BLW: Portrait of a Menace

... as Barbara snoozed on her desk, her mind relived the events
> >that had formed her life. She drifted back, back, and even further
> >back to 1969, the year of her biggest disappointment of all; the year
> >in which she was rejected as an extra in the Star Trek episode,
> >"Spock's Brain." With a start, she awoke, angered after her dream.
> >Thirty-two years of Star Trek frustration welled up within her soul.
> >Once again she turned her attention on Eggo, who had gone back to her
> >work after Barbara's momentary outburst 20 minutes earlier...
> >
> > End of chapter 2
> >
> > CHAPTER 3
> >
> > As she gazed at Eggo, who worked tirelessly and oblivious to
> >Barbara's plight, Barbara's eyes blurred and she drifted again to
1969,
> >that terrible year, the "annis horribilis" she had called it, many
> >years before Queen Elizabeth II used the same term to describe the
year
> >that fire destroyed part of Buckingham Palace. For the first six
> >months of 1969, Barbara had practiced saying "Brain! Brain! What is
> >Brain!?" over and over. Yes, she was going to ace that audition, she
> >was going to pass the test and get into that episode of Star Trek if
it
> >killed her and everyone around her. "What would you like for
dinner?"
> >her mother would ask. "Brain! Brain! What is Brain!?" Barbara would
> >answer. "What time does Lawrence Welk start?" -- "Brain! Brain! What
> >is Brain?!" was her answer to every question. For hours she
practiced,
> >both feet planted, feet slightly apart, shoulders quaking. She stood
> >in front of the mirror and repeated the words for hours each day.
> >After a few days, her family and friends quit talking to her. She
> >turned her attention on the family pets, cornering them in the
> >bathroom, making believe that Trixie was really Captain Kirk.
"Brain!
> >Brain!" she would say to the dog, a vacuous look on her face, "What
is
> >Brain?!"
> >
> > Her eyes cleared and her dream faded. She was again in 2001,
> >but the pain and horror of 1969 lingered on. When her eyes came back
> >into focus, she was still staring directly at Eggo. "I don't know
what
> >she was doing in 1969," Barbara thought to herself, "but I will bet
my
> >bottom dollar that she was up to no good."
> >
> > End of Chapter 3
> >
> > CHAPTER 4
> >
> > Barbara was too distraught to concentrate further, and once
> >again she elapsed into a trancelike sleep, revisiting 1969 again and
> >again, never allowing her body to regain its strength. She awoke
once
> >again, startled and perturbed. As the haziness in her eyes cleared,
> >she focused in on Eggo, who had assembled a large crowd around her
> >desk. Behind her desk, she had affixed a large poster to the shelves
> >and was pointing at it with a long stick. "This," Eggo said
> >authoritatively, "is Barbara's brain in 1969." She tapped the
pointer
> >on a portrait of an opossum. "And this is Barbara's brain in 2001."
> >She moved the pointer over a picture of a fried egg, the edges
> >blackened. "Any questions?"
> >
> > Barbara was upon Eggo in an instant. She jumped on top of
> >Eggo's desk and grabbed the pointer in one hand and Eggo's wrist in
the
> >other. She growled menacingly at the onlookers.
> >
> > End of chapter 4
> >
> > Will Barbara leggo Eggo? Who will wipe up the drool on
> >Barbara's desk? Will anyone get out without a missing digit?
> >
> > Find out in Chapter 5
> >
> > CHAPTER 5
> >
> > As Barbara's viselike grip intensified around Eggo's wrist, she
> >looked around at the throng of people scrutinizing her. The looks on
> >their faces ranged from surprise to disgust, and a few seemed
genuinely
> >afraid. Barbara looked inwardly, asking herself if her public
display
> >of violence was really a good idea. Did she really want to be known
as
> >the "Louche Rakehell" of Serials Maintenance? "No," she told
herself.
> >"I must stop this extreme behavior." She leggo of Eggo and jumped
> >down from the desk. The crowd parted as she made her way back to her
> >own area and back to her work. There would be no more for the tongue
> >waggers to talk about today. She was painfully aware of the
Library's
> >rumor mill, and she was not in to mood to be today's grist. Sadly,
> >Barbara had never been the topic of polite conversation around the
> >building. Her fiery temper and hotheadedness had more than once come
> >back to bite her. She worked steadily, though even as the gathering
> >around Eggo's desk slowly dispersed, she was an emotional wreck on
the
> >inside, gathering every last ounce of her strength to appear unmoved.
> >
> > Later in the day, Barbara's rage again built. It climbed higher
> >and higher into her throat, until she could stand it no longer. Her
> >eyes glowed red-hot. "Eggo gained a pyrrhic victory today," she
> >cackled to herself. "Tomorrow is another day." Her head rotated
> >around and then snapped back suddenly. She stood up, faced Eggo's
desk
> >and snarled, "OVERINT DUM METUANT" as she tore down Eggo's
opossum/egg
> >poster. Foam frothed at the corners of Barbara's mouth. She gurgled
> >low-toned threats in Latin, raising her arms skyward.
> >
> > That night as the last employees left TS, Barbara was seen with
> >a large piece of black chalk, drawing some kind of circle around
Eggo's
> >desk...
>
>CHAPTER 6
>
>For three hours Barbara sat on top of her desk in a supine position,
>chanting and humming something that sounded vaguely like Latin. Try as
she
>might, she could not get the incantation correct. She was unable to
summon
>the demons from hell. Barbara had always been notoriously bad at
Latin;
>she
>had never paid the slightest attention to case. "What Latin needs,"
she
>had
>told her Latin teacher snottily, "is a few good prepositions." The
Latin
>teacher often shook his head at Barbara's lack of understanding of the
>classical tongue, and now it had returned to bite her square on the
nose.
>Finally she opened her eyes in frustration. There Eggo stood,
>laughing at her. Eggo had returned to her desk because she had
forgotten
>her
>car keys. When she heard Barbara's chants, she decided to stick around
for
>some comic relief.
>
>End of Chapter 6
>
>Her relief didn't last long. Eggo soon tired of Barbara's chanting and
>left. "I don't go for that Hare Krishna crap," she said as she
gathered
>her
>things and headed for the elevator. When Eggo arrived home, Barbara
was
>still chanting at work, and still no spirits had been summoned to
Serials
>Maintenance. Finally Barbara gave up. She put her head on the desk
and
>slept calmly and quietly. No twitching. No gurgling. No indigestion.
It
>was her first good sleep in weeks; Captain Jerk and his stupid
brainquest
>seemed miles away and 100 years ago.
>
>The next day Barbara was already hard at work when everyone else
arrived.
>By the time Eggo came in, Barbara had already finished an eight-hour
day.
>As she was preparing to leave, she noticed that Eggo was quietly
munching
>on
>a Mars bar. BLW stopped dead in her tracks, frozen. She adored Mars
bars,
>and hadn't had one since the '80s. Politely, she asked Eggo where she
had
>found the candy bars. "Oh, these old things?" Eggo said as she
crunched
>down on an almond, "I decided that we wouldn't be needing all of these
>candy
>bars at home. I stashed them during the Cold War in the bunker under
our
>house." BLW smiled. "How many Mars bars do you have, Eggo?" "Oh,
about
>two thousand or more," Eggo answered perfunctorily, "but I'm afraid I
can't
>give you any." Barbara diplomatically requested further information as
to
>why Eggo wouldn't share.
>
>"I don't want to share them because I feel that candy makes you mean."
>Eggo
>stopped chewing and looked directly at Barbara. "And that's the
truth."
>
>BLW shifted. She stood, red-faced in front of Eggo, who seemed to take
>great pride in crunching down on the almonds in the Mars bar. Barbara
was
>not happy. Rage boiled at the pit of her stomach, but she held her
>composure. "Eggo," she said, "What happens when I'm not happy? What
>happens?"
>
>By this time a small crowd had begun to form around the desk. Barbara
>glared at Eggo. Eggo glared back, grabbing for her pointer stick. It
was
>time for another lesson.
>
>End of chapter 7
>
>CHAPTER 8
>
>Barbara fixated on the pointer stick. She shook. She quaked. She
heaved
>and wobbled. She tittered and jerked, shivered and quivered. Finally
she
>calmly grabbed the pointer and deftly removed it from Eggo's grip.
"That's
>OK" Eggo quipped. "It's time for my Mars bar anyway."
>
>"And it's time for my fire water," Barbara retorted, breaking the
pointer
>stick over her knee.
>
>Barbara went back to her desk, exhausted. She sat down and
contemplated.
>All of the times she had raised her arms skyward, and still she found
>herself in the same unenviable position. All of her quivering,
quaking,
>chanting and incantations had been for not. Eggo still sat at her
desk,
>undaunted and just as big of a problem as she ever had been. Barbara
sat,
>looking at Eggo and feeling slightly ill. "Perhaps," she thought to
>herself,
>"it's time to try another angle on life."
>
>CHAPTER 9
>
>A few months passed. Barbara did her best to get along with her
coworkers,
>though her fiery temper burned hot from time to time. On one occasion,
Tim
>, in a misguided attempt to get himself back into Barbara's good
graces
>by inviting her to a vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner, approached
Barbara's
>desk just after one of her Marvin Martians had accidentally been broken
by
>a
>falling ceiling tile. Tim enraged Barbara; part of her left side
>spontaneously combusted and singed his eyebrows. As he was limping
back to
>his desk, Barbara suggested that he stuff some of his tofurki into a
body
>cavity.
>
>More months passed, and Barbara's left side healed. Amazingly
resilient,
>she plodded and struggled through her library work with amazing
accuracy
>and
>dispatch. Soon, Barbara's ambitions led her into a side business, one
that
>would eventually bring about another confrontation at work. Barbara
took
>her life savings and started a cosmetics and fine toiletries business.
She
>called her enterprise "Lady Babz Fine Cosmetics and Toiletries." She
>peddled and pushed her product for some time before she finally made
her
>breakthrough. She landed an account with a wealthy Arcadia-area widow
>whose
>husband had expired some years before, leaving her with what Barbara
termed
>as a "___load of $$." Myrtle Mae Schopphocker considered Barbara to be
an
>angel, the pinnacle of success and charm and a master of polite
>conversation. After a few weeks, Myrtle Mae had two bathrooms and a
spare
>bedroom full of Lady Babz Fine Cosmetics and Toiletries.
>
>At work at the library, Barbara continued her work with bewitching success.
Even
>Eggo was taking notice. She attempted to regain Barbara's favor with
gifts
>of Scandinavian Christmas breads and Wisconsin cheese samplers.
Barbara
>would have none of it. The shoe was now on her foot, and it was going
to
>stay there.
>
>Chapter 10
>
>Lady Babz Fine Cosmetics and Toiletries continued to grow. On
Christmas
>Eve, Barbara unveiled her new line of colonic irrigation products.
These
>did not sell will with Myrtle Mae, so Barbara brought some of them to
>peddle
>at work. She defiantly ignored the 5-item only rule when she cleared a
>small corner of her desk and set up a display for her colonic products.
>
>Finally one day, shortly after Christmas, Barbara decided to thaw a bit
and
>taste some of Eggo's leftover Christmas bread and Wisconsin cheese.
After
>a
>few bites, she suddenly lurched forward, her body convulsing. Barbara
>struggled to stand up, balancing herself by putting the tips of her
fingers
>on the top of her desk for leverage. It didn't help. She fell
heavily,
>face first onto the top of her desk, her flailing arms pushing the Lady
>Babz
>display onto the floor. The contents of an overturned bottle of Lady
Babz
>Autumn Breeze stool softener cascaded down the side of the desk and
>collected in a pool next to Barbara's quivering body.
>
>Chapter 11
>
>From Eggo's desk, she could see what was happening, but the incident
had
>passed unnoticed to the rest of the department, who were away in a Review Team
>meeting about measurable goals. Barbara and Eggo both had ditched the
>meeting, though for different reasons. Eggo was a member of RT, but
she
>patently refused to attend the measurable goals meeting. "I'm done
spinning
>my wheels," she would say to whomever would listen. Barbara, on the
other
>hand, had decided not to attend because of the queasy stomach she was
>enduring after eating the Wisconsin cheese and Christmas bread. At
least
>20
>minutes prior to her collapse, Barbara had been complaining of a
heaving
>stomach and flatulence. Eggo's goodies exacerbated the problem. In her
>anguish, Barbara took two heaping spoonfuls of Lady Babz Autumn Breeze
>Stool Softener, hoping that it would take the edge off of her gastric
>distress. Unfortunately, it softened more than her stool.
>
>Eggo looked at Barbara's quivering body and decided against helping
her.
>It
>was unusual for Eggo to be such a hellkite, but with every fiber of her
>being, her conscience told her to leave Barbara where she lay; so she
did.
>"I worked hard to make that bread," Eggo told herself sternly. "I'm
not
>going to sit here and watch her act as if it made her sick. She
brought
>this upon herself."
>
>Chapter 12
>
>Meanwhile, back in the meeting, the rest of the department was
listening to
>the speaker drone on incessantly about moving forward while
simultaneously
>thinking outside of the box. "What box are they talking about?"
thought
>one
>of the departmental employees, a vapid look spreading across her face.
>"There are a lot of empty boxes up there." She scribbled a note to
herself.
>Later the same week, she would be reprimanded for hiding inside an
empty
>packing box during one of her committee meetings. The speaker
blathered
>on.
>The vacuous expressions became contagious. Soon the room was peppered
with
>half-opened mouths and glazed eyes...
>
>Upstairs, Barbara had started to stir. Eggo wondered if she should
leave
>now or wait until Barbara had suffered a bit longer. Finally she could
>stand it no more. Barbara's writhings and whimperings tugged at Eggo's
>heart strings. She rose and walked slowly over to where Barbara lay, a
>hangdog look on her face. Carefully, she sidestepped the puddle of
stool
>softener, helped Barbara to her feet, sat her down in her chair and
>provided
>her with a drink of bottled water.
>
>"I don't know what happened," Barbara said. "Perhaps it was your
>cheese..."
>
>Eggo looked at her sternly. "Perhaps it was because you're a
winebibber,"
>she retorted.
>
>The conversation was stopped short by the return of the rest of the
>department; they flowed up from the bowels of the library like a
reverse
>enema. Eggo and Barbara went back to work as if nothing had happened.
>"I'll stay late and clean up the mess," Barbara thought to herself.
The
>rest of the day was mundane. After work, Barbara remained to clean up
the
>mess she had created. As she scrubbed the carpet to remove the stool
>softener stain, she began to daydream. In her reverie she was rich--
rich
>beyond the dreams of avarice. One of her daydreams was particularly
>satisfying for her. In it, she was a wealthy woman, "Lady Babz," the
>founder of Lady Babz Fine Cosmetics, Toiletries and Herbal Colonics.
She
>toured the talk show circuit-- Oprah, Sally Jessie, Montel Williams.
On
>Mike Douglas she was introduced as "The Incomparable, Stupendous Lady
Babz"
>and was welcomed to thunderous, raucous applause from all corners. She
>smiled softly to herself as she thought of it, tears forming at the
corners
>of her eyes, lips trembling.
>
>Chapter 13
>
>Then, as suddenly as it had started, her daydream turned into a
nightmare.
>The Lady Babz Corporation was under siege from creditors and right-wing
>Christian extremists, for whom herbal colonics were anathema. They
took
>issue with the pictures on the back of the bottle, which they
considered to
>be obscene. Tears rolled down Barbara's cheeks as she slipped further
into
>the dream. Her vast empire crumbled beneath the Christian Coalition
and
>the
>fierceness of its wrath. Pat Robertson appeared on the 700 Club and
>informed
>his army of vapid viewers that Lady Babz was a thief, a liar and a
>trickster-- a putrescent and vile outlaw whose defenseless soul was
lost in
>the fathomless depths of shame. She was a treacherous creature whose
power
>to corrupt was esemplastic. A devil woman.
>
>"Barbara, what are you doing?"
>
>The voice returned Barbara to reality. She looked up from her cleaning
to
>see Mary standing before her. She stood silently, waiting for Barbara
to
>utter the words that she longed to hear, but had not.
>
>"I'm cleaning," Barbara said perfunctorily. "What do you want?"
>
>Mary stood stone-faced. She had arrived at 7:00am that morning, and it
was
>now 6:30 in the evening. All day she had wandered aimlessly about the
>department, hoping against hope that someone would address her as
"doctor."
>Her fresh hell had begun at 7:00am, when she discovered that Matt was
off
>work for the day. Things went downhill from there.
>
>Barbara knew what Mary wanted, but after the virtual beating she had
just
>taken from the Christian Coalition, there was no way she was going to
>pleasure Mary by using her new title.
>
>Chapter 14
>
>Twenty minutes later, Mary realized that Barbara was not going to call
her
>by her new title. She turned on a dime, flipping her hair out of the
way,
>and returned to the searching unit. Barbara continued scrubbing. "Her
>degree is probably from one of those fly-by-night diploma mills that
>advertises on late night television," Barbara thought to herself,
stopping
>for a minute to adjust her glasses. She scrubbed harder, the
repetitive
>motion of her strokes once more carried her into daydream land. This
time,
>she thought about the Renaissance Festival she had just attended. It
>colored her dream. Enter Barbara, a buxom barmaid in medieval France,
>fighting off the men. But the bar was just a part-time job. She earned
her
>real bread by working as a scribe for the local bookmaker, a rather
>insidious woman who bore a striking resemblance to Eggo. Above the din
of
>Eggo's cracking whip and the fetor of the sty in which Eggo's charges
were
>forced to toil, Barbara still managed to take pride in her work,
copying
>off
>a minimum of 17 pages per day, though her earnings were a pittance.
She
>considered the work "slave labor." Many times she had gone to Eggo to
ask
>for a raise, but each time Eggo would haver. When finally pushed to
the
>wall, she told Barbara that there simply wasn't money to pay her more.
>"It's either a job or the poor house," she bloviated, raising her voice
so
>that the rest of the scribes could hear. The workroom was under an
uneasy
>pax romana. Eggo was the Queen. She alone cracked the whip; she alone
>brandished the leather riding crop.
>
>Chapter 15
>
>Suddenly, and without warning, Mary showed up Barbara's daydream.
"Hello."
>She repeated her salutation again. "Hello, Barbara!" The corners of
>Barbara's world began to grow fuzzy. Her bodice stiffened. Slowly,
she
>became aware of a din and the bustle of activity. She opened her
eyes-- it
>was 8:00am the next morning! Barbara had fallen asleep on the floor in
>front of her desk, overcome by the noxious fumes caused by the mixing
of
>cleaning solvent and dried, encrusted Lady Babz Autumn Breeze Stool
>Softener
>that still clung to the carpet in front of her desk like a ferocious
epoxy.
>
>A female figure stood in front of her, hand on her waist, hair dancing
in
>the breeze created by the fans that Eggo had set up to rid the area of
the
>fumes. It was Mary. It hadn't been a dream after all. Barbara
exchanged
>a
>few pleasantries with Mary and then sent her on her way, still in a
blur.
>As Barbara become more aware of her surroundings, her iracund
personality
>began to surface. Mary, considered by many to be the Circe of TS, tended to rub Barbara the wrong way. Her corybantic musings
>invariably left Barbara with a craving for an emotional enema. How was
it
>that Mary could get away with such antics? Barbara groused to herself.
It
>simply wasn't fair, but everyone in TS, including Babz
herself,
>knew that Barbara's charms were best served in modest proportions. She
>would never be allowed the license that was accorded to Mary.
>
>Chapter 16
>
>Barbara sat at her desk, pondering and stewing, as was typical of her
life
>since about 1970. The more she stewed, the more irascible she became.
The
>thought of Mary and her zaniness sickened Barbara. "She says one thing
and
>does another," Barbara thought to herself, settling into a dour mood.
>"Circe of TS, my eye. She's the Uriah Heap of TS."
>Barbara huffed when she thought of her run-ins with the TS
>troika. "They are a bunch of throttlebottoms. If only I were better
at
>Latin, I'd summon the demons from hell to infest this building."
Barbara's
>need for an attitude adjustment reached the critical stage. She looked
at
>the overturned display of Lady Babz products on the corner of her desk,
and
>decided to concentrate more on sales, and less on her position in Tech
>Services. Suddenly, an idea popped into her head. She'd get a
bicycle.
>Yes! That would solve everything-- a bicycle with baskets for her
>merchandise. There was just one hitch-- she had not ridden a bike in
>years.
>Her legs were tired and gnarled. She'd have to do something to build
them
>up. Throwing caution to the wind, she once again cleared her desk.
While
>other staff members watched in amusement, she lay down on her back on
top
>of
>the desk and began pedaling with her legs, as if she were riding an
>imaginary upside-down bicycle. Eggo took out one of her Mars bars and
sat
>down to watch. She needed a laugh. Barbara didn't care; she continued
>pedaling, faster and faster, as if she were removing herself far from
the
>despotic sway of Tech Services, far from Mary's nonsense, far from the
>shackles of an unjust department.
Chapter 17
After a brisk, 12-minute workout on the imaginary bike, Barbara's
attitude had again changed. She felt refreshed and ready for more work.
Things would look up-- the day was not a total loss. Chicken was
defrosting in her refrigerator at home, and at break time, Barbara had
hiked over to the Circle K for a box of Shake and Bake, original flavor,
her favorite. The Shake and Bake mix was right in her drawer-- or was
it? She opened her empty desk drawer. No Shake and Bake. Barbara's
lower lip stiffened; the corners of her mouth turned downward. Her
eyebrows furrowed as her glasses slid halfway down her nose, coming to
rest in a cockeyed position. Her rosey cheeks turned red. "Where's my
Shake and Bake?" she said angrily. She repeated the words, time and
time again, with shocking frequency and volume. Small puffs of smoke
exited her ears, but no one paid her much attention. This sort of thing
had happened before. Barbara's head bobbed forward and side to side.
She stamped the ground with her tiny foot and spat. As she stood next
to her desk, trembling, she got a faint whiff of chicken frying. She
followed her nose to Eggo's desk. Eggo looked up at Barbara and asked
her what she wanted this time. "I'm sorry," Eggo quickly replied, "but
there's no chicken at my desk. Only Mars bars. Many, many Mars bars--
but not for you." Barbara was not satisfied with Eggo's answer. She
was not pleased. There it went again! The distinct sizzling sound of
dripping chicken fat-- Barbara ignored Eggo's protests and grabbed
Eggo's chair from behind, pulling it out of the way. There, under her
desk was a toaster oven with one half of a split fryer roasting away.
Its golden-brown skin was a confirmation to Barbara that the chicken had
been dredged in Shake and Bake prior to cooking. Eggo was in for it
this time. She was in big-time trouble. And she was probably going to
miss lunch.
Chapter 18
Some weeks later, after Barbara's angst from the "Great Shake
and Bake Incident of '02" had ebbed, it was once again time for another
departmental potluck. Barbara decided against her usual door-to-door
afternoon Lady Babz routine and opted to go to the potluck. It was a
sumptuous spread; the table was piled high with salads, breads and
desserts. As the zaftig crowd descended upon the banquet, Barbara
noticed a container of shrimp cocktail on the table with a toenail in
it. "What a shame," she thought to herself, "that this bowl of shrimp,
this mangnum opus of its creator, will go uneaten." Barbara waited
patiently in the line for the food. It was not in her nature to be
patient, but she did it anyway, if for nothing else to spite the rest of
the employees who waited hopefully for her next explosion. Julie was
far ahead of Barbara in line. As soon as the door was opened, Julie had bolted to the front of the line, filling her plate with both hands.
Before Barbara could say anything, Julie loaded her plate with
shrimp. So full was her plate that she had to support it by putting her entire hand beneath it, waiter style. She quickly took her seat,
burying her face into the shrimp. Suddenly, Julie's eyes rolled back
and her electrolytes went haywire. Her body's ph balance fluctuated
wildly. Oblivious to the impending disaster that would soon befall her, she continued to feed with gusto, ignoring the horrified looks on the faces of her so called "friends." These "friends" were people like Barbara, who had stood by silently as she filled her plate and stuffed her face. These were people who knew full well that the shrimp had been prepared by a
man who last washed his hands in 1999. Barbara was as quiet as Eggo
had been when Barbara lay quivering on the floor of Tech Services some months before. "I'm not helping her this time," Barbara thought to herself, in an attempt to justify her lack of action. This would be Julie's battle, her Gethsamane. It was her reward for continually
ignoring and postponing Nature's call to the stool. "She's in God's
hands now," Barbara pouted softly to herself. Tears formed at the
corners of her eyes; she tapped a napkin to them and whimpered softly, defiantly refusing to acknowlege the outrageous faux pas she was committing. Silently, she
closed her eyes and prayed the St. Jude novena. When she opened her
eyes, Julie was still face down in the plate. She wasn't moving. Barbara walked over and and grabbed the hair on the back of Julie's head. She lifted Julie's blistered visage, caked with cocktail sauce and potato salad. It dropped in globs from her lifeless face onto the cocktail napkin. "Someone get a doctor!" Barbara croaked, trembling. But no one listened. All eyes were focused on the potluck table, where a fight had broken out over the last pot sticker.
Chapter 19
Barbara continued to squawk. Between belches, she yelled for help as she attempted to clean the mess from Julie's face with the woefully inadequate cocktail napkin. No one at the potluck table could hear her. The last pot sticker had slid off of Eggo's plate and back onto the table, where there was an immediate volley of forks that came down to retrieve it. The pot sticker's slippery slide took it to the far end of the table, perilously close to hitting the floor. Three females went for it at the same time, but again it evaded capture and fell to the ground with a thud, where it landed directly on a dusty ball of lint and hair. The females abandonded their quest and turned their attentions to the dessert table. They lumbered toward it like herd of hungry hadrosaurs. The end of their jousting did not go unnoticed. The bringer of the shrimp was just reaching the end of the line, his plate heavy under the weight of potluck delights. He scooped up the potsticker from the dirty floor with his flip-flop and placed it onto
his plate. Lady Luck had smiled upon him today. Or so he thought...
Chapter 20
Some hours later, as Julie was beginning to feel better, thanks to the help of Barbara and the paramedics, the Shrimp bringer began to feel a bit ill. He rose from his desk and walked out of the office, limping slightly from bone spurs on his ankles, caused by the lack of arch support in his flip-flops. He ambled toward the men's room and disappeared inside.
Meanwhile, Julie's p.h. balance had returned to normal and her electrolytes were leveling off. The paramedics thanked Barbara for her quick thinking. "She might not have made it without you," said the handsome and dashing paramedic, as he shook Barbara's cocktail sauce-encrusted hand. The rubbing motion of the handshake broke loose small pieces of cocktail napkin and shrimp exoskeletal parts. They fell to the floor as Barbara let go of the paramedic's hand. "This man is half my age," Barbara thought to herself. "How could I be having these impure thoughts at a time like this-- a time of crisis?" She watched the paramedic as he bent over to check on Julie. Her hands quivered. Her heart raced as she watched this vision-- this paramedic god. The more she looked at him, the more she wanted him. "I'm going for it!" she thought, as she braced herself, tidying her hair and adjusting her blouse. Once she had been known for her life of derring-do's, brazen acts often tinged with recklessness. It was time to reclaim her title.
Chapter 21
Barbara watched, almost helplessly, as the paramedics gathered their things and prepared to leave. "I want him!" she cried inwardly, the words failing to make it to the surface. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing happened. Her vision, the paramedic god, was on his way out of the breakroom, well muscled thighs and all. She swallowed hard and blinked her eyes. Her heart pounded; saliva drained from her half-opened mouth as gurgling sounds eminated from her voice box. The paramedic god was almost out the door of the break room when Barbara made her move to stop him. She lunged at her prize, only to trip over her own feet. She fell face first into the floor, breaking her glasses. Blood poured from her nose, which began swelling immediately. This was not the way that Barbara had wanted to flag down her potential beau, but it worked. The paramedic god raced to her rescue. He cradeled Barbara gently and stuffed her nostrils with peroxide-soaked cotton balls. Her body was in turmoil, but her heart had wings. As the second paramedic hovered over Barbara, holding an ice pack over her swollen nose with his he-man arms, she felt as if her misstep and subsequent face smashing was an occurrence of divine intervention. Finally the gods were smiling upon her. The paramedic god continued to cradle her, lifting her gently so that he could move her to a stretcher. As he lifted her, Barbara's hands brushed against his backside. Her breathing became erratic and labored. She gasped for air. The paramedic god attempted to comfort and quiet Barbara, but this seemed to make her breathing problem worse. "I'm going to have to remain with you in the ambulance," he said softly. "We're taking you to the hospital." He squeezed her hand softly and sweetly brushed the hair out of her eyes. He gave her a valium shot, and, somehow, she fell asleep.
Chapter 22
Barbara drifted into a valium haze, her body twitching and quivering as she began to dream. She was at her wedding with the the paramedic god. There she stood in a white, lacey dress with a flowered veil. Her feet were graced with two open-toed high heel pumps. Julie and the rest of the bridesmaids surrounded her. They wore swamp green gowns with puffy, pastel yellow see-through sleeves. There was something not quite right about one of the bridesmaids, but Barbara could not grasp what it was. She stood on top of a step-stool, surveying her surroundings. "Just stand still," Julie said sternly, as she worked on the hem of Barbara's dress. "I'm here on French leave. I'm supposed to be upstairs right now." Barbara furrowed her brow. She felt as if she had just hit a Chinese wall. "Upstairs?" she asked. Suddenly she realized that she was standing in the staff lounge of Hayden Library. Her wedding was going to be held in the staff lounge! She began to sigh heavily, attracting the attention of her other bridesmaids with her histrionic huffing. The remains of the potluck were still strewn about, a somber rememberance of the Roman holiday that had taken place only a short time before. Barbara stood still as Julie worked on her wedding gown. "I feel like an item in a Dutch auction," she commented, continuing her sighs and grumblings. "I don't want my wedding in a staff lounge to be the subject of Eggo's yellow journalism." I can't believe that my paramedic god would consent to get married in this mess." She whimpered and quaked, angry about the location of her matrimony and slightly agitated about the bridesmaids' dresses. She continued to stare directly at one of the bridesmaids. "What's wrong with her?" she thought to herself. "Who IS this punchinello? Why are her feet so big? Why are they so dirty? Why is she wearing flip-flops?" Slowly she surveyed the person from bottom to top. She stopped short as she gazed at the face. It was the Bringer of the Shrimp! "What, huh?" she thought. Barbara grew restless and upset. She struggled to get out of her pumps. She attempted to scream, but couldn't. She was trapped. Finally a muffled cry burst from her throat. "HELP!" and she sat up, fully awake, staring at the paramedic god. "It's all right," he said, comforting her, "you were only dreaming. I guess the valium wasn't strong enough." He looked deep into Barbara's teary eyes and whispered into her ear. "I think you must be the most beautiful woman on the face of God's earth. I'm never going to let you go." He turned to put something into his bag. Once again his backside brushed against Barbara's hands. She gingerly did another inspection of his buttocks. Years before, she had learned how to read behinds from a famous guru, who read behinds instead of palms. Barbara was able to tell that this paramedic god was going to live a long life. It was also evident that he had climbed a lot of stairs. He turned back to her and asked her to lie quietly on the stretcher as she was wheeled to the front entrance of the library. The valium haze contined to affect Barbara. She defied the paramedic's orders and sat up as her stretcher was wheeled past the onlookers. "Ego te absolvo," she said, in perfect Latin, to each of her onlookers. "Ego te absolvo."
Chapter 23
Barbara then relaxed and gazed up at the ceiling tiles. They were just passing the staff restroom when a muffled cry came from behind the men's room door. The paramedics stopped and looked at each other. Then another pitiful and anguished moan came from within the bathroom. Someone was in trouble. The end of the moan was so strident that the paramedics accidentally tipped Barbara's stretcher and tossed her from her comfort onto the cold, concrete floor. She landed with a bone-crushing thud, but the paramedics were already into the men's room. Once inside the door they found a flip-flop, its strap portion pulled out of the foot, as if the wearer had been in a terrible hurry. The second flip-flop was two feet away, partially ripped to shreds. Teeth marks on the flip-flop surrounded areas of bitten-off rubber. In one of the stalls they found the Bringer of the shrimp, flip-flopless, slumped over, his arms grabbing either side of the bowl in which his head was buried. He heaved violently, coughing and gasping, and spitting out bits of rubber from his cheap footware. It was obvious to the paramedics that the man was suffering from a severe case of food poisoning, and that he would require immediate medical attention to save his life. The paramedic god raced out of the bathroom and past Barbara, who was still trying to right herself after the tumble she had just taken. She looked up at his rock-solid body as he quickly picked up her stretcher. He rolled it into the bathroom, taking no notice of her at all. The Bringer of the Shrimp shivered. His teeth chattered. Paramedic number two ran out of the men's room and grabbed the blanket that Barbara had swaddled herself in. He pulled it at both ends like Saran Wrap, unraveling Barbara, turning her over and over until the blanket was free. The next thing she saw was the Bringer of the Shrimp, on HER stretcher, heaving and retching, with an I.V. bottle in his arm, being wheeled out of the men's room by the paramedic god and his understudy. They rounded the corner quickly and raced toward the service elevator. Once again, Barbara was left alone and hunkless.
Chapter 24
Barbara lay outside the staff men's restroom, motionless. She tried desperately to make sense out of what had just happened to her. She nudged her limp body toward the wall and made an attempt to brace herself. Finally, with great effort, she managed to sit up, her back against the wall, her feet sticking straight out in front of her. He ankles were swollen and her feet throbbed with pain, but it was nothing compared to the emptiness she felt in her heart after she had been dumped by the paramedic god for a retching, bare-footed fool. After a few more minutes, Barbara decided that she was not about to let her misfortunes control her life. "No," she said to herself quietly, "I'm not going to let this get to me. I need to be good to myself. I must do something completely selfish for a change." As she sat and thought about herself, she heard more commotion in the staff lounge. First she heard the sound of breaking dishware, followed by the sound of clomping feet, probably coming from chunk heels, Barbara guessed. She heard the grumbling of a very tall man and the staccato chirps of a non-native English speaker, making a vain attempt to apologize for breaking the tall man's pyrex casserole pan. The tall man had apparently had it. Earlier in the morning, as he and a number of other library employees waited in the swamplike heat to get into the library at 6:45, the non-native English speaker had arrived with her card, opened the door and let it slam behind her before the tall man and the rest could get inside. "I'd like to push her right down the stairs," had been the tall man's comment that morning. Now his patience was over. He lambasted the non-native English speaker and lashed out at her about her chunk heels. She decided to leave the break room immediately, but not because she had offended the tall man; rather, she was simply ready to go upstairs. She clomped out of the break room and marched past Barbara, oblivious to her outstretched legs and grossly swollen ankles. Barbara attempted to trip her but was unsuccesful. "Damn," she thought to herself. "If only I could do something to make myself feel better." From inside the staff lounge, she could hear the complaints and blatherings of the tall man as he grew more and more agitated. "I'm going after her," Barbara heard from the hallway. Thinking quickly, she reached into her pocket and produced a trial size bottle of Lady Babz Autumn Breeze Stool Softener. She winced in pain as she leaned forward to empty the contents onto the tiles of the hallway. The tall man's complaints grew louder as he drew nearer to the door. He flung it open and headed out into the hallway after the non-native English speaker. Barbara stretched out her tiny foot, the pain almost unbearable. She was barely able to catch the tip of the tall man's shoes, which was just enough to send him sliding through the stool softener. He lost his balance and fell to the ground. "Awwww!" sighed Barbara contently. "I'm better for that!"
Chapter 25
Barbara scooted herself toward the tall man, who lay wincing in pain as he grasped his ankle. He groaned and moaned, sighed and grumbled. Complaints were nothing new for him; they came effortlessly. Barbara inched closer, lifting her legs, one foot at a time and then bouncing her behind into an even line with her first leg. Then she lifted her other leg and moved in into line. She repeated the steps until she had postioned herself a half-foot from the back of the tall man's head. The tall man continued his complaints, oblivious to her. Barbara reached into her other pocket and took out a spool of Lady Babz Winterfresh dental floss. She held the spool in her teeth and pulled out an arm's length worth of the string. She bit off the end and began to tie a noose. The tall man's yelps were still falling on deaf ears. The other employees had long ago ceased to pay attention to his outbursts. Barbara deftly fitted the noose around the tall man's left ear and tightened it with great force and verve. The tall man cried out in pain, but no one heard him. Barbara tightened the floss noose with strength greather than she had expended in some time. The tall man's ear turned a bright red. He tried desperately to remove the floss as Barbara wound the other end around her index finger and began to pull as if she had hooked an enormous fish. The tall man, unable to stand because of a broken, swollen ankle and a crinkled ear, had no choice but to roll over in Barbara's direction in an attempt to increase the slack in the floss. Barbara kicked him violently with her tiny foot, rolling him back across the hallway from her. She glared at him from her side of the hall, the floss now stretched taut from one side of the walkway to the other. Just then a commotion started in the lounge. Eggo had quietly returned to the staff lounge after the other potluck cleaner uppers had gone back to work upstairs. Suspicious of Eggo's departure, and acutley aware of her fried chicken fetish, two other acquisitions females followed her. When they entered the break room, they caught Eggo red-handed, her face deep into the left-over fried chicken. "I told you that I was taking MY chicken back home for dinner!" growled the disgruntled acquisitions worker, her bosom heaving under her caftan, "my trip to Church's after work is on YOU." She lumbered toward Eggo, clenching her fists tightly. Eggo dropped her drumstick and ran toward the door, sidestepping the angry caftan woman. She flew out the break room door and into the hallway, where the dental floss was streched tightly between Barbara's index finger and the tall man's red ear. Eggo tripped over the floss, yanking Barbara's finger and pulling her face-first into the floor. The tall man's ear was nearly pulled off his head. He complained bitterly and loudly. Barbara inspected her finger and began to laugh. Eggo rose, unharmed.
Chapter 26
"Oh, my goodness! Are you hurt?" Barbara asked Eggo, feigning concern.
Eggo jerked her head around and looked at Barbara. At first, she felt pity for the disabled woman with the tiny feet who had just tripped her, but then her eyes dilated and she saw Barbara in a new light, something similar to the heat light over a bag of french fries. She was looking at Barbara's immobile legs, but she didn't see legs. She saw fried chicken, drumsticks to be exact. "Just stay right where you are," the chicken-crazed Eggo said mellifluously. She disappeared, in search of her salt and pepper shakers.
Barbara knew she had to move fast. She pushed herself back from the wall and rolled her way to the elevators. She hoped that someone would be coming down, but there was no one. She lay flat on her back and hoisted her legs into the air, until she was backed up sqare against the wall. She looked like a human letter "L" with her head on the floor and her legs parallel to the wall. Desperately, she tried to call for the elevator by punching the button with the back of her heel. There was no sound from the elevators. Down the hallway, she could hear Eggo rummaging through the staff lounge cupboards in search of salt and pepper. Time was running short.
Chapter 27
Once again the tears began to form at the corners of Barbara's eyes, but there was nothing she could do. She was trapped. As she lay there, her legs pointing skyward, she thought about the triumphs and tragedies of her life. Her arms flopped to the side and her head slumped, as if she were an upside-down crucifix.
"Ah ha!" came the excited sounds from the staff lounge. Eggo had located the salt shaker. She lifted it in the air with her right hand and then made a downward, thrusting motion with it clenched tightly in her fist. "YESSSSSS!" She turned on a dime to head for the hallway and the trapped, defenseless Barbara Ward. She stopped as suddenly as she had started. The caftan woman was still in the staff lounge, lurking behind kitchen counter. She stared directly at Eggo. In each hand she held a box of shake and bake, original flavor. She shook and rattled the boxes. Eggo dropped the salt shaker and held her hands over her ears. She slumped to the ground, whimpering...
Meanwhile, Barbara's eyes had begun to glass over. The back of her heel tapped softly on the elevator button. "Fourth floor," she panted softly. "Fourth floor-- fourth floor." Exhaustion overtook her. She began to hallucinate. A bright light shone down upon her and an echoing voice addressed her. "Barbara, my child," the voice boomed, "Sweet, Barbara, innocent and pure. Gentle Barbara, heed my words and be cured." Barbara looked directly into the light and felt a warm glow envelop her. Her legs began to tingle. Before she knew it, she was standing again and walking. Her legs were tanned, even. Liberated from her immobility, she stood on one foot and hummed. "Barbara!" the voice came again. She put her other foot down and looked up toward heaven. "Bring me the head of the braless blonde." And with that utterance, there was a crack of thunder and the light faded. Barbara floated back to reality. She opened her eyes and looked down at the floor beneath her feet. She was standing! She could walk! She steadied herself and drew a deep breath. She knew what she had to do next.
Chapter 28
Barbara took a few baby steps toward the elevator and pushed the call button. As if by magic, the elevator arrived instantly. She stepped in and began to ponder her fate. "I have no choice but to turn my attention and frustration upon the braless blonde," Barbara said to herself, tapping her fingers against her head. "I cannot refuse the Higher Power's wishes." And with that behind her, she hatched an evil plan to bring about the braless blonde's downfall. That night, when the braless blonde left work, Barbara followed her to her car, skulking in the bushes so as not to be perceived by the braless one. Barbara slipped quietly into her own vehicle, pushing the crumbs from her morning muffin off the seat. She started the engine and began her evening journey into espionage. First stop was a fruit stand in Mesa. Barbara hid behind the cantaloupes as she watched the braless one buy all kinds of fruits and vegetables. The buying frenzy went on for 20 minutes. "This woman is a real oniomaniac," Barbara said under her breath. "I hope she gets this over with or I'm going to miss 'Wheel of Fortune.'" Finally, the braless one went back to her car, the trunk and back seat loaded down with fruits and vegetables. Barbara rolled her eyes at the thought of so much fiber. Ten minutes later, the braless one pulled up in front of her house. It was done-- Barbara now knew where the house was. She drove slowly past and then headed for home.
Chapter 29
After her evening repast, and as darkness fell, Barbara emerged from her house disguised as the Avon Lady. Cleverly, she had covered all the labels of her Lady Babz line with similar Avon products. This was to be her "in" with the braless one. Once inside the house, it would only be a matter of time before she'd have her head. She drove to the braless home and knocked softly on the door. The braless one looked through the peephole. She opened the door and peered out. "Well, I'll let you in, but it's only because my eyes have been dilated and I can't read, so I guess you'll do for company." Barbara entered the house. It was a monument to spartan simplicity. Barbara sat down and began to explain the products. "Oh, no-- I wouldn't use that," was the braless one's response to all the questions. It came as no surprise to Barbara that the braless one would not need stool softener, considering the mountain of fruits and vegetables she consumed. The braless one soon tired of Barbara's nonsense, and sent her on her way. She unceremoniously closed the door on Barbara's face. Foiled. Her plan to decapitate the braless blonde was a failure. She stood on the stoop, long-faced and droopy. She stared into the night sky and wished upon her lucky star. Suddenly she realized that it was not the actual head of the braless blonde that the Higher Power wanted. It was her house-- yes-- her house would have to be destroyed.
The next day, Barbara returned to the braless home disguised as the termite inspector. "Oh, lady, you have big pwoblem!" Barbara squawked in her fake accent, "Bad termite pwoblem. You must to get rid of them right away." .... And somehow, Barbara convinced braless to vacate the house for two days while she tented the place and then drilled into the foundation of the home. Barbara's plan was insidiously clever. She filled her drill with Lady Babz Autumn Breeze Stool Softener and injected it into the drill holes. She drained 72 bottles of the ooze into the foundation of the braless abode. Within hours, the foundation of the house had been weakened to the point of disaster. Lady Babz Autumn Breeze Stool Softener was known for its gentle yet tremendously productive qualities. In order to demonstrate its effectiveness at Lady Babz in-home sales parties, Barbara would place chunks of concrete into a stainless steel vat of Autumn Breeze. By the end of the party, the concrete had been liquified.
Chapter 30
The braless one returned home to find her house slumped into a heap, the roof flat on the ground in the middle and raised up on both ends. The foundation was completely destroyed. The house looked as if a Seismosaurus had sat on it. The braless one stood in the street in front of her ruined abode and wept. Her tearful moans were interrupted by a young girl. "Girl Scout cookies for sale!" the teenager said cheerfully. "I'm sorry," answered the braless one, "but I only eat fruit." The girl scout was undaunted. "These are very good cookies! I will give you a box for free, and you'll see." The braless one was hungry. She had been standing in front of her place of residence, staring, for the past three hours. On second thought, she took the free box of cookies and bought two more from the girl scout, just to get rid of her. She ate most of the free box within 20 minutes. A few moments later, she felt an extreme pain in her stomach and a heaviness in her chest. She wondered if perhaps her bra was too tight, but of course that wasn't it-- she hadn't worn a bra in years. She sat down on the side of the street, trembling and lurching, until finally her eyes rolled back and she fell face first into the gutter. The girl scout, who had been waiting patiently behind a waterbox, waltzed past the paralyzed victim, collected the unopened boxes of cookies and went on her way.... but this was no ordinary girl scout. It was Barbara Ward, consummate master of disguise. In her crowning finale to the braless incident, she reached the apex of her wickedness-- peddling "girl scout" cookies to an unwary quary. The cookies were made of an amalgam of Autumn Breeze and cement, with just a touch of Louisiana Hot Sauce. After the last open house party, Barbara had emptied the steel vat full of Autumn Breeze and dissolved chunks of concrete. She poured the liquid into molds and let it bake in the sun in her back yard. When it had hardened, she ground it into a powder and used it in her cookie recipe. The horrible end that met the braless one was evidence of Barbara's remarkable acumen in revenge matters. Once braless had ingested the cookies, their effects were twofold-- first, she suffered from extreme indigestion, caused by an overdose of Autumn Breeze and the fire of the Louisiana Hot Sauce; then, before she could find relief, the entire conglomeration hardened like concrete, making elmination impossible. Barbara drove home, content with the knowledge that braless problem had been solved.
Chapter 31
Once Barbara arrived home, she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a finger. It belonged to the braless one. A ring was on the finger, but Barbara was having trouble removing it. She finally gave up and decided to try again later. She fixed herself a bowl of Post Toasties and sat down in an easy chair. She crunched on the cereal and picked up her autographed copy of "What Color is your Parachute?" Gurgling and cooing to herself, she sped through the pages, milk dripping from the corners of her mouth. Finally, rested, she put the book down and turned her attention on the finger. "Gawd," Barbara said to herself as she tossed the finger into the garbage bin, "that ring was not worth anything anyway. It was just another egregious example of her lack of taste." Barbara continued to rant to herself about the braless one's downfalls. She chuckled, amused by the evil method in which she had rid herself of the braless problem. Now it was time for her next victim. For weeks, Barbara had been working on perfecting her Lady Babz Autumn Breeze. So far it had only been able to dissolve concrete. In small doses, it worked wonders, even for the most stubborn attacks of constipation, but it took a very large dose in order to cause peristaltic action to shift into overdrive. Barbara cackled when she discovered a secret ingredient that would quadruple the effect of the Autumn Breeze. She prepared a super-concentrated concoction of the softener and fed it to rats. Most often they expired within a day and a half. She thought about her next victim, a particularly annoying individual with dirty feet. "This stuff is going to go through him like goose shit through a tin horn." She smiled and cackled again.
Chapter 32
Soon it would be time for the departmental holiday potluck. Barbara knew that this would be an excellent opportunity to carry out her pernicious plan against the strepitous blatherskite in flip-flops. How she hated the man for his antics at the last potluck-- the alleged food poisioning, the forced and contrived diarrhea episodes, and most of all, his dysphoric whimperings in the bathroom that had wrested away Barbara's future lover, the dashing paramedic god with the butt like granite. Since the last departmental gluttonfest, she had waited for her opportunity to get back at the flip-flop man with the dirty feet. Long into the night before the potluck, Barbara sat awake in her basement, testing and retesting her "Autumn Breeze Bites" on hapless rodents. It worked like a charm. "Ha!" she chortled to herself, ignoring the knocks at her door. "This is going to be such fun. I am so not about Holiday cheer with coworkers."
Upstairs, the knocks at the door continued. Finally, the angry mob outside Barbara's door began to bang violently on her screen door, breaking the glass. A similar riot was going down at the local grocery store, where the supplies of diapers and depends had been sold out since Halloween. Throngs of angry neighbors were at Barbara's door for a reason-- her Autumn Breeze Bites. Sadistically, Barbara had dressed as a cackling witch at Halloween and passed out Autumn Breeze Bites to unsuspecting trick-or-treaters. This was another of her methods for testing their effectiveness, and it worked. There were many empty pews at Mass the next morning for All Soul's Day, and an APB came out on the radio in the middle of Barbara's morning Paul Harvey that warned the city of a "sewer alert."
Chapter 33
The pounding on Barbara's door became louder. The screen shattered, and angry mothers thrust their clenched fists through the window, caring not that their wrists were getting cut and scratched by the glass shards. The clatter was enough to rouse Barbara from her cackling. She rose and went upstairs, sparing the lives of two frightened rats. The arms flailing through her broken door window were attempting to grasp the doorknob and unlock it. Barbara calmly opened the cupboard and took out her electric knife. She turned it on, revving it so that the mob could hear. They backed off. Barbara peered out the window as the crowd began to disperse. Something strange was happening-- many of the individuals were grabbing at their rear ends as if something were irritating their hind quarters. Barbara realized to her delight that the parents of the Mass-missing children had also eaten of the forbidden Autumn Breeze Bites. She lauged to herself as she took a stick of Juicy Fruit gum from her pocket and tore it in half. She put half in her mouth and sat down to enjoy herself. She was roused from her comfort by the blaring loudspeaker of a police van as it traveled down the street, blasting orders to the town. "Stage Four Sewer Alert!" the van blared. The van instructed townspeople not to flush for the rest of the day. No dishwashers, no showers, no laundry. Barbara went to bed early that night.
Chapter 34
The next morning, Barbara rose from her slumber, refreshed. The first thing she did was call the window repair and have a man over to fix the damage from the night before. "And don't send over that old coot," Barbara blared into the phone, "I want Jorge this time." She hung up the phone and went immediately to her bathtub, which she filled with scented oils. She placed candles all around the sides of the tub and turned on some soft music. She drew a hot, steamy bath, unlocked her front door, put on her turban towel, and then slipped beneath the bubbles to await the arrival of Jorge. Jorge was not as spectacular as the paramedic god, but he would have to do for the time being. For the past several weeks, Barbara had spent most of her spare time in the company of the rodents she was poisoning in the Autumn Breeze experiments. She was ready for a man-- and Jorge was it. Never mind that he couldn't speak English and that he had grease under his fingernails-- he had big, brown eyes and a flat stomach. Barbara could make do.
As she relaxed in her bath awaiting Jorge, she was startled by the sound of a siren going off. The city had reached a Stage Five Sewer Alert. She settled back into the warmth of the water. Fifteen minutes passed. Then thrity. Barbara became annoyed. Finally, Jorge arrived, 45 minutes late. By then, Babz' bath water had grown cold and the bubbles had dissipated. She had removed her turban and the bit of makeup she had applied was running down her face. Still, she attempted to be coy with Jorge, dabbling in the bit of Spanish that she knew. She called Jorge into the bathroom with her cooing, and once he was standing at the door, she smiled at him and tried to make conversation with her eyes and body. It wasn't long into her performance before she realized that something about Jorge was not right. He stood in front of her, sludge dripping off his hands and onto her floor. In Spanish, he informed Barbara that he had been delayed because of the Stage Five Sewer Alert, and that he had been pressed into service as temporary help. Barbara understood bits and pieces, but her nose got it all. She waved him away with her soapy hand, disgusted at the sight of his drippings. She slumped back into the cold bath, cranky and still without relief from her sexual needs.
Chapter 35
Finally she stood up from her bath and toweled off. She mopped up the mess on the floor and saw Jorge to the door. At that point, she didn't care that she paraded naked in front of him. After she had waved him out of the bathroom, she overheard him make a call on his cell phone to some guy named "Kenny." Barbara's Spanish was not good, but she had no trouble making the connection between Jorge and Kenny. It was obvious that no woman would be running her tongue across that flat stomach of his. Barbara closed the door on Jorge and walked to the bedroom, riddled with sexual frustrations and angst. Twenty minutes later, she looked out her bedroom window and saw Jorge's truck still parked on her driveway. The windows were steamed up and Jorge was on the phone, no doubt taking to Kenny. He was breathing heavily and looking as if he were playing with the stick shift of his company truck.
Chapter 36
Jorge's lack of taste and decorum was an affront to Barbara's senses. She made her way to the kitchen and reached into the top cupboard, where she kept a box of super-concentrated Autumn Breeze powder. She mixed a heaping spoonfull into a glass of Tang, pulled on some support hose and walked out to her driveway, where Jorge's truck was still parked. She couldn't see into the windows, but she could hear heavy breathing and hushed, rapid whispers in Spanish. Barbara knocked on the window of the car and the whispers and breathing suddenly stopped. Jorge's grime-encrusted finger rubbed out a small area of the steamed window so that he could see. Not knowing what else to do, he graciously accepted Barbara's offer. He tipped the glass toward Barbara's smiling face and downed the Tang. After he had finished his refreshment, Barbara took the glass with her right hand and reached into the cab of his truck with her left. She released his parking brake and away rolled the truck, down her driveway, Jorge waving, a bewildered look on his face. Barbara had been kind this time. She took pity on Jorge and his grease-encrusted fingernails. She had mixed no cement into his Tang-- he would live, but most likely he would wish that he had not. The next day, Barbara saw Jorge's truck at the Octopus Carwash as she drove past. It looked as if the seats were being steam cleaned. The workers wore masks over their faces. Two of them were wringing their hands and one was shaking his head. Jorge was nowhere to be seen.
Chapter 37
Barbara drove on, gripped by a strange feeling of remorse in the pit of her stomach. "I wonder where Jorge was," she thought to herself. "Have I become so jaded, so callous, that I have no feelings for my fellow human being?" She pondered as she drove down the middle of the bicycle lane. "Where could Jorge have been?" Barbara said aloud, as she applied the brake and screeched to a halt. There she sat, in the middle of the bicycle lane, thinking, wondering. Oh, she knew that Jorge, with his grease-encrusted fingers and uncircumcised penis was a dripping goth, but something about him melted her heart and warmed her icy nether regions. How could this macho, flat-stomached vato be a homosexual? It was impossible! Barbara began driving again, slowly, paying no attention to the cacophony of car horns blaring angrily at the back of her '90 Caprice Classic. The more she thought about it, the more she KNEW that Jorge must have been thinking of her when he was in his truck. It must have been the thrill of being in Barbara's driveway, on her property, that was driving Jorge's raw, Latino lust for self-gratification! She stopped the car once more, turned around and headed back in the direction of the Octopus Car Wash.
Chapter 38
She piloted her car at extreme speeds toward Octopus. Barbara was an expert at producing road rage in her unsuspecting victims, who were taken off guard by the speed of her approaching Caprice Classic. She had no qualms about using the bike lane for passing, if necessary. Racing toward the car wash at 20 miles above the speed limit, she bore down on a large Cadillac with an "Aquanet" vanity plate. The driver, oblivious to Barbara's stealthy approach, was involved in a cell phone conversation with a government employee. Barbara honked her horn and closed to within three inches of Aquanet's bumper. When this had no effect on the Cadillac nor its driver's phone conversation, Barbara attempted to pass on the right by using the bike lane and the sidewalk. She was consumed by passion for Jorge. She had to reach him-- something inside of her had snapped once again. She was ensorcelled by the sweaty, earthy Latin. She wriggled uncontrollably in her seat, riding the brake and the gas at the same time. Sweat formed on her brow; she began breathing through her mouth with soft pants. Her head bounced sideways and forward like a bobblehead; her eyes rolled back slightly as she became lost in a daydream. She imagined herself passing the quiet hours of the afternoon guttling the piquant juices of her Latino love... The slight bump and crunch of a bicyclist and his 10-speed scraping the bottom of her car brought Barbara's eyes back into focus. If only she could get around the despised Aquanet--
Chapter 39
Aquanet's Cadillac was not about to give an inch to Barbara's unstylish and most uncompelling Caprice Classic. Barbara was stuck behind him for the duration. She gripped her steering wheel tightly and cursed, shaking her tiny fist out the window, teeth clenched. Aquanet was on the phone; he didn't care-- he had just been awarded an additional 1000 minutes for renewing his phone contract. Barbara stewed and steamed. Cell phones in the car annoyed her because she found them distasteful. Aquanet's solecism would not go unpunished. "Aquanet...." Barbara repeated the words of the license plate over and over. "No doubt just one of a long list of unflattering sobriquets that cell phone idiot has garnered for himself." She huffed and wriggled uncontrollably in her seat as the wheels of her Caprice Classic continued their grind toward oblivion behind Aquanet. This cretin was keeping her from her beloved Jorge, who was no doubt waiting for her at the car wash. The depths of her disgust toward the Tartarean Cadillac could not be measured. In perfect Latin, she commanded the forces of evil. "IACTA ALEA EST," she gurgled as her tongue lapped at the tip of her nose. She pressed her pedal to the floor and thundered by the unsuspecting Aquanet, who had taken his eyes off the road in order to dial another number. Once past the thorn in her side, Barbara settled into a high-speed dash to the car wash, where the gas mask-clad employees had just finished cleaning up the last of the vomit from Jorge's car seats.
Chapter 40
Barbara's Caprice bounced heavily into the car wash, screeching to a halt as it backfired twice. Most of the car wash employees dropped to the ground, thinking that they had heard shots. She took out her mirror and applied lipstick, tossled her hair and quickly emerged from her car no worse for the wear, but rattled nonetheless. She looked around nervously for Jorge, sidestepping the few remaining puddles of vomit. "That smells like Jorge!" she thought to herself, the knot in her stomach growing larger with each step. "Where could he be?"
By now the startled car wash employees had got up and gone back to work. Jorge's car was pulled off to the side but he was nowhere to be seen. In broken Spanish, Barbara asked the workers if they had seen Jorge, but none of them understood what she was saying. One did understand Barbara's version of the name "Jorge" and pointed toward the men's room. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a stylish '70s Cadillac pulled up between Barbara and the men's room door. It was Aquanet, still on his cell phone, oblivious to everything but his sudden bathroom emergency. Barbara stopped in her tracks and looked with disgust at Aquanet. Finally he recognized her as the beneath him crazy Caprice Classic woman. He put the phone down and raised his eyebrows. "Have I cut you off at the pass again?" he laughed, noticing that his huge vehicle was blocking Barbara's access to the toilets. "Jorge-- Barbara gurgled, detouring around the back of Aquanet's monstrous auto.
"Oh, honey!" Aquanet said condescendingly, "Are you so unpopular that you have to seek out the company of your repair man? Forget Jorge. He's a common utility worker. Give him car fare-- a ham at Easter-- but for Gawd's sake, don't hang around with him." With that, Aquanet put his phone in his pocket and answered another call-- of Nature. He disappeared into Jorge's men's room and locked the door behind him, leaving Barbara heaving and quivering with frustration and pent-up anger.
Chapter 41
Barbara took a deep breath and steadied her hands. She placed them against the side of Aquanet's car; the sweat from her palms mixed with the dust to create a dirty paste. She pushed against the car with all her might. The force of her exertions calmed her quivering and she was able to regain control of herself. She stood up, wiped her hands against Aquanet's car and went over to the locked men's room door and knocked. There was no answer. She put her head to the door and heard Aquanet laughing and carrying on in English. He was on his cell phone, again! Or was he? Barbara made a fist and banged on the door. "Open this door!" she barked, her impetuous desires for Jorge boiling over. She bounced lightly from one foot to the other, passion and desire burning through her body, disgust for Aquanet raising her blood pressure to dangerous levels. Finally the door opened and Aquanet gazed at her, a bemused look of pity on his face. "He's all yours, Babz," he said, wiping something from the corner of his mouth. Jorge looked at Barbara curiously, wondering why her lip was quivering like jello. He excused himself in Spanish as he brushed past her and out into the sunlight. He tried to get into Aquanet's car but the passenger door was locked. Aquanet looked at him, shook his head and drove off, leaving him face to face with Barbara, the Autumn Breeze Queen. In truth, Jorge was frightened of Barbara. He had spent hours in that men's room at the car wash, unable to go back to his car because of the stool softener bomb that Barbara had forced upon him the day before in her driveway. For 17 hours he had remained helpless in the bathroom until Aquanet, his Angel of Mercy had freed him with a bottle of Pepto Bismol. Barbara smiled at Jorge; she understood now that Aquanet and Jorge had done nothing more than share a bottle of Pepto Bismol together. She still had a chance. "Jorge," she cooed, trying desperately to remember her high school Spanish, "yo cocino Shake-n-Bake esta noche..." she stammered, overcome by her animal lust for Jorge's brown eyes and long, black eyelashes. "Yo cocino..." she blathered, spittle forming at the corners of her mouth. Jorge was hungry. He hadn't eaten since the day before, and he did understand what Barbara was saying. "Si," he said, smiling at her. "Si!" He took Barbara's tiny, shaking hand and patted it. She looked down at his grimey fingers and felt as if she were on wings. She held his hand tighter and led him toward her car.
Suddenly, Barbara and Jorge were knocked off their feet by a blast that came from behind the women's room door. Another blast knocked the door from its frame and blew it out into the parking lot. Jorge panicked and ran; Barbara was unable to keep up with him and stopped to rest against the trunk of her car. She looked at Jorge's fleeing perfect body as it rounded the corner and was gone. Before the tears could form, the ground shook a third time and a pyroclastic cloud of hot, dried blueberry fragments and superheated gases erupted from the women's room door, destroying everything in its path. Three car wash workers were overcome by the inhalation of the hot ash and gases. Barbara desperately searched through her purse for her car keys.
Chapter 42
Barbara found her keys and managed to open the door to her Caprice Classic just before the pyroclastic blueberry flow reached her car. She climbed in and locked the doors, praying to the Almighty that she would be spared from the carnage. The flow petered out just as it reached her car, but one tire did go flat from the heat. The rubber bubbled on the tire rim as black smoke billowed forth. Barbara thanked her lucky stars and got out of the car, coughing. She kissed the ground and sat down on a nearby planter box. As she pondered, she saw the figure of a woman approaching her through the smoke. The woman dragged one foot behind her. Her skin was blackened and her hair had been singed. All that was left of her glasses was a gnarled frame that dangled from her right ear. Her eyes were going every which direction. Barbara recognized her instantly. It was J.B., one of her favorite co-workers. Barbara knew that she needed to get J.B. to the hospital in a hurry-- it was a sure bet that her electrolytes were spinning perilously out of control. Barbara directed J.B. to the planter box, where she sat, eyes spinning, body quaking.
When the ambulance arrived, Barbara rode to the hospital, holding J.B.'s electrolyte-imbalanced hand. As the ambulance sped toward the hospital, Barbara felt the unfamiliar pangs of pity for the unfortunate J.B., whose life had been very rough indeed. As a child, J.B. had grown up on a blueberry farm in a quonset hut with a very shallow well and no indoor plumbing. The cesspool was only a few feet above the well. Barbara could not help but wonder what damage may have been done to her dear, electrolyte-challenged friend from the substandard drinking water that she had been subjected to during her formative years on the blueberry farm.
Chapter 43
Halfway to the hospital, J.B.'s electrolytes began to fluctuate more wildly than before. Her body convulsed. The attendants tightened the restraints around J.B.'s writhing body. Barbara held her hand tightly and tried to comfort her, but to no avail. Barbara had never been good at comforting the sick. In school the children had been cruel to her because every plant she touched died within days. The kids took turns poking her with a long stick; they were all afraid to touch her for fear they would fall ill and die. A very intuitive psychiatrist dredged these childhood incidents from the depths of Barbara's pysche when he was trying to ascertain the origin of her rancor. She promptly fired him and took her mental dysfunction elsewhere. Barbara had been thinking for some time about switching psychiatrists anyway. Earlier in the year he had put Barbara off by suggesting that she was an "incendiary" -- "Just light a match and you're ready to explode," he had said, fanning the flames of Barbara's ire, flames that were never truly extingushed but rather smoldered in the Tartarean depths of her bowel, waiting to ignite anew at the slightest annoyance. But in spite of Barbara's abysmal track record, she still tried to comfort J.B. in her hour of need.
A long, low grumbling sound emanated from J.B. The sound grew louder and more forceful, until finally it caused the ambulance to shudder and rock. The driver gripped the steering wheel with both hands and gave it the gas. J.B.'s head turned from side to side, her frail body racked with pain after her tortuous ordeal. She thrashed her head from side to side. To Barbara it seemed that J.B. was getting stronger and harder to hold down. At last Barbara's tiny hands were unable to restrain her. J.B.'s head twisted from side to side, violently. Her face turned red, then blue, then green. She began to gurgle and spit, gaining strength with each thrash, until finally she sat up, breaking the restraints. She bellowed and growled, grumbled and gurgled, her blistered face swollen and ashen. To Barbara's horror, J.B.'s head did one, last turn of 360 degrees! "Blueberries!" the repugnant visage blurted out, the cheeks filling with what looked like air. Opening her mouth, she cursed and blasted with great force a yellowish, viscous fluid against the back door of the ambulance. Barbara could distinctly see pieces of a partially-digested flip-flop in the goo. "BLUEBERRIES! SCOTT!" J.B. croaked, gearing up for another heave.
Chapter 44
The ambulance rambled on toward the hospital, Barbara holding J.B. down and the attendants busily making feeble attempts to clean the filth from the walls of their vehicle. As soon as the ambulance arrived at Our Lady of Pain and Sorrow Medical Center, the doors were thrown open and Barbara, J.B.'s stretcher and four attendants debouched onto the sidewalk. Barbara limped alongside J.B., holding up her I.V. bottle. J.B.'s vomiting fits had stopped a few miles before reaching the hospital, but even so, globs of her ejecta dripped from the opened doors of the ambulance.
The hospital personnel yelled orders at Barbara, who didn't feel like being told what to do after her ordeal. The pain of losing Jorge gnawed at her sanity. She reverted to her tried and true, eristic personality, sparring with the hospital staff and stamping her tiny foot. Three times she gave the attending physician the Bronx Cheer before she was asked to leave the hospital. She trudged to a nearby bus stop and sat down to wait. "Gawd, I don't want to go back to work tomorrow," she sighed to herself. "We have another one of those 'measurable goals' meetings and I'm just not up for it." Barbara was at odds with the Management Team about measurable goals. She referred to the Team as the "Star Chamber." What was worse, she would be forced to sit in close company with the rest of her lumpen, Boetian counterparts, a prospect that turned her stomach even further.
The bus arrived and Barbara boarded, unaware that she still had bits of dried vomit in her hair. She sat down in a seat that cleared out as she approached. She ran her hands through her hair as she relaxed and realized that it was full of dried chunks of partially-digested flip-flop. "Well, that's good, anyway," she thought to herself. That's one less person I'll have to deal with tomorrow." She took out her compact mirror and brushed the dried bits from her hair. She tossed her head about and applied lipstick. It was a stroke of luck for Barbara. At the next stop, the door opened, and Jorge came aboard.
Chapter 45
The bus was full except for the empty seat next to Barbara that no one had seemed to want. She smiled furtively at Jorge, who looked around for another seat, but couldn't find one. He sat next to Barbara and gave her a weak smile. He wouldn't have chosen the seat next to her at all if it weren't for his complete exhaustion from running away from Julie's gastric volcano. Jorge was unsure of Barbara now-- Who was she, really? What relationship did she have with Julie, the human incendiary inside that gas station restroom?
Jorge nodded politely at Barbara and pretended to close his eyes in sleep. Barbara wriggled in her seat, her insides on fire, her heart burning. Her bosom heaved under her blouse. Finally she could not stand it anymore. She lay back onto Jorge's lap and put her hands behind her head, trying to look vulnerable and coquettish. Startled, Jorge opened his eyes. There was Barbara across his lap, hands behind her head, with a coy look in her eye. She ran her tongue lightly across her teeth and made a low, animal-like grumbling that sounded something like a cat in heat. Jorge was unimpressed. He squirmed, trying to get out from under Barbara, but she persisted. She grabbed the bottom of the seat and anchored her legs about Jorge's torso. This time he was not going to get away.
Chapter 46
With Jorge locked solidly in his seat, Barbara's mind wandered, as it so often did. At times she was devoid of all thoughts. Her brain was a consequence of her unfortunate youth, during which she had worked her way through a number of mind-numbing vices: alcoholism, drug abuse, excessive sex, religion. Her high school civics teacher, Miss Carpolestes, sat Barbara down one day and tried to reason with the renegade child. She finally gave up on Barbara, announcing to her parents that Barbara was determined to make every mistake known to mankind since he had crawled out of the slime. Barbara got back at the teacher by shoving potatoes up the tail pipe of her car and scratching the hub caps with a brillo pad.
Chapter 47
Jorge attempted to get free of Barbara's surprisingly strong thighs. Finally, with Barbara lost in her daydream, he wriggled free and slipped away to another seat, ready to bound off the bus as soon as the door opened. Even as angry as Barbara was, she was still able to appreciate the callipygian Jorge. "How I would like to get my hands on that," she thought to herself longingly. But it was not to happen. Barbara's last outburst and attempted kidnapping of Jorge had scared him off for good. Not even a Stage 5 sewer alert was enough to get him sent back to her home. Try as she might to clog the city's sewer system with leftover Autumn Breeze bites from Halloween, she was unable to get Jorge back to her house. The Rooter people always sent out some old Anglo fart, pale-skinned and covered with liver spots; Barbara had no interest, even in her desperate condition.
The Stage 5 sewer alert continued long after Barbara's plumbing had been fixed, indicating a much more lasting problem with the city's sewer system. Barbara had no time to be waiting around when she needed to use the facilities. At first she used a camping toilet that she had set up in the service porch and emptied the plastic baggy over the fence into the neighbors' yard. "It serves them right," Barbara thought to herself grumpily, "It's not as if I haven't had to clean up after that damned dog of theirs." As the weeks passed, Barbara realized that she would need to do something more permanent. The weather had gone bad and it was not convenient for her to make frequent trips to the service porch. The combination of the weather and inconvenience of the now Stage 6 Critical Sewer Alert made Barbara grumpier and more facinorous than usual. "Harridan," the literate children of the English professor next door would call her as she passed.
