touch, a shabby and disgraceful old man.

Duncan (his real name was Angus McSomethingOrOther, but he preferred Duncan - it seemed to have more status in his Scottish-fetish view of things) was a large fellow, blonde and bearded, jolly and verbose. In his early thirties, he had as yet made nothing of himself, nor did he care to, not as long as he had both a wife and a mistress, and they all slept together in the same big bed. Did I mention, he asked, that the wife is a blonde and the mistress is Chinese? He was extremely happy with himself.

I saw them all once, in the office, reading the sunday papers, playing footsie, doing absolutely no work, not that there was ever much work to be done in that place. The boring, useless sale books arrived only once a week on a truck, and only needed unpacking and piling on the tables. He, and they, all lived in a studio apartment which was just around the corner, very tidy and convenient.

Some weeks later I saw the wife again. This time she was loading up a van with suitcases and boxes. I asked if she needed any help. She just glared at me. I was someone who knew, someone who had seen. She was on her way back to Southern California. The mistress left the very next day, home to Seattle, I think it was. I never actually knew what had happened. I think I could guess.

Duncan was never the same after that. He even changed his name, back to plain old Angus McSomethingOrOther again. We never saw another female on his arm, let alone a pair. He was not so friendly anymore, not so jolly or verbose. He had had his time in the sun, and was fading away, rapidly. But to us, he was always the Sultan, and would always be, the infamous Sultan of Twat.

Name Disapproval Update

The Name Disapprover was left speechless on meeting a little boy named 'Pioneer'. What can you say? Perhaps it's not so bad, the Name Disapprover thinks. Maybe the boy's last name is even worse, something like Fairybottom, in which case 'Pioneer' seems mild. In any case, he shrugs, when he grows up he can always change it to Peter or Paul.

The Colonel

Never let a day go by without killing something.

The Colonel picks up his gun, and aims his sights at the dove perched up on the telephone wire, and yet, he does not shoot. He's merely adjusting the scope. Nearby, his big black dog roams around the deck, drooling. There''ll be ducks to fetch this weekend.

Someone is always messing with the Colonel. It might be the local government, which wants him to use those blue and green recycle bins. It might be the county, which forces him to fence his dog. It might be the feds, who demand all sorts of taxes and in return fund everything he hates - like health care for needy children,or worker safety, or public roads - those meddling bureaucrats. On his gate there's a sign that warns you - 'dangerous animal'.

He's got no use for roads. That's why he's got a truck, and children are always getting sick, and workers had better look out for themselves. He's got no use for anyone or anything. He's got guns.

One of these days those bumbling fools will realize he was right all along. In the meantime, it's every man for himself. His wife is even meaner than the dog. She's been known to run the neighbors off the road, just because they dare to walk there. A real man wouldn't jump out of the way.

Day after day, the two of them go off to work, and night after night, they come home. No one has ever yet seen them outside of their yard. Inside the house, the curtains stay closed. Nobody knows what goes on in there. No smoke comes out of the chimney in winter - don't they ever get cold? No windows are ever open in summer - don't they ever get hot? Next door there's a deserted old house. Whatever happened to those folks?

Inside the bunker it's quiet. Nobody ever visits. They've got no family or friends. The organization prefers that they remain available, and unattached. You never know when the need will arise, and when it does, they must be prepared. At a moment's notice, the Colonel will jump into action, and save the world. Or at least, he'll get to kill something.

The One Eyed Jack

If you are standing, or sitting, very still, preferably in a place where you are trapped and cannot leave, waiting in line perhaps, or waiting for a plane, or just waiting for something somewhere you wouldn't usually be, and you are not looking around, and you are not suspecting that anything will happen, and you only want to go away from wherever it is you are, and do anything other than whatever it is you are doing, and you sigh, very deeply, and feel sorry for yourself, he will come.

At first it will seem a welcome diversion. He is not too creepy at first. He is probably blonde, and everyone knows that blondes are less likely to be creepy. Somehow people sense these things. He may even have a mustache, but it's so faint you don't even notice it. Later you wonder if it was really there. His voice is soft, and he has a tricky smile. You think it's a smile. Later you wonder if it really was.

