From The Wizard of Oz, I have learned many things. Like: Kansas is a yeehaw preserve. Goobers row boats in tornadoes. When you first meet someone, you should sing them a song. Scarecrows are basically crucified. If you stand in the rain, you will rust. Lions have thick Brooklyn accents. Monkeys look stupid in clothes. Trees are filled with Hate and Violence. Bad witches ride brooms, good witches float in bubbles, wizards prefer hot-air balloons. Poppies put you to sleep. Border agents are bipolar: first they blither and blather, then they Cry. Water is a weapon of black mass destruction. Rat dogs smoke out humbug. Ruby slippers are Necessary. Etc.

But I have always, and to this day, been utterly buggered, as to what in the sam hill Dorothy is on about, with her big climactic wisdom-pearl. Which comes when the woman who rides around in the bubble, and speaking with that annoying smugness that is so often the way of oracles, tells Dorothy that, through all the tsuris she has recently endured, she actually possessed the power, all along, to return to Kansas. As if anyone would want to. It's just that Dorothy, she had to learn this for herself. Because if anybody had tried to tell her, she wouldn't have believed it. The Straw Man then asks: "What have you learned, Dorothy?" To which Dorothy replies: