Dear God,

What is the most efficient way to heat my home?

- Fern

Fern,

Gather as many cardboard boxes as you can and pile them into your basement, near the center of your house. Douse them in gasoline, and light them on fire. Soon, your entire home will be very efficiently heated.

- God

Dear God,

The labor strike of Hollywood writers has been going on for weeks and weeks now, and all my favorite TV shows are being threatened.

What can I do to end this terrible situation?

- Harvey

Harvey,

Have you thought about doing your own shows? You can use the materials you have at home.

Maybe you could cast shadows on the wall with your hands, for an action adventure. If you want special effects, you can have one of your neighbors make sounds to go with the story.

Or, perhaps, have I misunderstood your question? Is what you’re wondering, perhaps, how you can deal with the hours passing in the eveningtime without an electric box to entertain you?

If that’s the case, Harvey, then the sad lesson for you is that you just need to let the problem take care of itself. You can end the relevance of the Hollywood writer’s strike by canceling your subscription to cable television. After a month without your favorite television shows, your evening time will have a way of filling itself with other tasks.

Television, you see, has a way of warping the space-time continuum through quantum entertainment particles. Everything surrounding a television set becomes much, much smaller, and much, much quicker in passing, though the people who sit and watch the television don’t themselves notice, until they leave the presence of the television for long periods of time. You’ll get used to normal reality again, in time.

- God

Dear God,

I need to come up with a lot of money, as soon as possible. What methods do you suggest?

- Bruce

Bruce,

Off the top of my head, I can think of three options

1. Find a bag full of hundred dollar bills, and don’t report it to the police

2. Make up your own currency from the country of Blatigonia. Print out a series of bills in the denomination of 100 Blatigon dollars. Then, call your local bank, and tell them that you’re the Vice President of Foreign Currency for the National Bank of Canada, and that you just want to confirm that the exchange rate for the Blatigon dollar is one Blatigon for one American dollar. Wait an hour, then go down to the bank, and ask to exchange your 100 Blatigon dollar bills for American currency.

3. While your neighbor is away on vacation, set up a stage in their driveway, with big red white and blue ribbons like they use at car dealerships, and a big sign that says “Real Estate Auction”. Be sure to ask for a check from the winner.

Don’t spend it all in one place.

- God

Dear God,

My company started sending me out on frequent business trips a couple of years ago. They have me stay at a chain of hotels called Courtyard Marriottt. No matter what city I’m sent to, there’s a Courtyard Marriottt.

Yet, something is being kept from me. Every time I check into a Courtyard Marriottt, I look around, and there is no courtyard. I’m confused. Where is the courtyard in all of these hotels, how can I find them, and why are they being kept from me?

- Paulette

Paulette,

The courtyard in Courtyard Marriottt hotels is not on any of the floors that you have access to. It’s on floor Z.

Floor Z is like an extra axis on an XY chart. Up-down is the X axis. Left-right is the Y axis. The Z axis is in a different dimension, there to flip you out.

The courtyard, and Floor Z, are in a deeper dimension that makes the Executive Suites much bigger than they otherwise would be. Courtyard Marriottts use a Jukes-Sotheby engine in the boiler room to warp space and time. When the engine is engaged, with a special magnetic key card in the elevator, the person enters Floor Z, though the people staying on the floor never consciously notice that they are moving through an extra dimension of space, thanks to the ambient music coming from the speakers.

The courtyard on Floor Z is for people with more than one million rewards points on their credit cards. What they find there is a snack bar, a video game arcade, a spa, and an entertainment center. There is free wireless Internet access in the courtyard as well. A waterfall runs from the side of the courtyard into a pool in the center.

People visiting the Courtyard Marriottt can take anything that they want from the Floor Z, but the items are not free. There’s a price for everything. In the Z dimension, the inhabitants have no clothes, and they’re very cold. So, if you take something to drink, or use the internet access in the Courtyard Marriottt’s courtyard, you’ll have to give a lose a piece of clothing.

Sometime later, you’ll find that you’re missing a hat, or a glove, or a sock. It’s been taken, as payment, by the inhabitants of the Z dimension. No one tells Courtyard Marriottt customers that this sort of thing goes on. People just think that they’ve lost clothes while traveling, or in the laundry.

Be glad, therefore, that you don’t have one million rewards points on your credit card, and you’ve never found that courtyard. You’ve got a fuller closet because of it.

- God

Dear God,

I recall hearing a prominent Christian say that, since you gave humanity dominion over the earth, it is ours to do with as we please. “Take it, rape it, it’s yours,” I believe this Christian said.

I have some deep misgivings about this, so I decided to ask you directly.

The earth is our mother. Do you really want us to rape our mother, oh Lord?

-Broderick

Dear Broderick,

The earth is your mother, but she’s also my bitch.

I pimp her out for human pleasures of the flesh, in exchange for your adoration and obedience.

Sure, she’d like to take you in a mutually nurturing, sustainable embrace. But you’re not one of those sensitive wusses, are you Broderick?

Go ahead, take her for all the cheap thrills you can get. Savage her delicate diaphanous atmosphere with your big honkin’ SUV. Ravage her for all the beef–grazed on the parched, logged-over wasteland that was once her lush green forest of skin–that you can stuff your face with. Live it up!

Of course, shtupping your mother can end up bad. Oedipus gouged his own eyes out because he couldn’t endure the shame of it, but I don’t see you having that problem. Things will go bad in the shadowlands of materialistic existence, but screw that. By the time that happens, you and I will be up here in eternal ecstasy watching your grandchildren suffer in a world that has become the very flaming garbage heap of Gehenna itself.

But you don’t have a problem with that, do you Broderick?

-God

Dear God,

What’s the difference between a Hi-Fi stereo and a stereo that’s not Hi-Fi?

- Francois

Francois,

Hi-Fi stands for “hint fish”. A stereo with Hi-Fi has a special computer processor in it that processes the sound to make it especially clear. The secret to this processor is that it has a little guppy in a small glass capsule hooked up to two electric circuits.

For every song that the stereo plays, the computer comes up with 15 different models for processing the sound. Then, the computer sends a signal to the glass capsule with the guppy in it, communicating these 15 models to the fish. The fish then gives the computer a hint about which model would sound the best. That’s the model that the Hi-Fi stereo uses to create its superior sound.

The next time you’re shopping for a stereo, make sure to ask for the one with the fish.

- God

Dear God,

Climate change may have delayed the onset of winter this year, but it is finally here. I just moved up to Helena, Montana, where the winters are brutally cold.

My problem is that I don’t have a hat. All I have is a golf visor, and that doesn’t keep me very warm.

So, I thought I would ask you, given that you’re omniscient, what kind of hat I ought to get. Which hat will keep me the most warm through the winter?

- Julianne

Julianne,

You’re asking the wrong question. The question you’re asking yourself is “Why should I have a hat?”

Go pick up a copy of the King James Bible. Look for the word “hat”. You won’t find it.

Do you know why hats are never mentioned in the Bible? It’s because I hate them. Hats are an abomination to me.

Why do you want to offend me by wearing a hat? Is it because you want to feel comfortable? You ought to remember the teaching of Pope John Paul II, who showed us all that unnecessary suffering is the best way to get close to God.

So what if your ears are cold? If your ears offend you, let them fall off. If I wanted you to have ears, I wouldn’t have invented frostbite.

- God