My Most Recent Troubles by Tony Rauch My shirt speaks to me sometimes. Well, one of my shirts. Not all of them. Just one of them. It's annoying sometimes because it tends to yammer on and on. Unfortunately, it speaks a language I am not familiar with, so I can not carry on a meaningful conversation with it. It speaks a tongue I am unable to identify. Or maybe this is a good thing. I can't tell just yet. Also unfortunate is that it never speaks when anyone else is around. Maybe it's just shy, or merely sleeping when others are present or something. I ask others about this, if their shirts talk to them too sometimes, but they all say no, they do not. Also, they don't believe that my shirt talks to me. This disappoints me. I really think people could be more supportive. Then one day a friend of mine, Edith, takes me aside and admits that her shirt talks to her sometimes too. But it speaks in our language, so she can indeed understand what it is saying. I ask what her shirt wants, but Edith tells me it doesn't seem to want anything really, it really doesn't ask for anything, it just utters a lot of small talk - about the weather and whatever, not really about anything in particular - nothing informative or insightful anyway. So that is also disappointing. One more thing - there also is a robot named Cecil who is after me. He chases me, but I don't know why. Luckily I am faster than him. I think he may want to eat me, but I'm not sure. No one believes this either. So those are my two most recent troubles. Beats last week though. Oh, man, you don't even want to know about last week.