At the stroke of 7 AM, as was her custom, OH thrust her door open and stepped outside, inhaling briskly.
"Ah, smell that fresh country air."
A few feet away, a sheep looked up placidly and belched. Doing her part to reduce greenhouse gases, OH had fired the lad who mowed her lawn and replaced him with a herd of sheep.
"Best choice I ever made", OH said, beaming at the wooly faces turned in her direction. The ruminating herd fertilized the grass as they ate, a benefit that pleased OH to no end. She carefully picked her way to an as yet unfertilized patch of grass and began her morning calisthenics. As she bent at the waist, straightened and swiveled to the side, OH chanted, in time to her movements, an ode to manure:
"Man-u-ray, hey! Oh man-u-ray!"
She had nearly finished her routine when Henny Fargo's door banged open and her neighbor stormed across the lawn, her bathrobe flapping wildly.
"What on earth are these--these--"
"Sheep", OH supplied.
"I know what they are, thank you very much!" Henny snapped.
"You're welcome," OH replied. She was happy to be getting along so well with her neighbors.
"What are these eating machines doing here!?"
OH began explaining to Henny how much better for the environment were sheep than gas powered lawn mowers, going into great detail regarding statistics, even drawing a pie chart midair, but Henny interrupted her.
"What I WANT to KNOW is, HOW you are going to keep these THINGS from coming into MY yard and eating my FLOWER GARDEN!?"
After reflecting for a moment that Henny must have an inner ear infection that was affecting her hearing, OH shouted as loudly as she could:
"THAT'S WHAT THESE ARE FOR!" and tossed Henny one of the sheep's electric collars.
Unfortunately for Henny she was standing on the line between her and OH's lawns. Upon receiving the signal, the collar in her hand responded with a tooth rattling shock. Flying out of her slippers, OH's neighbor jumped frantically up and down, yowling like a scalded cat. This violent motion sent her pink curlers popping off her head and as they rained down around her, Henny spat a stream of imprecations at OH.
Of the mostly incoherent diatribe regarding OH's sanity and necessity of a straight jacket, Our Heroine heard only "jacket."
"OOH, YELLOW JACKET GOT YA, EH? THAT CAN BE NASTY. I RECOMMEND APPLYING CRUSHED PLANTAIN LEAVES TO THE AREA."
After delivering this advice, OH made the sign of the cross over the distressed woman.
"Peace be with you" she said.
"And also with you" Henny moaned, responding automatically. Half a second later, the realization that she had blessed her nemesis sent her into another fit of fury, but OH was already bounding toward her front door, sheep scattering fore and aft.
On the way to the office, OH stopped Fergie at the end of her street. She had noticed that the Togue's hydrangea bushes were looking stunted and although she was not well acquainted with the Togues, OH was always willing to help a fellow gardener. Depositing a bag of camel manure in their mailbox, she glanced at the house and was relieved not to see any movement. OH humbly preferred her good deeds to go unrecognized and unreturned.
"Giddap," she told Fergie, and they clopped away at a quick pace.
Later that day, OH pushed a stack of papers away and leaned back in her ergonomic office chair with a sigh of contentment.
"Bureaucracy isn't fun but someone has to do it", she said, though deep down she did enjoy a bit of red tape now and then.
She propped her feet up on a low filing cabinet and surveyed her new office with satisfaction. The space was actually a cubicle separated from the main office of the town hall by a full sized divider. OH did not consider this arrangement satisfactory, as she could hear the town clerk talking or worse, hear the baby she sometimes brought to the office.
To reduce these noises Our Heroine wore a pair of bright orange construction-grade earmuffs as she worked.
Having removed the muffs to listen to voice messages, she caught the clerk's side of a phone conversation.
"Hello, town offices, this is Irveen....You've got what?...Moose droppings in your mailbox? Ugh, that's a new one...Yeah, you're gonna want to call the police, this is the town hall...You're welcome, buh-bye."
Hearing this, a shadow of a thought entered OH's mind and floated around like a spaceship searching for its landing dock, but before it could make contact, Irveen's baby generated a higher decibel shriek than a group of howler monkeys. OH dove under her ear protection once more.
As she did so, OH missed a second phone call that the clerk took, this one more frantic than the first, and she missed this explanation which Irveen hollered at her:
"Jim-Bobby fell off the slide and they took him to the ER. Please watch the baby for me while I'm gone, I'll have my mom pick her up."
All OH knew was that a sodden lump of child was flying through the air at her and its mother was fast disappearing through the door.
"Wait!" she croaked, stumbling to her feet, but when she got to the parking lot Irveen's car was roaring down the road. Sighing, she went back to the office carrying the baby.
"It looks as if your mother has forgotten you. Don't take it personally, anyone might make that mistake. Anyone with a baby, that is." She put the baby down in its playpen.
"She'll probably remember you a few miles down the road and turn around."
OH went back to her office and sat down, but was soon aware of a wailing noise penetrating her earmuffs. Fire drill, she thought, and removed her muffs to be sure. The surprisingly loud noise came from the playpen, not the alarm on the wall.
"By Cuspid! What the blue heck are you screaming for? If you want something, just ask." OH listened for a moment but couldn't make any sense of the racket.
"Apparently I do not understand your language. You'll have to act out what you're trying to say." The baby raised its arms.
"You want to get out of there, is that it?" OH hoisted the child out, and drawing a chair over to her desk, placed the child in it. As soon as she took her hands away it slumped to one side as if it would fall over.
"Whoa, there, Bessie! Looks like you've got a little balance problem, eh? Let's see here..." and she began searching for books with which to prop the child up. The little thing began to wail again. OH glared at it, gritting her teeth.
"You'd better hope there's a patron saint of soggy bottomed brats..." she muttered. Suddenly she snapped her fingers.
"I know, you'd like to see my work, wouldn't you? Right, over on this side of the desk we have files of past litter perp---" OH broke off.
"No offense, but you're a bit on the small side, aren't you? I'll have to give you a boost" and she sat down at her desk with the child on her lap. It stopped crying immediately.
"I knew it! You're really going to enjoy this" OH crowed. "Now this folder contains some very interesting material..." and she began explaining differences between bio-degradable and non-biodegradable litter, life spans of the most common trash and different classifications of recyclables.
OH educated her pupil on the basics of litter detecting for the better part of an hour. One of her exhibits yielded a piece of rubber that the child put in its mouth and sucked on. OH found this behavior somewhat disturbing but broad-mindedly decided not to comment.
Declaring that it was test time, OH put two objects before the child.
"Now class, which piece of litter will degrade faster: the cigar butt or the beer can?"
"Bre-gaat!" the child burbled, slapping her hand on the cigar butt side of the desk. OH beamed.
A grey haired woman appeared, peering around the corner of the divider.
"Hello, I'm Irveen's mother. I've come to pick up Dahlia." The baby held her arms out to her grandmother and chirped.
"Thank you very much for watching her" the woman said, turning to go.
"Madame", OH began. Something, possibly indigestion, was making it difficult for her to speak. She thumped her chest and cleared her throat.
"Madame, it is my opinion that some day that child will be a first class litter investigator."
Chapter Eight
When OH suggested to Good Buddy that they take a vacation, GB required very little time to warm up to the idea.
