Saldo Negativo

‘Come on over here,’ said Zaphod, ‘there’s a whole new life stretching out ahead of you.’
‘Oh, not another one,’ groaned Marvin.

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

E da série «coisas que eu era capaz de dar um testículo para ter sido eu a escrever»:

He shifted his weight from foot to foot, but it was equally uncomfortable on each. Obviously somebody had been appallingly incompetent and he hoped to God it wasn’t him.
Mr Prosser said, ‘You were quite entitled to make any suggestions or protests at the appropriate time, you know.’
‘Appropriate time?’ hooted Arthur. ‘Appropriate time? The first I knew about it was when a workman arrived at my home yesterday. I asked him if he’d come to clean the windows and he said no he’d come to demolish the house. He didn’t tell me straight away, of course. Oh no. First he wiped a couple of windows and charged me a fiver. Then he told me.’
‘But, Mr. Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months.’
‘Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn’t exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean like actually telling anybody or anything.’
‘But the plans were on display…’
‘On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.’
‘That’s the display department.’
‘With a torch.’
‘Ah, well the lights had probably gone.’
‘So had the stairs.’
‘But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Arthur, ‘yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard.’

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy