Futility Closet - 092-The Forgotten Amendment

Episode Date: February 1, 2016

In 1982, college sophomore Gregory Watson got a C on a term paper arguing that a long-forgotten constitutional amendment could still be ratified. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow his 10-year mission to prove his professor wrong and get the amendment added to the Constitution. We'll also learn an underhanded way to win a poetry contest and puzzle over how someone can murder a corpse. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. This week's feature on the 27th amendment was suggested by listener Steve Winters. Sources: Richard B. Bernstein, "The Sleeper Wakes: The History and Legacy of the Twenty-Seventh Amendment," Fordham Law Review 61:3, 497-557. John Heltman, "27th Amendment or Bust," American Prospect, May 30, 2012. "Historical Highlights: The 27th Amendment," History, Art & Archives, U.S. House of Representatives (accessed Jan. 17, 2016). "Amendment XXVII: Congressional Compensation," National Constitution Center (accessed Jan. 17, 2016). Richard L. Berke, "1789 Amendment Is Ratified But Now the Debate Begins," New York Times, May 8, 1992. Richard L. Berke, "Congress Backs 27th Amendment," New York Times, May 21, 1992. "Alumni Notes," The Alcalde, September-October 1992. Here's a video interview with Gregory Watson. Sources for our feature on underhanded poetry: "Anecdote Relative to Mr. Dryden," The Gentleman's and London Magazine, August 1763. William Montgomery Clemens, Mark Twain, His Life and Work: A Biographical Sketch, 1892. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener David Elliott, who sent this corroborating link (warning -- this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [e-mail]. Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Futility Closet, a celebration of the quirky and the curious, the thought-provoking and the simply amusing. This is the audio companion to the website that catalogs more than 8,000 curiosities in history, language, mathematics, literature, philosophy, and art. You can find us online at futilitycloset.com. Thanks for joining us. Welcome to episode 92. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1982, college sophomore Gregory Watson got a C on a term paper, arguing that a long-forgotten constitutional amendment could still be ratified. In today's show, we'll follow his 10-year mission to prove his professor wrong and get the amendment added

to the Constitution. We'll also learn an underhanded way to win a poetry contest and puzzle over how someone can murder a corpse. In March 1982, a sophomore at the University of Texas named Gregory Watson was looking through the stacks at the Austin Central Library researching a term paper. He was taking a course in government, and the professor had assigned them a task of writing a paper about a governmental process. And while he was looking around for a topic, he came upon a book about the U.S. Constitution that listed the amendments that Congress had sent to the state legislatures but that hadn't been ratified.

The way a proposal becomes part of the Constitution is that it has to get passed by a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress, the Senate and the House of Representatives, and then it gets sent out to all the state legislatures, and three-fourths of them have to ratify it, have to give it a thumbs up. And if that happens, then it becomes an amendment to the Constitution. So this list he was looking at showed things that had passed, proposals that had passed Congress and been sent out to the states but hadn't acquired the necessary three-fourths of the state's ratifications. That's kind of a high bar. It is, designedly, I think. What caught his eye is that two of the proposals in this list dated from 1789,

all the way back when the Constitution itself was being framed. Some participants in that process had said that they wanted to make some additions to the document, and particularly they wanted a Bill of Rights. So in 1789, James Madison put together a list of 12 proposals. All 12 of those passed the first Congress, and they sent them out to the states, according to the rules, which began ratifying them. By 1791, 10 of those 12 had been ratified, had received the approval of three-fourths of the states, and those came back and were added as the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, what

we now call the Bill of Rights. Freedom of speech, press, religion, speedy trial, right to bear arms, all that stuff. That left two. Of those two, one was basically a formula for how to calculate representation in the House of Representatives. It basically gave a proportion to show how many members the House ought to have. And the other concerned Congress's compensation. It said that if members of Congress wanted to give themselves a pay raise,

they can do that, but the pay raise can't take effect until after the next election as a way to sort of put the brakes on them just willy-nilly voting themselves pay raises all the time. This way, if you want to vote yourself a pay raise, you have to sort of face your constituents before it takes effect, and it kind of discourages them from going crazy in doing this. The text of that amendment reads, no law varying the compensation for the services of the senators and representatives shall take effect until an election of representatives shall have intervened. James Madison apparently felt strongly about this. He'd written, quote, there is a seeming impropriety in leaving any set of men without control to put their hand into the public coffers to take out money to put in their pockets. And this made good sense to Gregory Watson standing in the library