"Done. Where should we go?"
"Whither thou goest, I will go" OH replied.
"Yes, obviously, but where do you want to go?"
"I was thinking of Tunisia." In a flash of prescience OH saw herself standing outside a tent in the desert, awaiting the arrival of a dark, Rudolph Valentino-like man. A sand storm billowed ominously on the horizon where a dromedary and rider could be seen galloping wildly before the gaping maw of the storm. OH's eyes shone with a wild and spectral gleam.
"Right, where do I want to go then? Tunisia sounds too much like tuna." GB was oblivious to her friend's vision. Fortunately, OH was easily distracted.
"It sounds more like tennis than tuna."
GB frowned. "Tunic then. That's right in the middle."
"Agreed." With that settled, the friends decided to visit a travel agent for help deciding where to go.
At the Innocents Abroad travel agency in downtown Smakalot, the pair eagerly looked through brochures.
"Ooh, New Zealand!" OH breathed. She read aloud: "Travel packages starting at $500 through Aboriginal Airlines."
"That would be interesting. I've heard that the pilots and flight attendants are pygmy Aborigines with bones stuck in their noses."
OH made a disapproving face. "How can one maintain a professional demeanor with a bone sticking out of one's nose?"
Good Buddy wasn't listening. "I think when flights are delayed they eat people", she said.
OH begged to differ. "Only if they're cannibals and they can't all be cannibals or they wouldn't be able to operate an airline."
"I'll bet they could" GB retorted, just for the sake of argument. "Anyway, they either eat or pinch passengers, I can't remember which."
"Awfully unprofessional either way" OH muttered.
"It's all relative." GB sometimes thought that OH's dedication to professionalism was a trifle overdone. She was pleased to fire off what proved to be the parting shot in the conversation before the travel agent opened his door and asked them to come in.
Our Heroine and Good Buddy settled on a 3 day, 4 night cruise on Atlantis, a floating city owned and operated by Libertarians who utilized the ship as an enormous, off shore tax shelter. The travel agent painted a very attractive picture of life aboard Atlantis, assuring them that there were absolutely no rules onboard.
"Everything you do on Atlantis is guaranteed to be guilt free, conscience free and responsibility free. The only price you'll pay is for the cruise itself, ha ha ha!"
A brochure showed groups of happy, heavily armed people basking in the sun, drinking from glasses embossed with the ship's motto: "Live Free or Sink."
OH and GB booked a travel package on the spot and spent the next week in preparation and expectation of the voyage. After several uneventful flights, they arrived at Puerta Seyalayta and embarked on the monstrously huge Atlantis, home to approximately 4,000 libertarians.
At first they found the size of the ship somewhat overwhelming. Within the first hour, though, Our Heroine decided what her mission for the trip must be. She quickly familiarized herself with a map of the decks and found the command center which housed the PA system. She had trouble with one of the ship's officers until she told him she had a life threatening concern that must be addressed by the captain alone. Gaining admission to the room, OH immediately seized the PA handset.
"May I have your attention please, ladies and gentlemen? This is your maritime sanitation engineer." OH's anti-littering admonition, part command, part appeal, was abbreviated by the captain's and first officer's attempts to arrest the handset from her vice-like grasp.
Her last words, fading somewhat as the mouthpiece was wrenched from her, were, "Think of the whales, I beseech you!"
From that moment, OH dedicated the bulk of her time to patrolling the decks, keeping her eagle-eyes trained on potential litter law violators. Her vigilance paid off one bright morning when she spotted a tall red-headed man leaning against the deck rail, smoking a cigarette. OH closed on him as he finished his smoke and prepared to throw the butt into the water.
"Halt, wretch!" OH cried in her most authoritative voice.
The man stared.
"Do you realize that the penalty for dumping in these waters is a fine of 20,000 dollars?"
"I live on this boat, honey. Don't tell me what I can't do." The libertarian said this very pleasantly, smiling broadly at OH. He calmly flicked his cigarette overboard.
"Why, you impudent--!" She began.
"It's called freedom to make choices without intervention. I have the right to litter if I want to, sugar."
Our Heroine wasn't cowed by his propaganda. "What about my right to not have to look at a trashy ocean, hmmm? What about my right not to have to put up with you? Did you ever think about that, hmmm?"
Her voice grew progressively louder toward the end of each sentence. The first "hmmm" was like the buzzing of a hive of killer bees preparing to attack, the second "hmmm" was the sound of a fighter jet roaring full throttle down a runway.
Grinning, the libertarian dangled a chocolate milk bottle over the rail.
OH enunciated her words, saying very clearly and slowly: "If you drop that bottle I will beat you like a red-headed libertarian." The man shook his head, tossed the bottle to OH and walked away chuckling.
Later that day, after eating dinner in the formal dining room, GB and OH watched as couples danced to the music of a mariachi band. Suddenly the red-headed libertarian appeared at their table. He smiled warmly and placed his hand on Our Heroine's shoulder.
"Look, we got off on the wrong foot today", he said.
OH scowled at both of his oversized, pointy-toed cowboy boots. Neither one looked right to her.
"I'm sorry if I made you mad, but I really couldn't tell whether or not you were serious."
"I assure you, it was no joking matter." OH's voice could have iced over the Gulf of Mexico.
"Ha ha! You're a hoot. Would you like to dance?"
"I do not dance with defilers. Let's go, Good Buddy." OH stood and turned her back on the dumbfounded man. Head held high, she glided away like a queen.
In her mind's eye OH gathered her sweeping train in one hand and held it aloft with enviable elegance. In reality, a cloth dinner napkin clung to Our Heroine's dress, spread to capacity like a sail in high winds. A wave of titters followed her as she strode across the room.
When she was halfway to the door, the napkin began to slide south, making its way down the length of her skirt. In an instant it had wrapped itself around one ankle while OH's other foot pinned it to the floor.
She dropped like a bowling ball and rolled with a velocity similar to that of the aforementioned ball. But Our Heroine was back on her feet in less time than it takes a Polish bowling champion to yell "Strike!"
"Call the Captain!" she screamed, "We've hit an iceberg!"
"Done. Where should we go?"
"Whither thou goest, I will go" OH replied.
"Yes, obviously, but where do you want to go?"
"I was thinking of Tunisia." In a flash of prescience OH saw herself standing outside a tent in the desert, awaiting the arrival of a dark, Rudolph Valentino-like man. A sand storm billowed ominously on the horizon where a dromedary and rider could be seen galloping wildly before the gaping maw of the storm. OH's eyes shone with a wild and spectral gleam.
"Right, where do I want to go then? Tunisia sounds too much like tuna." GB was oblivious to her friend's vision. Fortunately, OH was easily distracted.
"It sounds more like tennis than tuna."
GB frowned. "Tunic then. That's right in the middle."
"Agreed." With that settled, the friends decided to visit a travel agent for help deciding where to go.
At the Innocents Abroad travel agency in downtown Smakalot, the pair eagerly looked through brochures.
"Ooh, New Zealand!" OH breathed. She read aloud: "Travel packages starting at $500 through Aboriginal Airlines."
"That would be interesting. I've heard that the pilots and flight attendants are pygmy Aborigines with bones stuck in their noses."
