It was the summer of July. That's where it

It was the summer of July. That's where it began. That's here it all began.

They were small, unobtrusive and furry. Everyone just picked them up off the street and took them into their homes. It was the summer of the invasion.

The Hipster Beard invasion. Where they came from no one knew. Why they were adopted without critical ironic self-distance was inexplicable. But it had to be stopped.

And I was the man to stop it. I grabbed my chainsaw, told my sister that I'd be back, and set out to right some wrongs like the guy from Quantum Leap. Except not like Quantum Leap.

But also sort of like that one episode of Quantum Leap where the guy goes back to the sixties and inhabits the body of a downie. Good stuff. But, I digressed, and reached into my

bag of tricks to pull out a random flechette I found floating in the flotsam I had in there. It seemed to match my mood and I proceeded from there. I guess they saw it as a threat.

Only I knew how waterlogged the dreadful gun was, how clogged with seaweed. They backed away as I waved it toward them. Just then, an eel merged from the barrel, and they all began

the principal's yazoo. The eel's caress was familiar enough. But then the principal remembered where he was. He froze pondering whether he wanted the eel in or out. Meanwhile, when

his secretary entered—dressed as an eel—the Principal nearly shit, thinking he was seeing double. It was just a plot by eel and secretary to drive the Principal nuts—and it worked.