Chap. 8 - 'Jules et Gin' Pt. 2

The History of Gin
or
A Fox's Tail


Is Life Existential?   You Decide.
by   ' Colorado '  Gumi
...I n s p i r e d By T r u e E v e n t s...


Chapter 8

Jules et Gin

Partie Deux

(see Part 1) ...Jules subsequently was raised by his bachelor uncle Robert -- yes, Bob's his uncle -- who lived in Tours. At the time Robert's passion was the life of Charles (the Hammer) Martel, the illegitimate son of Pippin the Middle and his concubine Alpaida, who defeated the Moors at Tours in 732 (that is, Charles defeated them, not the lovely Alpaida).

Jules' paternal grandfather was captured northeast of Paris during the Fall of France and spent the war in Germany as a POW. He stayed in the army after the war and subsequently was killed in Indochina by one of those nasty Viet-Minh bamboo booby traps.

Jules' maternal grandfather was a minor Vichy official who was arrested by the Free French shortly before the end of the war and spent some time in prison for his rather unavoidable collaboration with the Germans. After his release he moved his family, including Yvonne, from their home in Algeria to France when the trouble started. He invested in a winery and spent the rest of his life in relative affluence.

Jules studied at L'Ecole Technique in Tours, graduated from the University of Paris as an Engineer and decided to study law at Cornell. His family was well-to-do, thanks to his mother's inheritance and his father's investments in telecommunications and German industrial corporations, so they could well afford to splurge on his whims. He really just wanted to come to America to play and make useful contacts...

Jules also has some fairly close relations in Quebec, whom he visits occasionally.

Gin met Jules at a Frat party. . .Delta House or something. . .on the 5th of November, 2004. She maintained a casual acquaintance afterwards, mainly just running into him at Starbuck's. . .once with her car, actually.

Although he is not interested in Gin sexually (leaves more for the rest of us), he shares several interests with her, not the least of which is ladies' fashion. They both know some of the same models in the NYC scene.

He also is a cross dresser. Moreover, Jules sees no humor in the "French Castle" scenes of the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

Jules took up smoking as a teenager, mainly just to be cool, but stopped soon after his 19th birthday because it affected his endurance in the amateur bicycle racing that had become his obsession shortly before that time. He drinks like a fish.

On coming to America Jules made a point of buying the gaudiest American car he could find. He drives a red Ford 350 Crew-Cab Pickup truck that gets 11 mpg in city and 15 mpg in highway driving. It could have been a Hummer but that tired cliche clashed with the quirkiness central to Jules' character. The point is for his car to be something no one expects a Frenchman ever to want and everyone knows all Frenchmen love hummers.

At Starbuck's all Jules orders is a large, black House-Blend coffee. He feels the coffee at Starbuck's is worse than mediocre (this isn't legendary French snobbery. . .the coffee at Starbuck's really is worse than mediocre) but he goes there anyway because there's always a crowd he can work to his advantage. He often poses as Euro-trash.

Two of Jules' great-grandfathers were killed at Verdun in World War I -- oddly enough. . .by each other -- oddlier still. . .on different days.

Another great-grandfather actually fought on the German side. He was French but got confused in all the excitement and enlisted in the wrong army -- He always had a lousy sense of direction. No one held the treason against him very long. . .he was released from prison in 1925 and by 1932 family, friends and neighbors all had forgiven him. Eventually when the subject arose everyone got a good giggle over his dopey mistake during "The Great War" (World War I). They joked, with prophecy probably unintended, that he'd learned his lesson and wouldn't make that same mistake again. And he didn't at the outbreak of World War II ("The Even Greater War"). But alas he was caught up in a Vichy sweep of "volunteers" for German industry and spent the duration in Munich making Coo Coo clocks, apparently a vital war resource for the Nazis.

Just to round out the history, Jules' fourth great-grandfather was an Irish World War I pilot in the Royal Air Corps who had an affair with, and knocked up, Jules' fourth great-grandmother (she liked this wiggle thing he did right at the end, especially when she wiggled back) although she, a French woman, was married to a quite inattentive Frenchman working at the French Colonial Department. The scandal was know to the family but hushed and never discussed. The cuckold husband, the ersatz great-grandfather, was later discovered in bed with another man by that man's wife, who shot them both dead where they lay using a Colt's .44 40 Peacekeeper revolver. She managed to avoid the guillotine and in fact, was acquitted at her trial. The revolver had been a gift to someone in her family from 'Buffalo Bill' Cody during a performance of his famous Wild West Show on European tour.

The man-killing wife's name was Sophia Helene DeCarlo and she had red hair. Sophia killed the two with just one shot -- preoccupied at the time, they didn't notice she'd entered the room. It was a Tuesday.

Gin figured her dad might suspect the bachelor uncle, Robert, who raised Jules after he lost his parents, also was homosexual. In fact this is not the case. Rather the unfortunate Robert was, and still is, an eunuch thanks to a tragic accident at l'ecole when a classmate, a best friend, accidentally sliced Robert's testicles off with a Napoleonic era sword the friend had brought to school to share with the class -- He shared rather too much of it with Robert. The sword had been carried in the wars by his friend's ancestor, who was an admired officer, named Guy, on Napoleon's staff. Robert's puberty had advanced sufficiently for him to develop and retain some manly traits but he never was the same afterward and didn't marry. To this day no one really knows what happened. Jules' Uncle Robert has no memory of the event and his friend, realizing what he'd done, went quite mad.

In reaction to the accident, which received some press, the French government enacted legislation forbidding the removal of Napoleonic era swords from their scabbards in French public schools and libraries. Scabbardless Napoleonic era swords could not be taken to school at all. The day the story hit the papers it was rainy in Paris, with a hope of clearing skies toward evening.

Although during the French Revolution Jules' ancestors were a mixed bag of Royalist and Republican, in the Napoleonic Wars the ones left were all staunchly pro-Napoleon. . .funny how that works out.

Jules' current paramour... actually for the last 5 months or so... is named Travis Astor. He's a cowboy type from a big-time ranching and wheat farming family in Manhattan who is studying business. . .that is, the kind of finance stuff Broker/Traders do.

Until 5 months ago Travis believed he was straight -- as did we all. And until that time he had a girlfriend. . .a beautiful and engaging young fox with ready smile and flashing brown eyes from New York City; she has a studio apartment near where Seinfeld and Kramer live. However Travis was inept around women; wavering between clueless and Victorian when push came to shove, so to speak, in the relationship (if you get my drift). After Travis was spectacularly dumped (with due cause) by his girlfriend in an Oscar-worthy performance precipitated by a particular moment of relationship incompetence, Jules stumbled across the wreckage somehow and they've been bosom buddies ever since. It's a wonder, though, how a guy who didn't know what to do with a woman in a short skirt does know what to do with a dude in the same outfit. (...but now I'm lost myself -- is Travis made-up or real? I think he's real.)

