Auctor: Good Morning! The sun creeps forth, the day is young, and…

Jeeves: …Breakfast is served.

Auctor: Quite.

This morning breakfast shall be short and sweet, and will involve a bowl of steaming Irish Steel Cut Oatmeal and a Cinnamon Brioche French Toast, served with a cappuccino, and supplemented with the Morning Edition. Minimalistic. Simple. Perfect. The weather here is mild, and while it was overcast this morning the sun just peaked through the clouds, and we are beginning to see streaks of blue, that promise a fine autumn day.

Auctor: I cannot stay long, and for that reason I have requested a very small, though satisfying, breakfast. You see, I have an appointment with a supervisor where I work.

Lector: You ACTUALLY work?

Auctor: Certainly, did you doubt? I am a junior pressman at the Bradford Era, the local daily.


Lector: You eat brioche and devilled kidneys, and you have a second rate job in a press room.

Auctor: I am permitted to indulge myself from time to time, it is downright toffee-nosed of you to think that you must be over-abundantly wealthy to enjoy a well-prepared meal.

Lector: And the Man-servant, Jeeves?

Auctor: O, senile homeless man, whom I picked up off the street. I gave him the complete collection of Wodehouse, snapped into persona after about a week.

Lector: Clever. So, what do you do?

Auctor: Well, as a junior pressman I assist the senior pressman in operating the press. That means that I have to prep the machines, by loading the paper, running the web, filling the ink pans, timing the machines, and then ultimately giving the okay for a run. I also fly, which contrary to popular belief does not require an evolutionary development, when you fly you stand at a stacker, which shoots out stacks of 25 newspapers, then you collect, tidy them up, and stack them for the packing room on carts. Cleaning the blankets, compensators, base rollers, knives, and other machine parts is also part of the job. In the end we produce upwards of 12,000 newspapers every night, and also various grocery tabs.

Lector: I shouldn't have asked. However, it sounds like a crummy bit of tripe, all the same.

Auctor: I actually like doing it and will only cease to do so when I am well on my way to seminary. By the way, we use a system of printing called offset printing, where the inked image is transferred —or offset — from a plate to a rubber blanket, then to the printing surface. We use a lithographic process, which is based on the repulsion of oil and water. The offset technique employs a flat (planographic) image carrier on which the image to be printed obtains ink from ink rollers, while the non-printing area attracts a film of water, keeping the non-printing areas ink-free.

Lector: You could end world hunger if you could convert idiocy into an edible substance.

Auctor: Well, until tomorrow, Good Morning and Good Eats.