One day, a ventripotent salesman came to Barbara's door with free candy and a catalog of anaerobic digesters and incinerating toilets. No man had knocked at her door in months and months. She eagerly let him in and served him a glass of iced tea. As she gazed into his eyes, he turned the pages of the catalog, pointing to the anaerobic digesters and incinerating toilets, which became more elaborate and expensive with each flip of the page. "This one," he gushed, "is the amazing Phoenix R200!" He beamed as he informed Barbara of the virtues of this incinerating toilet, seven feet high and "more powerful than a Buick LeSabre." She marveled at the picture, realizing that high upon that commode, she wouldn't have a care in the world. Stage 6 or Stage 1006 sewer alert-- it wouldn't make a difference. She was sold. Next, the smooth-talking salesman talked Barbara into buying an anaerobic digester. No more need to take out the garbage, which sounded good to Barbara. She bought one of those too, before she realized she had no place to put it.
Chapter 48
Barbara insisted on helping the delivery men install the Phoenix R200. It took three hours of intense labor, after which Barbara was fatigued to the point of exhaustion. When the rolling ladder was finally pushed up to the R200, it looked like one of the old jetway stairs from the airport. Barbara wearily climbed the stairs to the top, where she sat down and surveyed the mess the workmen had made. Grease was streaked across her carpet, and the tiles at the foot of the R200 were scratched and soiled. This displeased her. They would have to pay for their impertinence.
A wave of fatigue overtook her. She closed her eyes and fell asleep atop the R200, snoring lightly. She belched softly and licked the corners of her mouth as she fell into a deep, dreamful sleep. On this occasion her dreams were particularly vivid. Barbara and Jorge were entering Phoenix (Best-run city in the world) on the back of an ass. Palm fronds were strewn at their feet and crowds of onlookers waved and shouted. Some threw boxes of original flavor Shake-n-Bake; others tossed flowers. Women broke down in tears at the sight of tiara-clad Barbara and her dashing Latino husband. As her donkeycade passed, the revelers swamped into the street and followed the procession. Much time passed and Barbara sat alone atop the R200, signing papers and stamping royal documents. Jorge was nowhere to be found, and her crown weighed heavily. Outside, she could hear the chants of the crowd-- "Barbara! Barbara! Barbara! they chanted in unison. "No," Barbara groaned, "I can't take them anymore." The nonstop demands of her adoring public had begun to take a toll on Barbara's sanity. Unable to locate her husband, and tired of the weight of her crown, she ordered the crowd to be dispersed at all costs. Finally there was quiet-- until... She awoke [in her dream] to hear a commotion coming from below. High atop the Phoenix R200, she looked down from the dizzying heights at the crowd mulling about below her throne. At first she ignored the rabble, unmoved by their miseries. She shifted uncomfortably a moment later when struck by a frozen pea that had been launched at her through a straw from below. Suddenly she was pelted with frozen peas, each sting more vicious than the previous. "NO!" she cried out. She awoke from her slumber to discover that in the heat of her dream she had pushed away the mobile stairway. She was trapped atop the R200-- and the doorbell was ringing.
Chapter 49
Barbara fumbled about atop the R200, trying to reach the mobile stairway. She failed. The rebarbative chime of her anitiquated 1950s doorbell continued. Whoever it was at the door wanted to speak to Barbara. She shifted, uneasy and nervous. What if it were Jorge? Is it possible that he could have changed his mind about her? What a sour, cruel twist of fate it would be if she were unable to get down from the R200 in time to answer the door, and even if she did, she looked an absolute fright. Her last attempt was successful. She managed to catch the edge of the rolling stairway with her big toe, just enough to edge it toward the R200. She flew down the stairs and threw open the front door. There stood the next-door neighbor, an English professor at the local university, in all his bariatric crapulence. His face was ashen and swollen, and his tongue was covered with black spots and a malignant, festering ooze. "You!" he struggled with the words, "You and your camping toilet! You have turned my back yard into a cesspool with this rain!" He stammered and choked on the words. "How odd," Barbara thought to herself, unmoved. "And he calls himself and English professor?" Barbara informed the professor that there would be no more sewage in his back yard. She led him inside and showed him the R200. The professor staggered ponderously across Barbara's parquet floor and banged against her antique curio cabinet. The final straw was when he stepped on Barbara's house coat belt that had been trailing behind her, disrobing her. She stood naked in front of the professor, who seemed to think that her action was planned. "Don't try to tell me it was a 'wardrobe malfunction', he coughed, enraging Barbara, who maintained her composure. She pointed him toward the bathroom. At Barbara's request, he mounted the stairs and looked into the gaping maw of the R200. Silently, Barbara crept up the stairs behind him. When he reached the top to look in, she pushed him in and closed the lid. "T minus 10 minutes and counting," she snickered to herself. Barbara went into the kitchen to wash her hands and fix herself a snack.
Chapter 50
Barbara returned to her front room, snack in hand. She gazed down at the parquet floor and the marks left behind by the crapulent English professor from next door. In disgust, she tuned out the muffled cries that eminated from within the unfriendly confines of her incinerating R200 toilet, where the English professor groped in the foul-smelling darkness for an exit. Little did he know that six minutes later he would be able to see just fine as the incineration process started. "I know this smell," he groused, "It smells like the back yard fence."
Barbara leaned back in her easy chair and stuffed her face with chips. The whimperings from the R200's bowels continued, but Barbara could hear little of it, crunching hungrily. Once the television was turned on to her favorite daytime soap, the sound was drowned out entirely. Finally the bells and whistles went off. The mobile stairway beeped as it backed away from the R200. Barbara heard the familiar rumble of the blast furnace as it engaged. It sounded like a pre hush-kit 727 that had just been given clearance for take off. She heard a thumping from inside. "He sealed his own fate," Barbara justified to herself, remaining seated in passive-aggressive reticence.
Chapter 51
As the R200 heated up to its top temperature, Barbara thought back on the tumultuous relationship she had endured with her neighbor, the shlocky, schmaltzy English professor from the nearby university who had a tendency to drink and eat to excess. Once as Barbara was hanging out her laundry, she heard a commotion from the professor's back yard. She had peered through the knothole in the fence to see what was going on. The professor's wife had gone on vacation with the kids, and he was clanking around in the backyard with the barbecue. At first Barbara thought that he was barbecuing a small, corpulent child, what with the banging, clanking and the monstrous plumes of smoke that rose from the Weber grill. She hoped it was one of his own and returned to her clothes line. A few minutes later, she heard him lift the lid of the bbq. She ran over to look through the knothole again. Not one, but six whole chickens roasted over the coals, slathered in bbq sauce and dripping fat into the the bowels of the bbq. As she watched, she saw him consume three of them within the first 15 minutes. The first chicken was eaten right from the grill. He didn't bother to sit down or put it on a plate. He licked his fingers and smelled them afterward, a vision that had forever poisoned Barbara's opinions of him. Once Barbara started dumping her camping toilet waste over the fence, the knothole became unusable because the piles on the other side blocked the view.
A few more feeble bangings came from inside the R200, but she paid little attention to the occupant's tsuris. Perhaps, had he been more potvaliant, Barbara may have reconsidered his fate. The R200 stopped and began to cool. "It is done," Barbara said to herself as she washed her hands with a big bar of Lava. She hurried to scour her face and hands, then ran to the closet to look for her one and only dress, suitable for funerals and church services. She needed to use the facilities but worried about the residual heat, so she decided to wait until she reached the cinema, where she had been invited to watch a preview screening of Mel Gibson's movie, "The Passion."
Chapter 52
Barbara parked her Caprice Classic in the lot and hurried into the cinema, special invite in hand. She brushed past the commoners who were waiting to see some silly comedy that they were actually going to pay for. She gave them passing glances of disgust as she entered. Once in line for popcorn and Junior Mints, she was careful to avoid the glances of the undesirable men who seemed to flock around her whenever she went to the movies.
After the movie, Barbara was dumbstruck. She dabbed at the corners of her eyes with her hankie, in a ladylike manner that befitted someone with a personal invite from Mr. Gibson. She struggled to keep her Diet Coke down and reached for her keys, accidentally releasing the clamp of her belt. The local Presbyterian minister tried to help her, but it was too late-- her wardrobe malfunctioned in front of him, revealing a very risque pair of pink panties with the words "enter here" written on the front of them. The minister was beside himself. Barbara hurriedly closed the front of her dress and made for the parking lot. "How could I have forgotten?" she castigated herself. "Why didn't I take those off???" She had been due to change them the day before, when she planned to send them in a ziploc bag to one of her depraved email pals from an internet chatroom, but with the commotion from the neighbor next door and the total interruption of her usual routines, she had forgotten.
Chapter 53
Barbara jumped into her Caprice Classic and raced home, embarrassed at her outrageous faux pas, but at the same time a bit excited that the running had caused her to perspire, further adding to the intrigue of the panties. "I have to get home fast," she thought to herself, careful not to open the car windows and reduce the temperature. If she could slip them into the ziploc bag toute-de-suite, they would be perfect for her quirky email pal from the dominatrix chatroom. She tore down the street and pulled into her driveway, aghast at what was waiting. Three government truckes had pulled into the driveway, lights flashing. Neighbors were standing on both sides of the street gawking at the scene, secretly hoping that Barbara was being investigated for her Hallowe'en treats the autumn before. Barbara ran into the house and threw open one of her kitchen drawers. As she was reaching for a ziploc bag in one hand and removing her underpants with the other, she felt the strong grip of a man on her shoulders. "Miss Ward!" the man barked, trying to subdue her. Barbara fought as hard as she could, stamping her tiny foot and spitting, but somehow managing to get the sweaty underwear safely sealed in the ziploc before the man could get complete control of her. She turned, refastening her dress. "Who in hell are you?!" she growled. "What benighted blunderbuss ordered this search of my house?" The government agent sat Barbara down in a chair and explained to her that he had reason to believe, based on evidence gathered by the Bush/Cheyney administration, that Barbara had concealed Weapons of Mass Destruction within her house. The stairway to the R200 was pulled up and the toilet lid was open. She could hear men inside the chamber, taking samples of what they described as some kind of "explosive substance." Barbara was not worried; she knew from the literature about the R200 that it incinerated everything down to a powder, even bones and teeth. She knew that the explosive substance would be analyzed and found to be part of Barbara's Mexican Week Extravaganza, during which she dined out at Macayo's six days in a row.
The men began to pack up their things. Two workmen in spacemen suits emerged from within the R200 and climbed down the stairs, samples in hand. Finally they left, having no evidence on which to hold Barbara. Several minutes after their departure, she was unable to find her panty-filled ziploc bag. The goverment men had taken it by mistake as part of their "evidence."
Chapter 54
Barbara sat down to think after the government men left. How was it possible, she thought, that the Bush/Cheyney cabal could consider her incinerating toilet a possible WMD? Since the 2000 election, Barbara had sworn off watching the news, as the mere sight of GW sent waves of nausea throughout her entire body. At first she chuckled at GW's soporific rantings and nostrums for improving the country, but her amusement quickly turned to abject disgust. One of her incinerating toilet dreams dealt with a supplicant GW, begging Barbara for mercy as she drizzled boiling Pepsi Cola over his head while biting the heads off of Barbie dolls.
Chapter 55
Then one night, it happened. While sitting in her chaise lounge watching a credulous documentary on the supposed Bible Code, she had a psychic pang as if something dreadful had just occured. She put her chicken nuggets down and took a deep breath. "What is this fresh hell?" she thought to herself, her stomach beginning to churn with acid. She knew that something was wrong. Not since her childhood in Pile Estates had she felt such a gnawing, anxious feeling in the pit of her stomach. Barbara practiced her deep breathing exercises for five minutes, and then counted slowly to 100, just as she was used to doing at work when Eggo annoyed her. "Ninety-nine, one hundred," she said in a determined tone. She sat back in her chaise and grabbed a chicken nugget. It was cold. Then, in a defensive move, she turned off the Bible Code and tuned into the nightly news, where something was just breaking. The bleach blond spoke in hushed tones and warned the viewers of the graphic footage that would follow. Barbara gasped and spit out her french fry. There, on her screen, was Jorge's lifeless body, mangled, twisted and completely caked with some kind syrupy substance. It was a gruesome sight. The bleach blond explained that Jorge had been working on a plumbing problem at the molasses plant when one of the giant vats experienced a compromised hull. The molasses flowed out slowly, but quickly enough to overtake the unsuspecting Jorge, who was trapped in the bathroom with no exit.
Chapter 56
Barbara was gobstruck. Her mouth hung open, bits of french fry and cold chicken nuggets cascading from her quivering lips into her lap. "NO!" she screamed. It couldn't be-- not Jorge! Not the only man she was willing to accept au naturel-- at least until she could have talked him into the emergency circumcision surgery-- How could this be? She sat in her chair, frazzled and torn with grief. "NO!" she screamed again. She walked to the kitchen and overturned her money jar, slamming it to the countertop. "A lot of good this money does now," she thought. The lid of the money jar was cracked. Taped to the lid was a simple label: "George." That was Barbara's name for the "new" Jorge. The money in that jar was for his circumcision and application for American citizenship, with Barbara as his sponsor and wife. Barbara sobbed quietly now, staring at the mess in her kitchen. "If only..." she whimpered into her handkerchief, "If he only he were alive, he could have had the operation by Halloween. He would have been healed and ready to go by New Year's Eve..."
The cold chicken nuggets stared her in the face. She defiantely bit into one and reached for the vodka.
Chapter 57
Barbara poured the vodka into a glass with ice. Her feeble attempt to drown her sorrows met with little success, in large part, she decided, because the ice was watering down her rotgut vodka. Too cheap to buy a Swedish or Russian brand, she filled her pantry with Kirkland Signature vodka from Costco, an abomination to the taste buds of any self-respecting vodka drinker, including Barbara. "Oh, screw it," she groused to herself, and dug deep in her apron pocket for the keys to her special occasion liquor cabinet. There, like a gift from heaven, she found a large bottle of Absolut vodka, which would be a sensation to her taste buds and a lift to her forlorn and broken spirit. After three glasses of the Absolut, she fished out the cold, dried pieces of chicken nuggets she had discarded in the garbage and thrust them into her mouth with both hands. She was awash with grief-- her loss was beyond anything she could have imagined. While waiting to ensnare the luscious Jorge, to whom she had ascribed an almost godlike status, Barbara's biological clock had started to run out. Her last chance to to give issue to a little version of herself was rapidly expiring. Only through conjugal union with Jorge would she have been able to bring forth a bundle of joy, a recepticle for the passing on of her genetic information that would endure into the next generation. But now her time was almost over. She steadfastly refused to engage in sexual activity with anyone other than Jorge (or Geraldo, the plastic doll she had purchased at Castle after her last go-round with the Absolut). Barbara sat in the chaise with her glass. She poured another round and tipped her glass to the sky, where the exalted Jorge must now be. "To you, my love" she sobbed before downing the glass. Finally, she fell asleep, snoring and farting softly. Night passed into day, and she awoke with a pounding headache, wondering if it had all been a dream-- a hideous, ghastly and ghoulish nightmare in which her beloved Latino had been taken from her by a renegade molasses flow. As she slowly awakened, she realized that it was indeed true. Her stomach gurgled. "That's my womb, telling me my time has almost run out!" she thought, a wave of nausea overtaking her. She coughed and looked toward the ceiling. And then it hit her! A brilliant idea from the heavens. She would find a way to clone her angelic Jorge! She raced to her kitchen and emptied out a Gerber baby food jar full of nails, leaving them on the counter. She shoved the jar into her pocket and headed out the door.
Chapter 58
Barbara slunk quietly and softly through the back halls of the funeral parlor. Jorge was still in the downstairs room, awaiting embalming. She took a deep breath and slowly opened the door to the embalming room, where she found Jorge unattended on a stainless steel table, naked, awaiting his fate. Quickly, she removed her sharpest kitchen knife and circumcisized Jorge posthumously. She raced out of the funeral home as quietly as possible, Jorge's foreskin safe inside the baby food jar that formerly housed her used nails. Barbara's madness was not without reason; upon her arrival back home, she immediately put the jar into the freezer. "Jorge's DNA is in that jar," she comforted herself. I'm going to find a way to clone that sweet man before I'm unable to have a child-- I'm going to have his baby come hell or high water." She opened the freezer, gazed at the jar and removed a large bag of chicken nuggets from Costco.
Chapter 59
Barbara opened the bag of chicken nuggets and emptied the frozen pieces onto a cookie sheet. They fell heavily onto the pan, spraying bits of ice and freezer-burned breading onto her kitchen floor. Barbara looked at the mess with disgust. "Damn this to hell!" she grumbled, reaching for the paper towels. Halfway through her clean-up, she realized that her oven still hadn't preheated to 350. "Screw this!" she said aloud, "I'll just f'ing nuke the g'd things." She emptied the still frozen nuggets into a pyrex bowl and placed them in the microwave. Without thinking, she turned the oven on high and set about finding the ketchup. She opened the door to her refrigerator and looked in the door at the spot where her ketchup normally resided, but there was nothing there but mustard and a jar of fat-free mayonnaise that she had purchased by mistake. "What the hell? I thought I threw that fat-free shit out days ago," she groused to herself, tossing the jar into the garbage can. The more she searched for her ketchup, the angrier she became when she was unable to locate it. Finally she realized that it was probably the government officials who had taken her panties as evidence. The must have gone through her refrigerator as well. The acid in her stomach began to churn as her rancor worsened. Suddenly, there was a loud popping sound inside the microwave, and she hit the "stop" button and opened the door. The chicken nuggets had exploded all over the inside of her oven. "F_ _k!" she gurgled, slamming her fist on the counterop. "This just isn't my f'ing day." She scraped the remnants from the sides of the oven and ate them while she stood there, sans ketchup, thinking about Jorge's frozen foreskin and bristling at the gall of the United States Government for making off with her ketchup. She steamed and fumed, too angry to clean the filth from the oven. Later that night she popped corn in her microwave, further solidifying the encrusted grime. As she lay in bed that evening, her stomach gurgling with acid and gas, she finally thought of something to ease her mind and allow her to sleep. She rose early the next day and unplugged the filthy microwave from the wall. She wrapped the cord around it, put it in the back seat of her car, and headed for Tempe. She arrived by moonlight only to discover that she was not alone in the office-- one of her co-workers had already been there since 2:00am, busy at his desk. Quietly she crept toward the break room and replaced the microwave next to the fridge with her own, filth-encrusted oven. She retreated back to her car with the library's microwave. "Those library scumbags will never know the difference," she thought to herself as she drove back to Phoenix. "I really don't give a shit what they think anyway."
Chapter 60
Barbara piloted her Caprice Classic back onto the road and headed for her humble residence in Phoenix. She didn't feel much like working that day; she decided to call in sick whe she arrived home. She didn't really care what her supervisor would say about the matter. That settled in her mind, she turned on the radio and hummed as she drove.
Meanwhile, the University was suffering under a "denial of service" attack, an occurence that had become all too common during the day, but rarely affected things in the middle of the night. The library employee who had been at his desk since 2:00am began to grouse. He rose from his desk, leaving the "This Page Cannot Be Found" notice on his screen, grabbed his coffee mug and headed for the breakroom to warm up his beverage in the microwave. He opened the door of the oven and was instantly appalled at the filth. Against his better judgment, he thrust his coffee cup into the microwave, set the timer, closed the door and walked out in the hallway, annoyed and aflutter about the deplorable conditions within the oven. Little did he know that the oven Barbara replaced was several hundred watts stronger than the one she had taken home with her. The man's coffee was boiling over before he knew it. Suddenly there was a loud "pop" inside the oven that lead the earlybird library employee back into the staff lounge. Smoke poured from the oven as boiling coffee dripped from the door hinges. He opened the door and was overcome by a rush of steam and exploding pieces of dried and burnt chicken nuggets. He determined then and there that he would get to the bottom of the outrage. He instantly suspected Barbara, a woman he knew had been secretly hoping to trip him up at the earliest opportunity. "I just KNOW she's involved!" he clucked to himself, "Barbara and that new secretary." He limped out of the break room, covered with hot coffe and dried chicken nugget pieces, and headed back toward the refuge of his office. As he passed by the secretary's desk, the answering machine had just started taking a message. It was Barbara Ward, calling in sick. He listened to her fake "sick voice" as she gurgled into the telephone. "I just don't feel well today," she lied, coughing once or twice for good measure. "I think I may have been exposed to that measles outbreak on campus. I'd better stay home until after February 18, as the notice warned. She cleared her throat and coughed again before hanging up. The earlybird shuddered. His eyes narrowed; his brow furrowed. As soon as Barbara's message was recorded, he hit the delete button and went back to his desk.
Chapter 61
The magesterial library employee sat down at his desk and began working on his computer. He stopped typing for a minute. A touch of schadenfreude overtook him as he thought about the trouble that Barbara would be in when it was discovered that she had not phoned in her absence. "Damn her," he thought to himself, breaking a pencil in half. His face red, he was left holding a piece of the pencil in each hand. "She thinks of herself as some kind of giglet, a minx who can make friends with almost anyone." The man was filled with odium and animus at the thought of her. "Schlimazel!" he announced loudly, happy that no one was around to hear his outburst.... Meanwhile, Barbara was snoozing peacefully under her coverlet, unaware of the negative vibes that pulsated from the library employee's office. She was now in clear violation of the TS attendance policy, and there would be hell to pay
Chapter 62
The disgruntled library employee sat as his desk and chortled to himself when he heard other employees asking about Barbara's absence. Her supervisor wanted to know if she had called in and the clear response from the receptionist was "no." Everyone knew that a violation of the TS "Do Call, Do Tell" attendance policy at evaluation time was suicide. The disgruntled library employee laughed even harder to himself when the new receptionist was brought into his despicable act without her knowledge. For all she knew, Barbara had never intended to phone in her absence. Barbara's incogitance would be rewarded with a mark against her yearly evaluation, and deservedly so. Her perfidy could not go unpunished. Besides, ever since Barbara had arrived on the scene at the University Libraries there had been a general lowering of standards in every unit in which she had worked. Her fractious, insipid personality had always been a hindrance to the disgruntled library employee, who worked long hours of toil only to have it undone by Barbara's execrable work ethic, excessive talking, questionable desk décor, unhealthy snacking habits, polyphagia, unctuous attitude toward her superiors, and the "farting" noises her shoes made as she walked.