Jules once admonished Gin for the "ambiguous use of pronouns" in her conversation. She found this criticism unacceptably cheeky. . .especially coming from HER figment. . .and she cooled their acquaintance for a short while to drive home the point.


Anywho, she tested the Jules identity with several school friends to see if the profile held water, which it did in buckets. In fact -- though they never met him -- everyone liked Jules better than any of the real people they knew, which is a sad commentary on her friends but a big tribute to Gin's imagination. Not surprisingly one friend, someone or other's roommate, claimed to know he wasn't a bit gay because she already had slept with him several times and he was hot.

To Be Continued

Chap. 8 - 'Jules et Gin' Pt. 1

The History of Gin
or
A Fox's Tail


Is Life Existential?   You Decide.
by   ' Colorado '  Gumi
...I n s p i r e d By T r u e E v e n t s...


Chapter 8

Jules et Gin

Partie Un

There is nothing remarkable about the so-called "Imaginary Friends" of childhood. Sprogs, Ankle-Biters and Rugrats of all stripes and persuasions routinely conjure these figments from the collective subconscious for whatever reasons. No indeed, there's nothing at all remarkable about imaginary friends. And even if there were something remarkable about imaginary friends, it's impossible to assess the damage such apparitions may do to the afflicted Sprog because by the time the "friend" appears no one can reconstruct what the Brat's normal life would've been had it never been imagined... Once conjured, the damage has been done. Yes, it definitely may be as much as 65% certain there is no harm done by such flights of fancy, assuming of course that it is a fancy and not some Pan-Dimensional Being, Super-Intelligent Space Alien or outright Demon that is trying to hijack the Rugrat's psyche for it's own nefarious agenda, like in that Star Trek episode (starring William Shatner as Captain Kirk).

However, Ginny's imaginary friend WAS remarkable because she was 21 and in second year at Cornell Law when Jules first made his appearance.


[Author's Note: Truthfully, it's unfair to juxtapose the first silly discussion of the proverbial "Imaginary Friend" of childhood with the second unrelated discussion of an identity Ginny allegedly made up. The first discussion segues expertly into the second as if they are related, and by this association, the absurd flavor of the first permeates the second, adding to it an unwarranted taste of the ridiculous. Probably there is a scholarly lawyer term that I don't know for such tricks of rhetoric.

In fact, the entire exercise is a skillful ploy to be funny. Probably there is also a scholarly comedic term that I don't know for such tricks of humor.

Yet cleverly twisting or better still, completely fabricating the truth is my way. And like the guy said in that 'Dangerous Liaisons' movie, "It's beyond my control" anyways...]


Jules grew from a discussion Ginny had with a particular friend (who's identity is irrelevant, especially if it was me) concerning that person's desire to know Gin's father's opinion of certain Wall Street investments. Everyone knows that Mr. Mullins, though staunchly recalcitrant, is a Certified Genius with the Midas touch -- like Lex Luthor.

As anyone with casual knowledge of Sherlock Holmes, M. Poirot or Nero Wolfe knows, one must be circumspect when dealing with geniuses because they quickly deduce everything from one or two facts and wind up knowing all your business, even what happened in the elevator. (I know this for a fact, as I do it all the time myself.) So Gin was wary of just coming out and asking her father's opinion on anything since one could fill a large Japanese trawler with tuna using all the cans of worms it opens. Besides what's the point of studying law if one's going to approach things in a simple, direct and open manner; that's the way engineers do things.

Sitting there with her friend, mulling over the request, Gin figured she could start by asking her father if he thinks a person... without naming names... should put money into Google now that it's pulled back some or if it's better to wait because it's going to drop even more. Then under the inevitable pressure of his interrogation -- at such times being prepared and not blinking are paramount -- she could drop a name. . .Jules. . . which just popped into her head, as random names often do.

Working through the scenarios she figured the next time her dad called -- for whatever, maybe to ask if she had the 24K service done on the Beemer -- she'ld open with something along the lines of, "No I didn't get it serviced because the dudes at the dealership undress me with their eyes. By the way. . .Google has dropped quite a bit lately. Do you think it will recover and if so, is this the low or will it drop more before jumping back up."

He might say, "Well, with the skimpy skirts you wear I can't imagine it takes much for anyone's eyes to remove them. But surely you aren't interested in investments. . .why are you asking?"

Artfully controlling the conversation, she replies "Ah well... Yes I am interested but actually I was going by Starbuck's where I ran into my friend..."

He interjects, "OHMYGOD WITH YOUR CAR!!"

She continues, "NO, NOT with my car! ...My old friend, Jules, an exchange student from France that I know (whom, for those already lost in the intrigue, she made up), and he was talking about Google and it got me interested, what with it's spectacular rise and fall. And anyways, I can't just be a pretty face and sweet smile my whole life (...as her adoring father, he ignores rather than concedes this point)."

Undoubtedly he would respond, "Is this Jules a boyfriend?"

And she shrewdly moves her next chess piece, "Oh No... no way. He's homosexual." In his mind this changes Jules from being a person that he might actually have to meet someday to a theoretical entity. . . the kind of young dude a daughter's father can really like.

At this point Ginny assured her friend she just needs to sit back and take copious notes as her dad waxes expansively on his profound understanding of Google's potentiality.

Then she would add, "And you know, the girl behind the counter at Starbuck's, who by the way must weigh at least 300 lbs., was talking about the New York Stock Exchange IPO... Is that something to jump on now? Because when she mentioned it, a guy behind the counter, I think his name was Seth, said that the Chicago Mercantile Exchange went public a few years ago and it's stock has soared 3 or 4 times in the last year or two."

And again he would expound, up and down, about these investments. In closing he might even let slip the prospective release date for "Doom 4." It was a most cunning plan -- a piece of cake or as Brits say, Robert's your father's brother. Ginny beamed in all her sagacious splendor.

But the more she thought about it -- brainstorming the many scenarios and wheels within wheels -- the more she believed the character of this phantom French person should be expanded in case of probing questions during the cross-examination. In this way Jules was born...


His full name is Jules Claude Moulin. He is 5'10" with curly auburn hair and green eyes. He wears contact lenses and has one front tooth expertly capped as a result of tripping on a cobble stone at the age of 12 during a visit to Rheims with his family.

