XB-34712 was disappointed to hear the bell that signaled the end of recess. He was watching a car go down the highway far below the hill that the school stood on. The car waded easily through the crowd of horse and people-drawn buggies carrying goods and other people to and from the city. XB-34712 wondered who might be on it. Only mediarites and level 47-V bureaucrats, turquoise grade or higher, could drive cars. XB remembered his mother telling him about the speed of cars and how everything was shipped across the land by truck, at least the bulk goods, and how she once went from Chicago to New York in 16 hours. She showed him a picture of her car, the word “Explorer” on the back of it, and a blue oval with the word “Ford” in the middle. She told him how wonderful cars were, but they were taken away when Congress outlawed the use of gasoline by the general public. A lobbying group formed by actors and internet-based activists had convinced lawmakers that gasoline exhaust was poisoning the Earth and that the only way to keep humanity safe was to stop the use of automobiles. Congress tried shutting down the big automakers, Ford, GM, and all the Japanese plants in the US.

Then Japan threatened war. It had been building its military since the Taiwan occupation began. Once the Chinese nuked Taipei to end the rioting, Japan demanded the right to own a military again. Since then the JAF, or Japanese Automated Forces, had begun building bases throughout the South Pacific, and had the ability to threaten Hawaii and California. Congress buckled immediately, knowing the public would not tolerate casualties after the pullout of Baghdad and the seizure of Iraq by fundamentalist clerics leading a frenzied mob. So then cars were only made by Toyota, Suzuki, Nissan, etc. People complained and got GM and Ford opened back up. They couldn’t come back to speed very quickly though, and the lobbying group came right back before Congress. Finally a solution was reached; without gasoline, cars couldn’t run. Gasoline use was banned throughout the country. Ration tickets were issued for generators and other equipment for a few years, and finally it was banned for use by the general public. Gas could only be acquired by those who showed an absolute need, such as for large pieces of equipment run by corporations. Hydrogen powered cars came to the market, but all it took were a few explosions and several multi-billion dollar lawsuits and no car manufacturer dared to continue. GM and Ford shut down for good, and the Japanese took huge losses in closing their plants in the US.

Hence XB-34712′s amazement. He ran inside, knowing he was late. A buzzer went off as he ran into the class. “XB-34712: Late”. A ticket issued from the slot by the door. He knew it meant twenty minutes spent after school in “Remedial education”. Students were no longer given detention; that was deemed harmful to their self-esteem. Instead they watched videos about the greatness of the Bureaucrat and “The Grand Protectorate”, which watched over them all. Each video ended with the message, “Serve the Protectorate Well”. XB couldn’t understand those videos, what with the conflicting messages his parents gave him. XB took his seat.

“I have your projects graded, class. I must say I’m very pleased with the dioramas you constructed. They will be presented to a local level 34, fuschia-grade bureaucrat! Aren’t we excited?!” The class cheered. Except for XB. He couldn’t see what was so special about the bureaucrats. They kept issuing the same old messages: “Be calm. Be well. The Protectorate will provide.” They seemed like robots to him.

The teacher handed back grades on the assignment. XV-57496, sitting next to him, started crying when she saw hers. The paper read “ABOVE-AVERAGE” in big red ink. The student in front of her almost leaped when he read, “Excellent Job! Below average!” The teacher pulled both of them from their desks and put them in front of the class.

“Cease crying, XV-57496. I’ve told you time and time again to stop trying to be better. Haven’t I class?”

“Yes TH-83055.”

“XV-57496, explain yourself.”

“I wanted to do well! You said the assignment was to show the glory of the bureaucrats outlawing capitalism and seizing private money for the public good. Isn’t that something I should spend extra time on?”

“And ruin the average for your classmates?! How dare you think you are better than them! XQ-17569 knows better. He waits for the Protectorate to educate him to be better, along with the rest of his classmates. He knows that to be part of a whole, carefully moving towards progress, is better than trying to run ahead! Don’t you want the Protectorate to look out for you?!”

