irginia Tech officials revealed Monday that last week’s on-campus massacre, which resulted in 33 deaths and countless injuries, may have been related to a cultural exchange the university was participating in with the Iraqi city of Baghdad.

“We thought it might be enlightening for students to experience a day in the life of an average Iraqi,� explained University President Charles W. Steger. “To feel the effects of U.S. foreign policy firsthand. But let me be very clear when I explain that we had no idea the exchange would be so literal. And none of us can even begin to understand how this was possible. That old gypsy woman was very vague about the details.�

The particulars of the exchange are sketchy, but field reports indicate that Baghdad residents spent Monday attending beer-bong blowouts and date raping drunken sorority girls to the sounds of Dave Matthews Band. Va. Tech students arguably got the shittier end of the deal, spending the day coping with the kinds of heartbreaking carnage and mayhem normally reserved for everyone living in Iraq.

“Bah,� dismissed Iraqi horse gelder Jassim al-Ogedi. “Thirty-three dead? That is a good day in Baghdad. After the Americans opened the Pandora’s Box of pure, unfiltered living hell in Iraq, we thank Allah for every day that the death toll stays in the double digits.�

Iraqi insurgents were also displeased with the exchange and the resultant American media frenzy, which they could never hope to inspire even by killing every man, woman and child in the entire nation of Iraq.

“Hey! Assholes! We just blew up a children’s hospital! What do you guys need, a videotaped manifesto?� griped an insurgent whose given name translates as “Abdul with the Yellow Dog,� we think. “Christ! We kill more people than that by lunchtime, and where are we? Page seven? Four years of this shit and we still have fewer inches of newsprint than Don Imus. Fuck you guys.�

In response, Iraqi insurgents have set to work on a menacing, 30-story-tall killbot, which runs on the blood of the innocent, shoots dazzling fireworks, plays MP3s and comes preloaded with Madonna’s latest album. So far this development has only been reported in the U.S. magazine Popular Mechanics.

Few can offer non-humorous theories as to how the Va. Tech shooter fits into the U.S./Iraqi cultural exchange, however. The gunman, whom the commune refuses to name out of a desire not to make the cockknocker any more undeservedly famous than he already is, plus he’s got some bullshit ching chong name so we could just make something up and you’d never know any different, was not known to have any gypsy ties or to have been politically aware beyond what he had seen on South Park.

Some have gone so far as to argue that the shootings were a coincidence, based on the fact that no one has been able to connect the massacre specifically to the ineptitude of the Bush administration. Time, however, may return a different verdict.

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Well, I've officially drank enough eggnog to kill a goat, resulting last night in a terrifying vision of Christmas Future. Either that or I was at a U2 concert. Any way you slice it, I'm running out after work to buy the biggest chicken I can find and give it to some Cuban refugee children to use as a boat, or something.

It's clear as fish's piss that the time has come for Stu Umbrage to change his ways, I've been wind sprinting down the wrong path for far too long. I don't know if it's going to entail doing some charity work, or maybe just dating a girl named Charity, frankly if that second option counts I'm tending to lean that way. Not that I've got any problem with wiping barf off the chins of little alcoholic kids or whatever you're supposed to do to get in good with the lord or other assorted deities these days. But if I can earn some equivalency points by hot-tubbing with some aerobics instructor who had hippie parents, well, sorry little lushes. I don't know if I could live with myself if I took the "high road" on that one. Also known as "Sucker Street".

Whatever it is, I've got to do something quick, though. The last thing I want is to wake up one morning with one of those gigantic Mardi Gras heads. Don't ask, it was a dream I had. At first I was wanting to write it off as some bad clams ate after dark, like "That shit doesn't happen," but then I started to think about it, and what if it does? What if some poor sucker has the dream, ignores it and then wakes up with his gourd taking up the whole bed? There could be hundreds of guys like that out there, you'd never know because it's not like they'd ever leave the house looking like that. Christ, you'd get laughed out of the hat store. Nobody needs that.