His father is named Henri Claude Moulin and his mother, Yvonne Marie -- with the maiden name DuArtie. She had her tits "done" in the 70's. . .pretty good work for that era, although a tad too firm.

During a holiday trip to Spain in the 1990's, both of his parents were killed in the explosion of a bomb planted by Basque Separatists. The Bomb was built by Stephan Catillia and left in a bag beside a Post Office by Carlos Sanchez. Afterwards Sanchez agonized over the bombing because he'd slipped the phone number of a really hot chick he met that day in the bag without thinking and it was blown to bits... (see Part 2)

To Be Continued

Chap. 7 - ' Thanks for the Memories' Pt. II

The History of Gin
or
A Fox's Tail


Is Life Existential?   You Decide.
by   ' Colorado '  Gumi
...I n s p i r e d By T r u e E v e n t s...


Chapter 7

Thanks for the Memories

Partis Duos

(see Part I) ...Fortunately for Gin sea captains invariably are proud of their vessels and the captain of this ship lunged at any opportunity to show it off and brag. In no time at all he was escorting his distinguished passenger, a balding Roman Senator named Donalcus Trumpio, through the ship. As the pair strutted below deck between the rows of oars the Senator fancied he recognized someone seated beside a particularly stupid-looking Greek... ...Gin Ben-Her, buck-naked but for a rag stylishly draped low at the hips, had just started to break a sweat sweeping an oar in time to the catchy two-note tune played loudly on the big drum by a hugely barrel-chested guy when a guard approached, removed her chains and escorted her to a cabin in the First-Class section of the ship (where she'd thought she belonged all along). Skillfully guided through the doorway by a rude kick to the bum, Gin blinked at the occupant as he motioned her to draw closer.

A few questions confirmed Trumpio's suspicion that Gin, indeed, was related to his old college roommate at Athens University, ol' Ken Ben-Her, Gin's father -- Several years ago Ken journeyed with a large caravan to Parthia where he disappeared and was figured dead (originating the popular catch phrase "They Killed Kenny!"). With much batting of brown eyes and shaking of luxuriant tresses Gin explained her current predicament; which Trumpio waved off as the merest trifle. Swearing a massive oath that in her place he would have heaved Mullincles at Phallus, the Senator gave every indication that Gin's life soon would resume its prior positive track. While telling Gin about the time her father had gotten a particularly nerdy underclassman named Archimedes drunk and sold him into slavery a commotion broke out all about the ship. Rushing to the top deck Trumpio and Gin saw the ship was swarming with Sicilian pirates. Six of the thugs immediately fell upon the Senator with every intention of killing him and, incidentally, ending the prospect of Gin's restoration. She also saw the pirates were looting the ship's cargo, large crates of Victoria's Specialis merchandise, her favorite knickers. ...Now bullying her father's old school chum is one thing, but coming between Gin Ben-Her and haute couture is suicide.

Although she preferred the traditional weapon of her ancestors -- the House of Her long ago elevated the cleaving of skulls with jaw bones of asses to an art form -- she grabbed what was at hand, the ubiquitous Roman short sword. In a whirl of action that anticipated the Bruce Lee Gung-Fu movies by two millennia, Gin quickly sliced, diced and pureed her way through the toughs hectoring Trumpio and then laced into the others as they fled back to their vessel after dropping the loot helter-skelter. Resolved to avenge such vulgar treatment of accoutrement, Gin rallied the ship's crew to a blood-drinking frenzy and, like locusts, they flowed en masse onto the pirate ship where. . .in the extreme biblical sense. . .they smote every single living thing aboard. White with shock, Trumpio stared agog at the curvaceous dynamo responsible for bathing the decks of two large ships in more blood and bodies than the apocalyptic final level of the blockbuster video game, "Doom 3." Her anger abated, Gin Ben-Her again batted pretty eyes and waved demurely.

Needless to say Senator Trumpio was much impressed by Kenny Her's little girl and for the remainder of the voyage Gin was treated like a princess. Once in Rome Trumpio revealed his desire to adopt Gin as his child and heir. Such adoptions were common among Romans, though this instance was complicated by several laws and traditions limiting adoptions to sons. However, Gin had no problem with assuming the identity of a man. She always liked short skirts, fancying the feel of fresh air passing between her warm thighs with particular relish, and would prefer the short male tunic to her long womanly fashions. So in no time at all the deed was done; Gin Ben-Her bobbed her hair, added the surname Trumpio and assumed a male identity in public (she used the name Jim).

The Senator also offered to do something nice for Mullincles but all he could suggest for the hapless Greek was to take him on in his kitchen. Foreseeing death slathered thick all over this idea, Gin replied it would be best if Mullincles was just released from his oar and allowed to melt into the Roman Rabble. Shortly thereafter Gin and her new daddy stood on the front steps of his palace and watched, with relief, as the departing Mullincles blended into the milling mob and moved with it down the Appian Way. One could almost see misfortune, misery, misadventure and mayhem trailing in his wake, like a line of baby ducks.


...Although it would be a score of centuries before the scummy puddle of Mullincles' gene pool was flushed sufficiently for the House of Her, this was not the last the Hers saw of the Mullincleses...


Now a Roman citizen, Gin frequently returned to her hometown for long visits. On her first return she was relieved that the reported infections of her mother and sister with leprosy were, in fact, just severe cases of scabies they contracted from Mullincles. And a year or so later she was delighted when returning to be greeted by her lost father, who had emerged suddenly from the desert fit as a fiddle. Turns out that during a rave celebrating the caravan's arrival at the Parthian capitol, he had returned to his rooms for a nap. Feeling peckish upon awakening, he searched his belongings for a snack and had been either foolish or drunk enough to consume some stuffed grape leaves that Mullincles had made and packed for him. Relieved of his memory and sanity by the resulting illness, Ken Ben-Her wandered Asia in a delirious ramble that made Ulysses' Odyssey look like a stroll across the Boston Common. Years later he awoke from dementia to find himself completely bare-assed and humping his way in alphabetical order through the Emperor of China's huge harem - he was up to the "X's"...again. Thanking the Emperor for his hospitality, Ken immediately beelined back home.

So now she had two adoring fathers who, though fast friends, competed fiercely to make Gin Ben-Her's life as happy as possible.


     Epilogue

Ginger Mullins returned to sensibility with a start, as if a balloon had popped. Although the flashback of her ancestor's memories had spanned mere moments, two or three minutes at most, her frozen posture was attracting attention, especially from the fat girl behind the counter. Unfortunately Ginny's original casual glance at this person had matured into an unintended blank stare and to Gin's horror, the morbidly obese woman now was responding with flirtatious winks of an eye and lips pursed into coy blown kisses. On rising to leave, Ginger also was mortified to see the coffee she'd held so long in mid-sip had dribbled in her lap, looking vaguely like she'd peed her ADolce & Gabbana pants. Wondering why these things always happened to her, she exited the Starbuck's by the closest door.

As for Mullincles, he headed north (something hard to do from Rome on the Appian Way). After inadvertently unleashing a series of events in Gaul amongst the Franks and Germans eventually culminating in World War II, he headed farther north still. In the end he settled in (or was chased to) Hibernia, that Emerald Isle one over from Britannia, where he took a wife and badly piddled the pool with progeny.

To Be Continued

Chap. 7 - ' Thanks for the Memories' Pt. I

The History of Gin
or
A Fox's Tail


Is Life Existential?   You Decide.
by   ' Colorado '  Gumi
...I n s p i r e d By T r u e E v e n t s...


Chapter 7

Thanks for the Memories

Partis Unus

     Prologue

Manhattan has heaps of Starbuck's. Literally thousands, quite possibly millions and perhaps even gazillions of the coffee-spewing bistros carpet the island landscape; occupying avenues, streets, alleys, stream beds and cow paths -- sometimes packed solidly, cheek to jowl, from corner to corner. The problem is not finding a Starbuck's in Manhattan but rather not finding one. Anyways, at Christmas break during her second year at Cornell Law, Ginger Mullins was sitting with her knees tastefully together in a Manhattan Starbuck's (which, as already established, is not hard to do) in her least favorite ADolce & Gabbana suit and Manolo Blahnik brown alligator halter back heels.

Quietly sipping her current favorite coffee, an extra-large grande double-decaf triple cappuccino, with quadruple nutmeg-sprinkled foam, in a commemorative, special-issue "Prada" designer paper cup, Ginny's thoughts wandered idly from this to that. She first decided, for the third time that day, that her father, a former delinquent with a tenuous grip on reform, was completely clueless. Also in her thoughts was her attire -- the previously mentioned ADolce(et al) outfit of a cotton jacket with crystal logo on back, notched collar, two-button front, side flap pockets and long, button-cuffed sleeves; a cotton pant with regular-rise waist, boot-cut legs, and flat front with fly closure; and the alligator shoes. Needless to say, it was a "Dry clean only" ensemble. She had just concluded debate, in an internal dialog, on the merits of just ditching the thing rather than bothering to drop it at the cleaners -- it was three weeks old AND off-the-rack after all. However, when it came time to put the decision to a vote, a quorum was not achieved and the matter was tabled temporarily until tomorrow afternoon, at the earliest. Besides, the debate had grown half-hearted because her mind kept wandering to the sexy pink Victoria's Secrets bra and panty set that so erotically caressed her body beneath the suit. If she loved the sensation of the gossamer bra as it cradled the firm mounds of her breasts, teasing her taut nipples with every breath she drew, then she adored the tug of the silky thong panty where it rode along the tender valley between her tight buttocks. Occasionally she shifted position in the chair just to feel the heavenly thong draw across her skin in that delectably enjoyable manner.

And all the while, as she sipped coffee and thought, Gin's eyes had wandered discreetly about the Starbuck's, taking everything in. Her attention eventually paused on one of the employees behind the counter, the obligatory 300-pound young woman working at every Starbuck's. While studying this person Gin finally discovered the secret of how such people manage to weigh 300 pounds; she saw the woman take a surreptitious gulp, sometimes two, from every coffee she prepared. Gin had just mentally verbalized an "Ah" and was continuing on to the concluding "-ha" when she found herself standing in stark sunshine on a roof garden, her hand upon the bricks atop a parapet wall as she leaned forward to peer at the pageant winding along the lane below...

As often happens with Alien abductees, Ginger was experiencing a spontaneous flashback; only in this case it was not a flashback of the abduction but rather a flashback caused by the abduction. Thing is, even with so-called Super-Intelligent Space Aliens, the actual classification of intelligence is rather tricky, with lots of footnotes concerning ranges, means and standard deviations. As it turns out while most of the Super-Intelligent Space Aliens that abducted Ginny earlier really were Super-intelligent, if somewhat cowardly, some of the Super-Intelligent Space Aliens were just plain dumb. And the poster child for "Dumb Super-Intelligent Space Aliens" was the little he-Alien named Greg who was polishing the shiny levers, buttons and knobs on the Inner-cranial Neural-synapse Flocculator while the other Aliens had doggedly probed Ginny's memories. Turns out that Greg, rather like a 3-year-old, invariably crammed his mouth full of chewing gum (Yes, even Super-Intelligent Space Aliens chew gum - In fact it's presence is indicative of higher intelligence, with this Greg being a notable exception.) and when startled by a sudden bright flashy light, he coughed a huge slimy wad into the more sensitive whirling components of the Flocculator. Suffice it to say that the machine's usual flawless operation degraded precipitously; the net result being that several of Ginger's genetically-encoded ancestral memories were fed back directly into her subconscious, where they quietly awaited a chance to pop out at some inopportune moment.


     Gin Ben-Her

That is how Ginger, while sitting with a cup of Starbuck's cappuccino to her lips and gazing at the fat woman, suddenly found herself reliving the memory of a distant maternal ancestor in first-century Jerusalem. At the moment the flashback began Ginger's ancestor, Gin Ben-Her, was drawing back from watching the passage of the new Roman governor of Judea, Maximus Phallus, to admonish her Greek slave on his failure to set out her newest Manolous Blahnikium sandals from Antioch.

This particular Greek, strangely named Mullincles, was a rare piece of work; barely sentient and competent only at total incompetence. Mullincles aspired to become famous by inventing something that everyone would love. He currently was working on a new game played on a board with live ants as playing pieces. For some reason he planned to call it "Doomium" but the only part of the idea that was going anywhere was the ants. Obviously for Mullincles being a slave was a big promotion. Anywho, as Gin Ben-Her lifted her hand from the parapet to have a heated word with the fellow, a loose brick (which Mullincles had been told three times to fix) sailed from the wall into the crowd below, braining Phallus on his way to receive a crown of laurels.

Now most times people are happy, even ecstatic, to see a crowning. But in this instance the crowd, and particularly the spear-studded cohort of legionnaires, objected to Gin's premature crowning of their leader with a common brick. Needless to say, doors were forced, stairs ascended, accusations thrown, arrests made, estates confiscated and Gin Ben-Her quickly found herself on a slow boat to Rome chained to an oar. Beside her, but for the moment facing the wrong direction, also sat Mullincles. Corrected in his confusion vis-a-vis the principle behind an oar by several lashes from a stout whip, he eventually assumed a proper orientation relative to Gin, the ship and the universe, and the pair began their new life... (see Part II)

To Be Continued

Chap. 6 - 'Seinmullins'

The History of Gin
or
A Fox's Tail


Is Life Existential?   You Decide.
by   ' Colorado '  Gumi
...I n s p i r e d By T r u e E v e n t s...


