This page last updated 19 February 2003

Con-Foundation

by Richard Schwartz (rex@kf6.so-net.ne.jp)
1980-ish

 

Boar - 1. A large land mammal, featuring tusks, a snout and stiff wire-like bristles over much of its body ...

2. Probably the most exceptional individual in the history of the galaxy, for no other reason than ... just when ...

"Are you frightened, Beta?"

"No, dear. I have faith in you at the controls." Despite her assuring tone, her white-knuckle grip would have betrayed to the astute (at least, more astute than he was) that Beta was somewhat uncomfortable at the prospect of her new husband Torah bringing the ship in for a landing. True, she loved him, she had married him, she had left her cushy existence on Terminex to be with him, but she knew what kind of pilot he was, and she could actually see some advantages to burning in freefall. But she just smiled placidly and kept quiet, because it wouldn’t be ladylike to mention it.

"Pretty fancy piece of flying, huh?" announced Torah a few minutes later. "If that weather satellite hadn't jumped in our path I would hardly have hit anything." Beta just grinned weakly and peeled herself from her seat. Torah couldn't get over how lucky he was. Married to the prettiest girl on two planets, about to show her off to my relatives, and she even knows not to contradict me, he thought. I've got it made.

Torah's father Rangoon was at the spaceport to meet them. "I would have known you anywhere from Torah's description of you," he said. "Five foot six, 120 pounds, 36-24-36. Couldn't miss you."

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Koran – or may I call you Dad?"

"Actually, I like the respect you show by calling me Mr. Koran. You don't see that very often from women these days."

Beta did not feel disappointed by this, or angry. She was caught in reflection that she was the first female major character in the book, and indeed the first female character with any lines at all. She just hoped that she was up for the responsibility, and that it didn't detract from her primary roles as wife and housemaker.

* * * * * * * * * * *

After dinner that night Rangoon and his poker buddies talked about man things while Beta cleared the dishes off the table. Then they got down to business.

"So are we going to boycott Terminex or not?" asked Torah, not one for burning around the bush.

"No question in my mind. I just got this year's novelty catalogues from the Confoundation," said Thail, one of Rangoon's closest neighbors. "The sight filled me with revulsion. Plastic baby spit. Plastic dog spit. Plastic dead skunk. Plastic dead baby."

"This is serious," said another neighbor, Pakis. "That is exactly what Seldom was fighting against. Stop me if you've heard this one: 300 years ago Veri Seldom, in order to stem the ..."

Everyone else in the room cut him off. "We've heard it!" Everyone, that is, except for Beta. She was too busy serving the brownies.

Torah said, "You're right, though. Ever since Saliva Hardon regeared the economy of Terminex we've gotten nothing out of the Confoundation but toilet humor. I think it's time we took things into our own hands."

"Good thinking," said Camb. "I think I know just the man to help you. He's recently set himself up as President of the greeting card division of Planet Boynton. Apparently he has quite a way with words. Just a dash of cream and sugar, please, Beta."

Rangoon concurred. "All you need to do is get him to open a shop in the Confoundation Shopping Mall. When the local inhabitants see how advanced humor can be on a birthday card, they'll boycott the trashy stuff Terminex is putting out and demand a conversion to traditional wordplay. Anyway, what is this executive's name?"

Banglad answered. "He is known popularly as the Boar. No one seems to know why. It may be for his tenacity of purpose, or maybe for his snout and stiff wire-like bristles. Could I have an ashtray, Beta?"

"Then it's settled, " said Torah. "Beta and I will go to Planet Boynton and seek out this Boar. We'll pose as newlyweds, which will be the truth, anyway. I know I wouldn't mind a second honeymoon." He winked broadly around the table. Beta, however hadn't heard him. She had taken out the vacuum and was cleaning up some stray crumbs. Torah lifted his feet, like a good husband, without even being asked.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Exactly two weeks, four light-years, and seventeen greased palms later, Beta and Torah found themselves in the office of the second deputy assistant to the subordinate subdirector in charge of delegating authority. His name was Bubo, and he didn't appear happy about it.

Torah said, "We're very impressed with the Boar's new line of clever greeting cards."

"Clever. Ha! I wish I could be twice as clever as my boss. Oh, good, I got my wish."

"All the same, they're very nice." Beta demurred.

"Keep out of this please, honey. This is man talk." Torah couldn't hide a grin. "Really, we're very impressed with them over in our sector. We think you're missing out on a potential market by not opening up a franchise on Terminex."

"Terminex. Ha! I know you're stupid, but you don't have to let everybody know. The Confoundation isn't smart enough to buy candy from a baby. And the Boar isn't smart enough to sell a rope to a drowning man."

"What do you mean? Terminex is the center of technology for the galaxy, and since Seldom's time the prime oasis for humor in the universe."

"Okay, buddy, since between the two of us, we only average half a clue, I'll make it easy on you. The Confoundation is in a slump, am I right? They haven't come up with enough stuff in the last few years to make a clown laugh, or else why are you here? Let me explain it one more time. This is your ass. And this is a hole in the ground." Beta listened, apalled. A wicked thought now crawled across Torah's face.

"Okay, then consider this ..." he began.

"No need to say it, Mister. You're about to ask if I will go with you and set up shop on my own, thereby squeezing out my former boss and dealing some harsh economic realities of supply-and-demand to the Confoundation at the same time. Right?"