that day. He said, I can recall standing there and feeling a strong impulse physically come over me that this 1789 Congressional Compensation amendment not only made eminent good sense but also that it was still technically pending before the state legislatures oh really after 192 years because he said think about it according to the rules it has to get through congress and then it has to get ratified by three-fourths of the states but there's no time limit yeah i'm just gonna say so there's no expiration on that so in his view at least it had got through the first hurdle got through congress and was just sort to say, so there's no expiration on that. So in his view, at least, it had got through the first hurdle, got through Congress, and was just sort of hanging fire out there in the states, just waiting until three-fourths of them ratified it.

And that just hadn't happened yet. So he got really enchanted with this idea. He had been planning tentatively to write his term paper about the Equal Rights Amendment, but he put that aside and instead wrote his paper arguing that this forgotten amendment could still be ratified. He wrote the paper up, turned it into the teaching assistant, and got it back a few days later with a C. The teaching assistant argued that this was unrealistic,

that it was basically a dead letter because so much time had passed. She said it could never actually become part of the Constitution. She just didn't like his argument. Watson said, I decided, you know, I'd really researched that very thoroughly. I appealed that up to the professor, and she didn't change the grade. It stayed a C. I thought, well, I'll just get the darn thing ratified. I'll show them.

So he was already very busy. Apart from being a student, he was also a staffer at the Texas State Capitol. And so he had to make time to pursue this project that he just took on voluntarily. He says he would eat, drink, sleep, and breathe the ratification of the amendment all seven days of the week whenever he could shoehorn it into his schedule. And this is in the early 1980s, so it was before the internet, so this was an unthinkable agony of typewriters and postage stamps. What he was doing, was writing to members of Congress and saying, can you put me in touch with someone back in your home state who would be willing to introduce a

resolution in your state legislature proposing to ratify this two-century-old proposal and see if we can get it added to the Constitution? He estimates that the campaign cost him a year of his life licking stamps and stuffing envelopes, and it was quite a high mountain to climb. He had to basically get 30 states all together to ratify this amendment, approaching them on his own, one by one. But it gained momentum. The first break came in 1983, which is just a year after he'd gotten his C. A state senator in Maine agreed to introduce a resolution for ratification there. And Watson thought, well, if I can get Maine to pass it, surely there will be other states. And in fact, Colorado followed in 1984. And from there, he said, things just skyrocketed. I should mention at the time, this was kind of a simmering issue politically in the country anyway. When Watson submitted his term paper, Congress had just voted

itself a special tax break. He said, it struck me that this was a very sneaky backdoor pay raise, and I felt that it was time to do something. He said that a lot of people felt that there were numerous instances in which Congress had voted itself, found a way to vote itself a pay increase or an increase in compensation without technically having to go on the record. And there was some discontent about that. So his timing was really good. Yes. And for that reason, the states, a lot of them cooperated. This feeling was quite common in the time at the time so watson just worked on at this year after year approaching state state legislatures and trying to get the legislation put through i'm sure by this point he's long

graduated and yes his c is long forgotten in fact 10 years had gone by by the time he got the final state ratification which is michigan's which came on may 2nd, a decade after he finished his course there. But Michigan passed it unanimously, and it became what's now the 27th Amendment to the Constitution. He succeeded. After the longest ratification process in U.S. history, 202 years, 7 months, and 12 days. Basically, James Madison wrote it in the 18th century,

and it got passed by this guy in Texas. It's really interesting to me that they didn't have to take it back to Congress, that they say, well, once it got passed any Congress, it's okay. It's funny you say that. That's the next thing I want to talk about. Watson called this the greatest thing in my 30-year life, which I'm sure it was. But this is a gray area legally. You're exactly right.

Because the way it works today is if someone proposes a constitutional amendment, typically what happens is when Congress writes it up, they insert a time limit, typically seven years. Oh. So if it passes Congress, they'll send it out to the state houses and say, okay, you've got seven years. If three-fourths of you ratify it in that time, then great, it'll be in the Constitution. Because I was wondering about that. Are all these other amendments still pending somewhere? But no, not if they have time limits. Yeah, not in modern times, not since the early 19th century when they wondering about that. Are all these other amendments still pending somewhere? But no, not if they have time limits.