Chapter 6

Seinmullins

In New York City Ginger Sue Mullins hangs her thong in a one-bedroom, one-bath apartment she keeps on Manhattan's Upper West Side. If one is hell-bent on living in the heart of a reinforced-concrete snake pit, then this abode is a nice enough place.

From the perspective of a hypothetical TV audience Ginny's NYC apartment is laid out with a large multipurpose living area in the center and to the left, and with a small kitchenette on the right. To the extreme left is the apartment building's outer wall, with a double window looking out on some Manhattan street. The windows have the old style, wide venetian blinds. Old fashioned cast iron radiators sit under the two windows and a desk with Ginny's IBM thinkpad on it fills the corner beyond windows. In the foreground the living area has a small sofa, a coffee table and a large TV on a low stand. However, one rarely notices the TV unless it happens to be part of the action in the apartment. Eventually the sofa grouping came to include an end table with a lamp and upholstered chair. To the extreme right, the kitchenette is bound by the inner wall of the apartment. On the other side of that wall is the apartment building's corridor. Looking from the elevator at one end of this corridor, the apartment is on the left at the opposite end. The apartment number is "5 A." The kitchenette has cabinets along the wall, usually filled with Ginny's cereal collection, an island in the foreground separating the main living area from the kitchenette and a refrigerator in the background. The kitchen seems vestigial, as if largely unused for cooking or other productive work -- As if the kitchen's only purpose is to be a place to stand that isn't the living area. The door to the apartment, with the typical Manhattan collection of locks, is behind the refrigerator nook. In the extreme central background is an alcove that leads to the bathroom, which can be seen into on direct line of sight beyond the alcove entry. The bathroom window looks directly into a brick wall. There is more of a hint, rather than hard evidence, that the bedroom door is on the alcove's left side wall. When looking into the alcove along the centerline of the apartment, the bedroom cannot be perceived. People rarely, if ever, see inside the bedroom and not much ever happens there. A bicycle hangs from the ceiling in the alcove and in the main living area, against the wall to the left of the alcove's entry, is a bookcase filled with Ginger's stereo components and entertainment media.

On reflection, the proportions of the apartment seem out of whack, with the angles between the walls greater than 90 degrees, as if the whole thing was constructed on a stage with a foreground of extreme width that diminishes to a narrow background.

Ginny's life in her apartment always has seemed strangely episodic rather than progressing in a continuum; the closest analogy would be a weekly television sitcom. These episodes revolve around tableaus of the antic interactions among a small cast consisting of Ginny and her three particular friends: Wayne Bemes, a former lover but now platonic friend; Georgina Costamza, whom she's known since high school (or before), and Kramner, the lovably odd neighbor across the hall.


The following personal profiles provide insight to these friends of Gin's:


Wayne Bemes - Like Ginny, much of Wayne's life revolves around trying to arrange relationships with attractive individuals, although some of his last longer than Ginny's. His most memorable is his on-again, off-again relationship with a boy named Sue, whose parents were big Johnny Cash fans. He has held jobs as an "Idea Man" for Little Golden Book Publishing, a copy writer for Adam and Eve Adult Toy Catalog (specializing in dildo descriptions), and a personal assistant to the wealthy Ms. Carley Simon, who according to Donald Trump had the chutzpah to live in a rent-controlled apartment. Wayne and Gin dated and broke-up, but remain good friends. The couple rekindled their romance after watching the "Seinfeld" episode entitled "The Deal" and they slept together (to save their friendship, which was deteriorating due to the revelation that Wayne faked his orgasms while they dated) after watching "The Mango" from that same series. The relationship reverted to platonic in both instances without any significant explanation.

Wayne is from Maryland (isn't he lucky), went to Princeton University (his luck is boundless) and usually works as a writer-editor. Wayne is most often a victim of circumstance, usually coming into conflict with inadequate boyfriends or the arbitrary demands of his eccentric employers. He usually is fairly apathetic to the problems of others, unless of course they affect him directly. He can be surprisingly ruthless, and seems to be inwardly bitter about the state his life is in (which is New York, so the feeling is understandable). In a discussion about what he had wanted to be when he grew up, Wayne once said he didn't remember, but "it wasn't this." He also occasionally remarks that he needs to find new friends, but try as he may to fit in, usually they reject him. He also is known for his unusual, spastic dancing style, described by Georgina as a "full body dry heave".


Georgina Costamza - A short, stocky, slow-witted woman who, inexplicably, is balding. The neurotic Georgina is a self-loathing, pathological liar domineered by her parents, Frank and Estelle. She is also best friends with Ginny, and seems to have been so since their school years. She has held many jobs, including that of Starbuck's latte-foamer and assistant to the fluffer for porn star Ron Jeremy. She also worked briefly as president of Cornell Law School, was a mechanic at the BMW dealership in Ithaca, NY, and nearly acquired a job as a bra saleswoman for a friend of her father's. Georgina also was a hand model for less than a day.

Her relationships with men always have been unsuccessful, although ironically, her most disastrous relationship, an engagement to a woman named Susan was one of the few that ended "well" for Georgina. She feared marriage and the death of Susan bailed her out, although Susan's parents continued to torment her after there daughter's demise. Her talents include lying, the video game Frogger, parallel parking, finding good deals, making "good" time, knowing whether someone's uncomfortable at a party, the ability to recall the best public rest room near a given location in Manhattan, and the ability to correctly spell unusual last names. She also has excellent hearing.

Georgina often manufactures elaborate deceptions at work or in her relationships, usually to gain or maintain some small or imagined advantage. Most of Georgina's reprehensible actions are the result of taking the advice of others too seriously. For example, Ginny once jokingly suggested she should only do the opposite of what her instinct tells her, as her instincts seem to lead only to misfortune. This comment led Georgina to try and center her whole life around the principle. Her disastrous engagement to Susan also began with a remark made by Ginny. (In fact it was the result of an impulsive pact for both to plunge into matrimony with the persons they were seeing at the time.). Thus it is arguable that Georgina is not really a bad person, but just easily swayed by others. Coincidentally, many of Georgina's predicaments mirror those that Larry David, of "Seinfeld" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" fame, had found himself in at one point or another in his own life. For example, Georgina once quit her job in a fury only to realize her actions were a mistake. She goes back the next day as if nothing happened; which, remarkably, is identical to an incident when Larry David, working as a writer for Saturday Night Live, quit and returned to his job in the same manner. That's some coincidence, huh?