"Uh, right."

"I can read your face like a book. And may I say, I don't care much for the punctuation." Torah couldn't hold back the laughter anymore. Beta tapped him timidly on the shoulder.

"Dear, that isn't exactly what we came here for ...."

"Shut up, Beta. I'll explain it to you later."

Bubo gathered up his belongings. "You tell her, pal. Women. You can't live with'em, and you can't live with'em."

* * * * * * * * * * *

Within days of arrival on Terminex, Beta sought out Junyer Mis, visiting professor from the planet Electra, where he was dean of the Electral College. She was very lucky to catch him in low-eccentricity. He cleared some clutter from a chair for her to sit down, but could find no place to put the clutter other than back on the chair. Reluctantly he allowed Beta to make herself comfortable on his lap.

"Dr. Mis, I'm very worried about the Seldom Plan. My husband has brought this greeting card executive to Terminex, and now everyone is imitating his insulting style."

"Hm. Still, it's better than the plastic doodads that the Confoundation has been feeding us."

"Barely. At least with joybuzzers and squirting flowers, you can take them or leave them. Now, everywhere you go there's someone who's putting you down in some clever way. Or more often, trying to and failing. Then they resort to using the um ... the umm ... the four letter word."

"Kist?"

"No, the other one. The 'B' word."

"Brid??"

"No, you know, the 'BA' word." Just then the intercom rang on his desk.

"There's a message for you from the Seldom Vault, sir. It says 'Barm'."

"Yes, that's the one," said Beta. "And I can't help thinking that this is not the way Seldom wanted it."

The old man again fiddled with some books on his desk, which was hard to do considering that he hadn‘t fiddled with them at all up until now. "There is much to what you say. Seldom established this Confoundation and its twin, which I call the Co-Confoundation, for purposes of his own devising. He revealed to Saliva Hardon and the rest of the Humor Foundation that it was just a put-on fifty years later. Why we continue to go along with it no one knows. Perhaps the same reason we always go along with knock-knock jokes. There's just something in us that needs to know the punch-line, even if it's a joke a thousand years old."

Beta looked askance, which, along with looking askew and looking awry, was one of her greatest talents. "But this new fascination with insults and scatology cannot be part of that. It's too easy to get a laugh that way. Anyone can say ..."

"The 'BA' word?"

"Yes. Except me, of course. I'm too much of a lady. And it doesn't end there. There's already been talk of it. The Boar has moved to acquire the Confoundation outright. He will impose a total embargo on jokes. And then ..." She gulped. It was too horrible to mention, but she did anyway. "After the citizens fail to come up with their own put-downs they will start borrowing them from re-runs of Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts."

Mis got a funny look on his face just then, and started scrabbling on his desk for a pencil. "Young lady, you've hit on the whole secret of the Seldom Plan. When matters come to a boiling point, as they have here, it is historically referred to as a Seldom Scene. And that is precisely what the Co-Confoundation was for. Now where's that silly pencil?" The intercom rang again.

"Another message from the Seldom Vault, sir. It says, 'Look behind your ear.'" He did. There it was.

"Ah. Thank you."

"There's a second part to the message, sir."

"Yes, what is it?"

"It says, 'You're welcome.'"

Mis began scribbling violently on any blank piece of paper he could find, then in book margins, on his blotter, across Beta's hem, etc. "Of course. It's so simple. The location of the Co-Confoundation. And they will tell us how we can rid ourselves of the Boar."

A lot of things happened at the same time just then. Bubo came striding into Mis' office. Without missing a stroke of his calculation, Mis beamed that he had the answer. However, before he could announce it, Beta drew out her ladies' model blaster and reduced him to molecules. As the smoke cleared, Bubo regarded her sullenly.

"Pretty good shot, for a girl. I must congratulate you on seeing through my designs. But how did you know that I was actually the Boar?"

"Just feminine intuition."

"And that's why you killed Junyer Mis, just seconds before he would have told me the location of the Co-Confoundation?"

"No. I did that because I saw my husband coming right behind you, and I was still sitting on Dr. Mis' lap."

Sure enough, Torah came through the door just then. "Hi. Did I miss anything?"

Bubo answered. "Yes, just about everything. Your wife has discerned that I am actually the Boar, and has foiled my plans for galactic conquest."

Torah accepted this rather reluctantly. "I see. Well, before you kill us, would you please give us your entire background history, and after that, would you please kill her first, so that my family will get all the insurance?"

"I'm not going to kill either of you, Torah."

"Oh. Well, in that case, stand behind me, Beta. I'll protect you."

The Boar continued. "To make a long story short, I was never an especially funny person, you know. I've always wanted to do exquisite plays on words, but when the time came, I couldn't think of them, you know. Only hours later would I come up with the perfect rejoinder, you see. Anyway, to make a short story long; so I went until one day I overheard an old Andrew Dice Clay monologue. In a flash I realized my purpose. Insults! Profanity! True, it wasn't very funny, you know, but it was infectious. Any who listened were drawn into the insidious web of four-letter words and put-downs. And once there, I would be their master. To make a long story longer, I would rule the universe. Because I am not a very clever person, you see. They call me the B-O-A-R, but it should actually be spelled differently ..." He glanced again at Beta and Torah, but they had long since proved his point and faded into a tortured slumber.