Chapter 63
Later the same day, when it became apparent that Barbara was not going to phone in her absence, a few library employees became concerned, though most of the other workers were hard pressed to give a damn. Finally, the new secretary decided she'd better phone Barbara to make sure that everything was all right. Barbara answered on the seventh ring, after being awakened from a peaceful slumber. "Huh? What?" Barbara said through the line, trying to rub the sleep from her eyes. "I did call in!" Barbara held the phone out and looked into the receiver. She counted to ten and took a deep breath. "Look," she said quietly into the phone, "I did phone in this morning. My message should have been waiting for you when you arrived." No, the secretary assured her, there were no messages from Barbara that morning and her supervisor and a few underlings had been pestering her all morning as to the status of Barbara's undocumented and illegal absence from work. She even went so far as to suggest that Barbara didn't sound very ill. Barbara continued to breathe deeply so as not to lose her temper. It was difficult for her because most of her encounters with the new secretary had been distressing. Barbara was on the interview committee when the new secretary was hired. During the interview, Barbara's restless leg syndrome had acted up. The sudden kicks into the interviewee's shins were not appreciated and were also difficult to explain. Embarrassed, Barbara tried to cock her head sideways and cross her eyes momentarily so that it would look as if she were having an epileptic seizure, but the interviewee saw right through that charade. Against Barbara's protests, the woman turned out to be the successful candidate for the secretarial position of TS. Barbara started off on the wrong foot from the beginning. After kicking the future secretary three times in the shin during the interview, she accidentally tripped her on the way out of the conference room. Barbara tried to break her fall, but it was no good. The two of them lay sprawled on the floor in front of the disgruntled worker's office door. He huffed as he walked past.
Barbara snapped out of her daydream. The secretary was still angling for an explanation on the other end of the line. Barbara had none. It was her word against the world's that she had ever phoned in her absence. Such a breach of conduct would never be tolerated by the TS elite. Barbara broke out in a cold sweat. What could she do? Was there any way she could prove that she had phoned to TS number? Could her calls be traced? Maybe-- just maybe-- if she could curry the favor of an old friend she had met in an elevator at ASU who now worked at the phone company. She wondered aloud if he would help her. "What? Who?" the secretary's voice came back over the line. "Never mind," Barbara said curtly. "I'll call you back."
Chapter 64
Barbara decided to let the entire incident go by the wayside. There was no way she was going to contact that man from the elevator again. She thought about the last time she had seen him at Safeway, pushing an extra-large shopping cart filled with expensive, fat-laden desserts and bottles of Diet Dr. Pepper. She had quickly moved to the next aisle to avoid detection, shaking her head in amazement. The man had gained at least 200 pounds! Barbara wondered to herself if the elevator in which she had met him were still functioning.
As for TS and its attendance "policy," Barbara decided to ignore that incident as well. She knew who had brought about her problems. "None of this will matter soon enough," Barbara told herself. The Yellowstone Supervolcano was only a few hundred miles away, overdue for a large eruption. Barbara asked herself what difference this would all make after the western portion of the United States had been covered in volcanic ash that would make the insides of everyone's lungs turn to concrete. "Autumn Breeze Bites x10 gazillion," Barbara told herself. "What possible power can TS have over such destruction?" Barbara's thoughts were consumed by the television program she had recently viewed on the Discovery Channel. In her dreams, she saw Jorge's lifeless body mangled by a molasses flow, and then she saw herself running naked in front of a mountain of lava, screaming at the tops of her lungs as her eyebrows and pubic hair burst into flames.