Kramner - Tall, wild-haired, and almost always wearing pants too short for her, Kramner is the most eccentric and animated of Ginny's friends. Looking even more like an over-grown weed than Emilia Earhart, Kramner often enters Ginny's apartment by violently swinging open the door and sliding into the room unexpectedly. For the first six years Ginny had her apartment Kramner's first name was unknown; once her full name was revealed by her mother, Babs Kramner, everyone forgot it. I think it was something like "Cosmo", but I might have it mixed up with the magazine. Initially, Kramner was referred to as "Kessler" by Ginny, but no one knows why... It's not as if Kramner was a TV show character based on a real person and the writers were concerned in the pilot that person might object to use of the name. -- Again coincidentally, "Seinfeld" co-creator Larry David had a New York neighbor named Kenny Kramer, which sounds lots like Kramner but there is no connection.

Kramner has been perpetually unemployed after going on strike from a bagel shop that she worked at before meeting Ginny. Nine years after meeting Ginny, Kramner briefly goes back to work at the shop after six years of striking only to go back on strike a few days later. She frequently pursues hare-brained, money-making schemes -- nearly all of them her own invention. Despite the failure of the majority of these schemes and her unwillingness even to apply for a normal job, she always seems to have more than enough money when she needs it; once George made a comment about Kramner "falling ass-backward into money", suggesting she could have inherited some money or won some kind of lottery, but there is no evidence to support this theory. Kenny Kramer, the previously mentioned neighbor of Larry David's, supported himself with the residual profits that he earned from a patent that he developed in the 1970s for the disco ball. At one point when Ginny was being audited, Kramner stated that she had stopped paying taxes years ago, prompting Ginny to quip "that's easy when you have no income".

One of the more popular of Ginny's friends, Kramner is often described as an "action character" who draws onlookers with her wild and unusual antics in a display of skillful physical comedy. She usually enters Ginny's apartment very suddenly, bursting through the door, sometimes hitting someone. In contrast to the other friends, her eccentricities lead her to be almost always painfully honest. She is friends with another acquaintance of Ginny's named Newman, who had a supporting role as dinosaur chow in the mega-hit movie, "Jurassic Park". It always is very funny when Ginny and Newman meet because she invariably acknowledges his presence by sneering the name, "Newman", with a hilarious tone of disgust as if she just met a cockroach -- but that would be impossible because this isn't even that book.

Kramner's Inventions and Ideas

1.) A coffee table book about coffee tables. The book has diminutive fold-out legs so it looks like a coffee table when set on a coffee table.
2.) A pizza place where you make your own pizza from scratch.
3.) Cologne that smells like the beach.
4.) The Bro, a bra for men with man-boobs.


[Author's Note: I must thank Wikipedia for feeding my plagiaristic mill. . .although actually acknowledging the act and citing the source in advance perhaps dilutes the spirit of intellectual theft -- For that I apologize.]

To Be Continued

Chap. 5 - 'Silence of the Care Bears'

The History of Gin
or
A Fox's Tail


Is Life Existential?   You Decide.
by   ' Colorado '  Gumi
...I n s p i r e d By T r u e E v e n t s...


Chapter 5

Silence of the Care Bears

Ginger Mullins had several surreal experiences while attending Cornell Law School. One such interlude occurred during Second Year Spring Break...

Carefully observing the legal speed limit and keeping both hands on the wheel, Ginger drove down a narrow country lane through a dark and empty corner of upstate New York. Her seatbelt was securely fastened and she neither made nor answered cell phone calls while driving, because to have done otherwise was against the law. Not coincidentally an Alien spacecraft -- which, after several years of intricate planning and many decades of travel, had crossed trillions of miles at the speed of light (12 million miles per minute and that's the fastest speed there is) specifically to enable the vessel's crew to pluck her (as opposed to anyone else, say Carly Simon) from a dark-green BMW convertible (as opposed to any other type of vehicle, like a yellow Yugo) -- skimmed behind her totally trashing several local, State and Federal ordinances as it went...

...Securing her to a table by means she did not know and could not understand, the Aliens rudely shone bright, unflattering lights in her eyes from above and got their lame Super-Intelligent Alien jollies doing all kinds of weird stuff, including; stripping her naked, making small incisions in the skin, removing strange stuff from her body, inserting even stranger stuff, poking and prodding, extracting several eggs while giggling at a joke one of their number made in poor taste at her expense and scaring her out of her wits as she lay helpless, rather dazed, and wondering what was going on and why on earth any sentient being would travel so far to do it.

It was what they saw as the Inner-cranial Neural-synapse Flocculator sifted through her memories that so upset the Aliens they dropped everything, Gin included, and beelined back to their home world, carefully reweaving the fabric of space in their wake to keep any Earthling from ever knowing who they were, where they were from or where they went.

Now again in her car, which the terrified Aliens had washed, hot-waxed and meticulously detailed, Gin continued driving in strict adherence to the law, passing trees and occasional opossums, with no conscious memory of an interruption. She knew not that when the Super-Intelligent Aliens saw her ingrained ancestral memories of distant kinfolk brutally clobbering enemies with the jawbones of asses, they laughed as if watching a Three Stooges' short. With the Flocculator on fast-forward, they yawned through countless gruesome images, both inherent genetic memories and history Gin had absorbed, without a care in the world. Even on reviewing her impressions of World Wars I and II, the Aliens smirked amongst themselves at such puny manifestations of mayhem.

However... when they came to the tantrum eight-year-old Ginger threw at a Toys-R-Us when her father refused repeated demands for a Barbie doll she craved in a particular way, several Aliens nervously cleared their throats. The one who earlier had made her the butt of his crude joke paled visibly, excused himself, retired to his cabin and moved a heavy chest of drawers against the door. -- Coincidentally, her father had incorporated his own recollection of her behavior that day into one of the more manic and difficult levels of his popular video game, Doom. Then when the Aliens saw the stark predation and lust with which an older Gin shopped for expensive designer fashions, they squirmed in their seats and glanced sheepishly at each other. But it was after they fished out an obscure memory, hidden deep in her brain stem, that the Alien's went ape-shit with fear. No sentient being would trifle with a race possessing gods clothed in such mind-warping pastel colors, uttering such high-pitched abusive sounds, bearing such fearsome hallmarks... rainbows, flowers, puffy clouds... on their bodies and capable of Olympian acts such as making Timmy care that his ill-considered words hurt little Chrissy's feelings. Caution was warranted all the more with a species comprised of members as mercurially passionate as this specimen they'd collected. In despair each of the Super-Intelligent Aliens loudly damned the ancestors who conceived their cursed mission. Many wanted to make Gin their queen and expend the balance of their lives in service to her. But cooler heads prevailed and they all just plain got the hell out of Dodge.

