i had this great notion of making money and having fun at the same time. you see, if it is work, by definition it cannot be play. well, i beg to differ because i have solved that problem with a little smarts and industry. i have an insane friend who has a very strange ability of getting things that the general public does not on the whole have access to, like body bags. i mean the kind the county coroner uses when taking bodies for examination to the coroner's office or county morgue. he has, for a substantial price, provided me with an ample supply of yellow and black small-large sized body bags with zipper and all. oh he gave me 60 toe tags (official) also in the deal, of course the utmost quiet must be held in such matters and herman is just the man to do it, having worked as a young boy with hitler's experimenting surgical staff. he was too young to prosecute for trial. he was given a token sentence and sent back to his citizen uncle who had nothing to do with war crimes. herman remembers with relish the assistant's job he had cleaning up the experiments. especially the body parts he was given to dispose of any way his little devil's heart desired. some he would slowly burn, and remember and try to describe the smell in a little black notebook. others he could keep in preservative in jars indefinitely. he kept exacting notes on putrifaction of parts left out of doors, in sun and some in total shade, protected by fine wire mesh boxes he made to keep predators like mice away. he daily recorded the disintegration and dissolution of different body parts from eyes, teeth, ears, tongues, lips, scalps, fingers, toes, feet, hands, etc. and recorded with precision their decomposition or lack thereof. his notes and experiments were a kind of soothing catharsis for him, for he did not indulge insomuch as snuff or cigarettes, of course alcohol and opiates were hard to get and ultimately completely debilitating. so, we have a perfect helper and later, not long, assistant to my scheme of making money with little effort and wonderful yet evil relish. yes, you could call me a mass murderer or manic or crazed fool or megalomaniac. but i still have the money in the bank and you, sweet innocent you, citizen, pro-choicer, anti-war, peace without lifting the sword person, yes, you perfect law-abiding anti-union $100,000 dollar a year luxury loving person who hates criminals, scum, antisocials like myself and poor little herman the mad hatter so to speak, will go your merry way until i catch you in your own greedy trap, in your own greedy neighborhood, in front of your sweet smelling neighbors, looking on with smiles and goading you on, "what are you, a chicken, a foster farms product." and you fall for my scam completely unprepared for such evil. your neighbors were actually looking forward to my product sales display which i proclaimed with relish for weeks with neighborhood posters and fliers well in advance promising great rewards to the person or persons willing to help display and demonstrate my revolutionary cutting sound products. yes products that could cut most soft materials with nothing more than sound waves. not possible? come and see--- my posters would gladly proclaim! the day of the show finally came in the wealthy neighborhood near rocklin, CA. more people from the several blocks that i canvassed came to look at laugh or just from sheer boredom and i had well over fifteen adult males and two or three wives and children. i asked for a volunteer to get into my bodybag spread out just inside the sliding door of my long van. i painted it with my logo "the sound cutter" with phoney phone and cell numbers and equally bad web sie. i had a small battery powered bull horn and put on quite a carnival like show. my assistant was hiding under a blue tarp in the far rear of the long van. it surprised me, but the audience was somewhat taken back by the caution type display tape and bodybag of black fully unzipped, ready to receive its first prize victim. i had no trouble with volunteers for i gave one hundred dollars to the first man who would enter the bag and have it zipped shut. i showed him the air holes i had drilled for his breathing freely while waiting inside for my amazing demonstration. he got in and with a little help from his worried wife and some pep talking on my part and jeering from some heckler neighbors in the little gathering, zipped the bag fully closed. now i proceeded to pull out of my coat pocket a common dog whistle painted red and yellow, and told the people they would be unable to hear any noise because of the very high pitch this special device emitted and i let them know that i would only split the very bottom of the bodybag so as not to injure bob, my test dummie. of course i did not call him this out loud. i began to blow and blow and blow with all i had but nothing happened--- then with his little giggle, my assistant rudy, stepped out from the far back of the van with a fully loaded auto pistol and told 6 individuals to get in the van now and the victim in the bodybag would not get shot. i quickly stepped into the van and said to this "stranger," sir, i don't know how you got in here; but put down that weapon and let these people go. i will be glad to do anything you ask me. just let these others go free who ever you are and what ever you want! bang. the assistant shot me with his only blank in the chest and my fake blood bag sent blood everywhere. i fell towards the front of the passenger's seat moaning i've been mortally shot. "do whatever he says! he is deadly serious and i am killed!" at that the six designated neighbors got into the van in one big hurry and, when that occurred i jumped up, grabbed the sliding door and closed it. the gunman gave me the pistol and jumped into the driver's seat and took off fast. the little group was absolutely speechless and i calmly told them to place all their valuables in a shopping bag i handed them. the victim in the body bag was yelling like crazy to let him out, and i told him he was going to be dead meat if he didn't shut up. the rest of the gun was fully armed with the real thing and i demonstrated through the side of the van aiming high. they saw the light beam from the small hole and got the message. they did not want any holes--- at least not today, one smart mouth neighbor said with a phony, semi gutsy laugh. i began to laugh too, wildly shutting that foolish man up for good. i put another round in the bottom of the bodybag clear of the victim for good measure and that stopped my laughing rampage and apparently stopped any rebel like thinking in the white faced group. "let's sing!" i said and no body responded. "good" i said. "the first one who said a word or tried to sing would be the first to eat some of my lead bird seed and find it quite untasty. now sit down on your hands and keep your traps shut we are going for a ride to your bank, you in the blue shirt, your ATM card along with four others will do us justice along with the money roll of five grand that short fat egomaniac was carrying in his pocket. and oh, i forgot, take off your watches and rings and pass around the bag again. some of you don't hear so good i surmise. "think positive, i always say, and you watch what you can do and what comes along with always surprise you. life is full of surprises and not all of them bad. "let's hit the road, my friend, we have some ATMs and banks to make withdrawals forthwith--- that's old time language for pretty soon!" we managed to hit them all but one on account of one of the captives deliberately bent his badly, and i bent his fingers worse as a group lesson on kidnapping protocol. "drive sir," i said to "h" as i refer to him in habit. "we know where our destination lies now, just a while longer folks and you'll be home free as a spirit, believe me!" we drove out to the desert about 150 miles and the van residents did not so much as peep because of a persons broken fingers and constant moaning. yes, he used his ATM card with some pain. i only broke one hand badly. it didn't bleed much but turned pretty blue. we headed for fernly in nevada and pyramid lake indian reservation. very desolate indeed. the little drive i promised didn't pan out as you can see. we were half way to the black rock desert when we took our first bread by a dry creek wash. it was getting very cold and dark and time to start the digging party, i don't remember how many pits we dug, but it was more than sufficient in the soft sand of the creekbed 100 yards off the main 147 road or highway if you could call it that. twists and turns in the terrain hid us well. we spent about an hour and each victim had his or her body bag to get in and then zip up to keep the sand out of their faces. our rubber gloves were very uncomfortable but with the help of some of the victims "h" and i finished the shallow bodybag burial and got back to the van, no body was snooping around, only big rigs were flying by in the dark. as i got in on the drivers side and started the engine herman pulled his gun on me and asked me to get out. you see he was going to leave me holding the bag while he simply disappeared with the loot. so there i stood with 3 extra body bags blood on my clothes and and lots of foot prints leading the local nixon sheriff to pick me up because "h" called them on his cell phone. he had all the loot and the van, my van. end