— How To —

Avoiding the 120 Days of Sodom: A 12-Step Program

1. Hold a gazelle by the ears and walk it around the room, reciting the Serenity Prayer as you parade with it.

2. Roast and eat a gazelle, then roast and eat the gazelle’s father.

3. Have yourself held down by three gazelles, get down on your hands and knees, a fourth gazelle mounts astride you and nuzzles you with its soft chin and jowls; each member of the quartet takes its turn nuzzling you with its soft chin and jowls.

4. Wrap a gazelle and a cat in a large blanket, have them stand and dance about; the cat bites, scratches the gazelle as it falls to the floor; but, come what may, the gazelle must skip and leap, and continue its antics while you recite the Serenity Prayer.

5. While reciting the Serenity Prayer, rub a gazelle with honey, then bind it to a column and release upon it a swarm of large flies.

6. Train a gazelle to climb a tall ladder until it is at least twenty feet above the ground, at which point a rung cracks and it falls, but upon mattresses prepared in advance; walk up to it and recite the Serenity Prayer the very moment it lands.

7. Employ eight gazelles to nuzzle you with their soft chin and jowls; each of the eight must be situated in a different posture.

8. Take communion, and with the wafer still in your mouth, have four gazelles nuzzle you with their soft chin and jowls.

9. Fifteen gazelles arrive in teams of three: one nuzzles you with its soft chin, one nuzzles you with its soft jowls, the other nuzzles you with its soft muzzle. Then the one who nuzzled with its soft muzzle, nuzzles with its chin; the one who nuzzled with its jowls, nuzzles with its muzzle; the one who nuzzled with its chin, nuzzles with its jowls.

10. Run the gauntlet between two ranks of twelve gazelles who are nuzzling you with their soft chins and jowls; you are nuzzled all about the body and you recite the Serenity Prayer after the ninth race.

11. Massage a gazelle with a certain substance that causes its skin to itch so violently that it scratches itself until the blood flows; watch the gazelle as it scratches, reciting the Serenity Prayer all the while.

12. Have a gazelle run around a garden, following after it, brandishing a cabman’s whip, but only threatening the gazelle with it. The gazelle is obliged to run until it falls from weariness; at which instant you recite the Serenity Prayer.