A series of helpful suggestions for actions you can take that will bring the downfall of the establishment a little bit closer.

No. 1.  Loitering. To judge by the number of signs posted, no offense offends the powers that be more than loitering. All over the city, signs in prominent locations threaten fine and/or imprisonment for the crime of remaining in one place. Obviously, loitering must be a threat to the very foundations of the capitalist system: by way of contrast, we never see “No Murdering” signs on street corners. If enough people stood in one place and did nothing in public for long enough, the entire structure of fascist capital would collapse around us.

FREEZE YOUR LAUNDRY if you cannot hang it out to dry immediately.

The most stubborn rings, stains, and scratches on your dining-room table may be removed with a simple carpenter’s plane.

When baffling murders occur in your household, bypass the police and send at once for a celebrated amateur detective. You will save a great deal of paperwork.

Peaches and plums picked before their time may be ripened with firm discipline.

Small children may be stored in large boxes under the bed until they are needed.

If you replace your turn signals with neon advertising signs, your car can pay for itself.

You will save a great deal of money on meat if you trust your pet tiger to find its own food in the neighborhood.

You can write your own novel in a wirebound notebook for less than half the cost of commercially published novels.

Dear Dr. Boli: A while ago I bought a printer cartridge, and it came with a little piece of plastic over it that said “REMOVE.” So I pulled it off and left it in the box. But it sat there in the box, still saying “REMOVE.” So I removed it from the box and set it on the desk. It just sat there on the desk, saying “REMOVE.” So I removed it from the desk and tossed it in the trash can. But it was still sitting there on top of the trash, saying “REMOVE.” So I took it out of the trash and put it on the windowsill, where it sat, mocking me, saying “REMOVE” in white block capitals.

I am a shell of a man, Dr. Boli. I have removed this thing from the windowsill, from my dresser, from the kitchen table, from the top of the refrigerator, from the bathroom sink, from the porch swing, from the dashboard of my car—wherever I put it, it sits there, mocking me with its simple gothic type! Anything is better than this agony! Anything is more tolerable than this derision! I feel that I must scream or die!

So, anyway, what do you suggest?

—Sincerely, A Puzzled Consumer.

Dear Sir: The only way to break the curse is to lay the object on your neighbor’s porch. It then becomes your neighbor’s duty to remove it, and how he deals with the problem is his own business—unless, of course, he ends up leaving it on your porch. In that case, it may help to remember that a certain quantity of explosives might be trusted to vaporize the object, fulfilling your obligations to the printed directions on it by removing it permanently from the material universe.