Ignorance is bliss. Confusion is euphoria. Indecision is enthralling. Welcome to Night Vale.

###

There’s a lot of news out there, Night Vale. So much important news to tell you about. And I'd love to get to it all, right now.

But I can’t. I’m sorry. I’m so overwhelmed with work. Not the journalism part of work, but the management part of work. My predecessor at this job, and my mentor, Leonard Burton, used to say to me: “Cecil, only 10% of being a radio personality is being a radio personality. The other 90% is administration.” And that’s really good advice.

Of course Leonard used to say other things like “The only way to recover from a head cold is vampire blood” and “You wanna get rich? Then start selling these vitamin supplements to your friends.”

But Leonard seems correct about that 10% thing. My work days have always been filled with interviewing people for stories, having show meetings with producers, or sitting through some all-staff seminar about how werewolves work. But since Station Management… uh… left us a few weeks back (Rest in power, you terrifying monstrosity), I’ve been swamped with bills, tax-forms, employee reviews, and calling our contractor several times a day to repair the foundation of our building. This contractor quoted us 1 week and eight-thousand dollars. Well, it’s been two weeks, and it’s cost us twelve-thousand dollars, and they haven’t even shown up yet.

My brother-in-law Steve says that’s pretty normal. In fact, Steve says that no contractor has ever done any work anywhere. It’s part of the contractor ethos. If one of them ever actually completes a job, they’re blacklisted from going to any future contractor outings, like Six Flags, family barbecues, or Jenga night at Rachel’s.

So you can see I’m really struggling to keep up, now that I’m the station manager. I’m hoping to hire someone new, but even writing a want ad and interviewing people is too much to take on right now.

And above it all, the entire sales team, who are all named Shawn, have been grumbling for a better breakroom. The Shawns all work very hard, and they would like to be able to eat lunch here in the office, rather than have to go out every day. Well, that made sense to me, and I thought, if they want to eat food at work, then I’d just buy food for them. “Healthy employees are happy employees. And happy employees are productive employees. “

Leonard Burton used to say that. He also used to say that room-temperature scallops are the healthiest food one could eat. So I put those two bits of knowledge together and I found a discount scallop outlet based in Pierre, South Dakota. I was able to order in bulk and have them mailed to the radio station. I even saved money on shipping by having them sent via ground delivery.

The Discount Scallop Outlet strongly recommended Next Day Air, but I’m about saving money these days. And the scallops finally arrived yesterday evening.

I thought the Shawns would be thrilled, but it’s been nothing but complaining all day today. “Cecil, there are 18 cases of scallops and the fridge is broken,” they said. “Also Shawn Thompson is allergic to shellfish,” they whined. “Also Netflix canceled The OA 4 years ago, and we’re still mad about it,” they moaned.

Oh god, it’s been so hard being the station manager.

###

But enough complaining, I’m here to do news, and that’s what I’ll do now. Let’s have a look at the Community Calendar.

This Tuesday night, the Night Vale PTA is holding a bake sale to raise money for a new Blood/Space War. “The old one was fun for all the kids, so it makes sense to fund another one. Plus, wars are super profitable,” said new PTA President Marsha Molinaro, “And we’d like to make money from the machinery of death. Also, we’d like a new swingset for the elementary school playground,” Molinaro added.

The Night Vale PTA further announced that, in order to honor town-wide solidarity, no one from The University of What It Is is welcome at the bake sale. They may not bring baked goods, nor attend the event itself.

Good for you, PTA. Let’s freeze those awful people out.

Wednesday night, the Night Vale Community Theater is holding auditions for Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, which is a play about a group of university scientists who find themselves in over their heads when they visit a small town that does not like them. Not at all. Pinter is one of my favorite playwrights. His style was dubbed Theater of Menace because of the tense threat of violence on every line. His best known plays were Betrayal, The Dumb Waiter, Will Rogers’ Follies, and The Lion King.

All auditionees must bring two monologues, bear spray, an Epi-pen, and proof that they are not employees of The University of What It Is.

Finally, this Saturday afternoon is the annual Knitting Festival at the Fair Grounds. There will be booths filled with knitting supplies, yarn, lamb viscera, and spiders. Knitting experts from all across the world will gather this weekend to fight it out in a classic Battle Royale. It’s buckwild, that Knitting Festival.

