As I was reading this story, I began to wonder exactly what sort of a person could produce such drivel. So I sat down and prepared a list of the preposterous plot elements, one-dimensional characters, plywood dialogue, and outright absurd physical improbabilities -- which I will come to shortly. Then, armed with my list, I set out to discover the author and confront him with the weaknesses in his writing. I wished to determine if he had any shame at all.
Fortunately, I knew he lived within a comfortable driving distance, so soon I had arrived and was standing expectantly at the address I had gleaned through the Internet.
"He's not home," came a voice. It was a mousey little woman next door. A mousey, extremely well-built woman.
I blinked a few times, and smiled my best. "Do you know where he might be?" I asked.
"He's at the homeless shelter," she said.
"Ah, living on the fringes of society is he?"
"Oh, no! He goes there every Tuesday and Thursday evenings to help out with dinner and the services."
"Ah," I said.
Then, before I could continue the conversation, she got a funny look on her face and excused herself. "Sorry," she said, "I have to take my pills." And with that she went inside.
The drive to the shelter was short, and it actually took longer to find a place to park. I went into the shelter and was greeted by a blonde woman who was very beautiful, but looked as if she had been hardened by the burdens she undertook. She was busy scurrying around distributing plates, napkins and silverware to the motley crew assembled there, munching quietly on their meager repast.
I noticed she was fairly top-heavy, perhaps more so than the neighbor had been.
She broke my reveries by asking if she could help me. I said I was looking for the author.
"Oh, he couldn't make it tonight. He apologized profusely. I finally had to shoo him off and tell him it was alright, we could manage just fine without him."
"I see," I said. "So he's not much of an employee, then."
She looked puzzled. "We're all volunteers here...."
"Hm. Well, do you know where I might find him?"
She furrowed her brow. "Well, he was at the pound earlier. He likes to take the lost doggies for a walk in the park so that they might enjoy their last fews days of life if no one comes to claim them."
"Ah," I said.
"So you might try the park." She smiled. Despite the signs of toughness around the corners, it was a beautiful, warm smile.
I opened my mouth to say more, but she was already scurrying off, muttering something about her pills.
The park was only a few blocks down, so I walked. I did not know what the author looked like, but I was sure that I could recognize him.
Sure enough, as I came around the pond in the center of the park, I spotted a stooped, tired-looking fellow. He was sitting on a bench, gazing out over the water. His clothes were clean, but of drab and colorless shades. His back was bent as if the pressures of the world were too much for him, and it took all the effort he could muster just to pass another day. As I watched, his shoulders rose, then dropped in a silent sigh.
I started to approach him, but a beautiful young woman in a pink dress reached his bench first. She smiled, and sat down next to him. Her mannerisms were quite strange. Then I saw why -- she had a white and red cane that she kept between her legs as she sat.
With some curiousity, I noticed she was hauling around quite a pair of watermelons.
She conversed brightly, seeming to address the sky, and the author smiled a weary smile, and seemed to encourage her conversation. I could not hear them, but it seemed as if some event had recently taken place in the young woman's life, and she kept making gestures at the sky as if she had new opportunities opening up before her.
These gestures, I might add, had a rather pleasing effect on the movement of her chest.
Finally, she grew quiet, and reached out and found the author's hand. She patted it warmly, and I thought I heard her say, "Thank you."
The author started to stand, slowly, as if moving a great weight that had been still for ages. I began to approach. As I drew up to him, he bent and kissed the young woman gently, twice, on the eyes. He turned, and I could see he was misting up.
He began to walk away, so I stepped forward to catch up with him.
"Hello," I said, and quickly identified myself. He stood silent for a few moments, regarding me with a sadness that seemed to have no end. Then he nodded and said, yes, he was indeed the author I sought.
"But I don't have time to talk. My boss has required that I come back in to work tonight -- although I was working until two o'clock this morning, and then worked a full day. So if you will excuse me, I have to hurry."
"I will come with you," I said. "I wish to discuss your -- ah -- writing, if it can be called such."
He shrugged. "OK." He started to walk off at a worried pace, glancing at his watch. I kept pace. Behind me, I thought I heard someone yell, "I can see!" but I didn't pause to look around; he was already crossing a busy street toward an office building.
