Let me preface this story with a message to the critics and English professors of the future. This story is a fantastically complex intertwining of imagery, illusion, and all sorts of meanings of life and philosophical truths, spun together into a tale about a gas station attendant named Earl finding a quarter in his ear. Due to the rich nature of this text, however, its words would be lost on all but the most educated and determined of readers. If you are not one of these (and Heaven knows you probably aren't), I urge you to put this story down now. I realize this means you must make a value judgment upon yourself, and conclude that you basically suck at close reading, but I also realize that all mildly intelligent individuals will be able to make this call and put the story down now. As for the unintelligent individuals, I shall now scare them away with a barrage of big words: Oxymoronic antidotes placated the persimmons which defenestrated my microbiological tamagochi and expatriated to the hypertextual realm of antidisestablishmentarianism. And all of that is insatiably supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (which may not be a real word, but you idiots won't know that!). Anyway, now that the idiots are gone, only the rarely intelligent and those who deny their own skill remain. So, if you are the latter, you suck hairy monkey buttocks and deserve to be thrown into the Keebler tree (which doesn't sound like a threat, but the elves' private lives are very seedy indeed, and it's doubtful you'll escape with your sanity, much less your virginity). There. Now the deniables think I'm too weird, and have placated the sinners (threw that one in in case anyone slipped through the cracks). I hope you truly intelligent people can see past that, however. My only concern now is with English professors. Don't you DARE assign this story during the course of your class. If you are a student reading this for a class, I urge you to give me the name and address of your professor, and rest assured, you will not have class with that person ever again. The only way I will allow this story to be assigned during class is if you're ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that each and every student is truly, completely, damn smart. Damn, damn smart. And don't try any funny stuff, like telling your students to read this for class and analyze this very section, and conclude things about my psyche and the way I live my life, 'cause believe me, I WILL KNOW, and YOU WILL PAY. Anyhoo, this concludes our tale of Earl and his magic quarter. I hope you enjoyed the story, and you better not be stupid, or you are SO dead!