Now I see he's got some medals in this display case on the opposite wall, and an old picture of himself sticking out of a WWII tank. "Nam was really heavy, man," I say. "Sure glad to be back in the good ole U.S. of A." I figure I'm not really lying, 'cause I don't come right out and say I been there. Anyway, growing up with my mother was like my own personal Nam, you know?

Now I start in on the real guts of my sales pitch. First I give him the line about how this set of books is so complete they really should have called it the American People's Encyclopedia of Everything.Then I kind of riff on that, I tell him that it really DID used to be called that until they shortened the name for ADVERTISING PURPOSES. I tell him that it's the only encyclopedia IN THE WORLD that actually contains every single fact that ever happened.