T.O.K.I.N.

Proud to Crawl Home

KdV

Negotiating

With NFL Over

Compensation

For Date

Change

With the Stupor Bowl date change throwing the Carnival calendar into chaos, Mardi Gras krewes affected by the switch are seeking compen-sation from the NFL. Most krewes are seeking $50,000 each, which they estimate to be the losses they've incurred from the date change. At press time, the NFL (which reportedly stands for No Free Lunch) was offer-ing $5000 to each krewe, which it estimates to be how much Kurt Warner makes for every breath he takes.

Stung by the loss of its traditional marching night, the Krewe du Vieux is also seeking compensation from the League. Citing its own problems with suppliers resulting from having its parade date moved up, Krewe officials are asking the League to provide it with five kilos of cocaine. In response, NFL (Never Fund Libelers) officials offered the Krewe five kilos of anthrax.

A subsequent request for financial reimbursement led one League official to reply, "The check's in the mail, ha ha ha."

Either way, when KdV parades at 7:00 PM on its new date, Saturday, January 19, expect the powder to be flying, and watch out for illegal use of hands.

THE ROACH MOTEL— Accustomed as they are to halluci-nations and visitations at the headquarters of the Totally Orgasmic Krewe of Intergalactic Ne'er-do-wells, the krewe was nevertheless perplexed when a series of mysterious documents began showing up on their computer. Close examination showed that the style was unfamiliar; based on the lack of capitalization and punctuation, one theory was that all the lost emails that disappear inexplicably into cyberspace might be turning up on the T.O.K.I.N. computer.

An early message said simply:

thanx for the banana peels dont you ever get takeout in your den question mark some french fries would be nice or pizza and please leave the computer on if you dont mind

Then, late one night, exhausted and motionless after many hours of, um, brainstorming, the krewe spied a giant cockroach on its keyboard. In their, um, brainstorming-induced stupor, they watched him as he positioned himself along the edge of the keyboard, then dove headfirst upon a key. Unable to use the Shift, Ctrl or Alt keys, or to manipulate the mouse, he labored away hammering out one single, lowercase character after another, unable to save or print. Finally, sweating like a Cajun dancer at an outdoor festival in August, he fell exhausted to the floor and crawled feebly into a tangle of beads that are always lying around the T.O.K.I.N. headquarters in profusion.

Burning, indeed smoking, with curiosity and other sub-stances, krewe members gathered around the glowing screen. This is what they read:

i will start an insect insurrection against insidious insipid incursions by insatiable invaders with acres of asphalt and big boring box in our city roaches ranting and rebellious fire ants arising teeming termites taking flight on dainty disposable diaphanous wings billions of buzzing bees mobs of mosquitos mobilizing we were here before bienville here we will be after berger we were here before kerlerec we will stay when kabbagekopf is kaput we call on all who crawl who creep who slither and scurry to join us gastropodic cousins slime with us o slugs join us swarming stinging crawling biting buzzing to ingest infest the monstrous CRAWL MART

(Evidently the literary roach had figured out the caps lock key—but not enter.)

Further communications on the T.O.K.I.N. computer screen revealed that the entomological community will be swarming through the French Quarter at 7:00 PM on Saturday, January 19 in the Krewe du Vieux parade, getting buzzed and biting satirically.