The topic of conversation is familiar. All about the waiting. He, too, was waiting for something somewhere he wouldn't usually be, and sighing and feeling sorry for himself, but misery loves company. He might even say that out loud. Before you know it, you have moved along to topics more of interest to him, such as himself, his life, his likes, dislikes, pet peeves and secret pleasures. Already you know too much about him. Already you wish you had done something other than whatever it was you did that made him think he could sidle up next to you and monopolize your attention and get in your face and start yammering away about all sorts of idiotic notions you had no idea real people actually had.

Such as. He has seen unidentified flying objects. He was in the Air Force stationed in Greece and therefore he knows some things he's not at liberty to divulge, and yet divulge he does. Unceasingly. There are secret weapons systems designed to suck the intestines out of cattle. He has seen too much. Republicans cause cancer, but you knew that, didn't you? Custodians of secret wisdom have passed down for generations the fact that Pope Urbane the Eleventh was yes indeed a woman. Ancient Babylonians invented jell-o. He is letting you in on things. He sizes you up to see if you can be trusted. You understand you are now not at liberty to divulge. Dire consequences. That sort of thing. He has seen even more than too much.

Time will lose its meaning. Eternity is something of which you now have first-hand knowledge. The weather may change and day turn into night, but nothing will ever erase the memory of the one eyed Jack, and the lifetime you spent being near him.

The Twin Hater

The Twin Hater has any number of phobias and allergies, all of which combine to make every day an adventure. She cannot walk down certain streets. She cannot ride on certain busses. She had better not cross the street from north to south until she has already crossed from west to east. If a man in a crowd has a brown hat, she had better go back the other way. If a woman is holding a child by the hand, she had better not look at the child. Anyone who has been in a coffee shop that day cannot be reasoned with. Anyone with tan boots on is just asking for an appointment with trouble.

Certain numbers cannot be seen or heard, or even written down. Eighty-eight is bad enough, but eighty-seven is just as bad, and only eighty-nine can bring relief. Most numbers involving an eight had better be avoided. A phone number containing an eight cannot be called. An address with same cannot be approached. She will wait at a bakery as long as it takes until a reasonable ticket number is available.

On the left hand side of the street, bad things are likely to happen. On the right hand side of the street, it's certainly sensible to take precautions. Last year several pedestrians were injured in the crosswalk. Fewer were injured when jaywalking. She knows which way is what.

The entire day must begin without events. The first half hour is crucial. The water is just so. The lather, again, just so. The hot tea not too hot. The weather not too cold. The stairway must be clear of any other people. She will wait her turn. The sidewalk can be damp, but there should be no puddles. She should not encounter more than two red lights in a row, but since she can control her pace to some extent, this usually doesn't happen. The tunnel should be noisy and polluted. A bus should roar through each direction. There can be no twins.

There can never be twins. Twins of any kind, but especially identical twins. Especially identical twins wearing the same outfit. Especially old lady identical twins wearing the same plaid outfits and newly coiffed hair. Any kind of twin is enough to ruin the day, but those twins, oh, those horrible twins. On seeing such twins, even if it's just a photo in a magazine ad, she must go home. She cannot work. She cannot shop. She must go home as quickly and directly as possible, and spend the rest of the day hiding under the sheets.

She can never go on vacation. There might be twins.

The Fat Bearded Know-It-All

He may not be fat, and he may not have a beard, but he sure does know it all. There is at least one of these in every group in every division in every high tech company, and probably in all other industries as well. The fat bearded know-it-all may not be in charge; in fact, he usually isn't. He may not be the highest paid, and he may not be the most respected, but he is usually the most listened to.

The most listened to, that is, in terms of absolute time. The fat bearded know-it-all typically dominates every discussion. If he doesn't begin it, he ends it, because it's quote orthogonal. If he doesn't end it, he continues it, to make sure his contribution is at least above eighty percent. If that doesn't resolve anything, he takes it "offline", and if he doesn't take it offline, he follows up with a raft of emails. The meeting is never allowed to "rat-hole", unless he is the rat, and it is his hole.

