“That’s cool,” I said.  “But I’m taking the stapler with me.”

The tie emboldened me as I had hoped it would.

For some months I had been trying to get a new stapler for my department but found myself thwarted at every turn. The chain of command had to be followed precisely, and any deviance could end in termination.  First my department chair would be notified of the need.  He would take it to the chairs meeting.  From there it would move to the academic planning committee. After that, it went to the provost’s office, where a skeletal lady named Jain would veto it. 

The next day I bought a new stapler at an Office Max and walked into my office like a god.  I set it down before my office mates, and they marveled at its sleek design and high capacity staple track.

“That holds three normal clips!” ejaculated the boy from the technical processing area whose name had always escaped me.

“It does,” I said.  “And it’s ours.”

Then I went to the bathroom and peed directly on the bright pink urinal cake in the right-most urinal.  Over the course of the next month, I used that urinal exclusively and eroded three urinal cakes in the time it took the others to achieve half-life.  Jain sent a memo to our department imploring us not to urinate directly on the urinal cakes, as it caused them to dissipate prematurely.  I read the memo, walked into the bathroom and pissed a violent stream right onto the urinal cake’s dead heart. 

The next day I was called into the provost’s office.  Jain spun around in her chair to face me.  “I’ll get right to the point,” she said.  “You’re a troublemaker, and I don’t think you respect our institutional mission.  Can you give me a reason I should not fire you?”

I honestly could not.

“You’re fired,” she said.

“That’s cool,” I said.  “But I’m taking the stapler with me.”

———

REVIEWS

“Part action, part thriller, all comedy, The Librarian at the End of the World fires on all cylinders. Fans of Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace will revel in the ridiculousness that is Miller’s America.”

“A constantly surprising picaresque journey through cultural darkness”

“A most unique rollicking story that careens from the almost familiar instantly into a world of what is happening here?

“Not so much a novel as a perpetual- motion machine: part road-show, part parable, careening between surrealism and comedy”

“Laugh out loud rambling tale of the future/present”

“Prepare to be blown away”

“On the cutting edge of audacious literature”

“Takes madcap to a new level, blending Preston Sturges and Philip Dick”

“Outrageous and thought-provoking”

“Just blown away.”

“Fantastic and bizarre”

“Lovecraft turns Beatnik and drops acid”

“One of the absolutely most freakishly odd books I have ever read”

“It’s like E. L. James, Larry Flynt, and Hunter Thompson somehow merged their DNA”

“Even Carrie Fisher (yes, her vagina is in here) isn’t safe from this menace!”

“If you are looking for a completely unique book, this one is hot!”

“Funny and intelligent”

“Filled with hedonism, erotica and hilarity.”

“Only for strong and fearless readers.”

“Wild, trippy, fun, and sometimes profound”

“I found myself engaged, disconnected and overwhelmed all at the same time”

“No one would ever expect this”

“Imagine a world where Thin Man was co-written by Tim Leary and Douglas Adams and set in the Office staffed by assassins”

“Brilliant, raunchy, hilarious, heartfelt, and by the end, breathtaking”

 “Social satire at its best”

“In the end, this romp becomes something else. It becomes a work of art, moving and funny and memorable.”

Editor’s note: Technically it is her vulva, not her vagina.