“I’ll do it!” Tom screamed downward, “I’ll jump! I swear!”

“Please,” said the negotiater placidly through his megaphone, “Just tell us what the problem is, maybe we can help.”

“Help!? Ha! You have no idea what my life is like. . . I just got a promotion with a huge raise, and my boss told me another one could be on the way! I drive a car that more than makes up for the size of my penis, and yesterday, my wife of twenty-six years told me that she was. . . HAPPY!”

“Listen, Tom, we ALL get happy sometimes, I mean, my kid just made varsity football. . . but you just gotta remember that behind all that, your life is a total wreck, and most everyone you’ve come into contact with loathes you.”

“You’re just saying that! My life is perfect, there’s no way I can go on! I’m jumping!”

“Tom, please, think of your family!”

“What about them!?”

“Got any kids?”

“Yeah, a son, why!?”

“How does he feel about you?”

“Well, he. . . he hates my guts.” Tom’s face began to lift, as the edge in his voice slowly dissolved. “He despises me. . . always says I’m the worst father on Earth. . . stays out past his curfew, and his friends are almost certainly on drugs! Drugs!” He laughed out loud in insupressable joy, beaming from ear to ear.

“You wanna come down now?”

“Yeah. . . I think I will.” The slim figure that was Tom Sanders dissappeared back into the window in front of which he had been perched, as various police officers began high fiving one another. The negotiator heaved a sigh of relief.

The chief turned to the negotiater and shook his hand cordially. “Well you did it again!”

“I know. . . been doing this for years, haven’t lost a single one. It just makes me wanna take a gun to my head.”