The Newest Zodiacal Sign

OPHIUCHUS -- Nov. 29 - Dec. 17 (may be pronounced as "officious" or as rhyming with the Yiddish tuchus or as "oh-f**k-us"): Members of the newest sign of the zodiac, Ophiuchum will intensify the well-known Sagittarian trait for insistence on being the most clueless, tactless dicks in the room. Given to delusions of grandeur, Ophiuchum are downers at parties, consistently spook horses and small children, and have the hygienic elán usually associated with hyenas.

Avoid engaging them in debate at all costs. They are thick, obtuse, and quick to anger when faced with a conversation above the fourth-grade level. Any word with more than three syllables is automatically translated to a grunt most often heard from ESPN announcers or the bathroom stalls at an Indian restaurant.

Utterly hopeless at matters of the heart, Ophiuchum are indifferent lovers, at best. They have only a nodding acquaintance with the concept of passion, think of any hot meal before a sexual act as "foreplay", and consider fidelity a quality desirable only in high-end audio equipment. They are incessant "re-gifters" when they remember to give a gift at all.

Any famous persons born under this sign don't deserve mention; they have been of little use to society at-large except for liquor store owners, bail bondsmen, pet thieves, or Albanians.

Ophiuchum are not only incompatible with any other zodiacal sign; scientists consider them outliers vis-a-vis the human genome and place them somewhere on the evolutionary scale just below Pukwudgies and golf pros.