"Are you sure this is the best way to go?" I inquired after swatting away another flying tarantula. "It seems annoyingly unfriendly."

Winston agreed. "Distinctly inhospitable even!"

Yet we had deliberated together to choose this route, or root, as it were. Well, that isn't the entire story. The fact is that Figaro's observation gave us cause to deliberate, and we did so, but before reaching a conclusion, Darlene took the floor with a mighty screech and a yowl of heavily transcendent dissertation, declaring, "The root of all evil! All evil! All evil!"

Worked for us. We followed her instructions. But now we were having some regrets.

Once more, Figaro boxed away the vampire kudzu that had been following us for at least a furlong and noted, "She didn't actually say take this route, now did she?"

We had to admit, this was the case. I turned to Darlene and cried, "Oh Great Gris-Gris, tell us about the root of all evil!"

"Pants!" she declared.

"Pants." Figaro echoed.

"Pants..." Winston mused.

"Pants?" I puzzled.

"Pants are the root of all evil!" Darlene intoned, and the vile forest around us swayed and moaned under the intensity of her convictions. It was at that very same moment that...