We were knee deep in the rainy season when the adjuster came for me. Lou stood in my place in the drag queues while I dutifully went to see what fate had in store for me. They hadn't come for me before, but I had lost my first wife to an adjuster. I was filled with trepidation.

He had set up as his office this - this *thing* that I couldn't believe was portable. Its walls were one-way mirrors so you coudln't see inside, but they weren't made of glass; I don't know what they could have been. And the whole thing was elevated about six feet off the ground, with stone steps leading up to a great big iron door. It was unreal.

Inside, the adjuster had my life laid out on his massive desk, a thousand annotated forms in a rainbow of colors. He had me sit down across from him in a tiny wobbly backless object that didn't look like it had the strength to be called a chair. "I'm in a hurry," he said, "so I'll be brief. I'm here mainly to clean up some loose ends regarding the transfer of your sister, whom I understand you never really liked anyway, to a formerly childless family of hedgehogs. While I was here, I noticed a few other things that needed adjusting. Um, you now have a dog, you'll find her outside, and, let's see, you must now wear this fright wig at least twenty hours of every twenty-four. And you have a fondness for asparagus, despite the fact that it makes you vomit. Now, due to budgetary constraints, none of these changes except your former sister's transfer are strictly retroactive, but it would go down favorably on your record if you cooperated in pretending that's how it always was. Good day." I relaxed; I had gotten off easy.