Quietness, in small drops

i am no longer interested in the machine. the machine is broken. fuck the machine. the machine has no regard for its own success, so the only thing you will get from trying to fix it is a nail through your soul every goddamn time. the machine doesn't need you. the machine needs you. the machine needs you to exist. the machine needs you to want to fix it. the machine will not let you fix it. the machine has been running on empty for so long that it has learned to depend on being empty. any attempt to fill the machine will result in time wasted and disappointment. the machine will not collapse. the machine needs to collapse to prove that it's time to fix the machine. the machine will not be fixed. the machine functions exactly as it is told and will not be fixed. the machine works the way it was designed to. we will never have a new machine. as long as there are lines of earnest people waiting to jump in and save the machine, we will always know which way to point when we mouth the word "Chump."

It's not like you mean to pee on your hand

Ralph managed to pull all of the old stuff off the shelf, so we have a fighting chance of keeping our contribution to this fiasco under wraps. So long as they don't think to go through the itemized receipts of every little old lady in this town from the last twelve years, we can safely play the dumb card for at least another week. This leaves our most pressing problems: A. Coordination of stories (and holy crap, we have NINE people to keep straight), B. Bribing the law (Fred's sister is back in town, so done and done), and C. Obfuscation of incriminating evidence. There's no way guys like us are going to be able to clean up the scene or dispose of anything without leaving nine or ten breadcrumb trails of stupidness back to this doorway, so we'll have to go with the "more is less" approach. From this point on, wash nothing, rinse nothing, and let the trash pile up like it's still November. The more red herrings we can scatter about, the more likely it is that the sherrif will do as he's done a hundred times before, dropping his hat on the ground behind his squad car and stamping it into the mud in frustrated resignation. Meanwhile, you and I will still be here, shrugging our shoulders and eating Ho-Hos. This is the good life.