Organizers added that employees of the University of What It Is are not allowed to touch the yarn, purchase needles, or drink from the Mezcal fountain.

This has been the community calendar.

###

Listeners, I’m getting several calls from creditors demanding overdue payments from the radio station. Apparently Station Management had not been paying the mortgage, taxes, or utility bills. I’m not sure how this station has remained afloat for so many decades.

Actually, I do. Station Management saved money by not paying bills, because they knew no one would ever come looking for repayment. Station Management was such a terrifying entity, who would dare ask them for money?

But now that Station Management is… gone, these creditors see their chance to finally claim what is theirs. I’m getting calls from raspy-voiced men saying things like “Nice radio station ya got there, pal. Be a shame if anything happened to it. A real shame. I’d be sad for years about that. I’m crying right now just thinking about something happening to your nice radio station. Ok, I gotta call my therapist. Please pay us so we don’t have to blow your station up.”

And I’m scared, Night Vale. I don’t even have the bank account information for the station. Even if I did, dare I hope that there’s money in it? I don’t know what to do. Maybe I can explain to the creditors what happened to station management, and they’ll give me an extra 60 days out of pity.

Meanwhile, I still have to try to manage the radio station staff. And the Shawns in sales are still irate about their lack of a refrigerator. It seems that the huge cases of scallops I ordered did not come in ice-packed containers. I remember that those cost a lot more, and I was just trying to save money.

The Shawns are running around screaming: “Our scallops are failing! We cannot let the bivalves down!”

Oh calm down, boys.

###

And now a public service announcement. My fellow Americans, today’s political climate is rife with false claims from non-governmental organizations claiming to serve you, claiming to look out for the common citizen. But are they? Are they, really?

No. No, they are not.

But we are. Who are we? That’s right. We are the Council for Water. We’re an independent governmental entity whose only interest is spreading the word of Water.

Yes, you heard that right: Water. Some other Councils are promoting Food. “Food is the best thing you can eat,” these councils say. “That’s bunk,” we say.

Ask yourself, fellow freedom lover, how could food be vital to survival, when water is vital to survival. It can’t be both, can it?

No. No, it cannot.

The consumption of water is imperative to live. Studies show that those who do not consume water are all dead, possibly as a result of not drinking water. Now ask yourself, if you can die from not drinking water, then how is it possible to die from not eating food? They’re not feeding you food, folks, they’re feeding you lies.

The Council for Water promotes the drinking of water, whether it’s spring, tap, or sparkling. We discourage people from drinking non-water, things like yellow mustard, gasoline, and sea water. [sotto voce] Despite its name, sea water is not actually water.

[normal volume] Wait, stop right now, Harrison Kip! Were you about to drink that plastic bottle of hardwood floor cleaner that you bought at Bed Bath and Beyond? Don’t do it, Mister Kip! Hardwood floor spray is not water. Drink some freshly boiled Dasani instead. [sotto voce] Always boil your Dasani water.

[normal volume] Good work.

You must have many questions for the Council For Water. Let’s answer them all:

- Is snow water? Yes. In the same way that ice cream is pudding.

- Can I give my children water? Yes. People of all ages should drink water.

- Is pee water? Mostly yes? But also no? But… listen, we’ll get back to you on that one.

So get to drinking your water today, Night Vale. Do not listen to anyone who tells you that food is vital. They are foolhardy bozos. It’s clear that water is what is truly important.

Water: It’s better than good; it’s freaking good.

This message has been brought to you by The Council for Water.

###

Okay, so I went digging through Station Management’s office looking for anything that could help get these creditors off my back. I was trying to find bank account information, envelopes filled with petty cash, or just straight-up gold ingots. Anything. But I found only piles of dusty folders filled with blank papers.

I’m beginning to panic, listeners. This radio station is all I have. It’s all this town has, in terms of radio, and if the creditors come to take it all away, I don’t know what I’d do.

Think, Cecil. Think. If you were a pile of cash, where would you be? Oh my god, I can’t even think straight. Because the Shawns have started throwing rotting scallops at each other in the sales office. Employee morale is collapsing. How do I regain their trust? I know they want a refrigerator for their scallops, but I don’t even have money to pay next month’s electric bill.