OH made a disapproving face. "How can one maintain a professional demeanor with a bone sticking out of one's nose?"
Good Buddy wasn't listening. "I think when flights are delayed they eat people", she said.
OH begged to differ. "Only if they're cannibals and they can't all be cannibals or they wouldn't be able to operate an airline."
"I'll bet they could" GB retorted, just for the sake of argument. "Anyway, they either eat or pinch passengers, I can't remember which."
"Awfully unprofessional either way" OH muttered.
"It's all relative." GB sometimes thought that OH's dedication to professionalism was a trifle overdone. She was pleased to fire off what proved to be the parting shot in the conversation before the travel agent opened his door and asked them to come in.
Our Heroine and Good Buddy settled on a 3 day, 4 night cruise on Atlantis, a floating city owned and operated by Libertarians who utilized the ship as an enormous, off shore tax shelter. The travel agent painted a very attractive picture of life aboard Atlantis, assuring them that there were absolutely no rules onboard.
"Everything you do on Atlantis is guaranteed to be guilt free, conscience free and responsibility free. The only price you'll pay is for the cruise itself, ha ha ha!"
A brochure showed groups of happy, heavily armed people basking in the sun, drinking from glasses embossed with the ship's motto: "Live Free or Sink."
OH and GB booked a travel package on the spot and spent the next week in preparation and expectation of the voyage. After several uneventful flights, they arrived at Puerta Seyalayta and embarked on the monstrously huge Atlantis, home to approximately 4,000 libertarians.
At first they found the size of the ship somewhat overwhelming. Within the first hour, though, Our Heroine decided what her mission for the trip must be. She quickly familiarized herself with a map of the decks and found the command center which housed the PA system. She had trouble with one of the ship's officers until she told him she had a life threatening concern that must be addressed by the captain alone. Gaining admission to the room, OH immediately seized the PA handset.
"May I have your attention please, ladies and gentlemen? This is your maritime sanitation engineer." OH's anti-littering admonition, part command, part appeal, was abbreviated by the captain's and first officer's attempts to arrest the handset from her vice-like grasp.
Her last words, fading somewhat as the mouthpiece was wrenched from her, were, "Think of the whales, I beseech you!"
From that moment, OH dedicated the bulk of her time to patrolling the decks, keeping her eagle-eyes trained on potential litter law violators. Her vigilance paid off one bright morning when she spotted a tall red-headed man leaning against the deck rail, smoking a cigarette. OH closed on him as he finished his smoke and prepared to throw the butt into the water.
"Halt, wretch!" OH cried in her most authoritative voice.
The man stared.
"Do you realize that the penalty for dumping in these waters is a fine of 20,000 dollars?"
"I live on this boat, honey. Don't tell me what I can't do." The libertarian said this very pleasantly, smiling broadly at OH. He calmly flicked his cigarette overboard.
"Why, you impudent--!" She began.
"It's called freedom to make choices without intervention. I have the right to litter if I want to, sugar."
Our Heroine wasn't cowed by his propaganda. "What about my right to not have to look at a trashy ocean, hmmm? What about my right not to have to put up with you? Did you ever think about that, hmmm?"
Her voice grew progressively louder toward the end of each sentence. The first "hmmm" was like the buzzing of a hive of killer bees preparing to attack, the second "hmmm" was the sound of a fighter jet roaring full throttle down a runway.
Grinning, the libertarian dangled a chocolate milk bottle over the rail.
OH enunciated her words, saying very clearly and slowly: "If you drop that bottle I will beat you like a red-headed libertarian." The man shook his head, tossed the bottle to OH and walked away chuckling.
Later that day, after eating dinner in the formal dining room, GB and OH watched as couples danced to the music of a mariachi band. Suddenly the red-headed libertarian appeared at their table. He smiled warmly and placed his hand on Our Heroine's shoulder.
"Look, we got off on the wrong foot today", he said.
OH scowled at both of his oversized, pointy-toed cowboy boots. Neither one looked right to her.
"I'm sorry if I made you mad, but I really couldn't tell whether or not you were serious."
"I assure you, it was no joking matter." OH's voice could have iced over the Gulf of Mexico.
"Ha ha! You're a hoot. Would you like to dance?"
"I do not dance with defilers. Let's go, Good Buddy." OH stood and turned her back on the dumbfounded man. Head held high, she glided away like a queen.
In her mind's eye OH gathered her sweeping train in one hand and held it aloft with enviable elegance. In reality, a cloth dinner napkin clung to Our Heroine's dress, spread to capacity like a sail in high winds. A wave of titters followed her as she strode across the room.
When she was halfway to the door, the napkin began to slide south, making its way down the length of her skirt. In an instant it had wrapped itself around one ankle while OH's other foot pinned it to the floor.
She dropped like a bowling ball and rolled with a velocity similar to that of the aforementioned ball. But Our Heroine was back on her feet in less time than it takes a Polish bowling champion to yell "Strike!"
"Call the Captain!" she screamed, "We've hit an iceberg!"
Chapter Seven
Brr-iii-nng. In her tiny office in the town hall, OH picked up the phone, hoping it
was a tip on a hot dump and run case. Instead, Good Buddy's voice met her ear.
"I need you to come over right now", GB said.
"Are you calling about the dump and run case, Good Buddy?"
"No--"
"Because I'm working, you know"
"I know, but--" GB's voice broke off and OH was surprised to hear violent sniffling and nose blowing.
"Good Buddy, do you have a cold?"
"NO!" GB hollered, then added miserably, "Couldn't you just come over this once?"
OH's female intuition suddenly focused with searchlight precision.
"This is about Ed Nauseam, isn't it?" OH's suspicions were confirmed by the sounds of hysterical sobbing.
OH needed no further prompting. Although civic duty was her highest priority, she could not and would not ignore her duty to her friend. Dropping the phone OH hurtled through the office, out the door and into her waiting camel cart where she whipped Fergie up smartly. Because OH was a humane sort of person, she did not employ an actual whip to motivate her dromedary. Instead, she made whip sound effects.
"Crack! Crack goes the whip!" She hollered, shaking the reins. Fergie commenced a steady clip-clop.
OH found GB lying under a heap of blankets, holding her sock monkey slippers which, admittedly, wore comforting expressions on their footwear faces. Eventually, the story came out. Ed Nauseam, first citizen of Jerkopolis, had dumped Good Buddy.
Although OH sympathized greatly with her friend, she mused silently that it might be just as well. She had had misgivings about GB's beau from the beginning, which she now shared with her in an effort to minimize her loss.
A small business owner, Ed Nauseam sold bird and bat guano as an organic fertilizer. OH would have been supportive of this utilization of natural resources but for Ed Nauseam's suspicious dealings with an El Salvadorian rebel group, Los Hombres Mal (LHM). LHM's protests and resistance fighting made headlines as the rebels destroyed some of the country's most notable buildings. Authorities believed that the key to stopping LHM was cutting off their mysterious supply of explosives.
Although she had no definite proof, OH, as usual, had her suspicions. An examination of Ed's collection of commemorative shot glasses informed OH that he frequently travelled to El Salvador. She also knew that while munitions sales were closely scrutinized, agricultural salesmen had access to the entire country.
