The Ruinous Chevrons

"Fire!" the gunner barked. The glare of the main gun lit the tank. The
gunner watched for its effect. The flaring, ruinous chevrons reached
out, striking the span just where the cyclists rode.
--pg. 95

Don't you hate it when you're out for a lovely bike ride, just pedalin' away through the spring-time breezes when suddenly the bridge you're riding on is hit by ruinous chevrons? Well, now with new "Ruinous-Chevron-Away" your ruinous chevron problem is a thing of the past! With new "Ruinous-Chevron-Away" you get No More Ruinous Chevrons! Just flip the handy flip-top and spray. It's just that easy!

Dorothy looked over at her husband Lester. Her eyes narrowed. Outside beside the azaleas was a smoking crater. "You used all the Ruinous-Chevron-Away again."

Lester doesn't look up from his scrambled eggs. "I'll buy some more tomorrow."

"Tomorrow! Tomorrow doesn't cut it, mister! Just look at that crater out there. That could have been me!"

Lester flips to the classifieds. "Oh, look, dear! There's a trampoline for
sale. We could finally fulfill our dreams of bringing our "Bouncing Cat" act to Broadway!"

Dorothy smiles. "Lester, you're a mad crazy dreamer and that's why I married you." Dorothy puts her fingers to her lips and whistles. Three men and three women all dressed in identical black coveralls run into the house and begin assembling a gigantic abacus.

"Let's see, now..." Dorothy wets her fingertip with her tongue. "Carry the one... yep, it looks like we can afford both the Ruinous-Chevron-Away spray and the cat-bouncing trampoline. Of course, we're going to have to make a few teensy-tiny sacrifices." Dorothy yanks away Lester's plate of eggs. "No more scrambled eggs! From now on, we'll be eating raw eggs Rocky Balboa-style, slurpin' em down straight from a water glass. You got a problem with that?"

Lester frowns. "Yeah, I got a problem with that. I don't even like eggs and now you're saying I've got to drink them raw?" Lester leaps onto the table and misses by inches karanging his head off the chandelier. "Nuts to that! No more eggs! I want to be FREEEEE!"

Flaring,ruinous chevrons reach out and strike the table just where Dorothy's husband Lester stands. The gunner ducks his head through the freshly blasted hole in the house's wall to watch for the effect.

Dorothy cradles her husband's body in her arms. "Lester! LESTER!" Dorothy breaks down sobbing.

Lester's eyelids flutter.
"Lester! You're alive!" Dorothy's sobs choke into grateful, joyous laughter.

"Lester, you dang fool. If you didn't like eggs so much, why didn't you just say so?"