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Dave Eggers' The Wild Things is available for preorder, in regular hardcover and
limited-edition fur-covered.
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Dear Federal Reserve: I'm a waitress at a diner off the Beltway, and I just want you to know that Mr. Greenspan is the worst tipper EVER! He's been coming to the diner for years and has never left a tip. Not one dime. Once I asked him about it, and you know what he told me? He said I should consider myself lucky that he never tipped. He said that if he did tip me, it could lead to inflationary pressure and that could upend the whole U.S. economy. Inflationary pressure my ass. - - - - To Whom It May Concern: I run the town dump outside of Pawtucky, Virginia, and as of late we've had this skinny old fellow visiting our dump. He usually drives up after dusk in his pick-up truck, parks alongside the fence, then sets up a folding chair and a cooler of beer in the truck's bed. He takes out his shotgun, gets drunk, and shoots bears. At first I didn't mind too much, as we do have ourselves a bear problem, but lately this fellow's coming every night. Yesterday, I had one of my boys crawl up real close to his truck. After the old man plugged a bear, all my boy heard was this eerie, hollow-sounding cackle. You know, like this: Heh heh heh, except real soft. Of course, you know by now that I suspect this fellow is your boy Greenspan. You might want to have someone talk to him, you think? - - - - To Sane Person at the Federal Reserve: I am writing this letter to let you know that Mr. Alan Greenspan is a total lunatic. I manage the Gap store in Georgetown, and just this morning Mr. Greenspan came in to buy a pair of plain khakis. The only problem was the pants had been on sale yesterday, but were not on sale today. Mr. Greenspan claimed that because he had been in important meetings all yesterday, he should get the sale price. I told him that was not store policy. Mr. Greenspan got really angry and asked me if I really thought store policy covered high-level meetings with the President of the United States. I told him I didn't care if he was meeting with the President of the United States, the sale was over, and so he had to pay full price. Well, Mr. Greenspan flew into a rage, punched our sock display, and vowed to raise interest rates so high that every retail store in America, including my Gap, would quote-unquote feel his rage and then have to close. With that, he stormed out of my store. Mr. Greenspan isn't really going to intentionally destabilize the economy so that I'll never again see a period of high growth and low inflation in my lifetime, is he? - - - - Dear Federal Reserve: I was at the D.C.-area Nordstrom last Tuesday when I had a little run-in with your Alan Greenspan. I was in the jewelry section, just about to try on a diamond necklace, when Alan Greenspan charged me from behind and tackled me to the ground. He climbed on top of me and started slugging me in the face. Lucky he's so old and weak or he might have really done some damage. While he was punching me, he asked me to repeat after him, "Say it wasn't a speculative bubble." Right away I knew what the mix-up was, and explained I hadn't said anything about a speculative bubble, but had in fact said, about the necklace I was trying on, "This is one spectacular bauble." You and your hearing impaired boss will be hearing from my attorney. - - - - To a Sagittarius at the Federal Reserve: Hi. I work at a certain well-known psychic hotline and I really need your help. Lately, I've had this older gentleman calling me, and although he tries to sound British, I can tell he's American. He's a Pisces, and instead of asking me his horoscope, he always wants me to predict what the Federal Reserve is going to do about interest rates. Without fail, whatever numbers I rattle off dictate what the Fed does the next day. I want to be upfront with you here, so I'm going to let you in on a little trade secret. Even though I work at a psychic hotline, I'm not really a true psychic. What I do is I just make the stuff up, you know, off the top of my head. It would be a big help to me if one of you guys just decided what the rate should be and told me what to say before he calls the next time. Okay?
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