And then, fortunately, a voice in Joan's head rambled off a list of either charitable or not uncharitable acts she could do and promised her, if you can do all these, then you will not have to kill your baby. One iota.

She'd found early on that suicide pills alternated with viagra every half hour, cancelled each other out because death and erections cancelled each other out, with the resultant state being somewhere between a very middling high and a very limp depression, which most normals referred to, unironically, as normalcy.

Anyway, it was normal enough so she could listen to programs that began: "the following hour of programming may not be suitable for all listeners -- if you are one of these listeners please fuck off rather than calling the FCC and complaining about how, ooooo, these buncha assholes on the radio just fucking said fuck off", and not give a shit either way.

She also didn't give a shit either way because she knew that the main work of man is to cover up his enduring tribality, even if it's through abject banality, and through pretense that there actually exists a self not being totally controlled by signals sent from central casting.

But this was all just either a footnote to or the very essence of her job description as a highly paid Washington lobbyist for the leading maker of doctor prescription pads. It was her job to make sure that doctor prescription writing was NEVER computerized, thereby NOT disturbing the delicate balance between her company's need to survive and the 100,000 people who needed to die each year from taking the wrong drug or dosage due to the illegible or confusing or simply misread handwriting of the prescribing physician.

"Recreational pecking orders," she told the audience, "can no longer be left to the recreators." And after the wild deafening applause and yelps finally died down, she continued, explaining how, "We need them now in the real world. Unwanted genes are piling up in each of us as we speak -- unnecessary genes, counterproductive genes, we are moving too fast for biology and its bastard handmaiden chemistry."

But before continuing on she looked down at her watch and noticed it was "the cocktail hour" -- time to get smashed on your ass in preparation for passing out drunk, sleeping, waking up, and starting all over again, fresh, the next day.

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