Driving on, unaware that once more she had thwarted Humanity's annihilation, Ginger spied a cafe and stopped to eat; ordering liver, with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.

To Be Continued

Chap. 4 - '12 Angry Men Meet One Pissed Woman'

The History of Gin
or
A Fox's Tail


Is Life Existential?   You Decide.
by   ' Colorado '  Gumi
...I n s p i r e d By T r u e E v e n t s...


Chapter 4

12 Angry Men Meet One Pissed Woman

Ginger took to law like a raccoon to garbage pails. After coming across the second volume of Sir William Blackstone's four-volume "Commentaries on the Laws of England", she taught herself the law... before leaving High School. Initially stymied by an inability to pass a bar without going in -- and staying for several hours -- she finally passed the bar exam by selecting each answer with her eyes closed. It also helped that she bought several rounds for the house and was drunk herself. She considered moving to Springfield, Illinois and practicing law with Stephen T. Logan, just like Abraham Lincoln, but ever the iconoclast, she decided instead to attend the elite Cornell Law School in a brazen experiment to evaluate that institution's ability to teach law. She found they did an adequate job, although the cafeteria salad bar could have been better.

Ginger's first case, which was tried during the week of winter vacation in her junior year at Ayn Rand High School, caused a local sensation. Her client was a lady who had bitch-slapped and emasculated a shoe clerk that, at the time, had the balls to insist she try a size 9 Rene Caovilla sandal when she had said she wore a 7-1/2. Needless to say he no longer had those balls and Gin, incensed by such gauche, made it her "raison d'etre" to prove the act of removing them was completely justified.

Knowing of Gerry Spence and his trademark fringed leather coat, Gin decided to establish a signature outfit from the start. Briefly considering Oshkosh overalls, she finally settled on Day-Glo pink boob-tube, Hawaiian-print string bikini bottom and Cornell logo flip-flops. Far from being found in contempt when appearing in court thus attired, the judge, who was a closeted cross-dresser, bought the same outfit after the trial and secretly modeled it in his chambers for the bailiff and court reporter.

Gin's court manner was a mixture of the blind aggression and mindless bloodlust of her early Celtic forebears tempered with the stealth, surprise and mindless bloodlust of the Viking raiders who had introduced themselves, intimately, to her Irish kinswomen. ...She felt it better never, ever, to tap the passions of the Balkan side of her family.

Just to be perverse, she arranged for an all-male jury; twelve ostensibly honest citizens who had no idea what lay before them. As the trial unfolded, suffice it to say that Ginny not only had them eating out of her hand, they were trained to the leash, would do clever tricks at voice command, and were reliably housebroken. And although in her summation she did not specifically threaten anyone present with the massive claymore used by her Celtic ancestors to separate the heads from Englishmen, she did mention four times that it was outside in her car.

In the end these twelve men, who started the trial genuinely happy with the world, quickly transcended anger and settled on blind fury for the injured clerk. After the first ballot the jury reported that there was one holdout juror, whom they had hog-tied and gagged. After the second ballot they passed a note to the judge asking that the shoe clerk be sent to the jury room so they could kill him. At this point the judge felt obliged to give the jury additional instructions to the effect that the mob forming outside in the streets would deal with the clerk if he left the building alive, and after the third ballot, the defendant was acquitted, given treble damages and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

To Be Continued

Chap. 3 - 'My Little Ponies n' Gin'

The History of Gin
or
A Fox's Tail


Is Life Existential?   You Decide.
by   ' Colorado '  Gumi
...I n s p i r e d By T r u e E v e n t s...


Chapter 3

My Little Ponies n' Gin

As wrenching as the parturition was for Ginger, she thrived after the first shock and quickly began copious emission of happy burbles, coos, grins, twitches and yawns, as well as discharge of the obligatory liquids, solids and gases. Driving home from the hospital everyone noted that lil' Ginny's manifestations of delight seemed to peak as they passed trendy boutiques, exclusive jewelry stores, and BMW dealerships. Failing to grasp this omen of the future, these reactions were passed off as the coincidental gurglings of gas in her tiny tum-tum.

Time passed and Ginger grew from gassy seedling to potty-trained young tree. Not sickly and stressed like a tree grows in Brooklyn. Nor cramped and stunted like a tree in a pot in The Plaza's lobby. But vigorous and grand, like the annual Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center; that is before they knock it over, ship it far from home and nail it to a stand for people to loaf around and gawk at.

And throughout this period, Ginny's life revolved around the icons of the age; Strawberry Shortcake, Teddy Ruxpin, Lady Lovelilocks, The Cat in the Hat, She-Ra, Pound Puppies, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, My Little Ponies... She adored the Care Bears, those care-full citizens of Care-a-lot. Enraptured by their antics, Ginny would clap with delight whenever they let the Care flow from the cute emblems on their noble tummies. She watched the Care Bears' TV Shows, she went to the Care Bears' Movies, she sang the Care Bears' Songs, she memorized the Care Bears' Creed, she craved the Care Bears' Merchandise, she ate the Care Bears' Cereal. Had the Care Bears had one, she would have drunk the Care Bears' Scotch. She really cared for the Care Bears.

One shouldn't think young Ginger's life was all play however, she was eager to contribute. Early each morning she would awake in the drafty loft of her family's cabin, scamper down the rough-hewn ladder to the ground floor and fan the banked embers of the prior night's fire back to life. Occasionally, especially on cold morns, if she found the fire had died overnight she knew to slip her frock over her gown, slide her bare feet into the buckskin moccasins her father made and hurry the mile to Jones' farm, the nearest neighbor, to get a live coal from their hearth. In spite of the effort, Ginny liked these trips because the Jones kept bees and always would offer her a steamy biscuit dripping with honey.

After a breakfast of liver, with some fava beans, Ginny would wash up, tug a comb one lick through her hair and start her two mile walk to school. The journey wasn't a burden because her pet opossum, Percy, usually kept her company. They would walk along happy as larks and both grinning, for all the world, like 'possums. In winter however, with knee-deep snow and roof-high drifts, the daily trips resembled Himalayan ascents, especially when she had to carry little Percy, who tended to ice up when his fur got wet in the cold. At school, young Miss Tendermercie, a warm-hearted school marm, made sure Ginny learned her three R's and even loaned her real store-bought books to take home and read. Ginny often would read long past dark, lying on the dirt floor beside the fire for light to see by.

