Kootie and Koobert visit CNN headquarters

One day, Kootie and her little brother Koobert were hopping down a spacious city street on a beautiful sunny day in Atlanta, Georgia. The air was warm and moist, the sounds and smells dominated by rushing automobile traffic. Our fine adventurers deftly hopped and dodged largely unnoticed among the bustling ankles and swinging purses of the busy sidewalk.

“Whew. It sure is hot out here Koobie,” observed Kootie, mopping her brow and ducking under a briefcase.

“Let’s cool off in here,” Koobert replied, pushing boldly through a nearby frosted glass door. It is precisely this sort of carefully planned and cautiously executed action that precipitates Kootie and Koobert’s best adventures. Koobert’s surprised yell faded immediately as though he had fallen into a deep well, and the glass door swung noiselessly shut behind him.

Kootie, never content to wallow in a quandary, quickly overcame nagging common sense and hurried over to the door to see what had happened to her beloved sibling. After waiting a moment in vain for the telltale belch that would confirm that Koobert had indeed been eaten by the hungry building, Kootie decided it must be safe enough to look inside.

Cautiously she pushed the door open, and was confronted by an amazing sight. Inside, the spacious room looked like an ordinary modern office, with desks arranged in clusters and cubicles, glowing computer screens and stacks of paper everywhere, but what was amazing was the whole office seemed to be severely tilted. Up and to the right, the office seemed utterly empty, but when she looked down the steeply sloping floor to her left, she could see clusters of people scattered where gravity naturally took them, along the wall at the bottom.

Kootie only had a moment to consider this unusual arrangement before she was accidentally pushed into the room by a delivery man who was pushing a hand-truck load of fancy coffee supplies. Immediately both began the long slide on the richly waxed floor. Before she even had time to enjoy the sliding sensation, Kootie crashed up against the wall at the bottom. Ouch! There she found Koobert, not far off, munching a yummy doughnut and listening to a passionate conversation.

“It’s just not fair,” one young executive was saying as Kootie scrabbled over to join her brother. “People working for minimum wage work so hard and get almost no money for it, while CEO’s do almost no work and can afford to buy fancy cars!”.

“CEO’s should be paid minimum wage too; that would teach them a lesson!” agreed another nicely dressed employee. At that moment the floor dropped a little lower and the wall that everyone was leaning on seemed to move a few feet deeper to the left. At the same time everyone all up and down the wall slid down, crashed with a bump, and said ouch almost in unison. Then they all laughed.

“What is going on here Koobie?” Kootie demanded in a whisper. Koobert snickered stickily through a thick glaze of powdered sugar.

“Watch this, Kootie,” Koobert whispered back, then called aloud, “I think everyone should be paid the same!”

“Except more for school teachers,” someone else a little ways away answered back. There was a deep rumble in the wall they were leaning on.

“Living wage for teachers,” someone else agreed,

“And healthcare too!” Once again the floor sank, and the wall moved to the left. The chorus of ouches and laughter was a practiced unison. Some people seemed to be concerned that the fall had made them spill their coffee, but most everyone seemed too busy talking and making notes on little pads of paper to notice.

“Wow, Koobie, gimme a bite of your doughnut so I can try too?”

For what seemed long time, the hubbub of many discussions about how bad the president was and how much various groups of Americans wanted higher taxes levied on anyone wealthier than themselves was punctuated by sudden movements of the left wall, always deeper and lefter. The laughter was frequent and infectious.

“Koobie,” Kootie lowered her voice and wiped away doughnut crumbs. “How are we ever going to get out of here? It’s a very long way up.”

Koobert thought for a second, and replied, “We need the floor to tilt the other way. I have an idea!” Koobert hopped up on the shoulders of a very surprised wiry man in bellbottom jeans and a rainbow tee-shirt. “I think global warming is an over-hyped myth!!” Koobert announced to the crowd.

The room went silent - the kind of heavy pregnant silence that precedes catastrophic violence. Suffice to say, mayhem followed, and Koobert learned that doughnuts and coffee can be used as weapons but not as shields.