The best that could be said of Johnson was that he was rational. When he left a room, people would tend to say things like; “Johnson seems rational.”

Others would nod in agreement. It wasn’t exactly controversial.

Last year, Johnson made the rational decision to go to university. I need not expand on this, but let me just tell you that it resulted in him finding a missus and a half. He chose the missus in the same way he made most decisions – by thinking about it rationally.

He sat in his room with a pen and paper, making a list of pros and cons:

PROS

• Straight-A student
• Smashing table manners

CONS

• Minor cyst on back of neck
• Slurps tea from a saucer

He compared her to other potential suitors:

CHANDELIER – 8/10
MARY – 3.1/10
DELILAH – 0.2/10
OPHELIA – 9.5/10

With a score of 9.5/10, Ophelia was the prime option in that given environment at that given moment in time. To find a 10/10 he would move to Hollywood when his savings allowed, but under the current circumstances Ophelia was a perfectly rational girlfriend to bring on board.

It should be noted that Johnson refused to engage in argumentation. In his opinion, to argue was to lessen oneself. It was undignified. It was not unusual to see him stood in the middle of the university common pontificating on this matter to anyone who happened to be within earshot:

“Argumentation is simply a by-product of emotion and, thus, an irrational behaviour that – and let me be frank here – risks erasing the progress of humanity and returning us to the caveman days.”

It was his relentless assertion of this perspective while looking her fixedly in the eyes that really got his missus’ back up, leading to many a conflict. But, of course, Johnson refused to argue, which created complications in conflict. And so, Ophelia would argue at him while he stood there smiling. Need I explain that he thought it rational to smile in the face of conflict because of smiling’s association with positive moods and experiences?

Unfortunately for Johnson, on one particularly grey Tuesday afternoon, the missus took especially poorly to him smiling at her as she berated him for refusing to eat the birthday cake she had baked for him. He coolly explained how it was “irrational to consume gluten in today’s climate,” and offered to forward her an article on the topic.

That’s when she pushed him out of the third floor window.

Johnson perished.

In Johnson’s eulogy his rationality was duly noted, then they sent the coffin off for cremation and the flames seared his lifeless corpse and everyone cried because it was all very strange and very sad and no one really understood why this had happened to a boy like Johnson when he had his whole life ahead of him and he could have really done something with his life if only his missus hadn’t pushed him out of the third floor window because he refused to eat the birthday cake.