By David Leonhardt

My dad was wrong. I just discovered that I am good for nuthin' after all. In fact I've been good for nuthin' all along. I am 100% biodegradable and that means I can be recycled into nuthin'. It also means that no matter how much I waste, no matter how much I consume, no matter how much I pollute, in the end I am environment-friendly. Best of all, I now have an end use.

Now that's something to put on my resume!

This comes as particularly good news to somebody who is not sure what his purpose is. Sometimes I write these humor columns, pretending to be funny. Sometimes people even laugh, and I worry that it might be the start of an ominous trend.

Sometimes I am selling my happiness book, pretending to be a successful author. With 2,000 copies of my book keeping the floor from floating upwards, perhaps I AM successful. Levitating floors are generally not considered signs of success in this part of the country.

Sometimes I am optimizing websites for search engine rankings. "What exactly does that mean?" I am often asked.

"Well...it means that I get my clients' site high up in the searches." Blank stare.

I try again. "It means that I help Google show you my clients' web sites. Blank stare.

"Well...I'm not sure how to explain it. But I get paid to do it." People understand that.

"I turn on a machine that defluctuates the turbo-rotating modulator down at the spare parts plant," someone adds.

"What exactly does that mean?" I ask.

"Beats me. But I get paid to do it." We are soulmates.

Sometimes I write for pay, because people seem to want something written. They hope that if they can't say it themselves, I might be able to find just the right words. I have dictionaries full of words. You would think they could just go out and buy a few themselves. But then I might have to beg for food outside their homes, so it's just as well that they pay me to find the words for them.

"C'mon, David. You have lots of words. Why don't you lend me some? Why, just last week you promised to 'defenestrate' me, whatever that means."

They want me to put their thoughts into words, and occasionally they want me to create their thoughts. I worked for a politician years ago. I vaguely remember how to write somebody else's thoughts before he knew he had them. Isn't it great that a country can be run in such an efficient manner?

"So what do you write?"

"Web site copy, mostly."

"Really? Not another book?"

"No, I still have 2,000 copies of the last book piled up in my office."

"I'm sure they'll sell quickly, David."

"Really? Want one?"

"Uh...gotta go. It's time for my pet goldfish's nap. He hasn't napped in...uh...years. Yeah, he really, really needs a nap right now!"

I also write this humor column faithfully every week. But people actually PAY me to write website copy. Now, dear reader, answer me this question. Would you rather be reading this hilarious column, loaded with frosting and topped with chocolate syrup, or would you rather read plain vanilla website copy. Yes, I would probably go for the vanilla, too.

One thing my website copy and this column have in common is that they are not biodegradable. Remember how computers would save the environment as they replace the three gazillion tones of paper we trash every few hours in offices around the world and elsewhere?

Now we discover that all that paper at least was biodegradable, recyclable, reusable. It wasn't all that bad for the environment, after all. But the monitor you are reading this on will last forever. (SFX: evil laughter) Adventure seekers from the planet Zorgoppppt will land here in the year 2304 and discover all these abandoned monitors scattered around.

One Zorgopppptian will say to the other, "prrffg, ddytghe hthmp obobboo djukldu" (Translation: "great door stops!")

But they won't find me, thanks to my lifetime achievement. I'll be long gone, because I am (chest swells with pride) biodegradable.