OH's biochemistry training had exposed her to the explosive potential of guano and she clearly recalled one occasion when Nauseam referred to it himself, as he proposed that the solution to illegal immigration that included using guano to blast a separation between the US and Mexico.
As Good Buddy slowly regained her faculties, she began a logical assessment of her recent tragedy.
"You know, I think he dumped me because of my voice" GB declared.
"Your...." OH experienced a loss for the correct word.
"My voice. When I asked him what he was looking for in a woman, he said he was attracted to particular voices, like Gloria Grahame's and Myrna Loy's."
"Hmm, that's odd", OH said, "They have very different voices. Gloria Grahame's voice is husky--"
" That's not the point--"
"That is exactly the point, Good Buddy. They have entirely different types of voices, so how do we know which one you should imitate? Gloria Grahame's would be the easiest. Of course you'd have to scream a lot to destroy your vocal chords. Maybe there's a spray that will make your throat hoarse or you could try to pick up the bacteria of the common cold...it's very, um, common..."
OH trailed off as she noticed GB looking like a pot that's about to boil over.
"You are NOT helping!" GB howled, well on her way to a hoarse voice. "My relationship is OVER and all you do is tell me how AWFUL Ed is and argue about Gloria-stinking-GRAHAME and, and--Oh!" She threw herself back on her bed and clasped the sock monkeys to her chest.
OH knew that she could do no more. She gently closed Good Buddy's door and left, feeling uncharacteristically sad and introspective. A question about the advisability of relationships that caused such trauma barely, briefly touched down on the surface of her brain before it was bounced to oblivion by the sudden arrival of a lighter vehicle.
"I know! We need a vacation!" OH was certain that new scenery and new experiences was the very thing to distract GB from her hardship.
As Fergie gallumphed homeward, OH softly hummed the tune of an old refrain:
Through tears and thorns we will endure
As we pass surely through every storm
A time for us, some day there'll be a new world
A world of shining hope for you and me
was a tip on a hot dump and run case. Instead, Good Buddy's voice met her ear.
"I need you to come over right now", GB said.
"Are you calling about the dump and run case, Good Buddy?"
"No--"
"Because I'm working, you know"
"I know, but--" GB's voice broke off and OH was surprised to hear violent sniffling and nose blowing.
"Good Buddy, do you have a cold?"
"NO!" GB hollered, then added miserably, "Couldn't you just come over this once?"
OH's female intuition suddenly focused with searchlight precision.
"This is about Ed Nauseam, isn't it?" OH's suspicions were confirmed by the sounds of hysterical sobbing.
OH needed no further prompting. Although civic duty was her highest priority, she could not and would not ignore her duty to her friend. Dropping the phone OH hurtled through the office, out the door and into her waiting camel cart where she whipped Fergie up smartly. Because OH was a humane sort of person, she did not employ an actual whip to motivate her dromedary. Instead, she made whip sound effects.
"Crack! Crack goes the whip!" She hollered, shaking the reins. Fergie commenced a steady clip-clop.
OH found GB lying under a heap of blankets, holding her sock monkey slippers which, admittedly, wore comforting expressions on their footwear faces. Eventually, the story came out. Ed Nauseam, first citizen of Jerkopolis, had dumped Good Buddy.
Although OH sympathized greatly with her friend, she mused silently that it might be just as well. She had had misgivings about GB's beau from the beginning, which she now shared with her in an effort to minimize her loss.
A small business owner, Ed Nauseam sold bird and bat guano as an organic fertilizer. OH would have been supportive of this utilization of natural resources but for Ed Nauseam's suspicious dealings with an El Salvadorian rebel group, Los Hombres Mal (LHM). LHM's protests and resistance fighting made headlines as the rebels destroyed some of the country's most notable buildings. Authorities believed that the key to stopping LHM was cutting off their mysterious supply of explosives.
Although she had no definite proof, OH, as usual, had her suspicions. An examination of Ed's collection of commemorative shot glasses informed OH that he frequently travelled to El Salvador. She also knew that while munitions sales were closely scrutinized, agricultural salesmen had access to the entire country.
OH's biochemistry training had exposed her to the explosive potential of guano and she clearly recalled one occasion when Nauseam referred to it himself, as he proposed that the solution to illegal immigration that included using guano to blast a separation between the US and Mexico.
As Good Buddy slowly regained her faculties, she began a logical assessment of her recent tragedy.
"You know, I think he dumped me because of my voice" GB declared.
"Your...." OH experienced a loss for the correct word.
"My voice. When I asked him what he was looking for in a woman, he said he was attracted to particular voices, like Gloria Grahame's and Myrna Loy's."
"Hmm, that's odd", OH said, "They have very different voices. Gloria Grahame's voice is husky--"
" That's not the point--"
"That is exactly the point, Good Buddy. They have entirely different types of voices, so how do we know which one you should imitate? Gloria Grahame's would be the easiest. Of course you'd have to scream a lot to destroy your vocal chords. Maybe there's a spray that will make your throat hoarse or you could try to pick up the bacteria of the common cold...it's very, um, common..."
OH trailed off as she noticed GB looking like a pot that's about to boil over.
"You are NOT helping!" GB howled, well on her way to a hoarse voice. "My relationship is OVER and all you do is tell me how AWFUL Ed is and argue about Gloria-stinking-GRAHAME and, and--Oh!" She threw herself back on her bed and clasped the sock monkeys to her chest.
OH knew that she could do no more. She gently closed Good Buddy's door and left, feeling uncharacteristically sad and introspective. A question about the advisability of relationships that caused such trauma barely, briefly touched down on the surface of her brain before it was bounced to oblivion by the sudden arrival of a lighter vehicle.
"I know! We need a vacation!" OH was certain that new scenery and new experiences was the very thing to distract GB from her hardship.
As Fergie gallumphed homeward, OH softly hummed the tune of an old refrain:
Through tears and thorns we will endure
As we pass surely through every storm
A time for us, some day there'll be a new world
A world of shining hope for you and me
Chapter Six
During a dinner of red root salad, mashed rutabaga and homemade choke cherry juice, a niggling doubt about her latest case asserted itself into her mind. Why had she found mail belonging to four different people? If the bags belonged to a single household the mail would have been addressed to one or two people with the same last name. The garbage bags might have come from a communal dumping arrangement and some of the individuals may not be culpable. She sighed. Litter investigating was never easy.
OH made up her mind to call the suspects. She finished her glass of choke cherry juice and poured another. The last batch had turned out especially well. There was something different about it that OH couldn't quite place. She pulled out the phonebook and dialed the first suspect's number.
"Hello, I'm a litter inspector, uh, investigator and I found a bag of your trash, anyhow, a bag with some of your trash in it on Holy Mackarel Hill". Shee nunciated the last few words carefully. They were tricky to say.
"Well, I haven't been on Holy Mackarel Hill in a week or more. I've been on vacation", the man said.
"Right. I suppose you're also going to tell me that Spanish conquistadores named the sloth after one of the seven deadly sins." OH was feeling uncharacteristically chatty. There was a pause on the other end of the line.
"Actually I think that's true. And I haven't been on that hill!"
"Then how do you explain the presents, er, presence of your garbage on said hill, Mr.--", she looked at her list of suspects, "Mr. Ira Greeb." OH tried to suppress a snicker but failed.
