THE CIRCLE OF PEOPLE WHOSE ELEVATOR STOPS ARE BEFORE MINE

Working on the 20th floor, there are a lot of these doomed souls. But wait! they cry, We can't help where we work any more than you can! While this is true, you could refrain from getting on the elevator when I'm using it, not to mention the time I waste waiting for you bastards to get done using it before the car finally wheezes its way up to me.

Listen, I'm not without sympathy. Some of you are smokers too, like you, Too Much Perfume, and you, Farty, and don't think I have forgotten you, Smokes So Impassively It's Kind Of Creepy. I understand that you probably meant me no trouble.

Unfortunately, this is my Hell, and I get to be all capricious and shit. You will spend eternity doing Theater 101 exercises. All righty! Get started playing Soundball. Then after about fifty years, I'll come back and teach you Mirror Exercises. Get to it!

Oh, and every now and then, harpies will rend your flesh. Later!

THE CIRCLE OF UNDERPERFORMING FANTASY BASEBALL PLAYERS

In the interest of being inclusive, I am defining "underperforming" as "for whatever reason, not living up to what Skot expected, no matter how ignorant his expectations, and consequently making him look stupid yet again in front of the other fantasy players." Yes, that includes the injured, Mr. Garret Anderson. I hear you. My back! My mystifyingly painful back that nobody can fix! I am deaf to your excuses. Take some laudanum. Threaten an osteopath. Rap a skull at midnight with an elf-bone. I need offense!

What's that, Mr. Barry Bonds? But nobody will pitch to me because I'm a freaky mutant who destroys baseballs! Tough. You should do what you have to do to get a hit, and if that means going out to the mound and beating it out of the fucking pitcher's hand while he stands there dumbly, you do it.

Do I hear indignant, haughty bleating? It can only be Mr. Derek Jeter! But I am not unlike Hermes when I run! And am I not a Dervish in the field? And like Narcissus, well . . . let's face it, I am fucking hot. You can't do this to me! Ah, but I can, Derek, and I will enjoy it, for you are such a tool. A really disappointing tool, like, say a keyhole saw. Who wants a keyhole saw? Nobody.

And that, Derek, is why your punishment will be worst of all. Mr. Anderson and Mr. Bonds will simply be forced to stare at photographs of Dick Cheney's lower teeth for all of eternity. Nothing but those horrible, gray little tombstones to keep them company while their minds slowly get eaten. But you! No, Derek, it will be far worse for you. You will simply spend every day, over and over into forever, losing your shortstop job to Alex Rodriguez. We'll be starting that soon.

Oh, I forgot. Gentlemen, periodically you will be visited by giant flying viruses that will flit into your ears, eat your eyes, and cause your innards to liquefy and then sluice out your anuses. Later!

THE CIRCLE OF ROADIES

I almost left roadies off the list, reasoning that it simply wasn't possible that these lurching vermin were actually human, but a scientist friend of mine showed me some illuminating MRIs and convinced me. Okay, they're human . . . after a fashion. But you can't tell me they're not hellbound.

Wait, dude, I hear the roadies cry--the ones who have dimly figured out what's going on--who's gonna unload these speakers? We have electrician's tape! Doesn't that count for anything? The roadies are weeping now, their greasy tears spilling onto their grimy t-shirts advertising bands nobody has ever heard of. It was all about the music, man!

Indeed. And so shall it forever be about music. Until the end of time, you will sit in a room smoking naught but girly menthol cigarettes, receiving no sweet blow-jobs, and will manufacture banjos. Then each night you will serenade the Hosts of Hell with soothing concertos by Philip Glass.

Whoops! Oh, and every now and then savage, fiery gorillas will pounce on you, eat your skin, and then shit foully into your mouths. Later!

THE CIRCLE OF EXPRESS LANE ABUSERS

Oh, dear. It wasn't enough that you dumped your basket full of SO MANY FUCKING THINGS in front of the express line cashier, was it? You know, the cashier who glared at you for failing to notice the 10 items or less sign? That one? You remember.

I know you remember, because that was the same time you took out your checkbook. In the express line. Now, I know that technically you're allowed to write a check . . . in the express line . . . but the point is, I hate you for writing a check in the express line, because it takes so fucking long, and have I mentioned that it's the express line? Denoting speed? So there you were, writing a check and then pausing to carefully note the purchase in your ledger and then calculating your remaining checking balance right there at the counter! Can't wait to get home to do that shit, because this is some strange Bizarro-store where receipts are routinely not given out! Surely you remember this.

I know you do, because it was right then, after you got done with your checkbook, as the cashier was handing you that mythical receipt, that you suddenly said, "Oh, and can I get five dollars in quarters?" Because you had suddenly noticed that this was a bank rather than a supermarket express lane. And not that you needed ten dollars in quarters! No! That would require the cashier to simply reach down and grab a roll. You needed five, requiring the cashier to count it all out. Now you must remember all this--I sure do--because when you got out your purse to get the five dollars, it was full of cash. I was right there; I saw! Which led me to wonder: Why the fuck were you writing a goddam check?

Oh, dear again. So many misdeeds. For your crimes, your vast amounts of self-absorption, I sentence you to an eternity of purest drear. You will only see the films of Sondra Locke and Ted McGinley. You will read only the novels of Piers Anthony and later Thomas Pynchon. You will listen only to smooth jazz and Metal Machine Music. You will smell only patchouli and Vick's Vap-o-Rub. And you will wonder how time, of which you once took little notice, ever got so long. That's when the mimes show up.

Oh, silly me. Almost forgot. Occasionally, you will be assailed by cactus demons who will shred your skin like fine lace, then roll your thrashing body around in kosher salt and cider vinegar.

Later!