is an absolute dream. For years I’ve hunched over a brown paper grocery bag every few months, laboriously trying to cut my medical reports and payment past due notices into confetti. This year I got a brand new shredder for Christmas, and feeding six months worth of backlogged paper into this hungry little monster was the most fun I’ve had since piling up all those bills and medical problems in the first place.

As I was about to take the bag down to the recycling bin, I spied one cutting that read “on bended knee”. Seemed significant. What on earth could the gods be trying to tell me?

I looked at another that turned out to have a number of Chinese characters. Assuming I could safely disregard these, I sat down right there on the floor and pulled out a few more, continuing to disregard the Chinese characters, lines of seemingly random numbers and letters, and of course those that were blank or had been cut perpendicular to lines of text. What I ended up with was this:

Thank Heavens for my training in Classics, which included deciphering legends stamped onto coins, the handling of ancient manuscripts, and—most helpful here— epigraphy. Here’s what I’ve been able to determine:

IMPORTANT:
[Your] mission is [at] 5:00 on T[itan.] We have the e-Surge, and we claim thy pathways logo are trademarks of Cenall. They are like nomination meetings, or s[oft]ened [skulls], but [oh] how it felt on bended knee! Now is the time, Wanderer—pray tell your fri[ends they] ARE NOT REQUIRED TO PAY.

So there you have it. Not gods, I now understand, but that intergalactic force of aliens from EGS-zs8-1 now hiding behind Planet X. While I appreciate the information as well as sentiments conveyed in that last line via all caps, I’m not sure how I feel about Cenall claiming my pathways. And they may denigrate said pathways as a reading back of the minutes of an annual Rotary Club meeting or Aunt Sylvia’s habit of including herself in the conversation on Fox and Friends, but the point is simply this: these pathways may not be pretty, but the fact is they work. What you’re feeling there is success. You’re welcome.

So I won’t be disposed of that easily. I’m a man of my word, so you can count on me to make that trip to Titan—but you can also expect me to wander by the Cenall HQ on Europa before I do. And then we’ll see about that e-Surge, you can be sure of that.