As he typed in the pass code to enter the building, I asked him what he did.
"Oh, low-paying, unfullfilling sorts of things. Managing databases. Entering customer records into the computer. Printing and delivering reports to management. Developing low-level APIs for integrating 5-gen databases with high-performance system software on servers distributed across the continent.
"Nothing that anyone gets much money or recognition for." He shrugged. The door beeped at him. He opened it and we went in.
When we reached the third floor, he paused by a company lunchroom. "I suppose I should offer you something," he said. Then his shoulders heaved with a heavy sigh. "I could use a nice glass of wine myself."
"Juicing it up at work, eh? Certainly I will join you. I'd hate to think of you drinking alone."
He turned and shuffled into a kitchenette that was around a divider. Then quietly he said, "Oh no. Usually they keep some wine in the refrigerators to entertain potential customers. They must have forgotten to stock up. All's they have is mineral water. Darn." Then it grew quiet for a moment. "Oh, OK. Do you like white wine or red?"
"Um.... white, please."
He shuffled back into view with two Dilbert mugs half-full of white wine. I am something of a conniseour, but in the interest of brevity I will omit my assesment of the drink.
We made our way to his cubicle, which was in a back corner, beside a large pipe that ran from floor to ceiling and made strange noises periodically. As we waited for his computer to boot up, I pulled out my list. Now was the moment of truth.
"Well," I said, "I have compiled a small list here of some of the -- ah -- aspects of your writing that I wished to discuss with you. Do you...."
"Sh!" He said, and suddenly crouched down.
"What?" I asked, whispering, but not sure why I was whispering.
He suddenly looked embarassed. "I am afraid I lied earlier," he said.
I nodded, thinking, now the truth comes out about this miserable little man and the thin veil of pathos that pieces his life together.
"You see," he said, "my boss didn't require that I come in to work tonight; I only came in because I knew she would be coming in."
I raised my eyebrows at him.
He continued in his tired voice, "...and I knew she would be coming in because the Vice-president of sales would be coming in." He looked up at me. A limp strand of hair had drifted to the middle of his forehead. "My boss likes him, you see, and she has been trying to get him to notice her for months. But with no luck." He sighed.
I peeked over the top of the cubicle, warily. I saw a very pretty and energetic woman with a stern expression walking through the hall with a coffee mug. She paused, and glanced wistfully over her shoulder, as if she wanted to turn and go the other direction. Then she walked into a large office.
I ducked back down. "Well, she is in her office now."
"Did she have her coffee with her?"
"Yes, she did."
He nodded, and brought something from his pocket. "She will go down to unlock the printer room to get the reports I printed earlier. We will have to move fast," he said.
I peeked over the top of the cubicle again. Sure enough, she was striding from her office, stretching comely shoulders under a satin blouse. She jingled a set of keys in her fingers as she walked. The jingling quieted as she walked away, and then sounded distantly from the other side of the building.
"Let's go," I said.
We went into her office; I wasn't quite sure what we were doing. The author stood over her coffee mug. He took the packet in his hand and unfolded it. It was a handful of green-and-red pills.
"My God!" I exclaimed. "You are going to poison her?"
He looked at me with a startled expression. "Oh, no! I would never...!"
"Then what is the meaning of this?"
"Well... you see... she likes the Vice-president of sales...."
"Yes?"
"Well, he's a breast man."
"Ah," I said. I thought of her attractive body walking down the hallway to the jingling of keys. "But she doesn't have much in that department, does she?"
He shook his head, averting his gaze.
"So... do these pills do what I think they do?"
Still averting his gaze, he nodded slowly.
I rocked on my heels. "And do you really think this is ethical, to foist this upon her without her knowledge or consent?"
He looked up, his eyes unfocused, gazing far away. In a small, almost helpless voice, he murmurred, "Who is to say what's right?"
A silence descended.
Then I said, "Just so. Here, let me help you with those pills."
After a brief argument about how many to use, we broke them all open and spilled the powder into the coffee mug. Then we hurried back to his cubicle, just as the jingling of keys sounded in the hall, approaching from the other side of the building.
"How long does it take?" I asked.
"Not long," he said, and he picked up the phone.
"Who are you calling?" I whispered.