"I wouldn't make fun of your name, but I bet a lot of people do, huh? It sounds like I'm a dweeb!"
The man gave a long sigh. "My garbage must have fallen off the truck. I have it picked up by Grime & Baggs."
"Grime & Baggs, eh? I've been after those hooligans for a long time. Well, thank you, Mr. Greeb.", but he had hung up. Rude, OH thought. She had finished her glass of choke cherry juice and decided to get another. It really was quite good.
"Hello, S'Queenie Smallwood? This is the Litter Insector." A girl answered the phone and put her mother on the line.
"This is S'Queenie", a woman said.
"And this is the Sitter Infector, Mrs. Small Good, er, Mrs. S'All Good.
"Ex-cuse me?"
"I said, 'This is the Flitter Injector.' Did you know your name sounds like Sqweenie?" OH dissolved in laughter. When she finally stopped laughing a dial tone buzzed in her ear.
"Hello? Mrs. Wall Stud?" OH took a swig of juice. It sparkled in the glass. It effervesced. She was feeling downright merry despite Mrs. Wall Stud. Moving on, she dialed the next number on her list.
"Is this Thuc Duc?"
"Wha?"
"IS THIS THUC DUC?"
"We don' have suck duck. You wan' somting ewse?"
"No, I wan' Thuc Duc."
"You wan' plum duck?" OH hung up. Only one number left.
"I'm borry to be sothering you at this date late, but I'm looking for Ichi Karachi."
"You found me, Baby", intoned a silky voice.
"Oh, sood. I mean, good. You don't know what a hard time I've had..."
"You can tell me all about it."
"There was this hapstance restrance that's smelling suck and them Greeb shung up on me shuz he shrood..."
"Mmm-hmm, sure thing", the voice crooned, "I'm going to need your credit card number, honey."
"Wha? Itchy Scratchy, is that you?"
"Mmm-hmm, but for us to keep talking you're gonna have to give me your credit card number."
"I wanna talk to Fishy Satchy!"
The voice suddenly developed an edge. "Look, you called the Sirens All Night line. Are you going to give me your info or not?" OH wasn't quite sure what the speaker meant by "info", but she was thought it might be a kind of food.
"Tofu?" she asked. Click.
OH made up her mind to call the suspects. She finished her glass of choke cherry juice and poured another. The last batch had turned out especially well. There was something different about it that OH couldn't quite place. She pulled out the phonebook and dialed the first suspect's number.
"Hello, I'm a litter inspector, uh, investigator and I found a bag of your trash, anyhow, a bag with some of your trash in it on Holy Mackarel Hill". Shee nunciated the last few words carefully. They were tricky to say.
"Well, I haven't been on Holy Mackarel Hill in a week or more. I've been on vacation", the man said.
"Right. I suppose you're also going to tell me that Spanish conquistadores named the sloth after one of the seven deadly sins." OH was feeling uncharacteristically chatty. There was a pause on the other end of the line.
"Actually I think that's true. And I haven't been on that hill!"
"Then how do you explain the presents, er, presence of your garbage on said hill, Mr.--", she looked at her list of suspects, "Mr. Ira Greeb." OH tried to suppress a snicker but failed.
"I wouldn't make fun of your name, but I bet a lot of people do, huh? It sounds like I'm a dweeb!"
The man gave a long sigh. "My garbage must have fallen off the truck. I have it picked up by Grime & Baggs."
"Grime & Baggs, eh? I've been after those hooligans for a long time. Well, thank you, Mr. Greeb.", but he had hung up. Rude, OH thought. She had finished her glass of choke cherry juice and decided to get another. It really was quite good.
"Hello, S'Queenie Smallwood? This is the Litter Insector." A girl answered the phone and put her mother on the line.
"This is S'Queenie", a woman said.
"And this is the Sitter Infector, Mrs. Small Good, er, Mrs. S'All Good.
"Ex-cuse me?"
"I said, 'This is the Flitter Injector.' Did you know your name sounds like Sqweenie?" OH dissolved in laughter. When she finally stopped laughing a dial tone buzzed in her ear.
"Hello? Mrs. Wall Stud?" OH took a swig of juice. It sparkled in the glass. It effervesced. She was feeling downright merry despite Mrs. Wall Stud. Moving on, she dialed the next number on her list.
"Is this Thuc Duc?"
"Wha?"
"IS THIS THUC DUC?"
"We don' have suck duck. You wan' somting ewse?"
"No, I wan' Thuc Duc."
"You wan' plum duck?" OH hung up. Only one number left.
"I'm borry to be sothering you at this date late, but I'm looking for Ichi Karachi."
"You found me, Baby", intoned a silky voice.
"Oh, sood. I mean, good. You don't know what a hard time I've had..."
"You can tell me all about it."
"There was this hapstance restrance that's smelling suck and them Greeb shung up on me shuz he shrood..."
"Mmm-hmm, sure thing", the voice crooned, "I'm going to need your credit card number, honey."
"Wha? Itchy Scratchy, is that you?"
"Mmm-hmm, but for us to keep talking you're gonna have to give me your credit card number."
"I wanna talk to Fishy Satchy!"
The voice suddenly developed an edge. "Look, you called the Sirens All Night line. Are you going to give me your info or not?" OH wasn't quite sure what the speaker meant by "info", but she was thought it might be a kind of food.
"Tofu?" she asked. Click.
Chapter Five
Our Heroine sat dejectedly in the dentist's waiting area, trying not to think about the terrible ordeal ahead. One of her fillings needed replacement. She would have chosen quick, painless death over slow torture, but sadly, death had not been offered as an option. A dental technician popped her head around the door.
"OK, we're ready for you"
OH put the pencil she had been biting back on the reception desk and rose slowly.
"We have nothing to fear but fear itself", she muttered, repeating this mantra all the way to the dental chair.
"Hello, how are we doing today?" the dentist asked. He smelled of cigar smoke, which made OH even more nauseous than she usually was in a dental office.
OH tried to say, "We are not pleased", but her throat closed on the second word with a squeak. She glared defiantly at the dentist, but he was occupied with his instruments and did not appear to notice. OH thought that since the rude man had asked, he ought to hear her answer.
"Current mood: horrid", she said, but the dentist was already probing her mouth with something akin to a sharpened, vibrating baseball bat and her encumbered vocal organs merely gurgled like a broken water pump.
"I'm going to need you to keep your tongue out of the way, now, okaaaaaay?" and with that the dentist jammed a piece of cardboard the size of a pizza box between her tongue and the baseball bat instrument.
Forty minutes passed like forty years. OH swore to herself approximately 1200 times that she would never imbibe sugar again. An instrument named Mr. Sucky left less moisture in her mouth than could be found in the entire Sahara Desert. As the dentist raised her chair she made gasping noises and gestured frantically for water.
"That wasn't so bad now, was it?" he asked.
"My thung ith numb" OH replied.
"Oh, that will wear off".
OH waited a few seconds. "Ith thill numb".
"It may take up to five hours".
"What?! I haf thoo thay here that long?"
"No, you can leave".
"But I can't go back to work like thith", she said.
"Well, maybe you should take the rest of the day off", the dentist said, and got up to leave.
"Out of the quethion".
