Chapter 21: The Palace Soirée, Part 1

     In preparation for the upcoming soirée, the royal palace received a visit from Ben Friendly, the chief of protocol for Kakisland, a nearby kingdom. Ben Friendly and Beauteous Kingdom's chief of protocol George Pleasant discussed the protocol and cultural differences of their kingdoms.

   Pleasant learns that human resources departments in Kakisland have an office called the department of defenestration.  If a job applicant begins a sentence with the words, "Hey, man," he's sent to the defenestrator to request defenestration.  The defenestrator would then comply with the applicant's request by throwing him out a window.

     In Kakisland, public breastfeeding is so commonly practiced that it's not even noticed, but it's illegal (and considered disgusting and immoral) for fat people to eat in public.

     Also in Kakisland, billboards and other forms of advertising are posted everywhere people look.  To increase people's susceptibility to advertising, children are subjected to twelve years of indoctrination that discourages critical thinking skills and forces them to think inside the box.  This process of indoctrination is called public schools.

     In Kakisland, the kingdom's prosperity is measured by how much people impoverish themselves by borrowing money to buy things they don't need.  This measure of prosperity is called the GDP (Gratuituous Dissipation Percentage.)  The more indebted to the banks the people are, the wealthier the kingdom is considered.

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     On the night of the soirée, the guests include the king of Marcio (one of the kingdoms that would someday unite to form Italy) and his beautiful daughter Azzarilla Naiz.

.  King Zaniddiate is considering her as a possible match for Arthur, but he's concerned that Arthur may consider her too dark.  King Willie Bill of Kakisland tells about a young Swedish woman who once visited Kakisland.  She was so "pale" that Kakislanders rushed her to a hospital in hopes of getting some blood into her.

     In the course of the conversation, Willie Bill explained how Kakislanders plan their vacations.  Instead of planning their vacations based on something enjoyable or fulfilling they really want to do, they go to boring places only because those places have exciting-sounding reputations.  The more disappointing their vacations turn out to be, the more they try to hide their disappointment by telling everyone what a great vacation they had, thus encouraging others to go to boring vacation destinations only because those places are famous.