Subject: Operating Instructions for the Technologically Challenged

Instructions

IMPORTANT! READ THIS BEFORE USING YOUR NEW DEVICE

Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine device that
should give you thousands of years of trouble-free service, except
that you undoubtedly will destroy it via some typical bonehead
consumer maneuver. Which is why we ask you to: Please, for God's sake,
read this owner's manual carefully before you unpack the device...
You already unpacked it, didn't you ?
You unpacked it and plugged it in and turned it on and fiddle with
the knobs, didn't you?  And now your child, the same one who once
shoved a Polish Sausage into your Video Cassette Recorder and
set it to 'Fast Forward' is also fiddling with the knobs, right ?
Hell, we might as well just break these damn things before we ship
them out, you know that?

Sorry! We just get a little crazy sometimes because we're always
getting back 'defective' merchandise where it turns out that the
consumer inadvertently bathed the device in Iced Tea for six days.
So, in writing these instructions, we naturally tend to assume that
your skull is filled with dead insects, but we mean nothing by it.
OK?

Now let's talk about:

1. UNPACKING THE DEVICE

The device is encased in foam to protect it from the Shipping People,
who like nothing more than to jab spears into outgoing boxes.
Please inspect the contents carefully for evidence of spear jabs or
bottle caps, pull tabs, candy wrappers and Lord knows what else.

WARNING: Do not ever, as long as you live, throw away the box or any
of the pieces of styrofoam, especially the ones shaped like peanuts.
If you attempt to return the device to the store, and you are missing
one single peanut, the store personnel will laugh in the chilling
manner exhibited by Joseph Stalin just after he enslaved Eastern Europe.
Besides the device, the box should contain:

* Eight little rectangular snippets of paper that say 'WARNING'

* A little plastic packet containing four 5/17 inch pilfer grommets

* Two club-ended 6/93 inch boxcar prawns

You will need to supply:

* a matrix wrench

* 60,000 feet of tram cable.

If anything is damaged or missing: You immediately should turn to
your spouse and say 'Margaret, you know why this country can't make
a car that can get all the way through the drive-through at
Burger King without a major transmission overhaul? Because nobody
cares, that's why.'

WARNING: This is assuming your spouse's name is Margaret, and not
something else.

2. PLUGGING IN THE DEVICE

The plug on this device represents the latest thinking of the
electrical industry's Plug Mutation Group, which, in a continuing
effort to prevent consumers from causing hazardous electrical current
to flow through their appliances, developed the Three-Pronged Plug,
then the plug where one prong is bigger than the other.

Your device is equipped with the revolutionary new plug whose prongs
consist of six small religious figurines made of chocolate. Adapters
are sold separately and require 16 weeks for delivery.
Please call 1-900-YOU-FOOL for current pricing.
(You must be 18 or older to call; $17.95/minute.
Average call duration: 3 hours)

Do not try to plug it in! Lay it gently on the floor near an
outlet, but out of direct sunlight, and clean it first with
a damp handkerchief. Then, give us a call.

3. OPERATION OF THE DEVICE  WARNING:

We manufacture only the attractive designer case. The actual working
parts are manufactured in Japan. The instructions were translated
by Mrs. Shirley Peltwater of accounts receivable, who has never
actually been to Japan (or anywhere else for that matter), but has
a second cousin who once was.

INSTRUCTIONS: For results that can be the finest, we advising that:
NEVER to hold these buttons two times!! Except the battery. Next
taking the (something) earth section may cause a large occurrence!
However. If this is not a trouble, such rotation is a very
maintenance action, as a kindly (something) virepoint from Drawing B.

4. WARRANTY

Be it hereby known that this device, together with (but not excluding)
all those certain parts thereunto, shall be warranted against all
defects, failures and malfunctions as shall occur between now and
next Thursday afternoon and shall be repaired/replaced at no cost to
the owner. After that time, a slight service and shipping charge
shall apply.  Information on this extended warranty is available from
Mr. Lance Haskill of the Last National Bank's Third Mortgage
Department in Last Gasp, Wyoming.

This warranty does not cover the attractive designer case.

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