The stone was a happy stone, there by the side of the road. It spent its days watching the traffic go by and eating scones. Sometimes it pretended to be a rock, just for variety, and if it was in a really daring mood it pretended to be a crystal formation. It was particularly fond of hanging around in biker bars picking up hot babes and moldy scraps of formerly tasty items.

Then one day the Committee Man came driving along. He had a big car, he was a big man, and he stopped for the stone. "Hop in!" yelled the Committee Man, and the stone did its best. They sped along the highway for hours, not even going anywhere, and there was no traffic to be seen. They talked, and the stone confessed its innermost dreams, such as how it secretly wished to open a tattooing parlor in Amsterdam and just once in its life be really hip. And the stone suddenly realized that it was doing all of the talking, and became silent.

The Committee Man saw this, and he started telling the stone about all the things the world needed, and the ant problem around town, and how he was gonna fix everything that was wrong. But he needed a few good lieutenants, a few good scone-eating, traffic-watching, hot-babe-loving, right-thinking, hard-working decent *stones*, by God, and he told the stone he would raise it up to be like unto the gods, and supply all the scones it could eat, if only it would obey him in all things. So the stone cheerily said, "Sure!" And only the wise old llama who serenely watched them careening down the highway knew what it would all lead to.