"Well I suppose I could do the rest now", he said.
"What retht?"
"The rest of your teeth, they all need to be pulled. Out they go". He sat down and picked up a wrench-looking instrument.
"HYUNDAI! Back, filthy nemethith dentitht!" OH screamed, propelling herself out of the chair and into the Chi Ching defensive position with one leg stretched behind her and both arms raised above her head.
"Alright, take it easy. I was just joking". OH relaxed her defensive pose somewhat, but kept the instrument tray between the dentist and herself. Insolence such as this deserved her most stinging scorn.
"You are a thmall man who drivth a thmall car and wearth a long thcarf", she yelled, "Furthermore, if I ever thee you throwing your thigar butth out the window, I will fine your panth off!" Her flight from the office resembled that of an escaping prisoner.
OH jumped in the camel cart and urged Fergie into a brisk trot. They were nearing her office (actually more of a janitor's closet in the town hall) when OH saw a terrible, shocking sight. The camel cart skidded to a halt as she pulled up the reins and gazed about her with dismay. Both sides of the road were strewn with what looked like the contents of several garbage bags. Newspapers, paper plates, fliers and other assorted junk stretched into the distance as far as the eye could see.
"Oooh, thith really burnth me up!" she said to the camel, and began collecting litter furiously. She soon noticed that the trash included many pieces of junk mail complete with names and addresses.
"Eathy ath thooting fith in a barrel", she cackled. All she had to do was fine the miscreants who the mail was addressed to and voila! her job would be done. By the time she had picked up the last piece of trash, the sun was beginning to set. Ever conscious of her and Fergie's safety, she did not drive the cart after dark except in extenuating circumstances. OH was about to switch on the cart's lights when a small convertible blew by at a breakneck speed, only inches from the camel cart.
"SHARE THE ROAD WITH DROMEDARIES!" OH screamed. A whiff of cigar smoke and the end of a long scarf trailed behind the speeding vehicle.
"OK, we're ready for you"
OH put the pencil she had been biting back on the reception desk and rose slowly.
"We have nothing to fear but fear itself", she muttered, repeating this mantra all the way to the dental chair.
"Hello, how are we doing today?" the dentist asked. He smelled of cigar smoke, which made OH even more nauseous than she usually was in a dental office.
OH tried to say, "We are not pleased", but her throat closed on the second word with a squeak. She glared defiantly at the dentist, but he was occupied with his instruments and did not appear to notice. OH thought that since the rude man had asked, he ought to hear her answer.
"Current mood: horrid", she said, but the dentist was already probing her mouth with something akin to a sharpened, vibrating baseball bat and her encumbered vocal organs merely gurgled like a broken water pump.
"I'm going to need you to keep your tongue out of the way, now, okaaaaaay?" and with that the dentist jammed a piece of cardboard the size of a pizza box between her tongue and the baseball bat instrument.
Forty minutes passed like forty years. OH swore to herself approximately 1200 times that she would never imbibe sugar again. An instrument named Mr. Sucky left less moisture in her mouth than could be found in the entire Sahara Desert. As the dentist raised her chair she made gasping noises and gestured frantically for water.
"That wasn't so bad now, was it?" he asked.
"My thung ith numb" OH replied.
"Oh, that will wear off".
OH waited a few seconds. "Ith thill numb".
"It may take up to five hours".
"What?! I haf thoo thay here that long?"
"No, you can leave".
"But I can't go back to work like thith", she said.
"Well, maybe you should take the rest of the day off", the dentist said, and got up to leave.
"Out of the quethion".
"Well I suppose I could do the rest now", he said.
"What retht?"
"The rest of your teeth, they all need to be pulled. Out they go". He sat down and picked up a wrench-looking instrument.
"HYUNDAI! Back, filthy nemethith dentitht!" OH screamed, propelling herself out of the chair and into the Chi Ching defensive position with one leg stretched behind her and both arms raised above her head.
"Alright, take it easy. I was just joking". OH relaxed her defensive pose somewhat, but kept the instrument tray between the dentist and herself. Insolence such as this deserved her most stinging scorn.
"You are a thmall man who drivth a thmall car and wearth a long thcarf", she yelled, "Furthermore, if I ever thee you throwing your thigar butth out the window, I will fine your panth off!" Her flight from the office resembled that of an escaping prisoner.
OH jumped in the camel cart and urged Fergie into a brisk trot. They were nearing her office (actually more of a janitor's closet in the town hall) when OH saw a terrible, shocking sight. The camel cart skidded to a halt as she pulled up the reins and gazed about her with dismay. Both sides of the road were strewn with what looked like the contents of several garbage bags. Newspapers, paper plates, fliers and other assorted junk stretched into the distance as far as the eye could see.
"Oooh, thith really burnth me up!" she said to the camel, and began collecting litter furiously. She soon noticed that the trash included many pieces of junk mail complete with names and addresses.
"Eathy ath thooting fith in a barrel", she cackled. All she had to do was fine the miscreants who the mail was addressed to and voila! her job would be done. By the time she had picked up the last piece of trash, the sun was beginning to set. Ever conscious of her and Fergie's safety, she did not drive the cart after dark except in extenuating circumstances. OH was about to switch on the cart's lights when a small convertible blew by at a breakneck speed, only inches from the camel cart.
"SHARE THE ROAD WITH DROMEDARIES!" OH screamed. A whiff of cigar smoke and the end of a long scarf trailed behind the speeding vehicle.
Chapter Four
We resume the story as Our Heroine is returning from her job of collecting litter for fingerprinting. Her search for Litter Perpetrator #1, the Kool cigarette carton and Budweiser dumper had nearly concluded as she narrowed the number of suspects to two. One was Bouvier des Flandres, a Flemish ufology expert who posed as a security guard at the Air Force Satellite Tracking Station.
In the course of her work as Litter Investigator, Our Heroine had uncovered one of the government's best kept secrets: the entire Air Force Satellite Tracking Station (AFSTS) was in fact a top-secret UFO research and development (R&D) center. But this fact had little significance to Our Heroine except where it concerned the alleged litterer Bouvier des Flandres.
The other suspect was Enrique Felderbrush, a Canadian who was on holiday, eh? and was camping in her neighbor's backyard. Felderbrush was already under investigation for illegal dumping, a result of his throwing his empty Vegemite bottle in Our Heroine's recyclables bin as it awaited pickup by a garbage truck.
As Our Heroine bumped along North Main Date Palm Street in her dromedary cart, her suspicions were aroused by the sight of a man crouching beneath the bushes of a residence. Our Heroine wheeled her cart around, pulled into the driveway and accosted the man.
"You there! Suspicious man, what are you doing?"
The man feigned poor hearing. "Excuse me?"
"You look like you are up to no good, crouching there beneath those bushes. Are you casing the joint, perhaps? Looking for the fake rock where the key is hidden so you can rob these poor people blind?"
"Are you nuts?" he said, "I live here!"
"If that is so", Our Heroine said logically, "Then what was you sniggering at?"
"What?!" the man yelled. He was indignant.
"Oh, I mean, why are you crouching beneath these shrubberies?"
"I'm installing the screens in my windows, you [expletive deleted]!"