Maybe if the sales office could concentrate on their job of selling ads, we could get ourselves out of this mess.

Let’s just do the news.

###

And now… sports. In baseball, a group of men stood around for 3 hours. Occasionally they would look up to the firmament, as a hard, round object hurtled from the heavens straight at their heads. Sometimes these men would swing wooden clubs and then shout swear words at a man with a cage for a face.

Large crowds gathered to watch. These crowds bought expensive foods and sat in silence until they felt the urge to stand up and scream. Sometimes they intoned the word “Booooo,” like unimaginative ghosts. But most of the time they sat around eating nachos that were given to them by a person whose only job was to walk up and down stairs shouting “nachos.”

There was also someone dressed up like a furry scorpion with big googly eyes. This person sometimes did a funny dance to an 80s hip-hop tune, and as the crowd cheered, the person inside the costume thought about an article they read about warning signs of heat stroke.

Later everyone went home, except for the actual ghosts who continued to chant “booo” in a darkened stadium to no one in particular.

This has been sports.

###

Listeners, the creditors have arrived, and they are worse than I could have ever imagined. They all have thick northeastern accents, three-piece suits, and goat heads on human bodies. I think they also have cloven hooves but it’s hard to tell because of the impeccably tailored slacks and polished black Ted Bakers.

They’re disgusting beasts and they’re taking everything. They carted off my printer, several phones, and a bunch of desks. They even carried away a couple of Shawns from sales. We’re so overdue on our payments they’re claiming everything as collateral. I just saw one creditor go into the employee bathroom. I swore he was going to take one of the floating cats that lives in there, but he decided better, and took a couple of urinals instead.

These creditors are taking our belongings, yes, but they’re also devouring our belongings, too. With their disgusting goat mouths, they’re chewing up ethernet cables, empty soda cans in the recycling bins, all of the blank files in station management’s office. One even ate an entire filing cabinet.

They’re ravenous for recompense. I’ve sent a company-wide email asking people to stand their ground, to stop the creditors from taking away our station. Anything to buy us a little time.

And do you think that helped? It absolutely did not help, because about 7 of the Shawns came into my office demanding a new fridge. And while they have a point that the smell of the rotting scallops is permeating every inch of this place, don’t they see what’s happening here? A new fridge won’t matter if the creditors repossess our entire business!

But the Shawns just stared at me blankly going, “Sooooooo…. Is that a yes?”

Argh. Listeners, I’m sorry, but this might be our final broadcast, unless a miracle comes through. But I’m losing hope. I guess my radio career is coming to an end. God forbid I have to make another podcast. So, for what might be the final time, here is the weather.

###

WEATHER

###

Well, the putrid odor of days-old shellfish lingers, but I’ve never smelled anything so sweet. The creditors attempted to take the cases of scallops from our sales team, but the Shawns stopped them. The Shawns were damned if they were going to let any goat-faced collection agents take their 2-month supply of seafood lunches away, spoiled or not. The Shawns explained that perishables did not count as assets in a collection case, and thus the collectors could not claim them.

But the collectors insisted, braying at the Shawns that they were hungry, that the rotten, briny flesh smelled so delicious. They must have it.

And the Shawns, being the incredible salespeople that they are, negotiated a price. They used the leverage of hunger to drive the sale well beyond what the station originally paid for the product. (Thank you Discount Scallop Outlet in Pierre, South Dakota for your unthinkably reasonable prices!)

They eventually shook hands – hooves – with the collectors, and used that income to pay down our debts. So the radio station is saved, for a couple of months, at least. And I can go back to only fretting about my managerial role instead of panicking.

Using my own money, I have already ordered a new refrigerator for the break room, in honor of the Shawns’ valiant efforts today. Unfortunately, we have no food to put in it. It’s a real Gift of the Magi situation. You know that famous story about the lady who cuts off all her hair to buy her husband a fridge, and he, in turn, ate a pocketwatch because he lost his fantasy football league. True irony.

Stay tuned next for everything that’s already happened, but reversed. And as always. Good night, Night Vale. Good night.

###

PROVERB: Love is a many-legged thing with human skin and no eyes.