Yeah, not in modern times, not since the early 19th century when they started doing that. But there are other amendments out there pending that don't have a time limit, and it's basically never come to issue what happens. It's never come to a test because no one's contested it. The Supreme Court has said in a 1921 case that there's an implicit statute of limitations in all legal transactions and that the constitutional amendments are no exception. But it's also said in 1939 that ultimately this is a political process. And so if someone's going to have to decide whether the ratification of a

given amendment is valid, quote unquote, it's not the courts that will do that, it's Congress itself. And that just hasn't happened to come up yet. So no one quite knows. It hasn't been thrashed out in actual practice yet. So no one really knows. In fact, it's interesting. When Watson's Amendment, what became the 27th Amendment, when Michigan passed it in 92, the archivist of the United States said, well, that's it. It passed Congress. It's got three quarters of the state. So you're done. It's going to become, he was going to register it as officially the 27th Amendment. And Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who had a reputation as a stickler for the rules, stepped in and said, basically, not so fast.

At this point, Congress has the privilege of stepping in and saying, just declaring that this was not valid because it's so old. Okay. On paper, Congress has that right. But, and in fact, Watson himself agreed that this would have been within Congress's power to do so. But in this case, it never actually came to the test because it would have looked terrible. Yeah. Basically, the amendment said Congress shouldn't be allowed to vote itself a pay raise, and the state said, yeah, we agree with that. So it got through all these hoops, and then Congress would be stepping in at the last second and saying, we've decided that this isn't valid.

Right. It just would have looked wretchedly off. Yeah. We want to vote ourselves all the pay raises we want. So rather than oppose it, Congress basically fell all over itself to praise it and back it, and it just got into the Constitution for that reason. The New York Times wrote, the issue had simply dried up in an environment of public anger over congressional perquisites and pay raises, and as a result, today's votes were regarded

as entirely political, giving members a chance to be on record as in favor of the amendment. So that means that it's still a gray area, because if they challenged it, then at least we'd be setting some precedent about how this stuff works and what the outcome would be. But that didn't happen in this case. So it remained untested. I want to know, did he go back and get the professor to change his grade on his paper? No. In fact, some newspaper reports have gone back and talked to his professor and she said, I have hundreds of students every year. She doesn't remember because 10 years had gone by, to be fair. She's probably tired of being asked about that, but it's a natural question. So you may be asking yourself, who cares if a measure is good enough to get through both

houses of Congress and it's written by somebody like James Madison, it's probably a pretty good idea. What's the big deal if it takes a long time to get through the state houses? And the answer is that ostensibly any constitutional amendment reflects the will of the people, sort of a broad consensus of the people in this country, what the Supreme Court elsewhere called a contemporary consensus, that the people who live in this country at the time that it's proposed generally support it, whatever it is. So, for example, we might be squabbling about a million other things in this country, but we agree generally that women ought to have the vote or that we want to end prohibition or whatever it is. If you don't put a time limit on this ratification process, then what can happen is that Congress sends it out to the state houses.

And in principle, years or even centuries can go by while, you know, it slowly filters its way one by one through the state legislatures. And by the time it gets to the finish line, we might find ourselves with an amendment that we don't want anymore. Yeah, that made sense at the time. And just doesn't anymore. I've got two examples of that. I had said that in 1789, the first Congress had sent out 12 proposals. Ten became the Bill of Rights. One is this compensation amendment we've been talking about.

proposals. Ten became the Bill of Rights. One is this compensation amendment we've been talking about. The other one is something called the Congressional Apportionment Amendment, which basically sets a proportion to decide how many members should be in the House of Representatives. It's one in every 50,000 citizens. That's what was proposed way back in 1789. Well, that got sent out to the state houses, didn't get the required number of states to ratify it. So that, too, in principle, is still hanging out there waiting to ratify it. So that too, in principle, is still hanging out there waiting to be ratified. And that could still happen if somehow three-fourths of the states suddenly decide to accept it, then it too would be added as an amendment to the Constitution. But in the interval, in the intervening two centuries, the country has grown so much larger