He is the first to arrive at the meeting. He is early, so he can take the best seat in the room - the "man seat". He has a host of biting comments prepared and marshalled for every occasion.

The fat bearded know-it-all has solutions before there are problems. He answers every question before it is posed. He anticipates and forestalls all objections. Did you know, he is a chess master, a tour de force cyclist, a video game master who by the way knows the words to every song by Steely Dan. Nothing escapes his attention. He is the man who would want to be king if it were possible in this day and age.

Let no one else have a say in the matter, and let the matter be closed. If he has done it, it is done. Perceived flaws in his work are merely flaws in your perception. That bug in the software? Purely by design. That question you asked is just the kind of question he never wants to hear again, from anyone. He makes it clear, for the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but all of it belongs to the fat, to the bearded, to the one who knows it all.

The Closeness Resistor

You may approach, but not too close. The Closeness Resistor has a force field around him at all times. He will literally jump in the air if you attempt to cross it, and then his hair will fling about in a wild attempt to cover his face so you can't discern his shock. Someone has broken into the circle.

The Closeness Resistor has, on one or two occasions in the distant past, allowed another to get near him, and has even permitted a touch, albeit just a fingertip, on the shoulder, for a moment. The Resistor pulls away, even takes a step back, when any other contact is threatened.

He cannot wait in line at the drug store - the people are too consolidated there. The supermarket is often accessible, as long as he has a big shopping cart which he can wedge between himself and the next in line. Many other places are simply forbidden; a stadium, for example, or a disco. There are a great number of problems associated with being the Closeness Resistor, technical difficulties, matters of strategy.

Fortunately, he lives in the modern world, where most everyone drives alone in their personal car, where the suburbs provide ample parking, where the huge generic stores are laid out in wide open hallways. It helps when walls and floors are white; this increases the sense of space if not the actuality.

He can eat exclusively on drive-thru, if me must. He can lock his doors and never open them. He can work at home from the comfort of his lazy-boy chair. He has no troubles talking with anyone. The telephone is very handy for that. He does not mind meeting people either, as long as he does not have to shake their hand. He will keep his distance, and maintain it, permanently.

At night, when he lays down to sleep, he rests assured knowing that for now, there is no danger that anyone will approach and attempt to touch him.

The Child Guider

The child-guider's child is very much like a tiny sailboat gliding on the shallow creek of life, requiring constant adjustments and corrections at every pebble, every twig, every bank and turn. "No", the child-guider says, "not this, but that." There is no obstacle that can be overcome by the child itself. There is no struggle that the child should experience for itself. There is no way but the child-guider way.

Should the child use his right-hand, it is better to develop the left. Should the child put one foot in front of the other, it had better be done in the proper sequence. The child should slide down the slide most correctly. Not this way, but that, the child-guider reminds.

The child is always wearing the wrong clothes, moving in the wrong direction, eating the wrong food, enjoying the wrong entertainment. Other parents are seemingly content to let their child make every mistake. This is not the child-guider way. Why make a mistake when the right way is so apparent?

The child-guider is not aware of the presence of others. His guidance is not for show. He does not need to prove his parent-worthiness. His concern is only for the child. This means there is no escape for the little one, no hope of even a momentary respite. The child is under continual supervision, and knows it.

The child-guider is always prepared with extra changes of clothes, bandaids, and bottles of water. He wears an emergency kit on his belt. The walkie-talkies he employs require only a range of several feet, for this is as far as the child is likely to get. The child-guider has modified the child's light-up shoes to light-up permanently on remote control. The child does not even need to jump up and down in the dark should the power go out. The child-guider has thought of everything.

The child-guider has found his magic, and regrets only that the child has to grow up so quickly. For this reason, the child-guider is often to be found residing in a large house with several children. Why not bestow his gift upon as many small ones as possible? The child-guider has contributed many an article on the subject to his local paper or bulletin board. The child-guider has also had much success in the art of training dogs.