It was at this point that Our Heroine's investigative training helped her notice several key details. The man held a number of screens and was well dressed, as if he had recently come home from a day at the office. She also noticed that a window, located just above the shrubberies, was open and a woman was peering quizzically at her from inside the house.
"Just who the **** are you?!" the man shrieked. He really had become quite unreasonable. Our Heroine decided that she had better go.
"A better question is, who am I not?" she replied. Our Heroine mounted her dromedary cart and galumphed off, leaving the man to ponder her thought provoking words.
On her way home, Our Heroine stopped at Good Buddy's house for the benefit of the intellectually stimulating conversation that was always a result of their meetings. The heat of the day drove them to Good Buddy's kiddie pool, where, floating on their backs, the two friends discussed the difference between an ambulance and an ambulette. Good Buddy was of the opinion that ambulette, a French derivative, was the feminine form of ambulance, while Our Heroine argued that the difference pertained to medical equipment contained therein.
The discussion became heated as neither friend was willing to concede, and it terminated when Our Heroine yelled, "Blast and darn your etymology, Good Buddy!", and squirted her with the business end of a water noodle. Since a water noodle actually has two business ends, this action escalated the conflict drastically. No one knows what the outcome might have been if Our Heroine had not suddenly been distracted by the appearance of Cute Neighbor.
Cute Neighbor's rare skin disease, an allergy to the sun, made him almost entirely housebound. Like certain kinds of exotic flowers, he only showed his face outside five times a year, and because she loved botany, Our Heroine watched for Cute Neighbor's appearances like Bouvier des Flandres watched for UFO's. Or like a ravenous fox watches an old chicken with a limp.
Our Heroine leaped out of the kiddie pool, forgetting that she was still gripping her noodle, forgetting what she was and was not wearing. You see, Our Heroine had not been carrying her bathing suit in the dromedary cart, so she submerged herself in the kiddie pool while still wearing her work uniform, which was a black plastic garbage bag. You also see, Our Heroine had removed her undergarments, as she did not want the dreaded wet-undergarment-mark to show on her garbage bag.
For sixteen minutes, Our Heroine blissfully burbled on to Cute Neighbor about her near-success in identifying Litter Perpetrator #1, gathering evidence in the Vegemite case and in nearly apprehending an under-shrubber burglar. Our Heroine did most of the talking because of her companion's habit of relating everything to his rare skin disease. For example, when asked how he was doing, he would reply, "Pale", or "White and sunless".
As she talked, it occurred to Our Heroine that Cute Neighbor's face wore a peculiar expression that she couldn't quite place. Suddenly she recognized it: Cute Neighbor looked as if Our Heroine had just announced that goat deaths were on the rise in Hampstead County. She was suddenly terribly afraid of a connection between Cute Neighbor's expression and her undergarments.
"In case you're wearing why I'm not wondering--" She began, and promptly became twice as flustered as before. Fortunately, Our Heroine had received extensive crisis training and knew exactly what to do.
"Oh my cow! Look over there! It's Captain Jerky Pants!" So saying, she dashed into the woods and aligned herself with a tree.
"Hmm", Cute Neighbor said to himself, "She bottom be so white she must be gotten undies". He glanced into the forest and saw the magenta colored business end of a water noodle peeking out from behind a tree. He sighed heavily and decided to reduce his number of days out of doors to four.
In the course of her work as Litter Investigator, Our Heroine had uncovered one of the government's best kept secrets: the entire Air Force Satellite Tracking Station (AFSTS) was in fact a top-secret UFO research and development (R&D) center. But this fact had little significance to Our Heroine except where it concerned the alleged litterer Bouvier des Flandres.
The other suspect was Enrique Felderbrush, a Canadian who was on holiday, eh? and was camping in her neighbor's backyard. Felderbrush was already under investigation for illegal dumping, a result of his throwing his empty Vegemite bottle in Our Heroine's recyclables bin as it awaited pickup by a garbage truck.
As Our Heroine bumped along North Main Date Palm Street in her dromedary cart, her suspicions were aroused by the sight of a man crouching beneath the bushes of a residence. Our Heroine wheeled her cart around, pulled into the driveway and accosted the man.
"You there! Suspicious man, what are you doing?"
The man feigned poor hearing. "Excuse me?"
"You look like you are up to no good, crouching there beneath those bushes. Are you casing the joint, perhaps? Looking for the fake rock where the key is hidden so you can rob these poor people blind?"
"Are you nuts?" he said, "I live here!"
"If that is so", Our Heroine said logically, "Then what was you sniggering at?"
"What?!" the man yelled. He was indignant.
"Oh, I mean, why are you crouching beneath these shrubberies?"
"I'm installing the screens in my windows, you [expletive deleted]!"
It was at this point that Our Heroine's investigative training helped her notice several key details. The man held a number of screens and was well dressed, as if he had recently come home from a day at the office. She also noticed that a window, located just above the shrubberies, was open and a woman was peering quizzically at her from inside the house.
"Just who the **** are you?!" the man shrieked. He really had become quite unreasonable. Our Heroine decided that she had better go.
"A better question is, who am I not?" she replied. Our Heroine mounted her dromedary cart and galumphed off, leaving the man to ponder her thought provoking words.
On her way home, Our Heroine stopped at Good Buddy's house for the benefit of the intellectually stimulating conversation that was always a result of their meetings. The heat of the day drove them to Good Buddy's kiddie pool, where, floating on their backs, the two friends discussed the difference between an ambulance and an ambulette. Good Buddy was of the opinion that ambulette, a French derivative, was the feminine form of ambulance, while Our Heroine argued that the difference pertained to medical equipment contained therein.
The discussion became heated as neither friend was willing to concede, and it terminated when Our Heroine yelled, "Blast and darn your etymology, Good Buddy!", and squirted her with the business end of a water noodle. Since a water noodle actually has two business ends, this action escalated the conflict drastically. No one knows what the outcome might have been if Our Heroine had not suddenly been distracted by the appearance of Cute Neighbor.
Cute Neighbor's rare skin disease, an allergy to the sun, made him almost entirely housebound. Like certain kinds of exotic flowers, he only showed his face outside five times a year, and because she loved botany, Our Heroine watched for Cute Neighbor's appearances like Bouvier des Flandres watched for UFO's. Or like a ravenous fox watches an old chicken with a limp.
Our Heroine leaped out of the kiddie pool, forgetting that she was still gripping her noodle, forgetting what she was and was not wearing. You see, Our Heroine had not been carrying her bathing suit in the dromedary cart, so she submerged herself in the kiddie pool while still wearing her work uniform, which was a black plastic garbage bag. You also see, Our Heroine had removed her undergarments, as she did not want the dreaded wet-undergarment-mark to show on her garbage bag.
For sixteen minutes, Our Heroine blissfully burbled on to Cute Neighbor about her near-success in identifying Litter Perpetrator #1, gathering evidence in the Vegemite case and in nearly apprehending an under-shrubber burglar. Our Heroine did most of the talking because of her companion's habit of relating everything to his rare skin disease. For example, when asked how he was doing, he would reply, "Pale", or "White and sunless".
As she talked, it occurred to Our Heroine that Cute Neighbor's face wore a peculiar expression that she couldn't quite place. Suddenly she recognized it: Cute Neighbor looked as if Our Heroine had just announced that goat deaths were on the rise in Hampstead County. She was suddenly terribly afraid of a connection between Cute Neighbor's expression and her undergarments.