Chapter 65


Chapter 65
The Yellowstone Supervolcano weighed heavily on Barbara's mind, but it didn't stop her from going about her usual activities. She would not be at work that day but there were plenty of things she could do around the house to occupy her time. After getting out of bed at about 12:30, she busied herself scrubbing the cookie pans. This time she remembered to set the oven to 350, a perfect temperature for chicken nuggets, something she had in abundance. By the time she was finished scrubbing her pans, the oven was ready to receive her luncheon items-- 16 chicken nuggets, a frozen bean burrito and a piece of boiled ham covered in some kind of phyllo and stuffed with cheese -- Barbara saved the cheese-stuffed ham with phyllo for special occasions. The secretary had given her a hard time on the phone that morning. Barbara felt the need to treat herself to something special. "Maseratis need a lot more pampering than a Toyota," she told herself in a comforting tone, remembering a line from one of her favorite movies. Half an hour later, luncheon was ready. She sat down at her kitchen table with her favorite fork, bottle of ketchup, and the latest issue of the Arizona Republic that she had lifted from the neighbor's front porch early that morning upon her return from dropping of her filthy microwave at the library. Barbara crunched on her chicken nuggets and ham between bites of bean burrito. She thumbed through the newspaper, licking the corners of her mouth and dabbing with her napkin at the odd spots of ketchup that had collected on her cheeks, nose, and forehead. Buried deep in the "other news" section, she located a story about a study carried out by researchers in Hong Kong, who had measured the flaccid penises of several hundred men from different cultures. The article, "Chinese Men Measure up Below the Belt," was read by Barbara with great interest. According to the article, the Chinese measurements were less than other cultures studied, but not by a statistically significant margin. Barbara dismissed that part of the story and went right to the end, where it was revealed that Italians were the most gifted of all men in the study. Barbara finished her last bit of phyllo ham, wiped her mouth, and reached for the phone to call her travel agent. "Buon giorno, signore," she practiced as she waited for an answer. "So much for my Spanish lessons," she thought to herself as she waited. Finally, she hung up the phone in frustration and hoofed it on down to the agency as fast as her spindly legs would carry her.
Chapter 66
Barbara soon tired of waiting for the travel agent, who seemed intent on typing away with her ear to the phone. Her travel agent was an odd sort of woman, rubenesque and buxom, and in need of a new wardrobe. Barbara crinkled her nose in disapproval.
"Is this going to take much longer?" Barbara interrupted. "I have to get home-- Wheel of Fortune is on in 20 minutes." The travel agent looked over her glasses at Barbara and told her that it would take as long as it would take. "This is highly intricate and complicated work," she remarked to Barbara. So, BLW sat in her chair, stewing away, watching the clock as it ticked ever closer to the "Wheel of Fortune" time. "It figures that I forgot to set my VCR," Barbara pouted to herself, continuing to eye the travel agent's oddly-shaped body. Barbara began to daydream as she stared at the rotund agent. Seated in that chair, she resembled Blanche Hudson, of "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" fame, only much, much heavier. Barbara imagined the old fustilugs in a specially-built wheelchair with an extra-wide, reinforced seat and extreme high pressure tires. "How much longer," Barbara finally demanded. "Look," the corpulent travel agent paltered, "these things take time."
"Of which I have none," answered Barbara. She returned her bourbon flask to her Star Wars purse and rose to leave the agency. Barbara didn't realize that she was sowing dragon's teeth. The travel agent was related to one of Barbara's closest friends at the library. This brazen impertenence would forever be remembered as a casus belli by the monstrously fat travel agent, who was gorgonized by Barbara's effrontery. At this point, though, Barbara cared not about the situation; she had exactly 10 minutes to get home before the wheel started spinning without her.
Chapter 67
"I'm leaving here and right now!" Barbara grunted as she pushed her weight against the door. "I've got so many things to do-- there's the Wheel in nine minutes and after that I need to go to Walmart to buy a metric ruler. How am I supposed to know what it means that Italians average 26.2 cm? I have to know what that is in inches." The door slammed hard on her backside as she exited, leaving the travel agent high and dry and the Alitalia representative on the other end of the line very angry indeed.
Barbara burst through the door of her house two minutes after Wheel of Fortune had started. They were already partway through the first puzzle. She threw her purse down and plopped onto the couch. There was no time to wash up until the first commercial. She cooed and gurgled as she tried to sound out that word before the contestants on television could get it right. She reached for the candy dish but it was empty. "That f'ing agent!" Barbara cursed. If she had done her job properly, I would have had plenty of time to fix my favorite snacks before the Wheel started spinning!"
Finally a commercial came on and Barbara would have time to climb atop the R200, wash her hands and get some snacks before the program resumed. As she was drying her hands on her kitchen curtains, she suddenly had an idea. The Berlitz School! She could learn Italian in no time there. Of course, Barbara required a very specialized Italian since she had no interest in polite conversation with them whatsoever. She was going to Italy for one thing, and one thing only. "I wonder how you say, 'I'm a dirty girl' in Italian?" she said aloud as she filled her M&Ms bowl.

