I like the thumb-cuffs!

About now every Tom, Dick and Harry, every Martha, Jenny and Mary has heard of water boarding and what it entails. There’s no way now that anyone could use it as a torture technique. Everybody knows about it. Congress is debating it just like any other, by now, dead issue.

In American War Veterans’ hall #2 to hall #22,222 all the talk has gone beyond water boarding back into the past. Former POW’s now hold court telling the others what they had suffered at the hands of the enemy. How, for supper, one slice of bread had to be divided evenly among twelve prisoners. But the times are a-changin’ and we’ve gotten serious about the torture business.

Your kids will tell you it used to be done out West in a very primitive manner. “They cut your eyelids off, staked you naked to the ground on top of an ant hill and you went bonkers before the sun went down. But they never got any secrets out of you. Know why? Because there weren’t any secrets. They did it just for the hell of it back then.” “Don’t swear.”

Newspaper editorials are demanding that we as the greatest nation on Earth need to set an example in torture techniques. We need to restore the world’s faith in our… our things but not exactly like fingernail pulling but something like that. Something to make them talk. But not anything bad to make them talk.

It won’t be long before colleges will be offering courses in torture. Like: Screaming Torture 101. And guys can major in torture. Study for a Master’s in torture. Write a thesis on making others suffer. Get a Ph.D. in torture. Ph.D.T. As a doctor of torture, they’ll be called upon for second opinions.

Well. that’s what everyone is doing now without going to school — giving second opinions. So why not b4b? Here is our list of the Thirteen Surefire Ways To Make ‘em Talk.

13) Tongue-bitting. You get the subject to bite their tongue. Literally. That is real hurt. How do you do this — I don’t know. Forceps?

12) You sprinkle unpoped popcorn kernels all over the subject’s cell floor and in their bunk. And, of course, take away their shoes and socks. Watch them hop in pain from their bunk to the commode. Oh, ah, ha, ha, ha, oww! I’ll talk! I’ll talk!

11) You give them a radio and you broadcast, on the sly, old news recordings. Make them think they slipped back in time, a year, 10 years, 40 years. Select one. Then question them at the appropriate year. No way, they will want to talk about the here and now!

10) You give them sticky bubble gum to chew. That’ll get them.

9) Dental Floss Madness. This is similar to #10 in case #10 doesn’t work. You run thick dental floss between each of their teeth and snip off the ends so they’ve got all it stuck between their teeth. They’ll beg to confess on this one.

You hang a horseshoe upside down above their cell door and explain how all their luck has run down out of it. Then you tell them you have 13 ways to make them talk. Then you bring a black cat into their cell. They will talk if they’re superstitious.

7) You give them a deck of cards to play solitary with, only you remove the Jack of Spades. (More of #8)

6) You give them for food that night a plate of whole pistachio nuts, only the ones without split shells.

5) Each guard visits the subject and shows the subject their wallet collection of children. And grandchildren, if any.

4) All the water you give the subject is dyed red.

3) Be an echo to the subject. Repeat every sentence they say. “Hello.” “Hello.” “Why am I here?” “Why am I here?” “I want a lawyer.” “I want a lawyer.” The purpose is to make the subject think that you are indeed crazy. They’ll be so frightened that you’ll pull some really crazy stuff on them, they’ll talk first.

2) For their daily exercise you take them outside to sit at a wooden table and wooden chair. The next day you saw 4” off the table and chair to make them think they’re growing taller. Next day another 4”. then you reverse it adding 4” to table and chairs, Again, and again. They will think they’ve lost touch with reality and will blabber away.

1) You give them their shoes back, with laces, have them put them on and then you hard-tie knots in the laces. Rather than go to bed with their shoes on, they will, believe me, talk!

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