ast Friday was a familiar scene to many observers with a memory stretching back twelve months or more: Millions of Americans rushing to the airport to mail their tax returns before the April 15th midnight deadline, only to be redirected to the post office, the nation’s more traditional outlet for its citizens’ mailing needs.

The April 15th deadline for postmarked tax returns still catches millions of Americans off guard every year, in spite of not having changed in over 50 years. Earlier dates of March 1st and 15th, set in 1913 and 1918 respectively, caused similar problems by arriving predictably every year. Experts agree that moving the date forward even later into the year would likely only solve the problem for people who hadn’t heard about the date change. Postal Service officials confirm an annual rush of elderly taxpayers every March 1st, proving that old habits die hard, though the Postal Service official we talked to thought it was because “that’s when they got their rebate check for denture glue or baby food or some shit.�

This reporter suffered from unusual difficulty collecting quotes for this story, since every person she approached on the street to ask if they’d waited until the last minute to file their taxes invariably screamed something like “Oh holy fuck!� or a comical “Shiiiiiiiiiiiiii- iiiiiit…� before sprinting away, either to hurriedly file their taxes or avoid the awareness of such for a few more precious hours.

Further digging, however, revealed Americans from all walks of life that were routinely bushwhacked by entirely predictable yearly phenomena, even those having nothing to do with 1040 forms, exemptions, or the Sino-Russo Breast Reduction. A surprising number of Americans were even caught off guard by the arrival of spring and warmer temperatures after months of cold winter.

“Jesus, it’s getting warm,� commented a surprised Burt Filbitz of Terre Haute, Indiana. “Who knows when this will let up? It’s weird. I hope it stops at some point, before we all get burnt and melted by the sun.�

Still others were similarly distressed by the rising of the sun this morning, a daily ritual that never the less caught some unprepared night-enjoyers completely off guard.

“There it is again!� screamed Scranton, Ohio’s Meg Dadry. “There’s fire in the sky, mama! Fire!�

In order to combat the yearly crush of customers seeking to get their tax returns mailed before midnight on tax day, often causing lines at post offices across the nation that make the pope’s funeral look like the line for voluntary chemical castration, the U.S. Postal Service has been running a series of helpful reminder television commercials throughout the months of March and April to help Americans to not be so predictably dopey.

The first of the ads featured a long-awaited reunion of washed up stoner comedy legends Cheech and Chong, referencing one of their most popular routines.

“Knock Knock,� the ad begins.

“Who’s there?�

“Tax time.�

“Tax Time’s not here, man!�

The starkest of the new ads and possibly the most effective, however, featured only a black screen with actor Jeff Bridges offering the simple voice-over “Wake up, dipshit, it’s tax time.�

report released Friday disclosed that savage viruses that shred most human flesh and destroy normal mortal bodies will not even mess with people on American soil. The study, researched at Bolchek University in Ames, Iowa, and financed by the American Family First organization, had been going on for more than five weeks when it made its findings public in Friday's press release.

The news comes as a great relief to weary earth-dwellers in the United States, as word came of a deadly Ebola-like virus continuing its rampage through Angola, some country most Americans aren't familiar with in Africa. The World Health Organization (WHO, sometimes known as the Teenage Wasteland Group) announced shortly before the Bolchek press release that 173 people in Angola have died from the virus known as Marburg, and four more non-U.S. countries have been placed on the warning list.

News media assured American citizens the country will be alright, since they have something of a track record for surviving problems without U.S. intervention, and have even survived some caused by them.

The Bolchek study findings, however, provided a large relief from worry about viral invasions by other dangerous contagions such as Marberg and Ebola, including CCHF, Dengue, SARS, Lassa fever, and the Kinks. According to research, done in Bolchek's famous $3 million Sid Caesar Facility, virus cells, when given the choice between healthy cells of different nationalities, will always shy away from American DNA.

"It's totally awesome," said project head, 18-year-old super-genius Nills Van Raftan. "We stumbled on it a bit by accident. We were testing the effect of Ebola on the blood cells of African mice—since we wanted to save the American mice for better experiments—when one of the team members had a nosebleed and accidentally contaminated the sample. Imagine our surprise when we saw the Ebola contagions were scared shitless of messing with the American cells. And who can blame 'em?"

If the results are verified, and frankly nobody's doubting the outcome of a second test much, it answers a great number of questions for the world's nerdy virus-following community. Such as why have SARS and Mad Cow and other disease variants been too chickenshit to mess with the U.S. of A.?