"In case you're wearing why I'm not wondering--" She began, and promptly became twice as flustered as before. Fortunately, Our Heroine had received extensive crisis training and knew exactly what to do.
"Oh my cow! Look over there! It's Captain Jerky Pants!" So saying, she dashed into the woods and aligned herself with a tree.
"Hmm", Cute Neighbor said to himself, "She bottom be so white she must be gotten undies". He glanced into the forest and saw the magenta colored business end of a water noodle peeking out from behind a tree. He sighed heavily and decided to reduce his number of days out of doors to four.
Chapter Three
The senior police officer's face wore the horrified expression that came over it whenever he heard the clip-clop of camel hooves. He dashed to bolt the station door, but reached it just as Our Heroine (OH) thrust the door open with enough vigor to send it banging against the wall.
"Good morning, gentlemen", OH said cheerfully, "I'll need you to run these fingerprints through your criminal identification system". She held the offending Vegemite jar aloft, wrapped in cellophane. The senior officer stared at the jar dejectedly, looking as though he might cry.
"Not another one", he murmured, his chin trembling a bit. Animal control calls and OH's fingerprint searches was the only business justifying the police department's existence (locals called the department Pest Patrol), but this fact did not help the officer accept his arduous burden. He shuffled slowly to his computer, a beaten man.
The junior officer, a new recruit hired only because his brother was on the board of selectmen, gawked at the sight of OH's transportation standing in the parking lot.
"What the flipping fun is that?!" he hollered, dropping his jelly donut. The object of this outburst was placidly chewing a lump of regurgitated grass.
"Oh, no it isn't", he continued, "Is that a camel cart?"
"Dromedary", she corrected. "Dromedary is the proper term for racing camels like Fergie--"
"Fergie the...racing..." The junior officer was laughing so hard he had difficulty speaking.
"--whose blood lines can be traced back thousands of years--" OH continued.
"C-c-camel!" the officer gasped, holding on to a filing cabinet as his knees buckled under him.
"--to the original performance dromedaries of High Sheik Ra-Haman the First", she finished.
As she was speaking, OH's voice took on a supercilious tone. OH held the truth to be self evident that not all law enforcement officials were created equal, and it was her duty to remind this officer just how junior he was. OH took the phrase "stiff upper lip" quite literally and pooched her upper lip out as far as it would pooch, which resulted in a face not unlike those of the Easter Island statuaries. However, OH's efforts were lost on their intended target.
"Ra-ha-ha-ha! Drom-a-dare-e-he-hee!" A choking, spluttering sound issued from the floor where the junior officer lay.
OH had met similar scorn before and had looked it squarely in the eye. The camel cart had been an ingenious, if short-lived marketing scheme created by Camel Cigarettes. The bearer of 29,000 Camel dollars--one dollar inside each cigarette pack--would be presented with an authentic Saudi Arabian dromedary and cart, which was painted Camel gold and rather resembled a Roman chariot.
OH had bartered and traded with members of Litter Collectors of the Tri-County Area until she was in possession of 29,000 Camel dollars. Collecting her reward had been the most fulfilling event of her life, and OH had the esteem of being the only person to ever receive a Camel camel cart.
Camel Cigarettes withdrew this promotional when a journalist learned that the camel supplier could not ensure that less than .4% of the proceeds were used to finance terrorist activities.
In a final attempt to promote camel cart transportation to the young officer, OH began explaining that dromedary droppings were beneficial to organic gardening practices, but she was so unsettled by the officer's behavior that she said "fulch and mertilizer" instead of "mulch and fertilizer".
"Oh, maggot poop", OH sighed, "He's not worth it".
As she exited the station, OH clearly heard the senior officer's voice reverberating through the building at a very high pitch and decibel level, as though he were shouting through a bull horn: "Aaaarrgh! Officious, pernicious, doggone do-gooder of a--a camel jockey!"
"Thank you, thank you", OH said quietly, smiling to herself. She took the officer's words as a compliment from one professional to another.
"Good morning, gentlemen", OH said cheerfully, "I'll need you to run these fingerprints through your criminal identification system". She held the offending Vegemite jar aloft, wrapped in cellophane. The senior officer stared at the jar dejectedly, looking as though he might cry.
"Not another one", he murmured, his chin trembling a bit. Animal control calls and OH's fingerprint searches was the only business justifying the police department's existence (locals called the department Pest Patrol), but this fact did not help the officer accept his arduous burden. He shuffled slowly to his computer, a beaten man.
The junior officer, a new recruit hired only because his brother was on the board of selectmen, gawked at the sight of OH's transportation standing in the parking lot.
"What the flipping fun is that?!" he hollered, dropping his jelly donut. The object of this outburst was placidly chewing a lump of regurgitated grass.
"Oh, no it isn't", he continued, "Is that a camel cart?"
"Dromedary", she corrected. "Dromedary is the proper term for racing camels like Fergie--"
"Fergie the...racing..." The junior officer was laughing so hard he had difficulty speaking.
"--whose blood lines can be traced back thousands of years--" OH continued.
"C-c-camel!" the officer gasped, holding on to a filing cabinet as his knees buckled under him.
"--to the original performance dromedaries of High Sheik Ra-Haman the First", she finished.
As she was speaking, OH's voice took on a supercilious tone. OH held the truth to be self evident that not all law enforcement officials were created equal, and it was her duty to remind this officer just how junior he was. OH took the phrase "stiff upper lip" quite literally and pooched her upper lip out as far as it would pooch, which resulted in a face not unlike those of the Easter Island statuaries. However, OH's efforts were lost on their intended target.
"Ra-ha-ha-ha! Drom-a-dare-e-he-hee!" A choking, spluttering sound issued from the floor where the junior officer lay.
OH had met similar scorn before and had looked it squarely in the eye. The camel cart had been an ingenious, if short-lived marketing scheme created by Camel Cigarettes. The bearer of 29,000 Camel dollars--one dollar inside each cigarette pack--would be presented with an authentic Saudi Arabian dromedary and cart, which was painted Camel gold and rather resembled a Roman chariot.
OH had bartered and traded with members of Litter Collectors of the Tri-County Area until she was in possession of 29,000 Camel dollars. Collecting her reward had been the most fulfilling event of her life, and OH had the esteem of being the only person to ever receive a Camel camel cart.
Camel Cigarettes withdrew this promotional when a journalist learned that the camel supplier could not ensure that less than .4% of the proceeds were used to finance terrorist activities.
In a final attempt to promote camel cart transportation to the young officer, OH began explaining that dromedary droppings were beneficial to organic gardening practices, but she was so unsettled by the officer's behavior that she said "fulch and mertilizer" instead of "mulch and fertilizer".
"Oh, maggot poop", OH sighed, "He's not worth it".
As she exited the station, OH clearly heard the senior officer's voice reverberating through the building at a very high pitch and decibel level, as though he were shouting through a bull horn: "Aaaarrgh! Officious, pernicious, doggone do-gooder of a--a camel jockey!"
"Thank you, thank you", OH said quietly, smiling to herself. She took the officer's words as a compliment from one professional to another.
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