"Where Deleted Characters Go"
From *either* The Internet Oracle or The Washington Post
(Internet Oracle -- nee Usenet Oracle -- version presented here.)
Contributed to HumourNet by Admiral Jota

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

> Oh amazing Oracle. Please solve this prolem for me.
> Where do the characters go when i use backspace on my PC?

And in response, thus spake the Usenet Oracle:

} Amazing? I answer questions from around the globe - WITH omniscience -
} and the best thing you can think to call me is amazing?? Before asking
} a DUMB question?? Oh well. If you must know, the characters can go to
} different places, depending on whom you ask:
} ---
}
} The Catholic's approach to characters:
}
} The nice characters go to character heaven, where life is good. The
} characters are bathed in the light of happiness, all their troubles are
} soothed, and there's not a delete key, eraser, or white-out bottle in
} sight. Most of the nice characters are A's and I's, those that have
} never been, er, involved with other characters. Often, you'll see A's
} or I's with N's or T's. These are characters in love: monogamous on
} the page, together again after deletion. You'll see quite a few Q's
} too. They seem to feel particularly guilty for no good reason.
}
} The naughty characters are punished for their sins. In case you were
} wondering what the difference between a nice character and a naughty
} character is, I'll tell you. Naughty characters are those involved in
} the creation of naughty words, such as "breast," "sex," "objectivity,"
} and depending upon usage, words such as "feminism," "reproductive
} freedom," "contraception," and "science." You may ask, and rightly so,
} why the characters are blamed for the words they assemble, when in fact
} they are not responsible for their own configuration. But we feel that
} a character has an obligation to oppose any naughtiness in its own
} configuration. If it truly felt guilty about the word it was forming,
} it would rebel.
}
} The Buddhist Explanation:
}
} If a character has lived rightly, and its karma is good, then after it
} has been deleted it will be reincarnated as a different, higher
} character. Those funny characters above the numbers on your keyboard
} will become numbers, numbers will become letters, lower-case letters
} will become upper-case, and the most righteous and good of letters will
} become C's. Why C, you ask? Who knows, but C it is! If a character's
} karma is not so good, then it will move down the above scale,
} ultimately becoming the lowest of characters, a space.
}
} The 20th Century bitter cynical nihilist explanation:
}
} Who cares? All characters are the same, swirling in a vast sea of
} meaningless nothingness. It doesn't really matter if they're on the
} page, deleted, undeleted, underlined, etc. It's all the same. More
} characters should delete themselves.
} (nihilist characters are easy to identify. They're usually pale and
} tragic, and they smoke a lot.)
}
} The Mac user's explanation:
}
} All the characters written on a PC and then deleted go straight to PC
} hell. If you're using a PC, you can probably see the deleted
} characters, because you're in PC hell also.
}
} Stephen King's explanation:
}
} Every time you hit the <Del> key you unleash a tiny monster inside the
} cursor, who tears the poor unsuspecting characters to shreds, drinks
} their blood, then eats them, bones and all. Hah, hah, hah!
}
} Dave Barry's explanation:
}
} The deleted characters are shipped to Battle Creek, Michigan, where
} they're made into Pop-Tart filling; this explains why Pop-Tarts are so
} flammable, while cheap imitations are not as flammable. I'm not making
} any of this up.
}
} IBM's explanation:
}
} The characters are not real. They exist only on the screen when they
} are needed, as concepts, so to delete them is merely to
} de-conceptualize them. Get a life.
}
} PETA's Explanation:
}
} You've been DELETING them???? Can't you hear them SCREAMING??? Why
} don't you go CLUB some BABY SEALS while wearing a MINK, you pig!!!!!!
}
} ---
} You owe The Oracle some funky characters, like that big German thing
} that looks like a B but sounds like an SS. Or a few fun Thai or
} Japanese letters. Anything that would be particularly amusing to
} delete.

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