I'm a Joe Mac myself—politically, I mean. Obanions have been voting the Joe Mac Party Ticket for more than a hundred years. Red is our color. There are even family legends that say an Obanion was with the first Joe Mac when he became President of that old unit the Euse of Aay.

We have to rely on legends, unfortunately, because the Joe Mac Party traditionally fed their rally bonfires with books, and when they won the election and took over the Euse of Aay they had a rally to end all rallies and somehow the Government Archives—books, you see, as well as punch cards and the like—got taken over by some very zealous Party men. The records were always rather incomplete after that. Only word of mouth information was available during that first Joe Mac Administration, and that can be sketchy. For example, the party color is red. All we know is that first Joe Macs had something to do with red. You see how it goes.

What I mean by all this, is that I can see the faults in my own Party. I'm no diehard. Nor am I a bad loser. The Subs won control of Congress by a landslide, so I guess the people wanted that sort of slipshod government. Only they should have been more careful, dammit, when they started tampering with the laws.

I'm not antispacegook, either. I have my framed Legal Eagle's Oath right over my desk and I live up to it. And if Congress sees fit to make any Tmm, Dccck, or Harry a citizen of our great Commonwealth—I account it my duty to see to it that they are not denied the benefits of our Terrestrial divorce laws.

But sometimes it can be very trying.

The new Sub Administration and their rash repeal of Joe Mac laws has had the effect of putting reverse English on the Obanion credo.

Always remember you live in a community property state....

That wonderful phrase that encompasses so many great truths—that ringing statement that has made me rich and kept me a bachelor—now means something else. Confusion. Work. Yes, and even spacegook depravity.


I should go back and pick up the story at the beginning before I get too upset.