"Rev! How are you? This is your old pal, Rutger Fury. I was having a bad time, so I thought I'd call."

"Well, whoever you are, I don't do spiritual support any more. I'm into oil stocks now."

"Sorry, bud," I said. "The Iranians have bombed the Kuwaiti oil terminal and your stocks are now worthless. So what do you say we rap for old times' sake?"

"WELL, ALL right," he begrudged. "What's on your mind?"

"Reverend," I said, "you always managed to see the bright side of things. But things are so bleak, I just can't imagine how anyone could be smiling through this rain. Like the stock market crash for example...I mean, aren't you depressed?"

"Depressed?" he said. "Stock prices are at an all-time low--it's a buyer's paradise! Thousands and thousands of top-quality stocks and bonds at low, low prices...how could you complain about that?"

"I guess I see your point, Reverend," I said. "I should be grateful. But all my savings were in stocks, so now I'm ruined. All those certificates are now just so much worthless paper."

"Which will make them so much harder to redeem," he countered. "And as you know, saving is a virtue. Therefore, taking money out of savings is a sin. You ought to be grateful that you are prevented from sinning."

"That's absurd," I said. "But at any rate, you can't say that the war in the Gulf is a good thing."

"I can't? Who's stopping me? There are a lot of positive things about the Persian Gulf," he said.

"Like what?"

"Like...uh, like a lot of things. Excuse me, my dog is whelping." A few minutes later he returned. "Like for example, with so many ships sinking in the gulf, insurance rates are bound to go up."

"W AIT A minute," I said. "Why's that a good thing?"

"Insurance rates go up, insurance companies make a bigger profit. More profits, more jobs for insurance salesmen. More insurance salesmen, more boring cocktail parties. Bad parties, less drinking. Less drinking, higher efficiency in the workplace, larger profits, a better economy."

"Wow," I said, "I have to hand it to you. I'm feeling better already about our nation's long-term prospects. It would be a shame if it was laid waste in a nuclear war, though."