“Yes ma’am. I’m sorry. I’ll try to fit in with the class next time. I’ll wait for my education to improve, like everyone else.”

“Apology accepted, XV-57496. It is unfortunate that you had to be shamed in front of the class. Perhaps it was one of those pirate broadcasts that corrupted you; they will surely be processed by the bureaucrats.”

XB turned to his friend when she got back to her desk. “Why did you lie? XQ-17596 only got congratulated because he was lazy! Why keep yourself down?!”

XV-57496 hissed at him. “I’m sick of getting in trouble. This game is stupid! You and your stupid parents telling us to do well. All it does is get us yelled at! Your parents are stupid!”

TH looked up. “What was that? What did your parents say, XB-34712?”

“Nothing ma’am.” XB hoped she would forget about it. She was fairly clueless, which so far had let him and XV-57496 get away with achievement. But she would catch the two every once in a while, and XV-57496 seemed to bear the brunt of it. Probably because the rules were different for girls.

Note: This story will be continued. Further note: I stole the numbers instead of names concept from Ayn Rand.

So Germany was this big piece of land called “nothing” by the Romans because that’s all it was to them, a big hunk of nothing, no vineyards, hence no point. In truth they probably had some name for it, like, “pointless place full of trees” or something like that. Then Attila the Hun came from up there and smashed the Roman Empire, which was already in decline because of debauchery. I don’t really know what that means, but it probably means the Romans were de-bauching themselves, which sounds bad and/or gross. So the Germans put an end to that. Then nothing happened for a while in Germany. Again. Blah blah blah, they discovered feudalism as it swept Europe. Feudalism was great because everybody got to screw everybody beneath them, like a giant pyramid scheme, which is illegal, but fortunately for them there was no FBI back then to arrest them all for the stupid scheme.

So there was a king and some dukes and stuff like that, but they didn’t call them that in Germany. They called them Kaiser and Dukenebrattenwurst, which were stupid names which is why everyone continued to ignore Germany. Then the Germans discovered Lager, and quickly Catholic missionaries swept in to convert them all (and get some cool steins in the process). The Germans were happy for a while, because Catholicism is all about drinking and making babies, and who doesn’t like that? So then the Germans continued to make advancements in weight gain, such as pretzels, sausages, black forest cake, and more types of beer. Then this guy Martin Luther got pissed off that the Germans kept the Black Forest segregated from the other forests, and started posting some “theses” all over church doors. The pope got pissed cause he liked his black forest cakes, and so he excommunicated Martin Luther and hence Lutherism was born alongside the Tree Rights movement.

Then Germany was kinda segregated from everyone for a while, so they made nice with Russia. A German Princess, Katherine the Who-Gives-A-Shitunblotten became Katherine the Great, the best Czaress in Russian History. Then, once again, nothing happened for a while and the only point in visiting Germany was for the beer and pretzels. Then the turn of the century came, and this guy called Kaiser got all pissed off at the French over some stupid little thing and started a war. All of Europe was plunged into it and they flew around on little flimsy planes until Snoopy came along and kicked the Red Baron’s ass, who retired his air force comission to make frozen pizzas. The war was over and Germany was dragged through some dumb french hall full of mirrors and humiliated.

So the Germans were poor and pissed off for a while, and started to blame their problems on the Jews, because they couldn’t think of anything better to do. This escalated until 1939, when nothing happened. Really. Every German Citizen went on a vacation to merry-merry land and came back in 1945, aghast that some guy named Hitler had gone around killing Jews and invading countries. The Germans were really upset that all this happened, because EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM had NO KNOWLEDGE about this, nor could they have prevented it. They were in Poland the entire time, gorging themselves on punch and keilbase. So after every last German citizen woke up FROM THEIR COMA, they started reconstructing the country. Problem is, by that time, the Russians were involved, and everyone knows that the Russians are like the US Government, or theives: They take all your money and impose a bunch of stupid rules on you and tell you you should be ecstatic.

