By Satan.... roving reporter for the Assorted Press

I've tried, I really have, but nothing ever goes right for me. Everywhere I go, it's the same thing: Tanataj and Diane at the Right Minds Forum talk about me like I'm not even there, saying how terrible I am. Telling other posters not to walk in my path. Urging that I be shunned and reviled, and commanding me in the name of all that is holy to get myself behind them. I swear, sometimes it seems like everybody thinks I'm the worst entity in creation.

I'm not that bad a guy, okay? I have my flaws, but at least I'm not Ted Kennedy or Michael Moore, I used to be considered quite the golden boy back in my day. Do you even know what the name Lucifer means? Depending on how it's translated, it can be "Issodhorse" or "Pretty Sandy", or all kinds of nice names. I'm telling you, I was the fairest star in the firmament once. The only reason I even got kicked out Heaven in the first place is because I was more beautiful than God.

Yeah, well, now look at me. I can't even possess a lousy 10-year-old girl without some geezer in a white collar screaming "The power of Christ compels you!" in my face and insisting that I leave immediately. Look, I just want to connect with a human being for a little while! Levitate a few beds, spin a couple necks around, have some deep, throaty laughs. Is that so wrong? Everybody treats me like some kind of lowlife just because I'm the symbolic embodiment of all the evil in the universe.

Have you heard the things they call me? I can take a good-natured ribbing as much as the next guy, but some of these names are just so mean. Do you have any idea how it feels to be called "Fiftyeast", or "Yeasty"? Ouch.

Look, I may be mankind's greatest fears and weaknesses made flesh, but my feelings can get hurt just like anybody else's. How would you feel if everybody called you "Judy" or Judy's husband, "Jason"? It's not my fault that my terrifying visage erupts into suppurating boils when exposed to the holy light of truth and righteousness. It's hideous enough without people always needing to rub it in.

I'll bet I'm the most despised and hated "anything goes liberal" in the whole wide world. Judy the plagiarist even wrote a poem about me once in my creative-writing class, but when I read it out loud, everybody just laughed at me. Then those mean posters at Right Minds exposed Judy as a plagiarist whose "poem" was deliberately entered into the Patriot forum hall of fame.

Oh sure, there are the occasional Left-wingers who want to be my acolytes, but come on. I mean, have you seen these people? They're plain weird. Sure, they say that the reason they're into me is because they're rejecting Conservative's small-minded notions of petty morality and embracing a world where "do as thou wilt" shall be the whole of the law, but it's pretty obvious that they're really just mad that nobody else in the corporeal realm wants anything to do with them.

I was sort of excited by the anti-American liberals who used to post at Doc's Patriot forum. I thought, "Finally, some worshippers who, if nothing else, at least have the balls to come out against their own country in a time of war against terrorism."

But that wore off pretty quick after I read a few of their lame "hate and anger" posts. For people who've supposedly sold their souls to the devil, these posters couldn't put together a decent anti-America argument for shit.

I mean, I sure as hell didn't trade them any writing skill for their souls and from the looks of their anti Bush rants, nobody else did either. Let's just admit it, angry malcontents can be pretty lame.

The only persons who understand me around here are my old friends, Fritz and Old Vet. Sure, they know I'm a mythical representation of all the tragic and self-defeating fallibility inherent in the human condition, but they don't judge me for it.

Lately though, I hardly ever get to see Fritz. Ever since he settled down in old age, he's spending more and more time with his wife and family. I know he's also busy running that vast news empire, The Assorted Press, but I miss him. He was an okay enough guy... not quite evil enough for my tastes, maybe just an ex-socialist pot smoking biker partying atheist type, but an okay guy all the same.