Chapter 15

Ayn Rand tries her hand a babysitting.

Winter had come as it does every year. It's a part of impersonal nature, devoid of thought or meaning.

Unless you're a narcissist prone to magical thinking, like Daffy Braggart. Then you associate even the changing of the seasons with anthropic properties directly related to your own fuck-ups.

And oh how Daffy did associate! The dropping of the temperature, the graying of the sky - a welcome change from the usual brown - all clearly indicative to her of the world reacting to her petty inconveniences!

Like Spank going to jail. Not only did it rob her of freaky, adulterous sex but it meant no more glowing green spankmeum for Braggart Big Damn Rail! And right with it came the news that Dan the coal guy was also in jail for such trumped-up collectivist charges as "bombing whole towns to get at their black gold," meaning no more coal for Daffy's choo-choos!

And no, she didn't care that coal-burning engines had been a rarity, even for her own company, for the past half century...

And the moocher-coddling liberals in DC had sent a grain shipment to some Third World pit full of lazy brown people. Daffy's hard earned money, sucked away through taxes and wasted on something as unproductive - and uninvolved with Daffy - as feeding other people!

But then something glorious happened - the grain shipment was hijacked by the legendary pirate Rancor Dumbassjerk. Yes, there are pirates now. This cheered Daffy to no end, though it didn't in any way resolve her initial gripe of losing money through taxes - which is a stunningly ignorant way to view taxation in the first place but we're getting ahead of ourselves. All that mattered is no damn moochers would benefit!

Daffy was so busy getting off to the thought of foreigners starving to death, she barely had the energy left to fret about The Great Destroyer gobbling up all the Great Men in the country. That was still going on too - CEOs and hedge fund managers going missing to the joy of everyone who actually worked for a living. Despite all observable evidence, Daffy was sure the economy would come tumbling down any day now without rich jerks collecting all the biggest salaries and storing it in offshore accounts. Because Objectivists know fuck-all about their own favored economic model.

The world went on, impersonal as ever, while Daffy assumed everything was crashing down because her own little world wasn't exactly to her liking - "Oh Spank! Nothing matters anymore if I can't get what I want!"

"So we're done with exposition? And how'd I get here when I'm supposed to be in jail?"

Fuck it.

While Spank went tromping off into the snow to assume socialism would turn truck drivers into criminals - like Spank himself, if he possessed the self-awareness - Daffy had a meeting with the Braggart Big Damn Rail board. Rather, they had a meeting and she was going to crash it.

"...And we've seen exponential growth in the past quarter, almost entirely due to the dramatic reduction in operations costs from the total electric conversion," explained a guy - let's call him Steve - to the Braggart Big Damn Rail board.

"Could've been more if not for the damn unions," muttered some other guy, one I can't be bothered to name.

"That's the price we pay for good service," said Tim, ever patient and reasonable.

"Just thank God we're not using that damn green stuff anymore," another board member not important enough to name chimed in. "We'd be operating at one hell of a loss, especially with that rail line to nowhere."

"Fortunately, we won't have to worry about anymore such... misadventures," Tim said.

And since if you speak of the devil he will appear, Daffy Braggart burst into the boardroom with a "Boom shaka-laka!"

Tim promptly called security.

"I suppose you're all wondering how to save this company without anymore spankmeum!" Daffy declared. She declares a lot, even when it looks like a question.

"No."

"Nope."

"Uh-uh."

"We're doing really well these days."

Impervious to evidence she didn't like, Daffy continued, "I suppose you all think you can get a reduction in shipping rates to bring down our rail construction costs! Is that it!"

"With all due respect Miss Braggart, what the fuck does that have to do with anything!?"

Before Daffy could not explain, security arrived and escorted her off the premises.

As she was booted out on her ass, who should be waiting for her but Francisco Domingo Carlo Banana Fana bo Binko d'Ano The Third! "I arrived here on the 3:15 plot convenience bus!"

"Oh, Franky!" Daffy wailed. They're going to murder the Gort Line!"

"Honey, think of the first man to build a steel girder," d'Ano said, because non sequitors are deep and shit. "He wasn't all like, 'Oh, well, I guess...' He was like, 'This is how I want it because I just know what a steel girder is!'" He gestured grandly, "That's the sort of Human Courage lacking these days! But those sorts of men do exist!"

"Golly!" Daffy said.

"Folks just don't want those sorts of men anymore -"

"But I want them!" protested Daffy. "I want them! I want them so bad!"

"Down girl!" Then, returning to his highly affected sermonizing, "No, keep wanting them. Because wanting something totally makes it happen."

"Like The Secret?"

"No, that's a different sucker-cult. I'm not clear on how it works, but just want it. Okay?"

"Okey dokey!" And want she did!

Meanwhile, Spank was about to have a confrontation with Lily. I think. The source material kinda disappeared just now...

Lily, after much consideration and working up her nerve, had decided to confront her husband on his infidelities. As well as what he was doing out of jail. "Spank?" she asked. "Can I talk to you, please?"

"Oh what is it now?" Spank whined. "Can't you see I'm a Great Man with Great Problems!?"

"I know you're having problems... And I know you're having an affair."

"So what?"

Haltingly, Lily said, "I'm your wife... I, uh, I don't know if it feels like I drove you to this... But, um..."

"It's always about you, isn't it!?" Spank hissed.

"I love you..." Lily said, though as she said it she started to wonder if it were really true anymore.

"You just want to chain me!"

"But the chains are yours -"

"You're week and needy and you won't be satisfied until I'm just as week and needy! Now go fix me a martini!"

"Spank, that's not true at all," Lily protested. "I won't - that is, if you really want to see this woman I won't get in the way. But our marriage -"

"Where's my martini!?"

Yes, I'm cutting a lot of scenes. You're welcome.