So one half of Germany got to live in a Socialist Paradise, where they were free from the need for food, water, shelter or jobs, cause everyone knows those “needs” are just capitalist pig lies. So the other half of Germany got lots of money from the US and France and England and started up all kinds of businesses. Then in 1991 George H.W. Bush, or George I was having lunch with Mikhail Gorbachev, or Captain Sunspot, and said, “Try some of this ale.” But Captain Sunspot of the Baldy patrol misheard Bush because Bush was eating a sandwhich, and thought he said, “Tear Down this Wall.” So he tore down the Berlin Wall and the German people were happy again, cause they realized that they really would prefer bread and water and all that other good stuff over the Socialist Paradise.

Today Germany is a place known for Pretzels, Sausages, Well-made cars, and of course, Beer. The End.

Anyway, the pornography industry continued in Japan until they discovered television, when they started making cartoons, called anime, which involved, again, impossibly sized women with unnatural hair colors. Thus was born cartoon porn. Anime also involved having a character hang in the air with lines streaming past them for about half an hour while screaming a battle cry before landing a punch. The Japanese subsisted on a diet of pornography and raw fish until they discovered karoake, their preferred form of music. Today the Japanese work 30 hours a day, though the actual work stops at 6 and they just run around the office dancing and drinking sake and screaming the japanese version of “whats up?” until they pass out, at which point janitors conduct them to sleeping tubes, from which they arise 2 hours later to begin the work day anew. The end. An interesting side note, in 1989, fearing that the world was doomed because of pollution, the Japanese converted their entire population into robots. Even the children. So today, be careful around a Japanese person, because they could short-circuit and kill you. But in truth, most of them are friendly people who will offer to help you become a robot as well.

Farmers blamed the loss on several factors. First of all, Mayor Chewobble has taxed them “too heavily”, and reportedly called them a bunch of kulaks, who “put their lives and the lives of their children before the economic success of the party.” In response, Mayor Chewobble has decided to exile half of the farming population to Woodget (that utter hellhole of a town) . When asked how we would solve the farming problem by getting rid of farmers, Mayor Chewobble exiled some reporters to Woodget. No one else asked any questions.

The farmers also blamed their losses on Martha Stewart, who apparently “waved her black magic over our small farms” and then sold stock. It is also interesting to note that Mr. Beeboozle sold just as much stock as Martha Stewart at the same time but no one pointed a finger at him. The Communist Farmers League responded that it is in no way “sexist”.

Finally, the farmers said that a rising population of blowpops in the fields have been harmful to the oobles, as blowpops are terrifying weeds that suck up all the water in the area.

One thing is for sure, not many households will be having ooble pie this Thanksgiving.

Meewop was asked to elaborate on possible motive in the Pillywop case. “Well, the problem was, none of us liked Pillywop, so I almost can’t say I blame Pillywip for killing him. I mean, what kind of a name is Pillywop anyway? It ends with “wop”. It’s pretty stupid.”

A reporter pointed out that Meewop’s name ended with “wop”, to which he replied, “No comment.” Pillywop was found murdered last tuesday in his bedroom, and Pillywip was the primary suspect as police said they suspected the two were lovers and that it was a crime of passion. Pillywip vehemently denied being a lover of Pillywop, saying, “I love eating fish. I swear. Sausage just ain’t my thing.” When asked to explain why he was talking about food in reference to a murder case, Pillywip replied, “It’s metaphors, don’t you get it-nevermind.”

For the past week, the town of Widgit has been living in fear, now they can rest easy. As long as you don’t have a stupid name, you will not be murdered-at least not in the town of Widgit. Also, reporting on the UFO sightings this past weekend, Sergeant Meewop said, “It was all swampgas, I’m telling you. Swampgas and monkeys who had been sent to outer space as part of an experiment. We aliens are not living among you and trying to eat your brains. Wait, I mean, those aliens are not living among you and trying to eat your brains. Yeah. Praise Zolnok. No, wait! I said…I like peanuts.”