Floyd was pretty bummed. He wanted to read about painted gibbons, but before he could check out that particular volume of Spoonstrel’s Taxonomy of Apes and Suchlike, he had to get this certificate. First, he’d gone to this guy who’d given him this certificate (on vellum with gold filigree, natch). Sweet, I’m off to the races! Floyd had thought. That is, until he turned in his certificate to this other guy who was all, Hey now! This certificate is expired and then quickly wrote yesterday’s date on the certificate. Excuse me, but did you just write yesterday’s date on that certificate? Floyd said. No, the #2 certificate guy said, staring at Floyd, unblinking. So Floyd went back and got a different certificate. Every time he tried to use it, it didn’t work out. They were all invalid for different reasons: the filigree needed to be silver, not gold; one of the certificates was in Russian; someone had drawn a rocketman in crayon on the back; it just went on and on. After 6 hours and 23 minutes, the #2 certificate guy said, Actually, hey, you know? I just remembered: We don’t accept any certificates here. We only accept certificates in our southern office. It’s 800 miles away. Good day sir! Floyd said and forcefully wandered out.
Moral: Who understands certificates? I sure don’t!