Three bits from John Swartzwelder's "How I Conquered Your Planet"

2016.04.09
The applicants who showed up weren't acceptable. Either they were too honest, too clumsy (I've still got a telephone receiver in my back somewhere), or they didn't understand how a phone worked and would just sit there and listen to it ring until we both started to die.
He looked at me like I was stupid. Why do people always look at me like that?
"Anyway," I explained, "our atomic bombs are for peaceful purposes."
"Such as?"
"Uh... blowing up... wars."
Swartzwelder's claim to fame is writing episodes of the Simpsons than anyone else (59). His books are comic sci fi / noir detective blends about hapless (or maybe some hap? It's hard to tell) private detective Frank Burly. It's very broad comedy, stuff that would probably be hard to translate into video, just because some of the jokes have that "Bob+Ray"-esque "I mean, that wouldn't work in real life right?" aspect that's better heard than seen.