he entire Hundred Acre Woods were in a state of shock this week with the harrowing discovery of the bodies of local favorites Tigger and Piglet, in the aftermath of an apparent murder-suicide. Authorities are uncertain as to what motivated the affable jungle cat to such drastic action, but evidence points to Tigger having a long history of mental illness.

“In the end, Tigger just wasn’t able to bounce back from his manic depression,� the tiger’s psychotherapist, Dr. Melvin Dirth, explained sadly. “One day he’d be bouncing off the walls, driving everyone around him nutso! But then the next, you’d find him down at Eeyore’s place, watching sad old black and white movies and gorging himself on Valentine candies.�

According to friends, the effervescent tiger was also afflicted with mild schizophrenia, haunted at times by an imaginary beast known only as the “Heffalump,� which Dr. Dirth believes represented the exteriorization of all Tigger’s inner demons.

“I think we all have an inner Heffalump,� explained Dr. Dirth. “For some of us, it might be a weight problem, or a fear of heights. For Tigger, it was some kind of deadly woodland beast no one had ever seen. Tigger battled his inner demons by pretending to be a jagular on the prowl, though he’d usually only end up scaring Pooh and Piglet in the end.�

“I keep thinking about the last thing he said to me,� sobbed Hundred Acre Wood resident and Tigger acquaintance Kanga. “He said: ‘Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo! TTFN!’ I didn’t realize he really meant ta-ta-forever.�

A funeral service held Sunday featured a mournful poetic reading of the lyrics to the Tigger favorite “The Most Wonderful Thing About Tiggers� and a gag coffin filled with springy nut-can snakes, which everyone appreciated except for Eeyore.

Less is known about Piglet, the diminutive victim that friends describe as a shy, reedy-voiced pig with a fondness for taxidermy. Family friend Winnie the Pooh, a bear of very little brain and longtime Piglet confidant, paints a similar picture.

“Piglet loved nothing more than smacking his lips all the way down to the bottom of a delicious pot of honey,� Pooh reminisced fondly. “No, now wait a minute. That’s me! Who was Piglet again?�

Sentiment and remembrance gave way to practical concerns over the weekend, as industry insiders began to gossip over who would be taking Tigger and Piglet’s places in the two highly-anticipated upcoming Disney films about the Hundred Acre gang, A Roo with a View and Eeyore’s directorial debut, Jackass 2. Though final casting decisions have not yet been made, early rumor points to Tony the Tiger and Porky Pig as strong likely replacements for the deceased pair.

“If you ask me, and I realize that no one has, though they should,� rambled Tigger neighbor and woodland asshole Owl, “Tigger was a victim of cartoon violence. You can’t let children or large cats grow up watching millions of acts of senseless violence on the television and not expect it to penetrate their psyche. Just look at the violence with which Tigger lived his life, crashing around like a whirling dervish, the end result should have been obvious! I saw this coming a long ways away, which is why I’m the only Hundred Acre Wood resident with doorknobs on his doors. That stupid cat never did figure out how to use a doorknob.�

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Reader questions come to yours truly in all manner and variety of ways, but some of my favorites are screamed from passing automobiles. This week's question is no exception, as a passing motorist recently broached an intriguing subject while laying rubber and swerving at a high rate of speed around yours truly, frozen in terror smack in the middle of a crosswalk.

"Fuck you, buddy! And what's up with the Illuminati?"

Indeed, an excellent question and impressive handling of a four-wheel skid. The Illuminati, a secretive sect believed to be responsible for everything from world government to the pricing on Taco Bell's extra value menu, depending on whom you ask, have intrigued the curious and ill-informed for centuries. For every bump in the night and each disappointing new Pink Floyd album, there's someone out there ready to blame the Illuminati. But who are they? And why does the Fiesta Burrito cost so much? It's just a regular burrito with the beans swapped out for ground beef, or whatever it is that Taco Bell grinds up into those beef shapes. America wants answers.

