"Has anyone seen the remote? Hey, Trouble,

"Has anyone seen the remote? Hey, Trouble, what you got in your mouth. Come 'ear. Oh, shhi, Trouble stay. I said stay!" Then Trouble bit down. The channel changer switched to

Channel 147 and would not budge! The tellie was out of control and turned itself on and off.

It turned out to be the great whales, some of whom were able to broadcast through cable TV at great personal sacrifice. Sales of their ambergris helped to fund the channel 147 op

eration and they were going live world-while in a few hours. The king of whales would become the richest animal on all earth with their scamming operations running wild.

But this was not to be because the King of Whales met the Prince of Wales and tawdry

trinkets were being shamelessly hawked in the background. It was a bloody distraction. Both with how vocal the peddler was, but also because there was this jade amulet dangling

in front of my eyes. A sudden billow of acrid smoke caused me to gasp; my eyes squinted nearly shut as I grabbed for the amulet in a desperate attempt to

hold on to something, anything, because it looked like this was going to be a doozy. It must've been the right thing to do because when I opened my eyes none of that had happened.

But my hands had cramped into two fists that I could not open. I ran down to the hardware store. "Gimmee a crowbar!" I asked to the helpful hardware folk. "Don't punch us!" they