"Time for phase 2," he replied. Then, into the phone, "Hi, Mr. Vernon? I was just checking some reports... it looks like we over-reported sales for the quarter so far... yes... yes... the actual sales figures are about 30% lower than we thought. What? Oh, I'm down here on third floor. Sure... I'll be here." He hung up.
I looked at him in shock. "My God, man, that was cruel!"
But he was peeking over the top of the cubicle. I peeked, too, and saw the boss sipping her coffee, pouring over reports. She sipped, then set the mug down. Then a funny expression crossed her face, and she picked the mug up again and took a deeper drink. The looked at the wall with a puzzled expression. Then she upended the mug and drank it all at once.
She wiped her chin, with a wry smile, shaking her head and chuckling at herself. She looked at the empty coffee mug with a look of admiration.
I glanced over at the author, but he was rapt with attention.
She turned back to the reports, idly tapping them with a pen. Then the tapping turned to slow circles. Then lazy doodles. Her eyes unfocused, and she got a funny relaxed expression on her face.
Snapping herself out of it, she suddenly stood and shook her head to clear it. Her hair came lose, and swirled about her cheeks. She reached her arms up to arrange her hair....
....but didn't quite make it all the way. Her hands stopped at chest level, then drifted in to the satin of her blouse.
There was definately something going on there. She was feeling through the blouse, then pausing to look down, then rubbing again. A look of strange amazement crossed her face.
She took her hands away for a moment, and her blouse was stretched tight across the front.
Suddenly, she unbuttoned the top three buttons, and unhooked her bra. Then she breathed a sigh of relief, and looked up....
...just as the elevator doors opened.
The vice-president of sales, Mr. Vernon, stepped forward, a puzzled expression on his face. She looked away, startled and embarassed. Then paused. Then she turned to look him right in the eyes.
She grabbed her blouse and tore it open, the remaining buttons popping off, scattering around her office.
Mr. Vernon stood transfixed. The fountain pen he had been carrying fell forgotten to the floor.
She moaned, then, and rubbed her breasts. When she took her hands away, her breasts were larger. Much larger.
The vice-president of sales stepped forward, his hands rising. When his fingers touched her nipples, her breasts were the size of cantalopes.
Now their lips locked, and her mamaries were growing with vigor. They wrestled him out of his dark suit, her mams flopping out periodically from between them. They were swelling and growing at an alarming rate. They stretched mightily, blue veins pulsing beneath the soft, translucent flesh.
She pushed him back, her hands on his shoulders, and arched her back. The giant swelling curves of her breasts reached out before her. Hard and dark nipples brushed the vice-president of sales' face. His tounge groped for them greedily as they swayed before him. He reached up and clutched her again, pulling the scraps of her blouse away from her shoulders. He cupped a breast in his palm, supporting its pondorous weight.
Her breasts continued to surge forward, spreading also past her sides. When she turned, the curve of her breast show plainly beyond her heaving torso.
She held her hands up, and gathered her hair above her, swaying with a hypnotic rhythm as the vice-president of sales removed her belt with his teeth.
At one point she lost her balance, and the two of them fell noisily onto her desk top.
"Oh, my..." said the author. "I hope we didn't use too many." He shut down his computer, and slipped out of the cubicle.
"Time to go," he said as he squeezed past me. "Our work here is done."
"Hang on a second," I said. "I am curious about...."
Then the miserable little fool grabbed my tie and dragged me to the back stairway.
So, dear reader, after sneaking out the back way, we found a small coffee shop. I finally got the time to go through my list. I detailed the literary travesties he had committed. I pointed out all the missed opportunities to turn his piece into a real story. Then I detailed the attributes of his writing that made it painful to read. As I summed up, he sat unmoving, gazing at the floor tiles with a broken and defeated look. His cappacino sat on the table before him, untouched, growing cold.
I stood, and bade him good night. Then I stepped out into the brisk chill of the evening.
As for the story itself, "The Sorority Miracle-Gro Mix-up," the entire plot is revealed in the title. I am afraid this insipid little tale will only soil your palette like unexpectedly eating cheese gone bad. It is with some reservation that I give it a rating of one honeydew and half a squash.
(by the happyguy...always happy...happy always)