... usually, when I tell one of my sick jokes, no one will touch the thread again.

Once upon a time there was a mad scientist named Bob. One day Bob became enraged at all the insanity in the world, what with misdescribed chip auctions and unrespondent sellers and unrepentant roulette harvesters and all that. So anyhow, Bob decided the only thing to do was to blow up the world and put all these misguided misfits out of their misery.

So he made an explosive device more powerful that a million nuclear bombs and drilled a hole to the middle of the earth, out in the southern Nevada desert along a desolate stretch of Highway 25, just south of Warm Springs. He lowered his bomb to the bottom of the hole and rigged a lever to detonate it.

Before Bob could actually pull the lever, his faithful assistant Nate learns of Bob's evil plan, and drives out to the desert to talk to Bob. Nate explains to Bob at great length how we should always give people the benefit of the doubt, and the world is full of a lot of really great people some of whom are chippers and some of whom are fathers with families to raise and some casinos will actually give you roulette chips if you ask for them.

So passionate and compelling were Nate's words that Bob had a change of heart and drove on down to Las Vegas to find a nice call girl and maybe do a little chipping. Nate, ever the dedicated assistant, stayed out in the desert to guard the lever so no one would accidentally blow up the world.

Along about 2 am, Bob was on a roll at the roulette table and entertaining his new girlfriend Suzie when suddenly he remembers he left Nate out in the desert. Stuffing his pockets full of chips, he talks Suzie into driving him out into the desert to find Nate, seeing's as how he's too drunk to drive himself. Unfortunately, Suzie wasn't in much better condition.

So they're barreling up Highway 25 singing old Army songs when all of a sudden in the headlights it's Nate, standing in the middle of the road, trying to flag them down. (Nate was faithful, but not always too bright.) Suzie swerves off the side of the road. Bob catches the glint of the lever on the headlights and grabs the wheel, swerves the car back onto the road and plasters Nate all over the front of the car. "What, are you crazy?" screamed Suzie. All Bob could say was, "Better Nate than Lever!"