Believe it or not, the commune actually makes a tidy profit at the end of the week. Not this week, certainly not every week, but we can safely say the commune occasionally makes enough of a profit to keep the commune running. And here begins the problem.

As commune profits have grown, I began to hire staff members. Many of them you know through their columns, news articles, threatening letters to the commune or court dates. But there are unsung heroes as well, and I won't start to sing them here as my voice will crack. But one of these unsung heroes is Phil Lampost, the commune's Office Manager.

Or he was the commune's Office Manager.

Phil Lampost is the victim of what I call M.M.I.—Murder Most Implausible. Lampost was an exceptional person, skilled in both computer programming and office management. I found this out when I called him into my office, under the unfortunate premise of accusing him of embezzling $45 from the commune's Red Bagel fund, a fund designed for my future frivolous use. Phil then confided in me about the horrible truth.

In his spare hours, Phil had been designing a program called the Master Control Program, which would tighten security at the office, manage the commune's finances, assign writing and editorial duties without my help, and tuck me in at night. That last part is not a joke. This would be an amazing program, once Phil worked out the bugs as he promised me. I immediately apologized for accusing him of stealing money, but you know as well as I do it's hard to trust people these days. I wish I could say the story ended there.

Phil warned me cryptically that the program was growing out of control. Phil had made it as smart as an average person, he warned me, and that the thing would be ten times smarter than myself. Phil worried that the program was growing beyond its design, thinking for itself. Think about that! A computer thinking for itself without being told to do so. Think about it! It's beyond human, with all of our good points and none of our bad. And Phil warned me that if he could not be reached again, it would mean the Master Control Program had grown so bold as to kidnap Phil into the computer world.

I dread telling you what happened. Yes, Phil disappeared. My guess is that Phil discovered every penny of the commune's account was missing, no doubt stolen by the conniving Master Control Program, and when Phil tried to stop it he was abducted into the computer world. And for some reason, the MCP also abducted my new blonde secretary and bought two tickets to Jamaica.

But I shall not be thrown off the path from the real villain. The Master Control Program must be stopped. I don't know how, but I can and will do it.

I first set out to write a program to destroy the Master Control Program, but was thwarted early on by the fact that my computer was not already on. I will obviously have to enlist someone to write such a program for me, as well as turn my computer on.

Until such a time I will stop the Master Control Program the only way I know how: I have collected all the computers, calculators, and suspicious looking television sets into a big pile and started a bonfire out of them. I saw smokey demons escaping from the computers as they burned, maybe that's a good sign. I'll replace them, eventually, but I doubt they will be missed here at the commune offices. I've bought many foot stools to take their place, and that's usually what they were used for by commune employees.

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