I am tired of complicated things happening in my life. It means I am obliged to explain them in the next week’s Message, and that I must not forget them as any decent man in the final stages of advanced senility would.
I ended last week’s Message with the shocking words of Standish, who revealed that his Power-ball sweep-stakes ticket, which he had purchased during our terrible ordeal of poverty and exile, was worth $187 million. At first, I was heartened by his words, for Standish had been willing to sacrifice a good deal of his new fortune to secure my freedom from the evil kidnapper Black Scarlet and even helped organize his eventual capture.
But then it occurred to me: What business did Standish have being a millionaire, anyway? He’s my man-servant, not a plutocrat, for the love of Mike! Why, the Standish family has been under the Zweibel family’s employ and semi-ownership for more than 150 years. Standish’s grand-father, Standish, was my father’s valet, and his father, Standish, was my own valet until his death in 1937. In addition, generations of Standish-family women have been continually ravished by the Zweibel men, and many a bastard has been sired from these illicit unions. It disturbs the natural order of things for such a servile clan as the Standishes to possess such spectacular wealth. It would be tantamount to allowing the American people to own their own homes and automobiles. It just isn’t done.
This is not to say that T. Herman Zweibel is a tyrant who refuses to provide amenities for his legions of hirelings. For example, nothing says I have to actually pay my servants, but I none-the-less see to it that they receive a small monthly stipend. And I always make sure that the roofs of the servants’ huts are painstakingly rethatched every five years.
But I have a mind to challenge Standish for the ownership of the winnings. For one thing, I do not permit the servants to gamble, except on the cock-fight that is held in the court-yard every Zweibelmas Eve. More-over, he was still in my service when he and I sought asylum under the Burger-King, who later sent each of us away with $20, which Standish used in part to purchase the lottery ticket. There-fore, Standish’s money is essentially mine. I should put my best solicitor on this, post-haste.
And post-haste is right. Already, Standish is putting on airs and behaving in a way that is inappropriate for his station. This morning, he entered my bed-chamber wearing a uniform made entirely of fine porcelain. Disgraceful!
T. Herman Zweibel, the great grandson of Onion founder Friedrich Siegfried Zweibel, was born in 1868, became editor of The Onion at age 20, and persisted in various editorial posts until his launching into space in 2001. Zweibel’s name became synonymous with American business success in the 20th century. Many consider him the “Father Of American Journalism,” also the title of his well-known 1943 biography, written by Norman Rombauer.
