Peaeater

A friend writes:

"I've wondered if there might be a spell to make me feel better on Monday mornings. Or perhaps just ward them off completely?"

A spell to ward off Monday mornings. You're talking about the most mournful of mornings? On the wickedest of weekdays? I am a sorceror of some note, my brash friend, but you make my adam's apple tremble in trepidation, for MONDAY is the *blackest* of evils and only the mightiest of heroes, whose heart is pure, whose clarity of purpose pierces the mists like the fiery first lance of the risen sun, whose will is as a mountain of iron, immovable! can hope to defeat the curse of that unholy hour.

Nevertheless, if you are bound and determined to this course of action, I swear you to secrecy and impart this incantation to you, and I bear NO responsibility as to the particulars of any consequences, real or imagined. On your own head be it, Mr. Coleman-Faust.

Call up the Demon of Employment. (Thou shalt know Him by the sulph'rous reek of Hell which waxeth strong at the beginning of the week but which waneth towards Friday afternoon.)

Say to Him, "It is I, Coleman! Listen thou to me, Foule Devill!"

And here is the rub. You shall say this in a weak and papery whisper, as if you had dragged yourself from the very grave to report your recent death:

"I have the flu or something."

You must, with this one utterance, convey the Black Death, the Plague of Boils upon Egypt, and a head-ache splitting your skull like a buzzsaw in a birdcage, for then, and only then, will you be freed from the Dire Pit of Darkest Monday.

Use sparingly.