The Bureau of Ludicrous Statistics, a little-known federal outfit that keeps track of such things, has announced the U.S. set a record in the first 50 weeks of 2020 for the publicly expressed assertion that "(Someone or something) is going to Hell in a handbasket."

This dovetails nicely with one of the few prescient decisions I've made in a long life earmarked by sloth, tomfoolery, ineptness, and, for some reason, having amassed a fine collection of memorabilia related to the late comic Red Skelton. My mother believed my fascination with the man — he WAS funny — had much to do with my confusion, at age 6 or so, that his name was actually Red SKELETON, and this appealed to my already disturbing and well-developed sense of morbidity.

In any event, what I DID do in March of this year was decide to start a delivery service to Hell. I'd been watching the success of conglomerates like UPS, FedEx and Amazon, along with the still-hangin'-in-there postal service, and earnest but determined smaller outfits like GrubHub, Door Dash, Uber Eats — all of which have thrived during a plague. It occurred to me that, in this horrible year, Hell seems a more likely destination than ever before.

It's taken a while to get all my starlings in a row, but by February I expect Rick's Hellbound Deliveries to be up (or down!) and running. Observations:

1. You'll note I used the phrase "starlings in a row." This is because I'm tired of "ducks in a row." Why did someone ever start lining up ducks to begin with? Was the original Ducks in a Row person just really bored and suddenly found her- or himself in possession of listless ducks?

Truth told, ducks are not very pleasant birds and presumably aren't any more inclined to stand patiently in a straight line than any other wild animal. In fact, the Bureau of Ludicrous Statistics rates "Ducks in a row" in the Top 30 of the "Most Inane Cliches."

So I threw "starlings" in there instead of "ducks." This is because, while I couldn't tell you what a starling even looks like — much less rather one of them would happily wait in a line because a human told it to — I find the word "starling" pleasing to my ear.

2. I'm still finalizing the precise means by which I'll make my Hell deliveries — but it's NOT going to be handbaskets. In terms of transportation, a handbasket is hardly efficient. There's a reason we have Peterbilt trucks and freight trains racing across the nation's highways and train tracks, and it's not because they're handbaskets on wheels.

3. What I did learn in researching deviltry in works by Goethe, Marlowe, Benét, and Robert Johnson was:

A. Benét is buried in Stonington! His headstone is etched with a row of tiny, docile starlings.

B. A man named Warnick Kugel was put to death in the 14th century after attempting to sell his soul to the devil in exchange for dominance in the emerging handbasket-manufacturing industry.

4. News just in! I'll be using the most efficient means of transport ever for my Hell deliveries: Santa's sleigh. I traded him 2,000 handbaskets and some ducks. Need someone or something sent to Hell? I'm your guy.