Last Week's Question - (inspired by Justin, Ryan and some random guy) So, some department stores are notorious for long lines and closed cashier stations (ahem, Best Buy). However, even a couple of days before Christmas, perhaps some of the busiest shopping days of the months, and with enormous lines, even then all the registers weren't open. So exactly when do those registers open? What is their purpose? Aesthetics?

Marc A - Huh? Cash registers? They are two very odd words when co-joined. I just said them over and over about twenty times. What could they possibly mean? I will analyse this scientifically rather than intuitively. Cash. Cash=money. Money = a representation of value. But, value for an Eritrean is not the same as value for Tibetan Monk. Therefore, value is too subjective or, perhaps value = the property or aggregate properties of a thing by which it is rendered useful or desirable, or the degree of such property or sum of properties; worth; excellence; utility; importance. Thus, I choose cash=excellence or importance. Now, using the same methodology, register= to be visible in someone’s facial expression or body language, or to display something in this way. Thus, I choose register=facial display. Now we have an answer to the question which I have forgotten. Let me think. (Time passes...) Okay, there are three distinct questions: 1.)So exactly when do those registers open? 2.)What is their purpose? 3.)Aesthetics?

And the answers I propose are: 1.) I cannot know when “exactly” is as there is no measurement device I may utilize. If I say ‘round about 3:00 PM, then the answer would be when the big hand is on the ‘12’ and the little hand is on the ‘3’, give or take a bunch of minutes. 2.) “Purpose.” By my forgoing analysis, I can state with a modicum of certitude that their purpose is to note excellent or important facial displays. 3.) “Aesthetics.” I think this is a trick question, but since I am a tricky dood, I will answer. Yes, aesthetics. The CR’s note the beautiful and sublime and therefore, the “purpose” of the CR’s has been mistaken, once again, by the questioners who seek reason in a world in which none exists. Take a few moments and look around you. Now, in all candor, do you perceive the quality of “reason”? (Did I put the question mark in the right place or does it go inside the quotes. I forget. Darn.) with warmest regards, m3x.

John E - Unbeknownst to most mainstream department store shoppers (to whom the vast majority of reality is unbeknownst), stores with never-used cash registers are part of a top secret national disinformation campaign intended to brainwash the public into believing that unemployment is low and, consequently, that the demand for employees is high. Having perpetually unused cash registers makes it seem to the uninformed shopper that workers are so scarce (due to excessively high employment rates) that the store cannot fill all its positions. The reality is that the unemployment rate is at levels high enough that riots would break out in all major metropolitan areas if the actual figures were known. Unemployment is kept so high because a catastrophic global stock market crash (predicted by Nostradamus, Cayce, and LaToya Jackson) is expected to occur on May 5, 2003 at 11:34 and 27 seconds GMT. Corporations everywhere have been progressively cutting more and more corners for the past few decades in order to save up secret stashes of money in non-stock form so that the top-level executives will be able to survive the famine, poverty, anarchy, etc. that the impending mega-crash will cause. Replacing fewer and fewer employees and using remaining employees to make up the slack is just one of many cost-cutting methods employed. The stock market's recently-impregnated-heifer-like bloating over the past decade (minus the past three years or so) was engineered by a small group of freakishly wealthy and powerful investors privy to the mega-crash prophecy, and the collapse of Enron was a hoax intended to convince the public that corporations couldn't possibly have secret cash stashes lying around somewhere. And I have a blaze orange pet triceratops with six sets of wings and twenty-three legs that can say the Gettysburg address backwards and that can count pi to the four quagmizillionth digit.

Justin S - You know, it's the same at the Raleigh Grande Movie Theater. In truth, there are about 12 registers at which one could buy insanely over-priced candy, soft drinks, and popcorn BUT there are only 2 to 6 of these registers open at any given time. I think these registers, like the ones at Best Buy, are there to show how GREAT business COULD be if there were only more consumers. And register designers' eyes are bigger than their stomachs...or wallets...or maybe shopping bags.

This Week's Question - (paraphrased from Lori W) What is the nature (or ingredient) of "Devil's Food Cake" that has caused it to fall from the glorious state of "Angel Food Cake"? How and why did this fall from grace occur?