"For any number of reasons," posited spindly weakling Van Raftan, "virus cells simply will not infect American cells, at least those of the United States. It could be because U.S. cells don't brook backtalk from foreign viruses. But, if my personification of American cells is way off, it might also be because viruses know that if they mess with American cells, they're risking a massive investment of money in destroying their asses. They can work their way through Africa, Asia, and even Eastern Europe for years, and we'll leave them alone—but first time they start infecting Americans on American soil, they're on our list. Companies even drop all the new dick pill technology they're working on and concentrate on the hot new market for pharmaceuticals to keep Americans healthier than foreigners."

When asked about AIDS, a virus long plaguing even American citizens, Van Raftan made a squeal, smiled sheepishly with his braces on display, and shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe some viruses are retarded. But it does give us something to work on when we get frustrated with erection research."

Well well well, I have come to learn a few things about myself in these past few weeks, but nothing more important than this: I will never smoke PCP again. Unless it's free.

I've spent the past six weeks roaming the Earth, which later turned out to be my apartment, with my invincible quarter-sized right hand midget, Nevil. And because I spent most of my nearly two-month binge higher than Rodney King on payday, I was able to discover two important things.

One, I cannot stop a car moving at top speed with my face, as I may have wildly boasted in the past. And secondly, but most importantly, I am a master robot builder.

Now I use the word master somewhat loosely, because I've only built one. But oh what a robot she... he... s/h/it was.

The idea came to me while smoking pure PCP out of a trumpet I found in the trash, and watching that futuristic movie where Will Smith hunts down robots while wearing old school Converse sneakers. Now, I don't know if you've ever worn a pair of those, but whether you have or not, take it from me: They suck fuckin' whale dork. I say the future's looking pretty goddamned bleak when they can build robots that look and move like humans, but still can't make a pair of comfortable basketball shoes.

It was right about this time that I jumped up out of the bathtub and exclaimed "Holy shit!" That happens all the time, but this time in particular I capped off the gesture by dashing naked into the kitchen, to begin immediate construction of the Mickey Hanes 1.0.

Now the common moronic belief about robot construction is that you need a metallic skeletal frame surrounded by complex electrical wiring, a state of the art CPU brain, and some kind of gelatin-like skin to cover the whole mess. I'm here to tell you, that's a load of bullshit.

I made mine almost completely out of common household items: some toilet paper rolls, a few empty potato chip bags, and a ton of spare parts I found attached to my neighbor Tom's Mustang. You'd be amazed at all the parts that aren't being used under the hood and on the undercarriage. That's right; my baby is running on a turbocharged V-6. And just to make it super-bitchin, I sawed the head off my old NES robot and crafted it into the ever-vigilant crest of Mickey Hanes 1.0.

My original plan for building a high-tech computer brain out of an X-box and a Black & Decker toaster oven was cruelly kicked in the pills by the news that my neighbor's X-box had a porno stuck in it and some kind of heinous weasel had taken up residence in my own toaster oven. Always thinking, I ended up just sticking the antenna from my old RC car behind the robot's chrome-plated bumper shoulders. No points for style, but hey, fuck that.

When I fired up the robot for the first time, I almost dropped the RC controller, because it instantly snatched up Nevil and stuffed him in a shoebox in 2.3 seconds flat. I know this because I timed it several times afterwards.

I didn't know midgets had collapsible skeletons.

After several hours of laughing at Nevil trying to eek his way out of that shoebox before sicking the robot on him again, my face started hurting, so I decided to make some adjustments.

I tweaked a few wires here and there, played with a crankshaft or two, then yanked the ripcord to turn the robot on again.

I don't know what the hell I did that time, but when the V-6 started up, Mickey Hanes 1.0 made a sound like a roaring lion on angel dust. That was right before it made a bee-line straight through the front door, and hauled ass completely out of the range of my RC controller.

I vaguely remember screaming a semi-intelligible order at Nevil to stop that thing, but the robot mowed over that worthless, pint-sized meatsack like he wasn't even there. Nevil at least had the good sense to cling to the robot's underbelly and let it drag him through the door, and out of kicking range, before it peeled out on his face and left him in a smoking midget divot on the front lawn. I haven't seen the robot since. Nevil, unfortunately, hung around until I dug him out of the lawn.

Understandably furious at his letting-my-robot-escape insubordination, I hung Nevil upside down out of my window with piano wire for three days, by which time there was a family of birds nesting in his pants. Teach that goddamn twerp to disobey my orders.

In closing, wherever Mickey Hanes 1.0 is, I hope he's happy and doing good things, or at least running over important shit in that berserk way of his. But hey, no use crying over spilled milk, so off to my next task. I just tricked Nevil into eating two pounds of Alka-Seltzer by telling him the stuff will make him invisible. This is going to be awesome. Later.

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