Chapter 68
Barbara soon fell into a daydream about spaghetti and meaty Italian men with itchy pinching fingers. It wasn't long after that that she came off her M&Ms sugar high. She grew tired and fell asleep on her couch, one leg touching the floor and the other on the top of the back of the couch. A small dab of spittle containing a few tiny pieces of M&M candy shell dried at the corner of her mouth as she slept, causing her tongue to dart out from her mouth from time to time in an attempt to loosen the crust. She fell into a deep yet restless sleep, her vivid dream imagination running amok on sugar and estrogen. She found herself wandering in the desert, looking for a bathroom. She had a strong and urgent sense to use the facilities, but none were to be found. She began to crouch in the sand when she looked up and saw a huge gathering of people in robes, carrying all of their belongings with them on carts drawn by oxen. The mélange was coming closer to her, chanting and yelling something that she couldn't make out. She turned to run from them and saw a huge mountain in her way. In the distance, a strange, saccharine music was playing. She began to walk quickly to get away from the throng, heading up the mountain, in desperate need of bathroom facilities that were not in full view of thousands of probing eyes. The crowd stopped at the foot of the mountain as if they were not allowed to go further. BLW continued her climb, the saccharine music getting louder as she went higher up the mountain. Finally she rounded a corner out of sight of the crowd below. There, to her surprise, was a top of the line Toto toilet, gleaming white with radiance. The music seemed to be coming from inside the bowl. She slowly approached the apparatus, clearly with the intention to use it as a depository for several pounds of digested peanut M&Ms, when suddenly the lid rose and the toilet spoke to her. "I am the Lord, thy Toilet," it boomed as it began to glow yellow and white. Fire rose in a column from the bowl and swirled around, and Barbara had to fall back lest she be burnt to a crisp. "I have 10 Commandments for you!" the toilet bowl echoed as thunder crashed. Lightning began zapping the side of the mountain as the commandments were read out, each commandment glowing red-hot until it cooled. Saccharine music blared as more thunder crashed, and BLW realized that she no longer needed to use the loo.

Chapter 69

Barbara rubbed her head and cringed. She knew that something had gone terribly wrong with her senses. Why was she on a mountain? What was with this talking toilet? She thought back to her gestalt therapy from 1994, the year she had been psychologically devastated by "The Great OCR Scare of '94," during which her cataloging abilities were all but lost. Not long afterward, Babz was forced to seek work elsewhere. "Stop fixating on that toilet," she told herself sternly. "What does this incident mean as a whole?"

When she awoke she decided to see the doctor before leaving on a get-pinched trip to Italy. She waited for 20 minutes on the phone before she was able to make an appointment. Then she was forced to try to explain the reason why she wanted to see the doctor. After all that, the doctor's next opening was in 2007. "Fine," blw said, grinding her teeth, "have him call me if he gets a cancellation." And she hung up to the gurgling sound of her stomach churning... Even though blw's hair was a rat's nest and her clothes were a wrinkled disaster from sleeping all afternoon, the clever call of the KFC Bowls at 36th St. Street and Thomas was able to overpower any urge that she had to spruce up before jumping into her Caprice Classic. She drove straight to the KFC, practically in heat over the idea her favorite KFC Bowl, something that had taken the chicken nugget to a new high by topping it with mashed potatoes, gravy, saurkraut and corn. She greedily esconced herself in a back corner of the KFC with her treasure, thinking that nothing could spoil the moment-- until suddenly she was racked with abdominal pain and the telltale signs of impending gunite-like diarrhea-- the kind that would make it a race to see if she could get home fast enough. Only two things caused this type of problem for her-- KFC Bowls and Italian food. Halfway in her mad dash home, her cell phone rang. It was Dr. Crampedstyle with an opening for her that afternoon. Blw wasted no time; she went straight to the doctor's office and finished her KFC Bowl in the bathroom there. The doctor didn't have good news for Barbara. She would have to have a double-barrelled transverse colostomy at once if she ever hoped to eat another KFC Bowl or plate of spaghetti-- and the doctor had even worse news-- if she didn't get herself "fixed" before heading to Italy, the strong finger action of the male Italian pinch on the backside that Barbara so looked forward to would likely open the flood gates on her potential suitor. Barbara could deal with the bruises-- but could the Italian men deal with the consequences?

Chapter 70

Barbara limped out the bathroom and tossed her KFC bowl into the trash can. Then she sat down in the waiting room until her name was called. The doctor's waiting room was a collection of hoi polloi and rabble. Snotty-nosed kids, coughing and hacking tattoo-laden adults with oozing pustules, and scantily-clad women who insisted on showing cleavage AND crack. On the wall, a television was tuned to some kind of afternoon Jerry Springer nonsense. Barbara watched the screen intently as she picked the last remants of chicken nugget from her teeth with a plastic fork. Her stomach rumbled ominously, the first claps of thunder that signaled a late afternoon tempest was brewing in the tartarean depths of her very fatigued bowel-- a bowel that was already stressed to its limit from years of abuse from the likes of KFC and Taco Bell. She shifted on her chair in the waiting room, uncomfortable and cranky...

Chapter 71

"Screw this," she said to herself after 40 minutes of waiting, during which she had seen and heard the door to the examining rooms open and close incessantly, but the nurse on the other side never called out her name. As far as Barbara was concerned, 40 minutes was plenty long to wait, especially given the warning signs from her blistered digestive system. "If I leave now," she reasoned to herself, "I might just get home before all hell breaks loose." Barbara rose from her seat and headed gingerly for the door, realizing that with each step she was testing the limits of her sphincter, which if compromised would issue forth an avalanche of partially-digested KFC sludge from her bowel. She took three more steps for the door.

"Barbara! Where do you think you're going?" the receptionist said in an annoyed tone. "We need your copayment." Barbara lumbered toward the receptionist, angry that she was forced to take six more of the limited number of steps she had left before her incontinence reached fruition.

"Since I've been her over 40 minutes and haven't been seen yet, I'm leaving," Barbara grumbled, "so there's no need for me to make a copayment!"

"Do you still have the same insurance?" asked the receptionist. "We've lost some of our records and we'll need to make a copy of your insurance card."

Barbara looked at the receptionist and said nothing. She turned on her heal and limped out of the office, even more short-tempered and cranky than she had been when she arrived. The receptionist crinkled her nose in disapproval. "What's that smell?" she asked to no one in particular.

The Jerry Springer-like show droned on as Barbara walked out of the office. She farted silently but violently into the waiting room and closed the door behind her.

Chapter 72

Hoisted by her own petard, Barbara arrived at her Caprice Classic in a fraction of the time it would have taken her without the aid of a KFC afterburner. She was already revving up her engine by the time the patients in her doctor's waiting room began to feel the effects of her toxic flatulence. Within seconds, everyone in the waiting room had passed out cold. Alarmed, the receptionist rose and opened the glass window between her office and the waiting room to see what was the matter. For a brief moment, her senses were sent reeling from the stench. Then, her lifeless body slumped halfway through the window into the waiting room as her head hit the wall with a thud on the other side. A trickle of blood ran from her lips and collected in a pool on the carpet. From inside the doctor's office, patients, nurses and doctors alike began to cough and wheeze as the deadly gas dispersed through the air system. They had only moments to live.

Oblivious and perhaps uncaring, BLW drove home free of excess gas, light as a feather, and unaware of the fact that the Colonel would one day be implicated on charges of involuntary manslaughter.

Chapter 73

BLW returned home to find her air conditioner malfunctioning. In Phoenix, this was no minor inconvenience. She got straight onto the blower and called for a technician, who came out within 45 minutes. He tinkered with the unit for about an hour before leaving Barbara a $125.00 bill. "I've done a patch," he explained to the ever-skeptical Barbara. "It ought to keep the house at least five degrees cooler." For BLW, this was but bitter icing on an unpalatable cake. "This won't do!" she thundered, stamping her foot and spitting. She began a tirade that she could not finish; her emotions boiled over and she was without words for first time in her life. She glared menacingly at the repair man and shook violently with rage. Finally, overcome by a severe bout of nostomania, she retreated to her bathroom and locked the door behind her, leaving the repair man alone in the living room, his mouth half-open. The lukewarm air from Barbara's malfunctioning air conditioner blew softly across the beads of sweat that had collected on his partially exposed buttocks. He gathered his things and headed for the door when he nocticed that Barbara's freezer door was ajar. In the hope of finding a ice for a cold drink of water, he happened upon Barbara's stash of chicken nuggets and a baby food jar with something in it that looked to him like homemade pork rind. "There's only one left anyway," he reasoned to himself. "She'll never miss it." He opened the jar and popped the frozen rind into his mouth, resting it lightly on his tongue until it could soften up enough to be edibile. After a minute of so of chewing, he decided that it didn't taste good and he spat it into the kitchen sink and left, letting Barbara's screen door slam hard on the way out. The slamming of the door brought Barbara to her senses. She stood up and glanced at herself briefly in the mirror. The foam around her mouth reminded her of her poor, sainted dog from the early '80s, whose head had been run over by a Pinto full of Mexicans. She marched defiantly out of the bathroom and into her living room, dabbing away the froth of tantrum spittle from the corners of her mouth with cheap, one-ply toilet paper from Walmart. There she saw the trail of the repairman's dirty feet leading into the kitchen, where his grubby fingerprints were left all over her freezer door. She threw open the door and surveyed the damage. "Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty," she counted. No, none of her frozen bags of chicken nuggets was missing. Then she saw the opened baby food jar on the counter. A look of horror overtook her. "Oh my gawd!" she squaked. "Jorge's foreskin!"

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Barbara fell to her knees and surveyed the tiles in her kitchen to see if she could find the foreskin. It was nowhere to be found. "Sweet Jeezus!" she yelped, her body convulsing into fits of hysteria. Then she looked into the kitchen sink and found the last remnant of Jorge, looking like a dead nightcrawler, one swoosh of water away from the disposal. Barbara felt wave after wave of panic washing over her drained and useless body. She fanned herself with her hands but it didn't help. Finally she reached up to open the window in front of her kitchen sink, pushing it up to reveal a tattered screen in desperate need of repair. The sight of the holes and tatter repulsed Barbara, who didn't wish to live in in the projects, but rather pictured herself as a respectable resident of Pile Estates West. Just as she attempted to reach for the foreskin, there was a fluttering and crashing at her kitchen window. A large, foul-tempered mockingbird swooped through the holes in her screen and snatched the wormlike foreskin from Barbara's sink before she could react. The bird left with its prize as Barbara watched in despair. "Goddamn you!" she blurted out as the bird flew off to the neighbor's yard to ingest the remains of Jorge.

BLW was gobsmacked, again. She cried softly to herself, weeping cool tears of remorse and intense emotional pain. "Why couldn't I have been a lesbian?" she sobbed, clenching her tiny fist and waving it into the face of God.

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In her stupor of turmoil, she suddenly became hungry, but not for chicken nuggets. What she needed was the superb comfort food, a KFC bowl with extra cheese topping and a biscuit. Alone and desperate for affection, she piled herself into her Caprice Classic and rumbled down 24th Street to Indian School Road, where she made a left and then another quick left into the KFC parking lot. Upon arrival, she sneezed violently and then burped into her hanky. Once inside the KFC, the smell of the bowls overpowering her with lust in her weakened condition, she reached into her pocket to discover that she had left her pocketbook at home. Ravenous, she hobbled outside the KFC and inched surreptitiously toward the dumpster, where she could smell the leftovers of chicken and KFC bowls. With any luck there would be a half-eaten biscuit among the rubbish. Unfortunately, the dumpster was taller than she was, so she stood on the front fender of an old Toyota and leaned over the edge of the dumpster to see what treasures she could find within. Jackpot! A partially eaten KFC bowl was wedged between an overturned styrofoam bowl of runny cole slaw and two gnawed chicken leg bones. If she could just reach it-- She inched closer and closer to the bowl, her body balanced ever so delicately on the edge of the dumpster, her head just inches above the garbage line and her legs dangling loosely on the other side. Finally she was able to reach the bowl. She grabbed at it with gusto as she toppled headfirst into the trash. Her momentum took her straight to the bottom of the pile as she hit her head on the steel bottom. She fell unconscious, a smile on her face and bits of corn and mashed potato in her hair.

Chapter 76

Barbara awoke to the sound of flashing lights and beeping sounds. Suddenly, her dumpster lurched forward, tossing her about like a piece of ham in a big trash salad. It was Tuesday morning. Trash day. "Help me!" BLW screamed as loud as her voice could manage. Luck was with her that day. The garbage truck's mechanical lift malfunctioned and the garbage men were forced to lower the dumpster back to the ground. Barbara managed to pull herself up to the top of the dumpster and peer over the side. She waved her tiny arms and yelled as she fell over the top and onto the ground. Bits of rubbish fell with her and covered her filthy body. Weak, she attempted to get up. She collapsed in exhaustion. Surely the garbage men would take notice of her flailing appendages, she thought to herself. Unfortunately for BLW, the garbage men had been trained at the Gestalt School of Garbage. All they saw in front of them was a big pile of garbage. The lift started anew, and Barbara knew she had to get out. Using an empty plastic tub of Septic Helper for a helmet, she rolled herself over and over until she was free of the garbage. With all her strength, she stood up and shook her tiny, slime-encrusted fist at the men in the truck. "God damn you to hell!" she shouted.

Finally, one of the garbage men took notice of the red-faced, pathetic creature who stood before their truck, shaking a tiny fist and shouting obscenities. "Oh, my God!" shouted the driver, his face crinkling into a scowl, "That's BLW! She put my sister's eye out!" And with that, he threw the truck into gear, determined to run Barbara down in her tracks...

Actually, Barbara had not personally put out the eye of the garbage truck driver's sister, but her disruptive behavior at a pro-life rally in Oklahoma had been at fault for the mishap. One summer in 1994 as Barbara drove cross-country in a borrowed Ford Pinto, she became enraged at a "Hands Across America" pro-life bus when it cut her off on its way to a big rally in Ponca City. An avid and vocal pro-choice supporter, BLW became more and more angry as she followed the bus, on the back of which was displayed a picture of an aborted baby's head on a stick. So outraged was Barbara by the tasteless picture and the idea of a busload of holier-than-thou dimwits with big hair and fascist tendencies that she ran her Pinto into the back of the bus and it exploded, knocking the bus off the road. Barbara was saved by a garlic-breathed lesbian paramedic who used the Jaws of Life to rescue her. Mary Alice Fauxpas was not so lucky. She was a passenger on the Ponca City-bound bus when BLW's exploding Pinto impacted the undercarriage. Cursed with extraordinarily large breasts that lactated day and night, Mary Alice was on her way to the rally to volunteer to wet nurse unwanted babies that would have otherwise been aborted. When Barbara's car exploded, Mary Alice was in the middle of changing bras. The loose strap flew about wildly and hit her square in the eye. The damage was irreparable.

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But Barbara was not to be run over that day. "You sons-a-bitches!" she yelled at the truck as it thundered past, nearly smashing her Chinese-slippered foot. BLW tucked and rolled her way to safety before the truck could back up. She disappeared between the dumpster and the KFC building and ran down the street, the beeping sounds of the truck backing up growing fainter in the distance. Near the corner of 24th Street and Campbell, she dropped to the sidewalk panting and wheezing, and finally vomited a small amount into the gutter as a full-length limo glided past to make a right turn onto Campbell. The limo stopped and a tall man in a stetson hat and white country-western wear stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of BLW's prostrate body "Let me help you up there, little lady!" he boomed in a strong Texas drawl. "Looks like you're plumb tuckered out!" T. Boon Prickens, urinal cake magnate and first-class dirty old man stood before Barbara, enchanted and engorged. He helped Barbara to her feet. Bits of vomit and spittle dripped down the front of her dirty, fried chicken- encrusted polyester blouse that had become see-through and threadbare after her dumpster folly. Her tattered bra was visible through the rips and tears of her ensemble. The old Texans' eyes gleamed at the thought of disrobing a helpless bag lady. Dirt and poverty tittilated the old Texas coot, who had defiled his undergarments more than once during his drives through south Phoenix. He oggled Barbara openly, and though slightly annoyed at his presumption, BLW refrained from her usual vitriolic explosions. In truth Barbara had never been easy, but she had faced the fact that at this point she couldn't give it away. She considered pandering to the old fart to see what it would give her, but she decided that the nasty smell coming from his nether regions was not worth the chance. Money or not, he was disgusting, falling short of even Barbara's low expectations of Texans.

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Suddenly, there came a whiff of KFC from the south. Barbara lifted her nose into the air and gazed back down the street toward the smell of fried chicken Picking up on this, T. Boon offered her a ride in his limo to the KFC, along with a small monetary compensation for the opportunity to escort her. Overcome with hunger and slaver, Barbara tried to overlook the pixilated old fart's gnarled fingers that groped in vain under her tattered blouse for a way to remove her brassiere before the limo arrived at KFC. BLW was not stupid; she took the old coot's money before she stepped into the limo, careful to scrape the vomit off of her shoe before entering the vehicle. T. Boon ordered the doors to be locked and the limo to be driven slowly down the street on its way to KFC, where he hoped that Barbara would invite him to watch her devour a KFC bowl in the privacy of the limo. BLW had other plans. When the limo finally reached the chicken place, T. Boon removed his finger from her blouse and graciously let her out of the car. "Please return with your bowl," he requested, sniffing his finger and drawing it across his lips. "No, thank you," BLW retored and walked immediately into KFC, leaving T. Boon to his finger sniffing. Not long after that, a bag lady rode up on a rickety bicycle, looking for garbage to recycle. Barbara was forgotten in an instant. As Barbara guttled her KFC bowl, oblivious to the goings on around her, the limo pulled away, T. Boon's head engulfed by a dirty blouse.

