NEW YORK–The stock market continues to experience huge daily swings as traders remain unable to predict or understand the Dao Jones, analysts reported Tuesday.

Two men sit in a booth in a dimly lit restaurant. One man is a newspaper reporter, the other is an FBI agent.

Okay, the tape’s rolling. So how did you find yourself surveilling the hotel room in Phoenix?

One of our men was meeting with a big-time American dealer. Our agent was posing as a Mexican drug baron looking to unload an enormous quantity of coke. The dealer was this dirtbag who sold to kids in the Tuscon area. We’d been trying to nab him for two years.

At the risk of sounding like a bitter, barren old shrew, your kids aren’t that cute. I can tell by the way you’re smiling and applauding them that this is their first time throwing their own garbage away in a public trashcan, but I don’t need to be a part of this milestone in your child’s life. Please save the lessons and the exercises for home or the classroom and keep them out of my local Panera.

Listen. I’m trying not to sound too terribly accusatory here. But you guys have caused me no small amount of irreversible psychological damage over the years. Observe: Don’t Break the Ice, Don’t Spill the Beans, Don’t Wake Daddy. “Don’t do this! Don’t do that!” Your board games are ripe with such negative language—and during the formative years, no less!

The recent boom in the “politics of personal destruction” has created a need for effective public apologies to be rendered by those cultural icons caught being naughty. The following speech, which was presented live on Gotham City television by a contrite Caped Crusader, may serve as a model for apologizers everywhere:

BAT-APOLOGY