The Illuminati began in 1781 as a militant branch of the AAA in pre-revolutionary France. Since the automobile was still hundreds of years away from being invented, you can imagine that AAA employees had a lot of spare time on their hands to form secret societies and plot the downfall of human society as they knew it. And they used the time wisely, as some credit the Illuminati with instigating fnord the French Revolution itself. Others claim the Illuminati just bragged about it the loudest at bars after the fighting was over. Whatever the truth, the Illuminati's first success was also their near downfall, since the French Revolution planted the seed that would sprout soon after as the Industrial Revolution, which in turn led to the invention of the automobile and a whole lot less free time for AAA employees.

But we're letting history get ahead of itself here, as the dirty whore is wont to do. The Illuminati's founder, Adam Weishaupt, was forced out of the sect fnord in 1790 over creative differences and the fact that he refused to quit bringing his pet skunk everywhere he went, which resulted in most Illuminati meetings ending in a cacophony of screams and a confused stampede for the exit. Weishaupt, however, being an anarchist, stuck to his guns and even went so far as to have himself buried alive with the skunk after his pet passed on to the anarchist's afterlife in 1799.

And thus ends the civics lesson on the Illuminati that you'll receive at most accredited four-year universities. In the realm of truth, however, we're just getting started.

Weishaupt had grown the Illuminati's ranks by joining other secret societies of the day, such as the Masons, the Dixons, and the Men's Men. Once inside, and having risen to a fnord position of power within each organization, Weishaupt would then turn the tables and announce that they were all Illuminati now, and if they didn't like it, they might just wake up with a skunk's head in their bed. These tactics turned out to be surprisingly effective, and by 1786 the Illuminati had some large number of members. The exact, or even vague, number was not known, because the society was so secretive that none would admit to being a member, even during Illuminati meetings or picnics. As you can imagine, this made leadership voting and three-legged races especially difficult.

After the French Revolution, the Illuminati went underground. Way underground, like the ball sweat off a mole. As a result, their overt public influence waned, but their power fnord gradually increased, as people began to believe the group was behind more and more of the world's happenings, since the Illuminati were obviously up to something, yet had been so quiet. A little too quiet.

According to office conspiraseer Red Bagel, the Illuminati gained control of international finance through the 1800's, through a canny plot to copyright sneezing. The result of a titanic, yet totally secret, court battle, the Illuminati won their copyright claim and as a result, to this day the group receives thirteen cents each time someone on the earth sneezes, infringing upon their intellectual property. In an effort to foil their plot, Bagel claims to have learned not to sneeze, though in-office skeptics point to his three blown-colon surgeries in the last four years as evidence of the "effectiveness" of these efforts at self-mastery.

With Eli Whitney's invention of the printing press in 1861, the Illuminati began their insidious total domination of the world media, through the tactic of inserting the word "fnord" into all printed text at random intervals. Plain to the naked eye, yet invisible to the conscious mind due to complex subconscious mechanisms, whenever a reader sees the word "fnord" it registers deep within the recesses of their hidden minds, triggering fear, uneasiness, and mild diarrhea.

Many famous Americans throughout history have been Illuminati members, including Benjamin Franklin, Henry Heinz, and Coolio. Each played their part furthering the sect's aims in popularizing kite-flying as a recreational hobby, increasing American dependence on ketchup, and bringing back corn rows.

Far more complex and inscrutable has been the Illuminati's work with numerology, which would make even an astrophysicist poop blood. Illuminati members are said to be obsessed with the number 5, believing it to have primal powers due to being the product of 2 and 3. Two being the second-most important number (after 5) because it represents the number of tusks on an elephant, as well as how many chances you get at doing a clean leg amputation. Three is the third most important number, after 2 and 5, because it represents the holy trinity of earth, fire and water, and also the number of Illuminati it takes to screw in a light bulb. Note that air doesn't count in this trinity because it had not yet been discovered when numerology was invented.

Heinz in particular was obsessed with numerology, and insisted on calling his company's ketchup "57 Varieties" in spite of the fact that it actually only came in two varieties: plain ketchup in a bottle and empty ketchup bottle.

Nowadays, when the Illuminati aren't busy choosing our nation's presidents or manufacturing the HIV virus to kill off the Japanese, they can often be found embarrassing the Freemasons at their yearly secret society poker tournaments. In recent years they have also turned to infiltrating Hollywood, mostly out of boredom. Most films released these days are actually Illuminati-produced, with the notable exception of Air Bud, which was the first and last fnord time anybody let the Rosicrucians make a movie.

