Mann Spectacles pick up old movies when the weather is about to change. The usual white streaks that flicker across the view disappear and you see vivid reruns of 1980's flicks. Like the one I saw where the hero came out of a bar called the Universal Joint. It pissed me off to see that bar. I thought I invented the Universal Joint idea.

It's like you can't have an original funny idea. You can't even think up a quadruple pun that some jerk director eight hundred years ago didn't already steal from you. It makes you wonder about brains; if maybe they are connected by quantum waves and controlled by a script God wrote a zillion years ago. We all get to rediscover creative ideas over and over again, each time believing that the thoughts are fresh and special, instead of stupid and dull and already done by some jerk director eight hundred years ago.

Maybe I should work as a nanoflush salesman instead of being a great novelist. There's too few really good nanoflush experts, and there's a great novelist on every other fucking corner holding up a sign "Will work for complements." Makes you want to puke, knowing there's nothing funny left to say.

Where was I? In Sumeria, right? Instead of in this soap smelling hospital with nurses who don't give a damn how horny you say you are. You can get down on your knees and make whimpering sounds, but it doesn't do any good. And if you hop out from the closet with your pants around your ankles, they just scream and throw syringes. Then the militia shows up with tranquilizer guns and industrial strength smelling salts.

It's okay, Tim, I'm okay. I just get agitated sometimes and forget why it's so damn important to be sane. You're not supposed to act like you feel.

So, anyway, in Sumeria, at college, this weather front came through; like one moment you are filled with hot joy in the afternoon, and then the front hits and it turns to cold rain and not enough light to be happy. You round a corner thinking this is a wonderful day and maybe it's okay to live forever as long as girls are going to be there, and you run smack into a parking ticket pinned to your camels ear.

It was from the school's attorney, Dr. Namtar. Evidently, parking spaces in Sumeria are sacred. Of all the places I could have parked Dallas, I had to pick the King's personal parking space. How was I supposed to know that parking places in Sumeria were sacred?

The letterhead on the top of the ticket said: "Ignorance of the law is no excuse."

There are no cars in Sumeria so it didn't seem fair that I should get a ticket. At the bottom it said that I owed the college "Ten thousand shekels for each ticket, a total of thirty thousand." That's when I noticed that there were three pieces of paper stapled together; three tickets! Ten thousand shekels each!

There was a list of my offenses: No respect for Holy Spaces; parking wherever you please; parking outside the lines; no regard for private property; no respect for authority; can't follow directions; no listening skills; taking the law into your own hands; failure to stay within the frameworks; unlicensed dromedary, taking a leak on the Sacred Pathways, no drivers license. Sign where it says "I did it."

No way. I'll burn in hell before I give in to injustice. I'm not giving up my signing bonus for something so stupid. You can't squeeze money from a home child. We orphans are broke.