Don't Call me, I'll Call You...Uh, No I Won't

The number 42 mysteriously appeared twice this week. That rift in the space/time continuum (I don't know what that means, but it sounds cool) was enough to elicit a comment from me. First, the odd news.
The government wants to stimulate the economy by sending me money. That's not news. Of course, it will still take them months to get it to me. OK,OK, that's not news, either. What IS news, however, is that it will cost the government $42 million dollars TO SEND US ALL A LETTER TELLING US WE'LL BE GETTING A CHECK! Dude, email me and send me the money you save on postage. I mean, USPS is already jacking up the price for a stamp...probably they saw this mailing coming. By the way, does this mean it will also cost them $42 million dollars to mail the check? Here's a plan: call me after 9 when the rates are lower or email me for free; then,send the check with the first mailing and save some cash. I even went so far as to try to find a number where I could call THEM and offer this brilliant solution, but the US Gov't. site is as indecipherable as some of the policy decisions we've seen lately.
Now, the really odd news anout the number 42.
It seems that marriage is a tenuous proposition, even in China. Breaking up is hard to do...in many respects. Recently, a man dumped his wife...no word why. He just did. His 37 (not 42, unfortunately)year-old wife, referred to only as Wang in the news report, decided that she was not about to let such an offense go unpunished. She piled the inventory of their business, a cell phone distributorship, on the floor and set it ablaze. The 400 (again, not 42 hundred, sadly enough) cell phones were worth an estimated 300,000 yuan, which, in American greenbacks, amounts to...$42,000.00. Firefighters rushed in to extinguish the blaze, but the damage had been done. She was probably apprehended running down the street screaming, "Can you hear me now, you no-good SOB?" (in Chinese it almost sounds poetic, but it was too hard for me to write).
This was brought to you by the number 42 and the letter you'll be getting from the government which will begin "You may already be a winner!" or "You have been named in a will here in Nairobi. Send me $42.00 and I will send you a check for millions."