The Fact Corrector

The Fact Corrector is allergic to mis-statements of fact. Poor thing, she cannot help herself. An erroneous utterance of a fact causes her to itch severely behind the ear, and she will need to scratch unless she can correct it first. This causes a great deal of trouble for the Fact Corrector, who takes to wearing earplugs whenever she is in public; otherwise, the itching would drive her insane.

If one place is 1.2 miles from another, then one should say so. "Between one and two miles" is sufficient, but "a few miles"? Incorrect! Misleading. Intolerable. How can one say 'turquoise' when the color is clearly 'teal'? Opinions are one thing, anyone can have one, but a fact is a fact is a fact.

1892, not 1896! 'Twelve eleven', not 'a quarter past the hour'! 0.8 inches of rain, not 'a trace'. People have become quite lazy nowadays. Precision used to have some value.

The Fact Corrector keeps all the right answers in her brain, behind and slightly to the right of her left eyebrow - you can see it working to retrieve them on required occasions. A slight twitch as the fact comes tumbling forward. Then the mouth begins to open. The Fact Corrector wishes she could stop, but she cannot. It is as if the facts themselves compel her.

The recipients of her corrections are as grateful as one might expect, which is to say not very. They thought they had left behind such experiences when they were children back at school. Hostile glances are exchanged. Eyes are rolled. The Fact Collector understands but she is at the mercy of a greater power.

The Fact Corrector lies awake at night, worrying that during the day she had made some trivial error, and so contributed to the rampant ignorance which is driving the world to destruction.

The Topic Changer

The Topic Changer must alter the course of every conversation on which he embarks. He is the steer-master, the mis-leader, the bad driver on the road of interaction. At work, people stop inviting him to meetings; they know he will only "take them offline" while still "online". He is the one who aims squarely at the 'rat-hole'.

He cannot answer a question directly, but he is always glad to answer another question entirely. Is it raining outside? It may be, but it's interesting to note that cats do not like to get wet. Is the president an idiot? Possibly, and did you know that hunting licenses are not required in Wyoming? Someone starts talking about a hamburger and before they know it they find themselves listening about glaciers.

The Topic Changer can take any topic, any topic at all, and change it to literally any other topic. Usually he proceeds by links of association, but sometimes he'll just jump directly to the unrelated matter without making any connections at all. Associations are also loosely defined. Rain to wet to cats. That's two moves, and you can see how he gets there, but hamburgers to glaciers occurs with no moves whatsoever.

His partner in discourse is hopelessly lost, and trapped. They want to yell 'hey, dammit, we were talking about hamburgers, not glaciers!' but know from experience that this would only serve to move the conversation from glaciers to something else as completely irrelevant and uninteresting, so they might as well stay with glaciers. This global warming problem is really serious. The heater in my apartment is broken, and my landlord is such a dick. His wife makes the best cream pies. Have you ever gone for a bike ride down along the canal?

The Name Disapprover

The Name Disapprover frowns at every new baby's name. There is something wrong with each and every one of them. Whenever he hears that someone is pregnant, he is immediately concerned that they will make a tragic mistake; the child's life will become pure hell due to the unthinkable name they bestow upon it.

There once was a girl named Misty Dawn. Is it any accident she became a stripper? What will become of Aska? How can you name a girl anything that begins with the sound "ass"? What were they thinking when they named the boy Trevor? Will he not suffer predictable traumas at the all boy's british prep school he is now destined to attend?

No, no, no, the Disapprover declares, you cannot invent a brand new name for the child! What will the other children think when they meet a boy named Linrod? Bisbee? And Montana is not a girl, it is a cold and desolate state! Oh, the shame of it all. The Name Disapprover is quite upset about the fates of these cruelly marked children. It does not occur to him that since all of their peers will also have stupid names, their own won't matter a bit.

The Disapprover lives in a Golden Era, when everyone was Bob or Bill or Jane or Sue. The Disapprover would be happiest if everyone was named after him.