Interview with the Almighty

RESNICK: I'm sitting here with God in Sid & Sylvia's 5-Star Deli. The tape recorder's on, and we're ready to go.

GOD: Relax. Have a knosh. They tell me the chopped liver is outstanding. RESNICK: Can you tell me why you've agreed to this interview, after being silent for so long?

GOD: I hadn't realized that no one knew how to write the last time I gave one. RESNICK: Can you tell us a little about your background?

GOD: Sure. In the beginning, I created the heavens and the earth. RESNICK: Speaking of creation, Bertrand Russell once remarked that telling a child that "God made you" implied another question, which is "Who made God?" GOD: That Bertie! What a card!

RESNICK: Then you don't mind if I ask it?

GOD: Ask what?

RESNICK: Who made you?

GOD: I just _hate_ questions like that. And by the way, how come your name is all in caps, just like mine?

RESNICK: I'm tape-recording this. How did you know my name would be in caps?

GOD: I'm God, remember?

Resnick: No offense intended.

GOD: That's better.

Resnick: So tell me about the Big Bang.

GOD: It happened very fast. If you blinked, you'd have missed it. Resnick: That's _it_? That's all you've got to say about it?

GOD: What do you want? No one invented the Polaroid camera for another fifteen billion years. Resnick: If you're God, you could have invented it any time. GOD: And if you're so smart, you could have bought Polaroid at eight and a quarter. Resnick: What was here before the Big Bang?

GOD: Everything. But it was all kind of scrunched up. You know how it takes you a pair of nine-hour plane trips to get to Kenya? Back then you could have made it in a nanosecond. Well, maybe two nanoseconds.

Resnick: Why did you create the universe?

GOD: Beats the hell out of me.

Resnick: How can you forget? After all, you're _God_!

GOD: That's me --mysterious, unfathomable, unknowable. It can be quite a strain at times. Resnick: By the way, is there something else I should be calling you?

GOD: Like what?

Resnick: Isn't your name YHWH?

GOD: You're kidding, right? How do you pronounce a name with no vowels (unless you're light-heavyweight champion Bobby Czyz, and there have been nights even _he_ couldn't pronounce it after getting punched in the head for ten or twelve rounds.) Resnick: Well, they say it's pronounced Yahweh --but they also say that anyone who utters it will be destroyed.

GOD: Silliest thing I ever heard.

Resnick: Then it's not true?

GOD: Not a bit of it. I see what happened: they screwed it up translating it from Aramaic to Greek to Latin and then into English.

Resnick: So people can call you Yahweh without being destroyed?

GOD: Of course. Yahweh I don't mind at all. Call me _Chubby_ and I'll destroy you. Resnick: Like you destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah?

GOD: That's right --blame _me_ because they had substandard building codes. Resnick: What about the flood?

GOD: I give up. What _about_ the flood?

Resnick: Why did you cause it?

GOD: How do I know? It was a long time ago. Maybe I was having a bad hair day. Resnick: You're not being very responsive.

GOD: You're asking too many negative questions. Ask something positive. Resnick: Okay. What are Man's three greatest accomplishments?

GOD: Let me see ... well, the discovery of fire has to be one. And I think I'd have to say the Renaissance

--I mean, Leonardo and Michelangelo and that whole crowd. And the third would be the Designated Hitter rule.

Resnick: You're kidding!

GOD: I never joke. But okay, you don't like my answer, I'm not gonna argue. Substitute the flush toilet for the Renaissance.

Resnick: Moving right along, I've got a question that I think is on many of our readers' minds these days. GOD: One of the usual, I suppose?

Resnick: The usual?

GOD: Why do all the elevators arrive at once? Why can't any adults open a childproof bottle? How come there was an Upper Volta but there was never a Lower Volta? One of those. Resnick: No, as a matter of fact, it wasn't any of those. But now that you mention it, why _wasn't_ there a Lower Volta?

GOD: You know, I got so tired of hearing that one, I changed Upper Volta's name to Burkina Faso. Now, what was your question?

Resnick: You're God, right? Perfection personified. So how did you manage to create both Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton?

GOD: Give me a break. Do _you_ win a Hugo for every story you write?

Resnick: No, but...

GOD: Besides, do you think it was just Nixon and Clinton? Everyone's flawed. Resnick: Everyone?

GOD: Name one that isn't.

Resnick: How about Albert Einstein?

GOD: Einstein couldn't make a free throw to save his life. Resnick: Madam Curie.

GOD: Do you know how many times she trumped her partner's ace?

Resnick: Sophia Loren.

GOD: Okay, you got me. But _most_ of my creations are flawed. Resnick: Why, if you're God?

GOD: If you wrote the perfect book, would you ever write another?

Resnick: I don't know.

GOD: Neither do I. But I have a feeling I wouldn't. After all, I made five Marx Brothers and all those damned Kennedys, but I only made one Sophia Loren. What a dish!

Resnick: That hardly sounds godly.

GOD: I can't admire a pretty girl? Hell, I created every pretty girl you ever saw. Resnick: Well, as long as you brought up the subject, what was Mary like?

GOD: I had an inappropriate relationship with her, and that's all I'm going to say. Resnick: An inappropriate relationship?

GOD: Yeah, that's a legally accurate description.

Resnick: People have been arguing for 2,000 years about whether Jesus was your son or not. Maybe you can clear that up?

GOD: They didn't have DNA testing back then, did they?

Resnick: No.

GOD: Then go talk to my lawyer. I have nothing further to say on the subject. Now, have you got any more questions before I leave?

Resnick: Have you any words of wisdom for our readers?

GOD: Of course I do. I'm God.

Resnick: So what's your advice?

GOD: Never draw to an inside straight. Never bet a front-runner who's moving up in class on a muddy track. Watch out for overly-aggressive redheads named Thelma. And always go to your basement during a tornado watch.

Resnick: That's _it_? God comes down for the first time in thousands of years, and that's all you've got to tell your people?

GOD: Okay, what the hell, I'll give you one more: buy low, sell high, and stay out of commodities unless you can afford to take some heavy losses.

Resnick: Thanks. I guess.

GOD: You're welcome.

Resnick: I'll see you around.

GOD: Fat chance.

Resnick: I didn't mean in this life.

GOD: Neither did I.