FATTYFOOT: Alright, alright, settle down, you rowdy mistakes. Tonight’s lesson in poor life choices comes from the Halfling Code and its primary author, Pip Pippington. PIP: The Halfling Code is not poor life choices. It’s a lifestyle manual. Halfling Code Number Eighteen: “A Halfling without breakfast is no Halfling at all.” She carved that into the inside of my pantry. PIP: In blood. FATTYFOOT: It was jam. PIP: It was mostly jam. [Music vamp starts – light acoustic groove, bar noise] [Part 1 – The Moon, Stars, and Dragon] FATTYFOOT: Pip, tell them about the time you “visited the moon.” PIP: You mean the time I obeyed Halfling Code Number Seven: “If you can see it from your porch, you’re allowed to visit it in your slippers.” So I’m up on the hill, staring at the sky, and I realize the stars are actually pixie colonies. Tiny glowing communists. They live in little clusters, enforce light curfews, complain about everything. You were drunk on pipeweed. PIP: I was chemically curious. One pixie colony blinks three times, which is clearly an invitation to tea, so naturally I overshoot and land on the moon. By the way, it’s not cheese. It’s diet cheese. Evil in mineral form. Truly cursed. PIP: Sitting there in a crater like it’s his barstool is a dragon. No hoard, no maidens, just one chipped teacup and the face of someone who has read every book twice and still found only footnotes. Halfling Code Number Twenty-Four: “Always introduce yourself to anything that can swallow you whole. It might be lonely and already full.” So we share lunar grey tea. He asks why I came so far from home. I tell him, “I smelled snacks.” He says, “There are no snacks on the moon.” And right then I understood dragon rage. FATTYFOOT: You told a dragon the stars are pixie colonies? PIP: Of course not. I told him the pixies are running an unlicensed light business and he should charge rent. I’m reckless, not stupid. Speaking of rent, Pip promised she’d teach you how to live “thrifty.” PIP: Thrifty. Halfling Code Number Three: “Never spend coin on something you can acquire with charm, speed, or a well-timed distraction.” FATTYFOOT: That’s theft. PIP: That’s budgeting. Why buy bread when the baker already paid for ingredients and work? It would be rude to undo his investment. You wait until closing, knock at the back door and say, “I’m the Fire Inspector for the Loaf and Crumb Department. I need to check the temperature of those leftover rolls.” Then you eat them. Thoroughly. For public safety. FATTYFOOT: You got banned from three bakeries doing that. PIP: Yes, but look how much I saved. Thrift is not about keeping money; it is about not making it do exhausting things like “moving.” Money should rest. Preferably in my pockets. Halfling Code Number Thirty-Two: “If it isn’t nailed down, it’s on holiday.” If it is nailed down, that is a carpentry problem. Now tell them about the ogre. She claims she bested an ogre in single combat. PIP: Absolutely. Halfling Code Number Twelve: “If you’re outmatched, change the match.” I’m in this valley, minding my own business, which was technically someone else’s business, which I was borrowing. Out stomps an ogre the size of three taverns and a tax audit. He bellows, “HALFLING, I CHALLENGE YOU TO SINGLE COMBAT!” So I say, “Agreed. But Halfling Code Number Nineteen: ‘Never duel on an empty stomach.’” He sits, I offer to cook a proper pre-combat stew. He thinks he’s getting a free meal. I think he’s getting four pounds of sleeping herbs and enough garlic to stun a demon. We eat. He praises my seasoning. I praise his impending nap. He stands, sways, and collapses face-first into his own war club. The ground shakes, three birds die from stress. That is not single combat. PIP: It was very single. I was the only one conscious. Victory by culinary checkmate. [Part 4 – Ducks and Pixie Stars] FATTYFOOT: You forgot the part where the ducks got involved. PIP: Right. On the way to the ogre I had to cross a pond. Listen carefully. You cannot trust ducks. Halfling Code Number Twenty-Seven: “Never trust anything that floats, walks, and judges you with the same dead stare.” Ducks have no fear. They look at you like they know every embarrassing thing you’ve ever done and they’re filing a report with the gods. A dragon might burn your village. A duck will watch it burn, nod once, and remember it for later blackmail. Stars are pixies, ducks are spies, the moon is diet cheese. If we keep repeating this, it turns into theology. PIP: Good. Then I can finally claim religious exemptions on my bar tab. [Part 5 – Homebody Halfling Code] FATTYFOOT: For someone with more arrest warrants than socks, she’s the biggest homebody I know. PIP: Halfling Code Number One: “The world is big, but your favorite chair is bigger on the inside.” I travel, I steal bread, I outwit ogres, I drink tea on the moon with emotionally damaged dragons. But at the end of the day all I want is a warm pipe, a heavy blanket, and a breakfast I’m alr PIP: Halfl FATTYFOOT: New Halfling Code? PIP: Halfling Code Number Forty-One: “If the universe is ridiculous, your job is to notice, snack, and take good notes.” FATTYFOOT: And apparently set it to music. [Both launch into a bright instrumental vamp, crowd laughs and bangs tankards]
