To all:  Please excuse my last post.  I was sitting at my terminal,
reading news, when I heard a loud metallic crash coming from the lab.  Now,
I am used to hearing strange sounds from the lab, but something about this
noise was different.  I ran into the lab and found the monkeys running
everywhere.  One in particular caught my attention.  He was sitting on the
sink and intently pouring my solvents down the drain!  When I reached to
stop him, he jumped up and ran away.  I had to chase him for an hour before
I caught him.  Well, it turns out he was a distraction.  While I was
chasing this one monkey, the other 999 were infiltrating the computer
room.  By the time I had them rounded up, they had posted that last
message, and written several FAQs.  The following story is meant to
encourage those who might have been scared off by the monkeys to enjoy
the wonders of cesium.

                        How Cesium Has Affected My Life

        As those in Southern California know, this past Sunday and Monday
were hot.  Even more so in our little desert lab.  On days like these,
we like to go out to the parking lot and make that rarest of things:
a cesium-rubidium mixture, in liquid form.  Now, you might say, "But
you can make that in the lab at any time!  Just heat it up!"
        That might be true, but that can not compare with the wonder
of seeing rubidium melt on the open asphalt.  Why is this so wonderful?
Well, for most of my life, I never knew that rubidium, let alone cesium,
could exist as a liquid on Earth.th.  To understand this, you must know
a bit about me first.
        I was born on a farm in Panola, Illinois.  My father was a
radium-licker for Rolex, as was my grandfather.  We were the foremost
radium-licking family in America.  We were well-liked and respected,
but also radioactive enough that no one wanted to get anywhere near
us.
        One day my father came home with an axe.  He ran around the
house wielding that axe like an axe-wielding lunatic.  He chased us
around the house screaming, "I'm gonna kill you!!!"
        This went on for an hour or so, until my brother got a hold
of the shotgun.  When my father saw this, he dropped the axe and
started laughing, "Aww, I wasn't REALLY gonna kill you.  But I bet
you're wondering why I've got this axe.  Well, I decided to quit
my job today.  We're moving up north.  I'm gonna be a lumberjack!"
        You see, my father had this crazy idea about geography.
Since there were very few trees on our farm, but very many trees in
Wisconsin, he figured that the further north we went, the more trees
we'd find.  So we moved north.  And we kept moving north.  Finally we
settled in Tuktoyaytuk, in the Northwest Territories.  Well, there's
this thing called tundra, and it has no trees.  So we were bankrupt,
and stranded.  Things were very boring, growing up on the tundra.
The only entertainment we had was an old periodic table that my dad
had stolen from the watch factory before he left.  Well, I was reading
that table, and I noticed some strange things.  Certain elements were
marked in blue.  I asked, "Daddy?  WHy are some elements blue?"
        "Well son," he said, "those blue elements are liquid at room
temperature."
        "But," I replied, "remember when we found those cesium samples
in that abandoned nuclear submarine? They were solid!"
        Then my father said the words that have shaped my life, "There are
some places, warm places, where cesium is a liquid."
        I vowed that I would never rest until I had seen liquid cesium.
I grabbed my bottle of cesium, hitched up the dog sled, and headed
south.  Ten days later, I collapsed from sleep deprivation.  The dog sled
careened out of control, smashing into a barber shop in Yellowknife.
I was airlifted, still clucthing my bottle, to a hospital in Edmonton.
Three days later, I regained consciousness.  I reached up from my hospital
bed to find my bottle of cesium.  Being weak and disoriented, I grabbed
the thermostat to lift myself from the bed.  I slipped and fell to the ground,
accidentally turning the thermostat up to 90.  I lay on the ground, recovering
for nearly an hour.  I finally regained enough strength to stand up and
grab the bottle.  But I was too weak, and I fell again.  The bottle of
cesium hit the tile floor and shattered.  I watched in awe as the cesium
actually melted!  I began screaming in ecstasy.  The doctor walked by as
this was happening.  I vaguely remember the nurses lifting me back into 
the bed.  What happened next, however, I will remember to the end of my days.
The janitor walked in and picked up the pieces of the bottle.  He looked
down at the puddle of cesium, then readied his mop.  I can remember the
mop hanging in the air for a second, then the janitor plunging it downwards.
Then, a flash of light, and a huge explosion.  Then the janitor's head
sitting in my lap.  I knew I had found my element.
        When a second janitor came in to clean up the new mess, I asked
him, "Where is the hottest place on Earth?"
        "Well," he said, "that would have to be El Azizia, Libya.  It hit
136 degrees there on September 13, 1922.  But if ya want to stay in
North America, that would be Death Valley."
        I knew where I would live from then on.  I sold the first janitor's
head to a curiosity shop, and used the money to buy a ticket to Las Vegas.
I hitchhiked to Death Valley from there.  While wandering the desert,
I ran into an underground bunker, where several members of the AMSWWBUW
were in hiding.  When I told them my story, they agreed to take me on
as an assistant.  From there, it was simply a matter of hard work and
well-placed pipe bombs for me to reach the top.

And that's my life story...