When Barbara finshed her meal, she looked up to notice that she had attracted the attention of several other people in the restaurant. Her appearance was beyond awful. It was time to go home. As she walked out into the street, an ominous siren wailed in the distance. It was a Stage V Sewer Alert, and BLW knew that it was only a matter of time before the city attemped to shut off the water.

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Barbara knew that she was safe with her incineration toilet. She licked the last bits of fried chicken from her fingers and prepared to walk home. Suddenly, there arose a commotion behind the KFC counter. "We're out of original recipe!" BLW could hear Spanish voices above the din, and frantic KFC workers buzzed about like bees, opening this drawer and that, chattering with an ever-increasing tone of panic. The Sunday lunch rush had arrived and Original Recipe was nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, the drive-thru window was piling up with SUVs full of Evangelical women on their way home from ridiculously long Sunday services, ready to fill their husbands stomachs with artery-clogging chicken and mashed potatoes made from dehyrdrated flakes. The saddest part of the "mashed potatoes" from KFC, as BLW knew only too well, was that once dehydrated, the fiber is all but gone. The Evangelical husbands had to rely on Metamucil tablets and lemon-essence prunes in order to finish moving the cholesterol-laden, trans-fat packing chicken flesh through their gassy, unresponsive bowels.

"Ay, dios! pues no tenemos original! De hoy en adelante, Extra Crispy es oficialmente Original!" barked the store manager. Just tell them the Extra Crispy is Original, she said. BLW was shocked at what she heard. The Berlitz classes were still with her-- the ones she had taken when she was trying to woo Jorge. Unfortunately for Barbara, most of her situational Berlitz Spanish classes were business-related and did not help her with her misguided attempts to talk to Jorge about foreskin removal. It also did little to help in warning him about molasses flows when he had his back turned in the bathroom... but it did help BLW understand what was going on in the KFC. She marched up to the counter and offered her assistance. As the Spanish-speakers panicked, they began filling all the buckets with all-dark Extra Crispy and sides of macaroni and cheese and Mexican beans, even though most of the Evangelicals had specifically requested all-white, Original recipe chicken with the traditional sides of mashed potatoes and cole slaw. BLW grabbed the red phone and dialed the head office immediately. She explained in English what was going on and a large truck soon arrived with huge plastic bags filled with chicken pieces and several gallons of hydrogenized lard. To the KFC employees, BLW seemed like a Miracle Worker. Where there had been no Original Recipe, now there was aplently. It was a genuine Loaves and Fishes story, starring BLW, whose cholesterol was spiking at 422 one hour after her ingestion of her KFC bowl. By this time, Barbara was sporting a red cape and a red and white blouse with the KFC symbol on it. "I could really use shower," she thought to herself as she once again heard the Sewer Alert siren blaring. "I'm going home to take a bath, and if the city gets upset about my water use, they can just go straight to hell."

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Just as Barbara walked out the door of the KFC, she heard an SUV's tires screech. Immediately the SUV began to back up to the take-out window, oblivious to the fact that another Lincoln Navigator had already occupied the spot. There was a loud crash as the back of a Suburban met the front of a Navigator. Both drivers jumped out of their respective SUVs and began shouting at each other. The two simmered down after a couple of minutes and began talking in earnest, pointing and gesticulating at the KFC building, one woman brandishing an extra crispy drumstick in her hand. It turns out that the first woman who had backed her Suburban into the Navigator had just discovered that she had a bucket full of extra crispy legs and thighs with Mexican beans and corn-on-the-cob-- not what she ordered. The Navigator opened her barrel of chicken and discovered the same thing. Both had of course ordered Original Recipe All-White chicken. They shook their fists in disgust at the non-native English speakers behind the KFC counter and headed toward the door. Horns in the drive-thru line began honking, as Evangelical Christian tempers had been pushed to the limit. Eventually, other Evanglicals got out of their cars and began pouring into the KFC to see what was going on. Barbara realized that she needed to help-- not because of any Good Samaritan tendencies on her part, but because Evangelicals were anathema to her and she couldn't stand them. The thought of their plight inspired Barbara to do a few small pirouettes as she approached the front door, as if she had been stricken with tarantism. Still clad in her red cape and KFC blouse, she bounded through the front door, clapping her hands and yelling "hold it! hold it" a la Fred Flintstone. When the clamor in the KFC had quieted somewhat, BLW hoisted herself onto the front counter and stood above the angry crowd. "We just got the white meat in," she huffed, shaking her finger at churchwomen. "You'll just have to wait! What's wrong with dark meat, anyway?" This did nothing to slake the Evangelical women, who knew that their husbands soon would be through counting the Sunday morning collection and would be home expecting the usual KFC chicken breast, dehydrated potatoes and gravy mix and finely-chopped cole slaw. "And canned peaches for dessert," BLW thought to herself.

"We want WHITE meat now!" the crowd chanted, stamping their chunk heels and open-toed shoes into the tile. BLW was not amused. She promised the crowd white meat within 20 minutes, then disappeared into the bathroom, eager to defy the Sewer Alert.

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After her bathroom break, she emerged refreshed and sneaked quietly out the back door, the crowd still up in arms at the front counter. She dashed down the street to St. Agnes Parish, where plastic, glow-in-the-dark rosaries were always given away free to any willing taker. BLW scooped up a large handful and then hoofed it back to the KFC, where she entered through the back door and appeared suddenly in the back kitchen. The workers were hastily frying the white pieces in the bubbling fat. The empty buckets were lined up in a row awaiting their charge of white meat Original Recipe. BLW dropped a glow-in-the-dark rosary into each bucket, cackling to herself at the shock the Evangelicals would find when they opened their bucket to find that a Mary Worshipper had been there. As soon as the chicken was done, it was quickly thrown into buckets and sent on its way to the front counter, where the Evangelical women had become desperate. As the Evangelicals grabbed their chicken and ran, BLW paraded out of the KFC and headed home, where she intended to draw herself a hot bath in an abusive and profligate use of city water during a sewer alert. Barbara knew that there was a good chance that the water would be turned off, but she also knew that her reserve water reservoir and heater would still have plenty of water for her bath. The city's gripe would be in the release of that water into a sewage system that was taxed well beyond its means. Ever since Pile Estates had doubled in size and thrown out its age restriction policy, more houses had come online and large families of the non English-speaking variety had moved in. BLW knew that their bean-intensive, high-fiber diet was the real problem for the sewer system. Even her sainted Jorge, she imagined, with his slim body, had probably filled the sewers with half his body weight daily. "It's their fault we're having this sewer alert, " she thought to herself angrily. "Those people just don't know when to stop. It's probably a good thing we took half their territory away from them. They'd never have the resources to put in the sewage lines." This got her to thinking about Jorge again and the fact that all traces of him were now gone, thanks to that damned mockingbird. Upon her arrival home, she filled her tub to overflowing with hot water, rose petals, lotus juice and dried peppermint leaves. She settled into the tub with a pencil and a piece of scratch paper, upon which she composed a monody to Jorge, whilst she wept warm, salty tears into the bathwater.

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BLW emerged from her bath, refreshed but with very puffy eyes. She placed "Monody to Jorge" in a space on her bookshelf between a cookbook and a high school yearbook from the '70s. Chortling softly to herself, she released the bath tub plug and let the water cascade through the pipes and into the severely-taxed sewer system. Not more than two minutes after her tub had emptied, a siren wailed in the distance at the sewage treatment plant. BLW walked calmly to her waterbox and closed the watertight doors from the city system to her house. "Oh, that's better," she cooed to herself as she luxuriated in the feeling of cleanliness. She decided to slip under the covers of her bed and enjoy it. Twenty minutes later, after an intense and pleasureful respite beneath her covers, she arose from her bed and headed for the kitchen with an incredible urge for something to eat. Often after her bed sessions she would reach for her bag of frozen broccoli/cauliflower and microwave herself a big bowl of it with butter on top. She feasted on the broccoli until she was gorged, at which point she decided that she needed dessert. The broccoli was not resting well in her stomach after the KFC earlier in the day. A nice creme-brulee would soothe her rumbling bowel, she thought. Unfortunately, with all of her drains sealed off by the watertight doors, she was unable to use her own kitchen. Aware of the fact that her neighbors next door were in their vacation home in Eloy, she loaded up her creme-brulee equipment and headed next door, passing broccoli gas as whe went. The flatulence became worse as she reached for the neighbors' hidden door key under their welcome mat. "Heavens!" BLW said as she stood back up and opened the door, "that broccoli is really doing a number on me." She continued with her problem as she mixed her creme-brulee and washed her dishes in the neighbors' sink, uncaring of the fact that the drains were beginning to back up. Finally the sugar was on the creme-brulee, ready for caramelization. She ignited her caramelizer to a blinding fash of blue light and an explosion that rattled the house to its foundation and shattered the glass in the kitchen window. BLW stood over the creme-brulee, holding a torch, her face scorched and her glasses hanging from one ear. Her stomach rumbled ominously yet again. Undeterred, she lowered the torch to the sugar and caramelized her brulee. With trembling hands, she looked piously upon her dessert creation. As sewer sirens blared throughout the city and police cars and fire trucks rumbled past on the street outside, BLW stood in awe of her creme brulees. "A domino factum est et mirabile in oculis nostris" she said reverently, "This is the Lord's doing, and it is beautiful in our eyes."

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BLW ate most of the crème brûlées in relative silence, with the exception of the periodic release of methane gases, which was completely normal for her. As she slowly polished off the last dessert, she began to think about where her life was going and why she was standing in the neighbor's half-destroyed kitchen with a dessert spoon hanging from her open mouth. She gathered her brûlée equipment and headed home, sirens blaring in the distance and rumbling sounds emanating from beneath the manhole covers in the middle of the street. She closed the door on the rest of the world and settled into her easy chair after a short visit atop the R200. For some reason she thought back a couple of years two one of her meetings with the braless one at work, that epigone of Aristotle, Gaston Zossou and Madame Defarge. Barbara imagined the braless one, with her repellant attitude and fake, oxiginated hair parading about in drag at gay bars under the name "Madame de la Poubelle." Barbara belched, coughed and farted in succession, laughing at her own joke. She lifted her picture of Jorge and smiled. "Oh, pigsney," she sighed. "Where did we go wrong?"

Chapter 84

BLW fell asleep in her chair in front of the television set and awoke two days later in a groggy stupor. "What the hell?" she said, rubbing her eyes and rising from her chair. She opened her curtains to a hellish scene. The manhole covers had all blown off and steam rose from them into the street. Two houses down it was even worse-- the house had burnt to the ground with nothing left standing but the toilet bowl. On it sat a skeleton, the charred remains of a metal cigarrette lighter at its feet. In the distance the sewer alert siren continued to sound. It turned out that in BLW's small section of town, in a line from the Pile Estates to the 24th Street KFC, a serious sewer disaster had taken place. All the homes had been flooded with deadly methane gas. Barbara's house had been spared, thanks to the watertight sewer doors that she had installed right after she got the R200. Still, some of the gas had seeped into her house, and although it had not killed her, it had put her into a deep sleep and had shut down her bowel. Upon the realization that she had been sleeping for two days, BLW pulled the staircase up to the R200 and climbed atop with her Reader's Digest. Before she began to read a condensed story she pondered the fates of her neighbors. "They must not think I care not for their well-being," she said to no one in particular. She wondered if anyone needed help. She shifted and belched. The thought gone from her head, she went back to her reading, but that day it was not only the city plumbing that was not working properly, but BLW's own as well. Disgusted with the poor quality of writing in her condensed novel, she threw it into the depths of the R200 and prepared to incinerate it. "How can 'A Tale of Two Cities' be condensed into 24 pages?" she groused as she flicked on the incineration switch. To Barbara's dismay, nothing happened when she flicked the switch. Again she threw the switch, but there was nothing but a pathetic, tired clunking from the R200's insides. "Well, I have used it quite a lot lately," BLW grumbled. As she stood quaking, her thighs pulsating with anger, she became acutely aware that the activity of climbing up and down on the R200 had reactivated her bowel. Relief would need to come soon, and with the Phoenix sewer alert going on and the sad state of her back yard, the camping toilet was not an option. She yearned for a more luxurious evacuation. Locking the door behind her, she fired up her Caprice Classic and headed for Scottsdale, where the sewer system was working perfectly. "I've always wanted to use the toilets at Nieman Marcus," she told herself as she fastened her seat belt over her whimpering abdomen.

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BLW arrived at Scottsdale Fashion Square only to discover that she was 15 minutes too early. Nieman Marcus was not yet open. She considered driving over to Nordstrom but decided against it. She waited in front of the lowered grate for Nieman Marcus to open. She could see salespeople walking about, readying themselves for the high class of public who would soon be making lavish purchases and mindless repartee about their pampered lives. A severe, crippling gas pain racked her body from head to toe. For one, pain-filled and excrutiating instant, Barbara considered releasing her troubles in the public restroom at the Food Court instead of waiting for the snooties at Nieman Marcus to roll up their prententious grate. All the other stores were open-- what made Nieman Marcus so goddamned special? She pursed her lips together tightly and exhaled; the gas turned back toward the peppery depths of her viscera and gave her momentary relief. Soon, the grate was raised and Barbara flooded into the store, desperately looking for a restroom sign, but none was to be found in this understated and overpriced store. In an attempt to blend in, BLW tried to pass herself off as a legitimate Nieman Marcus customer. She stopped at one of the cosmetic counters to try an expensive brand of lipstick. As she was applying the product to her chapped lips in the mirror, another and even more severe gas pain struck her. Crinkling her face, she lost control of the lipstick and drew a mauve line from her upper lip, up the side of her nose to her forehead, which slammed forcefully into the glass of the cosmetic counter, greatly startling Millicent, the page-boy coiffed woman behind the counter. She looked disdainfully at Barbara. It was obvious that BLW did not belong in a posh, exclusive store like Nieman Marcus. She lifted the receiver of her white slimline telephone to call security. BLW turned and reached for a penny on the floor, releasing the cause of her intense pain. A lethal, brownish mist engulfed Millicent; she slumped lifelessly behind the cosmetics counter. BLW regained her composure and continued her quest for the opulent Nieman Marcus restroom. Finally she located the ladies' room and slipped inside to luxuriate and rid her body of the poisonous brew that steeped within her galled gut. Alone in the ladies' room, she had a few moments to think about the goings on of the previous days-- the KFC ordeal; the sewer alert; the obsequious prattlings of the Channel 12 news crew. The very thought of their patronizing and sycophantic "news" program turned BLW's sensitive stomach. She retched and slumped forward on the toilet seat, the disgusting thought of the 12 news team pushing her inexorably toward emesis. Groaning, she passed out for a few moments, only to be awakened by an apparition on the stall door in front of her. On it appeared the visage of an emaciated Asian woman shaking her head in feigned concern about gang violence in a part of town in which she had never set foot. The moving image played out on the stall door like an 8 millimeter film. BLW agonized as wave after wave of nausea washed over her person, threatening to extinguish the very fire of her soul. "I cannot survive another 20 minutes of this woman," Barbara cringed, trying to shift herself on the toilet seat.

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BLW languished on the expensive toilet seat until cockshut time, her prayers for relief unanswered. God had turned his back on her, leaving her to suffer in the titivated department store restroom. Apparently no one who entered was inclined to help BLW; it was not polite to linger at the "comfort station" long enough to take stock of what was going on behind a stall door. The emaciated visage of the Channel 12 news anchor once again appeared on the wall in front of Barbara. "Rise up from that seat and walk," it commanded. Barbara felt sickened at the sight of the insincere face. She had visions of it appearing on movie screens unexpectedly. BLW could hear clearly the screems of frightened movie goers as they stampeded toward the vomitoria, eventually pouring out into the streets like frightened ants, running for their lives from the 12 News anchorwoman, whose words were a poisoned broth of pretense and superficiality. How Barbara loathed her! The last appartion hastened the elimination of the final remnants of KFC sludge from her system; BLW was de novo continent and lucid. She took the last of the toilet paper and wiped the sweat from her brow. Then, deflty, she removed a small screwdriver from her purse and wrested the spare rolls of paper from the storage bin. She stuffed them into her purse and rose from the seat, walking gingerly from the stall as her buttocks had long since gone to sleep. The voice and vision of the anchorwoman were gone, flushed away to the sewer along with several pounds of undigestible KFC fare. Renewed, BLW emerged from the restroom and entered the light of Nieman Marcus.