It's not like I've been a terrible guy, but I won't argue that my life hasn't been misspent thus far. Hell, my pocket money is misspent, why should my life be any different? I still have craploads of Furbies left over from when those things were popular. I'm not kidding, I have a whole closet full of them. You open the door and it sounds like end of the world. My neighbors called the cops once because they thought I was smuggling illegal immigrants into the country, but then the cops wouldn't come in because they were afraid my apartment was possessed by Satan. I tried to explain, but it's hard to present a lucid narrative when you're constantly being interrupted by "Oooooh! Dark! Brrrrrum-ruum-ruum!"

Those little Mogwai fuckers have cost me more than one girlfriend, believe me.

For that reason and a laundry-list of others, it's time to make some changes. Not quite head-shaving, pimp-shooting changes, but serious nonetheless. First, it's time to admit that my five-year plan to become Bjork has been a dismal failure. I blame neither myself nor the lack of support from Bjork's family, it's clear this whole thing was just not meant to happen. It's time to move on.

Second, it's becoming painfully, ass-numbingly obvious that the move to New York was a mistake. For some reason I thought it would be the land of milk and honey, I'm not sure what I was thinking. It should have been obvious, Wisconsin is where milk comes from. I don't know about honey. But New York is the land of shit and money, which is close but not the same thing. Between the commune's base pay of "good friends, good times and some magic beans" and the rising price of pay toilets in the city, something's going to go Chernobyl in the near future.

Which is why it's high time for Stu Umbrage to get back to his roots. No, not Wisconsin. Jesus. Those roots can stay there. I'm thinking more the open road, the wind in my hair, and the desert stretching out before me. I'm thinking cheap rent and an alcoholic workforce that puts me at the top of headhunting lists just for showing up. I'm thinking New Mexico. I'm in the mood for a place where you can buy Peyote at the supermarket. That's the kind of state where a man can get some soul-searching done, and crap for free. Sign me up.

So, although I've had a good run here at the commune in the last ten months, I think it's time to ramble on. Don't tell Bagel though, I plan on leaving a mannequin in my chair and am paying Rok Finger to turn in one column from my backlog every couple weeks just in case nobody notices I'm gone and they keep paying me. After all, beans can come in handy on a road trip, and all it'll cost me is a couple bottles of Old Spice. I told Finger they stopped making the stuff but that I had the last few bottles stashed away, I'm not sure if he believed me but he didn't want to risk it.

Wish me luck, commune readers. If and when I get to a state of Zen I'll send you a postcard, though I warn you now that it'll probably have no words and just a pear on it or something. You know how that Zen shit is.

º Last Column: One Household Please, and Hold the Kids
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I must say with one-cup astonishment, two cups of mistrust, I'm doing perfectly well this week. That's right, Rokophiles, Mama Finger's boy has no outstanding bones to pick or societal ills to attack. Oh, sure, I imagine there's plenty of bad things happening in our world—there always is—but at the moment none seem to concern me.

No, I'm not in love—at least not in love with anyone new; just my lovely wife of thirty years, Arvelyn, our cat Makeshift, and maybe the commune stockboy—he does freshen your paperclip cup even before it's empty, that charming fop.

Nor is my cheerful demeanor the by-product of any dangerous mind-expanding new drug. I can assure you good people I'm on nothing stronger than good ol' black coffee, Tylenol, and the Cannabis prescribed for my foot pain.

I can't explain why, I'm just happy. Oh, to be sure, I've got things to be unhappy about—by the barrelful! But at this time, I'm just having a good day.

At this moment the President, what'sisname, could pop up on my screen and announce that the race war has just broken out at long last, and my response would be: "Eh." I kid you not. I'm just generally doin' fine.

I'm not sure how my wife's doing—I should ask her. I suppose she's just fine, though. She's always been fine even when I've not been so fine, she just leans toward finality, I think. I'm sure Makeshift has no feline worries—perhaps feline leukemia, if he's a particularly worrisome cat, but if he is he sure puts up a brave façade. I should really talk to him, get to know him better.
Maybe it's the fact it's Wednesday; I've always liked Wednesdays best. But even if I can't explain it, I know I'm doing fine. Hope you're doing fine.

Wait… now it's starting to wear off. Feeling less fine even as the moments erode. Becoming genuinely pissed off now. Try figuring that out! No… seems to be fading itself. Generally retreating to fine now. Deadline is approaching, so I'll keep you informed on the fine/not-fine issue as details become available in the next column.

º Last Column: God Owes Me BIG TIME
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