For years, we had hoped you would win the Powerball, John Hodgman. The wealth would crush your ambition, and you would resign yourself to a Howard Hughes-like existence of reclusiveness and urine jugs. But lately we’ve grown impatient, so we’ve had to insist you voluntarily retire from show business. That doesn’t mean you can’t be a productive member of society. A job as a goat herder, say, will allow you honest work and provide a captive audience for your comedy stylings. As an added bonus, you will be permitted to slaughter one goat each week to provide for your sustenance. More likely, though, they will hang themselves.

John Hodgman: A mustache doesn’t make you Nick Offerman.

Can I borrow your shoelaces?.

Once retired from show business, John Hodgman, meals will be provided for you, although you will be required to take nourishment in solitude. You will have ready access to shampoo, rope and matches. Almanacs and other encouragements of excruciating minutiae will be verboten. You will die alone, in conversation with a sled.

John Hodgman: Ben Stein, with better politics.

It will be called: John Hodgman: I Have Agreed to Stop. Then you will be allowed to peacefully exit show business, like Idi Amin being exiled from Uganda on a full stomach. Your safe passage is ensured.

John Hodgman: Clearly there’s no point.