SPECIAL OFFER: Digital representations of G & E standing in front of the
Temple of Doom, large format (5 x 7), only $295.00 per set. Move quickly
before El Universidad de Diablo strikes to confiscate the lot! Order quickly
and receive a complementary glossary.

SOS Gab & Eti 1.11

“Administration officials never talk about the latrine experience as an
intellectual journey, but rather infanticide its ability to get a job done.”,
Anonymous

After much to do, gabbling, name calling, surveys, votes, bickering, rude
back-channel e-mails, requests for the facts, nothing but the facts, stick to
yes/no replies, such a fine contribution otherwise stuff it, Save Ovaltine
Stickers, inquiries as to the availability of MSDS sheets on artificial
butter, requests for them to go on shopping sprees in Paris or Algiers (not a
secure server), damages to West Coast mellow (?), discussions of Kroil oil,
and KILL the thread massages I have had to inform both Gabriel and Etidorpha
that they are no longer univirtually welcome on the I-Way. As a result I came
very close to being bit by Altuna, their shepherd-lab mix, who has not been
particularly friendly since recovering from electro-shock. Lesson: never feed
the I-list that bites you.

Etidorpha has taken to deep meditation in the butter room in order to contact
potential philanthropists. They are now starting another mindless
organization, Seeking Our Sanctuary. Without hesitation, typical of the
tragically hip, they sent out the following plea onto the virtual commons:

“Gabriel and Etidorpha Orgrease kindly petition your attention in making a
common space for them, and their cyber-friends, so that they may live free
beyond the oppression of censorship, prudery and single-vision as they
struggle to form an organization dedicated to Single Occupancy Structures
(ie. historic outhouses, biffies, jakes etc.) or Save Our Shitters, whichever
matches your particular taste.”

They were quickly contacted by a shrink. Seeking our sanity may be more
appropriate in the Orgrease case, go figure. Why not?  What had they to lose,
what had they been waiting for? Free spirits held up too long charge into the
ocean waves first chance they get, knocked under in a limestone surf,
bruised, but free, suddenly the sky looks too small to squeeze a bloody rabid
chook into.

I also had to inform Gabriel that despite his having a rowers boat he cannot
go to Poland to relieve himself before Christmas, with paying passengers or
otherwise. I’m not sure how he found a rogue terminal to send his message.
Please accept my apology for not keeping these people under better control.
Gabriel, also, does not understand that a passport is required, his
International Port-O-Willie pass not being sufficient. I had to hold off on
pursuit of that line as Gab started, for the umpteenth time, his pitch for
the Free Pissers Union. I did not want to hear any more of that “I Piss
Freely When Nature Calls” drivel and propaganda. I don’t care if Gab thinks
he has a line to Boxcar Willie, the song stinks.

Gabriel and Etidorpha have been invited to attend the First Annual
International Preservation Trades Workshop (FAIPTW) to be held at the
National Park Service Historic Preservation Training Center (NPSHPTC) in the
hopes that they may actually learn something of restorative use. They will be
going by bus, probably Sevanti Taleways charter and staying at the Purple
Moon Welters Mobile Park (PMWMP), affectionately known to the locals as
PWUMP. WARNING: this is not a Polish pronunciation. Keep an eye out, having
heard there will be a chainsaw expert demonstrating the building of Windsor
chairs from tree stumps attending the workshop, they may be bringing Buck
with them to see what they can do to free their heirloom rocker. They seem to
be running out of mothballs and those little white desiccant packets that
came with the pocket microscopes. If all else fails, they will have kindling
for the Saturday night bonfire.

During the day at the Orgrease Egg Packing Plant, the mechanized packer, with
its small blue and yellow plastic fingers rapidly plucked, rolled, lifted and
gently deposited one egg after another in the paper pockets of the cartons.
 But during the day it managed to keep the embryo escape route down to one
egg every two or three hours; a fifteen percent waste reduction from the
night schedule.  But the mindless egg counter needed constant supervision to
prevent it from overloading a four-dozen-egg carton with four dozen and one
medium Grade A eggs.  That one extra egg somehow finding its way in a flying
arc out of the jaws of the packer and across the room.  Or it would suddenly,
on the spur of the moment, be swallowed whole into the belly of the packer.
 Down, down, cracked and oozing down into that strange clattering, whining,
buzzing, shaking, oil spurting, spinning cacophony an occasional helpless,
defenseless egg was painlessly swallowed. Consumed forever in the bowels of a
machine, to be seen or heard from no more.  Never to be broken with gentle
and admiring love into the plane grandstand of a frypan on Sunday morning.
 Never to be served up with crisp slices of bacon, or pink slabs of ham eyes.
Gone, gone raw.

To be continued.....

Copyright 1997 Ken Follett
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