Oh, I forgot to mention the final, definitive title of our little film: “Machinations.”

And by the way, thanks to some technical glitches, I did not make the 6:30 dropoff at the nearby FedEx place. Still (after an interminable stream of profanity far more explicit than anything in “Quite Contrary”), I was able to work those out, and had plenty of time to dump a couple of copies out to tape and get them to the central FedEx facility by its 8:00 closing time. Or so I thought. I’ll spare you all the details, but after seemingly innumerable delays, I ended up in the door just before 8:00 (and, in fact, someone coming up a couple of minutes later was denied entry).

As a little capper, the attendant’s receipt printer wasn’t working, so she said she’d just have to give me the handwritten receipt. Hey, I’m sympathetic, but as this is a competition entry, I’m going to need an officially printed and dated receipt. They had to run the thing three times before it’d work (and change paper rolls twice), but work it did.

Time-stamped 8:02 p.m., but the time’s not the critical thing — it’s the date: October 23, 2006.

Our work is officially done.

Thanks again, everyone. Now I’m going to grab something to eat, have a drink and go to bed.

And despite all that, I can’t wait to do it again. But next time I’ll try not to cut it so close.

Good night, all.