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at SIS or the White House, requests for photographs of editors, spiritual, physical, or psychic solace. Then the decisions re: bulk mail—what to do about the clods of foil-wrapped cheese from Wisconsin, the frozen merletons from Arcadia, the three and a half pounds of Liberated Chili from El Paso?
    I had my seventh letter from the Pissed-Off Chef. She wanted SIS to help her “break into the TV Cook Show racket”—her signature music was going to be the sound of a frying pan smashing through window glass, a loud scream, then a snatch of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony. The P.O.C. felt that there were a lot of women out there who hated to cook—and who had built up a lot of anger about cooking. Why these bon vivant, giggling-gourmet types? she demanded, ladling their strawberry soup and mincing basil, with no screaming kids or gerbils underfoot—and why old Julia with her ninety dirty dishes per recipe? She told me she could drop-kick a twenty-pound turkey about fifty yards—from the trunk of the car through the kitchen window and hit the roaster pan. She would stomp ingredients—as opposed to fileting, pounding, pestling. She could flatten five pounds of brisket into a slim patty with her big Spring-o-lator shoes and butterfly a pork butt wielding a double-bladed ax. She tested her linguine for readiness, not by flinging it lightly against a wall. She preferred lobbing fistfuls at a blown-up portrait of Wolfgang Puck.
    I was sorely tempted to contribute a new recipe, which involved fish quenelles and Velcro snaps, but I restrained myself.
    In fact, I tried heroically to remain neutral all morning, but then, then the old devil came over me—I had to write personal answers to some of the stuff. I took out my pen and added a few lines of suggestions about personal hygiene on the same page as the “official” answer to a particularly venomous male correspondent. I typed some of my own recipe hints for the woman who laced her hubby’s Grape Nuts with Nine Lives. I took the rabbit ears out of my drawer and put them on.
    I wrote to Iris again.
Dear Iris,
    First, I really must mention to you that I am a woman, not a man. My father gave me a boy’s name because he wanted a boy. I’ve never changed it; I’ve grown used to it—but it is often confusing and I apologize for this confusion.
    Second, I would like to publish part of your recent letter to me in the Letters column. We do not pay for the right to publish letters, but I would personally like to thank you for the opportunity to print your opinions.
    Have you made any progress in determining who your sleep intruder is? Since I’ve been Letters Editor here, I have the same sense (as I mentioned to you in an earlier letter) that alien brains are taking over my own thought processes.
    Keep me posted about your progress in this important matter.
    Yrs,
    WJD
    A paper clip hit me in the neck as I sealed the letter. I looked over at Page.
    “You’ve got the rabbit ears on again, Willis. Take them off, they make me nervous about who’s really across from me!”
    I made a werewolf face at her, shrugged, and pulled out the rest of the mail from the sack. There was a medium-sized envelope with what looked like a bloodstain in the upper left-hand corner, and the initials W.I.T.C.H. handprinted over the red stain. Trouble. I put the envelope down and stared at it. My name, on the face of the envelope, was put together from cutout letters. I flipped it over—there was a red wax seal with the symbol imprint, the bio-sign of the female with an eye inside. I opened the envelope, and a sheet of paper covered with cutout words fell out.
PRINT THE FOLLOWING.
    Dear Letters Editor,
    W.I.T.C.H. (Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell) has a test for every SIS reader. It will allow you to rate your husband, boyfriend, lover, from 1 to 10. It will tell you if he is secretly sexist. Ask him the following questions.
    On the flip side there were some typed questions under