Robert Arthur

“ You know how scornful an eight-year-old can be? Well, she was. "Unhap-pen. It makes things unhappen. Anything that works by electracity, it stops. Elmer calls it his unhappen genii. Just for fun."
"Oh, now I get it," I said brightly. "It makes electricity not work—unhappen. Like television sets and air conditioners and automobiles and bus engines."
Doreen giggled.
Marge sat bolt upright. "Doreen! You caused that traffic jam? You and that—that gadget of Elmer's?"
Doreen nodded. "It made all the automobile engines stop, just like Elmer said. Elmer's never wrong." ”

“ Doreen put in happily.
The way she rolled the word out made me stare at her.
Marge only nodded. "That's what Elmer says, all right," she agreed, a trifle grim.
"Why does Elmer say silly-zation is doomed?" I asked Doreen.
"Because it's getting hotter." The kid gave it to me straight. "All the ice at the North Pole is gonna melt. The ocean is gonna rise two hundred feet. Then everybody who doesn't live on a hill is gonna be drownded. That's what Elmer says and Elmer isn't ever wrong." ”

“ Biltom Electronics makes TV components, computer parts, things like that. Tom Kennedy is the brains. Me, Bill Rawlins, I do the legwork, and tend to the business details.
"It's uncanny the way all those cars suddenly stopped when our bus broke down," Marge said as we waited for the picture to come on. "Any day now this civilization of ours will get so complicated a bus breaking down someplace will bring the whole thing to a halt. Then where will we be?"
"Elmer says silly-zation is doomed!" ”