that we'd have a disastrously huge number of representatives. By my calculation, we would have, if it passed today, we'd have 6,378 Congress people, which would require another 14 Capitol buildings. I don't think anybody wants that. There's another scarier one. There's something called the Corwin Amendment. In 1861, as we were approaching the American Civil War, states were seceding from the Union. And as a sort of bargaining chip to try to persuade them not to do that, Congress said, look, if you stay, we'll protect slavery in the Constitution. We'll recognize it as a domestic institution, and we'll set it up, we'll set up an amendment saying that Congress can't interfere or even pass an amendment afterwards abolishing it, that slavery will be protected. That too passed congress and went out

to the states and has just been technically floating out there ever since and is still technically viable and in principle god forbid if three-fourths of the states wind up ratifying that too would become part of the constitution but it would have to be ratified by the states today although i suppose if some of them ratified it quite some time ago i wonder if those still count like if it got through you know georgia like does that still count yes i mean from my understanding it it does and you have to i mean it's still very unlikely but still it's in principle possible that's no one's consensus no one in this country wants slavery back but it's technically accurate to say that we're on the last step of adding it to our constitution so admittedly the chance of any of these outstanding proposals actually becoming

amendments is very low but the critics of this business say why even take that chance especially with issues that are this important why wait to address them until this becomes a crisis and the problem is there's no precedent for it there's There's no way really to establish what to do. Both Congress, as I said, has the right to question the validity of a ratified amendment, but none of the stuff has come to issue. And it's not clear, at least to me from my research, whether Congress has the authority to pull, sort of yank back a proposed amendment before the states have had an opportunity even to vote on it. Perhaps they do. I don't know. It's just this is all a gray area and hasn't been decided, and it's kind of scary because these are really important issues. Gregory Watson,

who pushed the 27th Amendment through, after all, this just went back to his job in the statehouse, at the time there was some rumblings about whether this was some shadowy cabal that was attacking Congress, you know, it was more than just one guy. It was some larger, sinister effort. And he says that's ridiculous. He says, quote, that's pure nonsense. The state legislators who voted to ratify the amendment formed bipartisan coalitions from both political parties. And those few who opposed the amendment also came from both parties. It transcended party. It transcended liberal versus conservative. It was truly bipartisan. Watson himself is interested in government and, in fact, works in government, but he's not a politician, and he doesn't even seem to be a political animal.

He says he's mistrustful of politicians regardless of their partisan affiliation. He's just some guy. In fact, in July 2011, he lost his job as a staffer for a Texas state representative and wound up working at a Dillard's department store in Austin's Barton Creek Scare Mall, a turn of events he calls a bit of an American tragedy. So he's just some guy. He now works again for the Harris County delegation to the Texas House of Representatives. And I think it's sad or poignant or inspiring that as recently as the 1980s, one ordinary citizen could accomplish something as momentous in our system as getting the Constitution Amendment, especially because I think a lot of people feel now that the whole system has been bought and paid for. It's easy to be cynical about this.

And his effort was really sort of what I think. If you'd ask James Madison, what do you think about this? One person's efforts really is what pushed the ratification through. He'd say, if the statehouse has ratified it, then that's how the system is supposed to work. The people should be able to work their will if that's how they feel. Watson says now, if citizens would get involved in the political process, they can make a huge difference.

The average citizen is more interested in football on television than he or she is interested in typing a letter to a congressman. And so because of that, politicians have gotten this notion in their mind that they can just do whatever they please and get away with it.

And to a very great extent, they do. And so I would urge Americans to get involved with elected officials, share your views with elected officials, and tell that that representative or that senator that this is something you're worried about, and you want him or her to address it legislatively, and then go watch football. And then go watch football. He says he's still interested in congressional amendments and still, you know, very involved politically in watching the process. He says he'd like to see further amendments that would establish term limits and fiscal discipline. But he says, because the partisan gridlock is so strong in today's politics at both the state and national levels, it may very well be a long, long time before the Constitution sees its 28th Amendment. before the Constitution sees its 28th Amendment. We want to thank everyone who has been supporting our podcast. It takes many hours a week to put together a research-intensive show like this one, and we just wouldn't be able to keep going if it weren't for the donations and pledges that we get from our listeners.

