Thanks to his clairvoyance, Carl knew he was in for a surprise. He just didn’t know what kind of surprise.

He had been in a conversation about the fundamentals of the Great Schism and what it had to do with antidisestablishmentarianism. In due course the exchange of words led to a discussion on the linguistics of the era, with metonymic constructs, the simplicity of synecdoche, uncopyrightable illuminated manuscripts, and the origin of the clitic “-’s” being discussed. A rather pyrrhic victory in 1202 was being reenacted with a cheesegrater standing in for French forces when Carl felt like something was going wrong with his body. He hit the floor just as Mary Poppins was singing “Supercalifragilisticexpealidocius” on the television screen.

Carl awoke on a hospital bed. “What’s wrong with me, doctor?” he asked.

The doctor grimly replied, “Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism.”