I call it Tissue Towers, and all thirty-nine stories are built out of repurposed kleenex. It took me only thirty-nine days to build. And rent is only thirty-nine dollars a month. All three-hundred-and-ninety units were rented out within a week of our Grand Opening.
It began as a dream during a closed meeting of the Feral Falls town council, of which I was the tassel coordinator. Not a very glamorous job, admittedly, but one that required me to sleep through most meetings as silently as possible. After all, my uncle is still listed as Missing In Action in Luxembourg.
Bill Humberstone it was, who got me thinking. He said, during that fateful meeting: "People are getting taller and heavier; my sons are a half foot taller than me and each one weighs more than a fullback -- and they eat like one, too. Something's gotta be done."
Then Morty Sambal chimed in: "Yeah. This idea of shrinking rooms until there's no place to turn around is nuts. Why did the zoning board pass that ordinance anyway?"
Now it was John Wetmack's turn: "Oh, you know those guys. They're drunk with power and want the Munchkin vote."
At this point Sarah Rexburg broke in: "Remember how much room there used to be outside? That's all going away now, because of social media."
And then I fell into a deep slumber and dreamed a dream:
In my dream I was in the middle of a large field full of trashy weeds and splintered apple crates. Broken glass glittered on the ground. Small black bugs scuttled around; when they ran into each other they fought until one devoured the other. It was a hellish landscape; I was uncomfortable with it, so I called out for help.
A large scroll seemed to descend from the skies and unfurl before me. It was the blueprint of a sleek apartment skyscraper. At the bottom, in big gold letters, it said: "Build Ye With Haste Out Of All Waste."
I awoke with a start. The closed meeting was over, so I was all alone in the council room. Feverishly I went to the whiteboard and drew as much of my dream blueprint as I could remember. And there it was -- the cure for smaller rooms and the shrinking outdoors. Large spacious apartments, with beautiful views of the rolling pine groves, the twining lilac terraces, and the immaculate fields of capers. The formula for turning used tissues into steel and concrete and glass came to me in a flash. I wrote it down on the cuff of my shirt, then hurried off to see the newspaper editor, who was a friend of mine since the Maple Syrup Riots.
"It's a damfool project" he told me when I had finished narrating my dream to him. "You'll have contractors and neighborhood watch organizations up in arms -- and wait until the Governor hears about it! He'll send in the National Guard."
"But" I insisted, "it's completely feasible and won't cost more than the price of repaving a parking lot. You can see how much this is needed, can't you?"
"Yes, but . . . " the editor tapped his Ticonderoga #2 pencil against his chin in deep thought. I waited patiently. A flugelhorn sounded in the distance, announcing the arrival of another glyptodon. They were becoming a nuisance, I thought to myself.
"Won't work" he finally said. "What happens when it rains? The whole shebang will melt into lumpy sludge."
I smiled at him. "You know it hasn't rained in ten years" I reminded him. "And your paper predicts the drought will continue for at least another ten years."
"Yes" he admitted, "that's so."
"All I need is some seed money to get this off the ground, and in just over a month I'll have cheap rooms available so big that you can play footvolley in them!" I looked at him expectantly. I knew the paper had oodles of money, just laying around, ready to be invested.
"Well . . . " he began. "It's been a good year for the paper. Lots of people dying from flu and titanic acne, so we're getting a lot of paid obituaries. That's where the real money is, y'know."
"How much you charging now for an obit" I asked out of curiosity.
"Ten-thousand each" he said, a rapacious grin pasted on his face.
"Wow!" I replied. I took a deep breath, and went for it. "How about your paper financing my dream?"
"Okay" he said, without batting an eye. "I'll have my secretary write you a check for fifty-thousand now, and another fifty next week."
Naturally I reserved the penthouse at Tissue Towers for myself. From its dizzying heights I drop paper bags filled with glyptodon musk on unsuspecting pedestrians far below. Anyone hit by one of my bags who bothers to come up to complain to me is automatically offered a job at the newspaper -- which now not only charges a fortune for printing obituaries but also charges a huge weekly fee for not delivering the newspaper at all. Since most people no longer want anything to do with the manufacture of newsprint, the profits from that particular gambit are obscene. So they hire people just to sit around and write scripts for a new Austin Powers movie.
This is why America works so well, and Russia is nothing but a head cold.
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