If you would like to make a one-time donation to help us out, you can find a donate button on the sidebar of the website at futilitycloset.com. And if you'd like to join our Patreon campaign and pledge a recurring donation to help keep us going, you can get access to our activity feed, where you can find out what's going on behind the scenes of the show, get outtakes and extralateral thinking puzzles, and learn what Sasha, our show mascot, has been doing lately. We'll see you next time. or see the link in the show notes. And thanks again to everyone who helps support the show. Here are a couple examples of how to win a poetry competition. I was struck that a couple different writers have hit on the same tactic. The first is an anecdote that concerns John Dryden, the English poet of the 1600s.

At one point it said he agreed to serve as the judge in an impromptu poetry competition among his friends. They were each going to try to write a poem just on the spot, and he agreed to choose which one was the best. His friends included the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Rochester, and Charles Sackville, the Earl of Dorset. All of them worked hard on their entries, except for Dorset, who just casually wrote a few lines and then handed his poem in to Dryden almost immediately. When the others had caught up with him and finished, Dryden collected all their submissions and read through them, and he smiled when he got to Dorset's. He said, I must acknowledge that there are abundance of fine things in my hands, and such is due honor to the personages who wrote them.

But I am under an indispensable necessity of giving the highest preference to Lord Dorset's poem. I promise to pay John Dryden, or order on demand, the sum of 500 pounds. Dorset. Dryden said, Dorset. Dryden said, I must confess that I am equally charmed with the style and the subject. This kind of writing exceeds any other, whether ancient or modern.

About 200 years later, Mark Twain found himself in a similar situation. He entered a contest that was offering $10 for the best original poem on the topic of spring, and the rules said that no poem would be considered unless it should possess what it called positive value. Here's Twain's poem. Hail, beauteous, gladsome spring. A poem by S.L. Clemens. Number 1163, Hartford, Connecticut, November 17th. George P. Bissell and Company, bankers. Pay to Mrs. David Gray, or order, $10.

Household account, S.L. Clemens. Twain wrote later, it took the prize for this reason. No other poem offered was really worth more than $4.50, whereas there was no getting around the petrified fact that this one was worth $10. In truth, there was not a banker in the whole town who was willing to invest a cent in those other poems, but every one of them said this one was good, sound, seaworthy poetry and worth its face. Let other struggling young poets be encouraged by this to go striving. It's Greg's turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. I'm going to give him an odd-sounding situation, and he has to work out what's going on, asking only yes or no questions.

Okay? Yes. Okay. This puzzle comes from david elliott one man shoots another man and the shooting is ruled to be accidental however he is then convicted of attempting to murder the corpse what happened this really happened this really happened yeah okay you said convicted? Yes.

Of shooting or attempting to shoot the corpse? He's convicted of attempting to murder the corpse. All right. Where do you begin? Is the time period important? No. Is the location important? No.

I mean, is this in the United States? No, it wasn't. Do I need to work out? No, it doesn't matter where it happened. Okay. By shoot, do you mean attack with a firearm and like a gun? Shoot someone with a gun? Yes.

Firing bullets? Yes. Okay. Do I need to know the specific identities of these two men? No. Do I need to know their occupations? No. Do I need to know the setting where this took place?

No. Are there other people involved? No. Do I need to know anything about the past or criminal records or anything like place? No. Are there other people involved? No. Do we need to know anything about the past or the criminal records or anything like that? No. Really?

So there's just two guys? It's just these two guys. Okay. So there's two guys. It doesn't matter where they are. Right. One shoots at the other?

Yes. One man shoots another man and the shooting is ruled to be accidental. Okay. The shooting is ruled in court that that was accidental. However, he is then convicted of attempting to murder the corpse.

All right. So let's take those in two. Okay. There's two things there. Right. On the first one, he shoots at the other man. Yeah.

Does he hit him? Yes. He shoots the other man and hits him and kills him. Yes. With the first other man and hits him and kills him? Yes. With the first shot? Yes.

Did that happen deliberately? Was he trying to kill him? No. It was an accident? Yes, and it was ruled to be accidental. And I'm saying that's accurate. That's accurate. All right.

All right. So one man shoots another man and kills him. Yes. But it's ruled to be an accident. Yes. And then the same act is subsequently judged to be murder of the corpse? No. I'm sorry, read that to me again.

Okay. He is then convicted of attempting to murder the corpse. As a separate act? Yes. Okay. Okay. I don't know if that's better. Convicted of attempting to murder the corpse.

Yes. I don't think you can murder... Okay, the corpse meaning the corpse of the man he shot. Yes. Which is now a dead body. Which is now a dead body. Okay. Let's just look at that, shall we?

