Chapters 36 through 50 and Notes Summary

Excepting Chapter 46, the remaining chapters in the novel are quite brief. Chapter 36 relates the story of a boy who decides at a young age that he would like to be able to press his lips to every square inch of his body. He spends the remainder of his life doing stretching and contortion exercises to gain the flexibility required and carefully tracks his performance. His parents find him eccentric but he pursues his activity in more or less secrecy. As he nears puberty he realizes that some area of his body - notable the face and head - are going to be a problem. In Chapter 37 two people chat in a restaurant. Chapter 38 details briefly the IRS's attempts at integrated automation through the mid- to late-1980s. About half of the short chapter's text is presented as...