conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a book about Dog, DIV>the, Working with the genre: Humor & Entertainment, Humor?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this book could be 'Since the Layoffs'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is the first five paragraphs for this book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Since the Layoffs
  I was in Tulley's, watching a Bills game with Tommy and Jeff Zorda, and I had a hundred on the Bills to win. It was the third quarter and the Bills were down 21-0 and didn't have any offense to speak of, but this was back before we all got laid off, so losing a C-note wasn't the end of the world. Anyway, there was this TV behind Jeff's head that was showing the game about ten seconds ahead of all the other TVs, so I could see how each play was going to turn out before the other two. I was just fucking around at first, but I said, "Hey, I bet I can call the next five plays."
  Tommy was interested just for fun, but Jeff Zorda, who had put money on the Jets and was winning, had the gambling bug. "Ten bucks a play. You have to call the players."
  I had just wanted to play around, but whenever Jeff started winning he turned into a cocky prick who was always telling everyone else they didn't know shit about football. So I took the bet.
  Zorda watched the penalty and stared at me in admiration. "Damn. How the hell could you know that?" Still no suspicion.
  This went on for the whole five plays. I was just about to tell Zorda I was cheating when he got up, took a fifty out of his wallet and threw it at me. "Prick," he said. Then, much drunker than I realized, he staggered off to the bathroom, walking right past the TV that was showing the game ten seconds ahead.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is three more paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: There is actually a crowd here, because Tony Wolek, God bless him, has arranged a darts league, and tonight is the night of the big championship. With shit falling apart everywhere, Tony has appointed himself the morale officer of the town. Now he organizes things that he thinks will keep people's spirits up. He encouraged some talentless teenagers to start a band and play on Friday nights. He hosted a costume party with a best-costume contest for Halloween. All these events have done fairly well, considering, and as I get progressively drunker at the bar, I find myself feeling some love for the guy, for the decent way he never stops trying. Then I see him, gray-faced, as he hands a beer to an underage kid and I think again that he doesn't have long to live, another battle casualty of the layoffs.
  I get a whiff of perfume, and look around to see a woman with thick black hair leaning up against the bar, waiting to get Tony's attention. I remember her from the factory secretarial pool, remember on several mornings admiring her legs and ass while walking behind her up the factory drive, at 6:55 a.m., back when we had jobs. The beer compels me to tell her this fascinating bit of information.
  She looks around at me, studies me for a second without expression. I thought she was pretty then, but now after months of womanlessness, I think she is positively beautiful. I wonder if it's possible for a fairly drunk guy watching ESPN highlights to make a positive impression. I doubt it. She keeps looking at me but doesn't smile.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is the last five paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Jughead got a raise to eight dollars an hour and his speech improved immediately. He does the inventory and I let him do his homework whenever we're not busy. He asked me for a smock the other day, and I told him not to worry about it. I didn't mention I'd set fire to them in a gasoline-soaked trash bucket. He needs to shave now, and I ask him to do it before he comes to work. He usually does. If he needs a favor, he's always clean-shaven when he asks for it. Sometimes, though, I see him looking at me, and I know he knows something about the night I asked him to cover for me until two in the morning. The kid isn't dumb.
  Zorda comes by every now and then. He runs errands for Gardocki, and every time I see him, he is wearing a grin. He's got a new leather jacket and he drives around all day in Gardocki's SUV. The winter's over, and he usually has the CD player blaring and the windows down when he comes in to ask for cigarettes. He's never mentioned murdering anyone, but then, it's best not to. Even an idiot like Jeff has figured that out. He mentions we should all go to Tulley's when football season starts back up, and I think it might actually happen. He wants to see the TV with the signal which comes in ahead of the others. He still gets a kick out of that, though we stay away from any mention of his uncontrollable sobbing and my pointing a pistol in his face.
  Sheila's boyfriend is still alive, miraculously. If anyone deserved a bullet it was that prick. I had to chase him away from my apartment with a shovel one afternoon after Sheila called me at the store. She had just moved in with me, and she had come home from work and found him waiting for her. Tony Wolek told me he finally took up with some nineteen-year-old girl and got her pregnant, so now he's got other things to think about. We haven't seen him in some time.
  Speaking of pregnant, Sheila's doing well. We just found out last week. It might be time to get married soon, though it will have to be a Justice-of-the-Peace deal for now. There's no way I can take time off from the store for a honeymoon. Tommy would be working a hundred hours a week. Can't really afford a honeymoon right now, either. But being married would be nice. Every time I look at her, I think about how lucky I am.
  It was my birthday last week, and I had to work the second shift, but Gardocki remembered it, of all people. He came into the store and gave me a handwritten gift certificate, instantly forgiving any losing bet up to and including one hundred dollars. What a sense of humor on that guy. Sheila doesn't want me gambling anymore, so that'll have to go in the trash. He also gave me a suitcase and told me to open it when I got home, not under the security camera. It was the sniper rifle from Miami, the one I never picked up. It's a beaut, all right. It comes apart into three pieces, and it has, get this... a silencer!
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Add another sentence about cared, moved, played, started, doing, slashing.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Jughead got a raise to eight dollars an hour and his speech improved immediately. He does the inventory and I let him do his homework whenever we're not busy. He asked me for a smock the other day, and I told him not to worry about it. I didn't mention I'd set fire to them in a gasoline-soaked trash bucket. He needs to shave now, and I ask him to do it before he comes to work. He usually does. If he needs a favor, he's always clean-shaven when he asks for it. Sometimes, though, I see him looking at me, and I know he knows something about the night I asked him to cover for me until two in the morning. The kid isn't dumb. 
  Zorda comes by every now and then. He runs errands for Gardocki, and every time I see him, he is wearing a grin. He's got a new leather jacket and he drives around all day in Gardocki's SUV. The winter's over, and he usually has the CD player blaring and the windows down when he comes in to ask for cigarettes. He's never mentioned murdering anyone, but then, it's best not to. Even an idiot like Jeff has figured that out. He mentions we should all go to Tulley's when football season starts back up, and I think it might actually happen. He wants to see the TV with the signal which comes in ahead of the others. He still gets a kick out of that, though we stay away from any mention of his uncontrollable sobbing and my pointing a pistol in his face. 
  Sheila's boyfriend is still alive, miraculously. If anyone deserved a bullet it was that prick. I had to chase him away from my apartment with a shovel one afternoon after Sheila called me at the store. She had just moved in with me, and she had come home from work and found him waiting for her. He couldn't have cared less when she first moved out, played it all cool, but after a few weeks he started doing creepy shit, like slashing her tires. Tony Wolek told me he finally took up with some nineteen-year-old girl and got her pregnant, so now he's got other things to think about. We haven't seen him in some time. 
  Speaking of pregnant, Sheila's doing well. We just found out last week. It might be time to get married soon, though it will have to be a Justice-of-the-Peace deal for now. There's no way I can take time off from the store for a honeymoon. Tommy would be working a hundred hours a week. Can't really afford a honeymoon right now, either. But being married would be nice. Every time I look at her, I think about how lucky I am. 
  It was my birthday last week, and I had to work the second shift, but Gardocki remembered it, of all people. He came into the store and gave me a handwritten gift certificate, instantly forgiving any losing bet up to and including one hundred dollars. What a sense of humor on that guy. Sheila doesn't want me gambling anymore, so that'll have to go in the trash. He also gave me a suitcase and told me to open it when I got home, not under the security camera. It was the sniper rifle from Miami, the one I never picked up. It's a beaut, all right. It comes apart into three pieces, and it has, get this... a silencer!