Look at that. Chip off the old block, eh, Mitch? You should be proud, very proud. You are? Good, good. (Arrogant sonofabitch…)
Whoops. Didn’t know I was typing my thoughts as well as my spoken words – very careless of me. Do me a kindness and overlook that last remark… I’m just not in a very good state of mind right now vis-a-vis Mitch Macaphee, our resident mad scientist. Truth be known, he’s not arrogant. The son of a bitch part is fairly accurate, but I wouldn’t call him arrogant. Stubborn, perhaps. Okay, okay – obstinate. But not arrogant. And I am trying to hold my tongue around him, as it took a good long time to convince him to return to the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. Wouldn’t want to be responsible for sending him packing once again. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) would never let me hear the end of it. (A devoted son, it seems.)
Why am I annoyed at Mitch? Well…. I’m told I’m being unfair. After all, it was he who ultimately shifted the man-sized tuber’s thousands of relatives out of the mill and back 
into the fields where they belong. That’s right, friends – the potato head family is gone, gone, gone. And it was Mitch who came up with the solution. Foolishly simple, really. He just phoned up our mutual friend Trevor James Constable and asked him to focus the full strength of his patented orgone generating machine towards the Hammer Mill. Let me tell you, that got a rise out of those little suckers. They started rolling out the door the minute Trevor James flipped the switch. Of course, there were some side effects. My fillings, for instance, began emitting easy listening music. Also, the fireplace implements took on an unearthly glow. But it was well worth the trouble.
What about the man-sized tuber? I’ll tell you, after all these weeks, he’s had his fill of relatives. Couldn’t wait for them to leave, quite frankly. (Quite a switch from the mopey Melvin routine that got us into this mess in the first 
place.) The only real downside here is that Mitch is insufferably pleased with himself for having solved this thing so quickly, so elegantly, so…. so enough, already! Even I’m singing his praises. The fact is, he doesn’t react very well to success. Now he thinks he can do anything. He’s inserted himself into my mixing and mastering sessions (which at least gives me someone else to blame for the positively geological pace of this project). He’s taken up cooking (using the same tools he uses to work with micro-organisms… uuuhhhlllll….). And, even worse, Mitch now thinks he can sculpt figures out of living rock. He chipped a crude Frankenstein’s monster out of the side of a cliff – looks ridiculous. Today I saw him looking discerningly at one of the mill’s courtyard wall – the one that makes up the north side of my room!
Okay, so that’s why I’m irked. I know, it’s petty. I’ll drop it soon enough. Though… between keystrokes, I can hear this vague chipping sound… like someone hammering a chisel into … bricks…
