-August- All the world will be your enemy, Prince of a Thousand enemies.

And when they catch you, they will kill you.

But first they must catch you.

I would like to take this time as Proxies on motorcycles (apparently we're not the only ones with access to bikes) take their time to try and give us a run for our money (ohh, right off the driver side door and onto the median. That's got to hurt. You go, Sam!) to pass on a few valuable lessons I've learn being in the courier business for... well, that's not important.

After spending a certain amount of time in the courier service, you learn a few things.

Firstly, you learn that there's no such thing as paranoid. There's only properly prepared and - as our little masked friend just demonstrated - dead meat.

Secondly, you learn that the logistics of a delivery isn't the most important part of said delivery.

No, no.

The most important part of said delivery is planning for that delivery to go wrong in the most gruesome and inconceivable way possible.

Take right now, for instance.

While this is far from the biggest set-back we've ever seen, (the biggest set-back in my experience involving an abandoned circus, one hundred pounds of C4, an elephant and an army of clowns, each and every one of them putting Pennywise to shame.) they're not exactly sunshine and rainbows.

We get by.

Perhaps I'm in no position to speak, though - this is only what, my fifth major delivery? Something like that. In all honesty I didn't think Spence expected me to survive my first time out of Dysfunction Junction, (and by that I, of course, mean the house - see 'It's Weird' for the full rant) let alone my first legitimate delivery. But as I've somehow managed to avoid becoming the next smear on the median of life, I've learned that he doesn't expect anybody to survive the first delivery. The seven of us have been at this the longest from what I gather talking to them, and newbies are brought in and drop off the face of the earth without so much as a batted lash.

I guess we're all just jaded.

Before I go and take over the driving so Sam can take a few shots at the motorcade coming up beside us, I'd like to leave you with one last message.

In our business, it's not about how you fight, or even if you fight well.

It's not about playing dirty or playing it straight.

It's about picking yourself up and dusting yourself off and worrying about washing the blood off yourself later.

It's about not stopping to wonder which one of you it belonged to.

And neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, nor the winds of change, nor a nation challenged, will stay us from the swift completion of our appointed rounds.