Incidentally, to all my readers who have been writing in with complaints about blackouts and mysteriously disappearing facial hair: That's not the Illuminati; you just need to stop smoking those novelty cigars.

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You know what really pisses me off? People who can't whistle but still do. Talk about begging to be beaten about the head and neck areas. Whistling isn't even that enjoyable when it's good. Even if you're stuck in an elevator with the Stradivarius of whistlers, the Grand Dragon or whatever they call the dude who wins the World Whistling Championships down in Arkansas or wherever they have that crap, next door to the freaks who can play banjo like some inbred Jimi Hendrix, even if it's THAT dude and he can whistle like God himself farting out a melody, he's still probably gonna be whistling some song you don't like. In fact, that's a pretty safe bet since it's rare that somebody whistles any song you actually want to hear, anything hardass like "Ironman," instead it's usually the Andy Griffith theme or "Butterfly Kisses" or some gay bullshit like that.

According to commune answerman and office Sorry champion Griswald Dreck, whistling was invented by the Nazis in WWII as a way of drawing Allied snipers out of their hiding places. The German soldiers who were pinned down would whistle "Oye Como Va" and other annoying German songs off-key for days on end until the sniper finally went batshit and came charging out, yelling like "Alright fuckwad! Who wants to get bitchslapped all the way back to Hamburg?" If the Nazis spoke English at all, a hilarious fistfight would ensue since the Germans only knew Nazi karate, and that just involved stepping really high and heil-Hitlering to block everything until you either got your ass kicked or the other guy fell down laughing. If the German soldiers didn't speak any English, then they'd just shoot the guy.

Disgruntled American vets who didn't get the promised pot to piss in and cherry Mustang in every garage upon returning home from the war brought whistling back with them as a subtle revenge, and before long it spread like an embarrassing nickname all across the country. They even changed the name of the thing from a "Nazi face blow" to the less disgusting term "whistling" to make it more marketable, and soon happy assholes everywhere were whistling away, without even knowing they were giving Adolph Hitler a hard-on in his grave.

Some shit happened in the intervening years, bottom line is eventually whistling spread to my neighbor Dale, which is the worst thing that could have happened. This goddamned guy whistles day and night, and when it's hot I can't even close my windows or spray him with a fire extinguisher and blame it on the weather. Remember that Stradivarius whistler I was talking about earlier? Dale's what it would be like if that guy got kicked in the head by a moose and still thought he could whistle great but actually sucked a giant dick.

The other day I was sitting at home, trying to explain to Osaka why it would be great if she bought a rickshaw to pull me around in (solving both my transportation and never-been-pulled-around-in-a-rickshaw problems in one brilliant move) when my train of thought was totally cocked in the ass by that tone-deaf Sinatra in his back yard, whistling the theme to Simon & Simon while he turtle-waxed his patio chairs. I think it was the Simon & Simon theme, but to be honest he tends to medley shit together and none of it is right anyway so I can never be sure what specifically I'm pissed about. Could've been "Save the Best for Last," but I guess I still give the dick more credit than that.

So my concentration is shot, and one of the all-time great convincing arguments is lost to the sands of time. Talk about an extra-large crock. Enough is enough, and it's time to go on the offensive. It was one thing that Dale insists on calling me "O.B." even though that's just a tampon joke waiting to happen. Now he was messing with my bidness, as the badasses in the movies like to say when they're black badasses.

I'm thinking of having my bathroom wall replaced with Plexiglas so every time Dale looks out his window he gets an eyeful of Omar Bricks' bathroom business. I'm not sure if watching your neighbor take his morning shit is on par with having to put up with some moron whistling ABBA all the time, but hanging a B.A. out the bathroom window every now and again clearly isn't getting the message across. And nothing sounds better in a memorial service than a story about the time you scared a neighbor into an early grave by pressing ham on your Plexiglas bathroom wall one morning in July.

If that doesn't work, I'm sure I can pay some neighborhood kids to shoot some of those insanely loud whistling fireworks in the dude's bedroom window while he's sleeping. That's the kind of experience that can change a man. Not that you heard that from me, when it happens remember I was speaking hypothetically. Bricks out.

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