Murder the corpse meaning... Meaning what? Attacking it with some weapon? Yes. So he shot him and he died. Yes. And then he did something further to him. Yes.

That brought a conviction. Yes. Okay. But you're saying that, like the, how do I say it, the legal regime, I don't need to know anything about the laws of a particular country. No. It's not some unusual law that they brought. that correct this could have happened in this country i don't know the exact laws in this country but it's theoretically possible all right yeah okay he shoots a guy yeah the guy dies yeah and then he does something else so murder a corpse does

this come down to the legal definition of murder no not really not really. Because it's not, to me, murder means depriving someone of his life. Right. If the body's already dead. Right. Do I need to work on that? That's the twist. It's like, how could he have been convicted of attempting to murder a dead person? Okay. Let me go from the other direction. Okay. He shoots the guy, the guy dies.

Yes. Then we said that he does something further to the body. Right. With something other than the gun no with the gun with the gun does he shoot him again yes he shoots him again and that's a crime and that's the crime all right murder means a deliberate attack with the intention of ending someone's life yes would you say that's true in this case yes all right so he shoots the guy by accident and then shoots him again. Yes.

Deliberately. Yes. And hits him. Yes. Was he, the dead guy, was he dead when hit by the second bullet? It's believed so, yes. So he really was a dead body at that point. Did the attacker, can I call him that?

Yes. Know that he was dead at that time? No. Okay. And that's. Let me just put that together so there's two guys yeah the first one shoots the second one right who dies unbeknownst to the first guy yes and then the guy shoots him again yes which is deliberately intending to kill him right

and it's sort of a technicality that he's already dead yes and this really happened and this really happened very very good um this was reported in an australian newspaper called the age in december 2015 so it was really recent it was in australia yeah daniel derrington was found guilty by a supreme court jury of attempting to murder rocky matz matz matz gatsky after matz gatsky was already likely to have been dead apparently the two had struggled with a gun during an altercation before Mascassi was accidentally shot in the head and the jury bought that that that was an accident but then Darrington claimed he then shot Mascassi a second time to put him out of his misery because Mascassi

was making jerking and twitching movements and it freaked out Darrington who panicked and shot him again. That's kind of weirdly sad. Like he was trying to help him. Yeah. And the medical evidence given during the trial suggested that these movements were probably made after death. But the important point was that Darrington intended to kill Metzgazi believing he was still alive because he just panicked. His attorney said that Darrington had been significantly affected by alcohol at the time of the incident and was basically in shock after he was shot because he was not intending to shoot the guy in the first place. I see. But during the trial, Darrington's attorney argued to the jury that, quote, if someone's already dead and you then try to kill him, how can that be attempted murder, which is what you were saying.

Yeah. But unfortunately for Darrington, it was found that since he had the criminal intent to kill someone, and since he thought the person was alive, then even if the person was in fact dead, it is considered to be attempted murder. He had the criminal intent to kill, and he had the belief that the person was alive. So they found that it was by the the laws in australia actually attempted murder uh the newspaper the age says that this is the only case like this one on record you can sort of see that yeah because it had the intent and he had the act i mean the yeah the most sort of reprehensible parts of what he did were present right it just didn't have the effect that right the guy was

already dead. So that was an excellent puzzle that David sent in. And David says, love the show and the lateral thinking puzzles. Usually I alternate between cursing the guesser for being so slow in reaching what seems a glaringly obvious conclusion or wondering if he or she cheated in order to answer so fast. If I've learned anything from the experience, it's that I'm basically a mean-spirited old cad. Well, we loved your puzzle anyway, David. Thank you very much. Yes.

And if anybody else has a puzzle they'd like to send in for us to use, you can send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. That wraps up another episode for us. If you're looking for more Futility Closet, you can check out our books on Amazon or visit the website at futilitycloset.com where you can sample more than 8,000 recipient distractions. At the website, you can see the show notes for the podcast and listen to previous episodes. Just click podcast in the sidebar. If you'd like to support Futility Closet, please consider becoming a patron to help keep us going. You can find more information at patreon.com slash futilitycloset. You can also help us out by telling your friends about us, or by clicking the donate button on the sidebar of the website. If you have any questions or comments about the show, you can reach us by email at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and produced by Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next

week.