I believe in Satan.

Saying that, I have to add that I do not worship him, even though he was once the Angel of Light, Lucifer. Additionally, the word Satan is only one letter off from satin, implying a smooth operator.

Statements like these are inflammatory to a lot of people, because the popular notion of Satan is one of intense evil. People who do not want to make waves do not even get close to a subject like this. Politics and Religion. Oh Bad.

There are lots of finer points of theology with which people are uncomfortable. It is so much easier just to think in terms of Good and Bad, Black and White with No Gray Areas, when in fact, there are some Gray Areas.

For instance, Satan was once God's best friend, his main man, his best boy. How could He have gone so wrong? Or did He secretly know that the the Prince of Light would turn on him?

God knows everything, so he must have had foreknowledge that Satan would fall from grace. One of the finer discussions of theology is about whether Satan chose to be the Prince of devils or really had no choice since all things are foreordained. Buddhists would probably say that God and Satan are ying and yang, forming a complete circle.

It is said that Satan was behind Judas' betrayal. Someone eventually had to play the part of Judas: Satan got the ball rolling, and then Cain killed Abel, and mankind (there's an oxymoron) was on a roll until, eventually, Judas got the part of "Judas".

It is preordained that there would be a Judas, although only a character sketch was given, no particular name mentioned in advance, until Judas got the part and his name became proverbial. Before the Judas, there were a lot of people with the same name, but it wasn't proverbial at that time. After his betrayal, his name was proverbial for the person who pulls the rug out from under you, throws you to the wolves, and feeds you to the sharks. How many people name their baby Judas these days?

Akeldema. It means Field of Blood and is associated with Judas Iscariot, the Judas. This links the color of red blood with Judas, who was, undoubtedly, a puppet of Satan.

Two of my Imaginary Friends (something like frenemies), Tough Customer and Tootsie Roll took me for a ride the other day. Tough Customer has a jet black car with an I LOVE SATAN bumper sticker. The front panel of the dashboard is very cool with lots of lights that glow even in the daylight. There is, of course, a connection with the bumper sticker (Prince of Darkness) and Angel of Light.

My old boyfriend Tyrone, also Imaginary, used to like to sing a song that he learned from a record album:

"I don't care if it rains or freezes
Long as I got my plastic Jesus
Sittin' on the dashboard of my car."

I was never really comfortable with that song. While it mentions Jesus, it is obviously riddled with mockery, so there again, you have the opposites ying and yang, mention of holy and unholy.

Though it sounds like a complete digression from the subject of Satan, the dash inside Tough Customer's car looks more like the cockpit of a spaceship, a vintage 1950's Buck Roger's imaginary spaceship, than that of the car I've got, which is nothing to sneeze at. We drove it to look at small household appliances. Tough Customer got a gift card for X-mas. The reference here that will tie this all together will be the popular custom of linking the color red with the Devil.

I fell in love with the best mixer I had ever seen. The floor model was bright red, had an excellent design, with the base being the heaviest part so it wouldn't tip over. This is extremely important to me, because people can be very clumsy.

In illustration: Yesterday, I stepped backwards, almost lost my balance, and in so doing, broke off a shoddily-made plastic appurtenance on the fax machine. I glued it back with Crazy Glue. (It makes you crazy because it takes so long to set up.) I prefer Super Glue. It works faster, and the name at once resonates with the image of mighty super heroes who zoom in to your rescue, some of whom are wearing satiny, bright red tights and cape.

OK, back to real life.

P.S. About the mixer: It looks like it could do about 4-6 dozen batches of muffins at a time. I have yet to test it in the laboratory, but I plan on it.