CAN'T KEEP SAYING NO TO BUSHES

Let's say you have some next-door neighbours. Let's call them the Bushes.
They've got a thing happening on the weekend.

They say: "Listen, are you doing anything Saturday?"

And your wife, who's standing next to you in the kitchen, mouths the words:
"Who is it?" And you mouth the words: "The Bushes." She makes this face,
crossing her hands back and forth in front of you. She can't stand the
Bushes. Neither can you, for that matter.

"Hello?" the Bushes are saying. They wonder whether they've been cut off.
"Sorry," you say. "What day again?"

"This Saturday. A few of us on the street are getting together and we're
going to invade a country and effect a regime change." Your wife is
whispering: "What do they want?" You put your hand over the receiver and
whisper: "A bunch of neighbours are going to invade a country."

Your wife frowns. "I hate those kinds of things. Tell them we're going out
of town. To a wedding." So that's what you do.

A couple of months after that, the Bushes call again. "Hey, how ya doin'?"
they say. "Whatcha up to on Friday night?"

"Gee," you say. "Did you say Friday?"

"A bunch of us, we're going to go round the neighbourhood, beat up kids who
are using marijuana, call the cops, get them thrown in jail, make criminals
out of them."

This isn't your idea of a good time, so you say: "Friday? Oh, Friiiiday! Oh
man, nearly forgot. That's my wife's office party. Gosh, we'd love to join
you, but we can't."

The Bushes sound really disappointed, and after they hang up, you feel
horribly guilty. You say to your wife: "This is getting more and more
awkward. I can't just keep saying no to them. I mean, they live right next
door."

Your wife is sympathetic. How many times can you get out of something
gracefully? The two of you devise a plan.

"Whatever it is, next time they call," she says, "we'll accept. We go once,
we patch things up, everything'll settle down for a while. We'll do our
best to enjoy ourselves."

"I think it's the only way."

A couple of weeks go by. The phone rings. It's the Bushes.

"Say, you guys got any weddings or staff parties or anything going on this
Sunday?" they ask.

"No!" you say. "The schedule is clear! Whatever you got on, we'll be
there!" You feel the weight of all that guilt lifting off of you.

"That's super!" the Bushes say. "We're going to spend the afternoon
deploying missile-destroying satellites in space. It's a Star Wars party."

"Really?" you say. You feel your heart sinking.

"Man, this is great, you finally getting together with us on something. I
was beginning to think there for a minute you guys weren't our friends any
more." "Heck no," you say. "Sounds like fun."

Your wife is in the kitchen now, and before she knows what kind of event
the Bushes are holding, she whispers: "Ask them what we can bring."

"Uh, what can we bring?"

"Glad you asked! A few hundred billion dollars to cover the cost of this
unproven technology would be absolutely terrific. And maybe a salad."

"Sure thing," you say.

You get off the phone and explain to your wife what it is, exactly, you've
gotten the two of you into. "I can't believe this," she says. "Why did the
next thing they asked us to have to be something like this? What if we call
back, say we've made a mistake, but we accept the NEXT thing?"

You think about that. You say: "But what if the next time is something even
worse? What if we say no now, and next time, it's charades?"