As the years passed, Ginger grew into a strapping young gal who didn't mind working hard to bring in a little extra money, usually by splitting fence rails. Her ability to split a long rail, straight and true, with a few blows of the axe was a wonder of the county, where she was known as "Rail Splitter." She also was know to be a good wrestler.

Ginger soon was considering her destiny as an adult. Recalling her Irish father's barbarous youth, many suspected her natural aptitude might be running -- bare-breasted and painted blue, hair flowing wild and bloodstained sword carving gory swaths -- at the head of a charging horde of Celts. But those people weren't being quite fair. Her father hoped that she would become a Broker/Trader, mainly because it was easy for him to spell.

For her part, Ginger secretly harbored a childhood dream of driving a Monster Truck competitively at county fairs and in civic auditoriums across the country, and during the off-season, pole dancing in a Vegas titty bar for tips. However, it was probably memories of the land-title litigations her family endured repeatedly in Kentucky and Indiana that supplanted a career as eye-candy with one in the legal profession.

To Be Continued

Chap. 2 - 'Ginger in Wombderland'

The History of Gin
or
A Fox's Tail


Is Life Existential?   You Decide.
by   ' Colorado '  Gumi
...I n s p i r e d By T r u e E v e n t s...


Chapter 2

Ginger in Wombderland

The interlude prior to birth was very productive for Ginger who, while certainly a precocious child, was an infinitely more precocious fetus. Undistracted by the vulgar outside world, her little light shone like a supernova.

Within the first hours of conception prepartum-Gin independently discovered and cataloged the Human Genome using stray bits of DNA she found drifting about; a task as yet not completed by hordes of scientists and legions of engineers spending piles of lawyers' steamy dough.

A day later she cracked the elusive Unified Field Theory and opened the door for humanity to faster-than-light speed, time travel and transmutation of matter. Incidentally she found and corrected several arithmetic errors in Albert Einstein's work on Relativity and communicated her progress to him via a permanent conduit for communion with the spirit-world that she established for that very purpose.

Reportedly, Dr. Einstein was tickled to receive the update and wished her all the best. Having mentioned he had been totally occupied in the years since his death with trying to balance his old check book, she did that for him, too.

Never a shallow thinker, prepartum-Gin devoted a few minutes to creation of the Unifying Precept for all religions and philosophies to guarantee unending peace, harmony and happiness amongst all beings, and indeed between all things, in each of the twelve universes she had mapped by that time.

Insisting that her work be known, she devised a means to transfer her wealth of discovery to the world at large. Forever a dependably clueless parent, Mister Mullins, in one of humanity's more notable lapses of perception, missed the point entirely by thinking prepartum-Gin's communication from the womb via Morse code was mere random kicking of her tiny leg. Undaunted and ever resourceful, she nonetheless maintained copious notes for posterity encoded in the molecules of the surrounding embryonic fluid.

At the very point of completing work on a time travel device to enable her to go back and undo all the bad ever done -- she had just added final notes to the engineer's fabrication drawings for the Interspatial Dimension-wide Flocculator subassembly and was discussing a prospective launch date with Bleezzzak-aug_53, the project's Pan-Temporal Architect -- the shakings, rattlings and rollings that herald commencement of birth in the human animal started. Caught completely unaware, having been inattentive during the Lamaze classes her parents attended, prepartum-Gin was not prepared for the subsequent rush of events.

With no recourse but to go with the flow, she found herself forcefully evacuated from her research complex in a jumble with all her work, notes and other achievements, including invaluable original art doodled during idle moments, her compendium and critique (composed in Middle English) of all human literature, and the final proof that Elvis was still alive. Thwarted in repeated attempts to return to her lab, Ginger found herself squirming naked on a stainless-steel tray; displayed under stark, unflattering lights for the amusement of onlookers and lay-abouts. Injury quickly followed insult when she was hoisted rudely by the ankles and a latex-encased hand drew back to strike.

As the traumatic slap on her tender tookus forever erased her prepartum memory, Ginger gaped in horror at the irreplaceable record of her research splashed pell-mell across the floor and dripping from the grubby doctor's loathsome hands. Terrorized, she emitted a first cry that curdled the blood of every soul in the hospital.

The last coherent, albeit incomplete, thought of prepartum-Gin had been, "I shall certainly sue that son-of-a ."

To Be Continued

Chap. 1 - 'Proto-Gin'

The History of Gin
or
A Fox's Tail


Is Life Existential?   You Decide.

...
... Inspired By True Events ...
...
by
Kongo  ' Colorado '  Gumi


Preface

"In the Beginning God Created the Heavens and the Earth."
(Genesis 1:1)

"In a Minute, You're Going to Hear... the R-r-r-rest of the Story!"
(Paul Harvey)



Chapter 1

Proto-Gin

Ginger Sue Mullins entered our world as an immature sperm in the left testicle of a bouncing baby boy and as an equally immature egg in the right ovary of a beaming baby girl at two distinct points in the midst of the Twentieth Century.

The early years were troubled for Ginny. Living for decades in the Proto state as separate and extremely randy bits within two different persons, the word Schizophrenia is too mild for the division and angst she endured. It truly is miraculous, and an inspiration to everyone, that she emerged with any sense at all.

Little is known of the eggiol Ginger. It is speculated that this half of proto-Gin was well-behaved, courteous and always would have sat modestly with her knees together, had she possessed them. Moreover, research has traced her forebears along this line directly back to the cave persons, Ogg n' Tina.

This cave couple is noteworthy in history because Ogg is credited with Humanity's first use of crude humor to bemuse, enrapture and seduce his intended mate sufficiently to tolerate him. In fact, in 1997 an archaeological expedition in its third year near the Black Sea discovered in the original cave of Ogg n' Tina a remarkable wall drawing depicting the inaugural event; Ogg swaggering home from a hunt with the private parts of a Mastodon to impress his betrothed. The archaeologists subsequently discovered local legends to the effect that this act led Tina to delay the nuptial union for two additional years.

More is documented for the spermatozoidiol proto-Gin, primarily because the unruly young Master Mullins' behavior was so bestial people cannot forget him. Of particular note is the prophetic declaration of his Third Grade teacher -- Miss Beatum, a blue-haired septuagenarian spinster who looked exactly like Winston Churchill in the Blitz -- that his path certainly would lead to Doom. It was the estate of this Miss Beatum that received several million dollars in compensation when a court determined Mullins used her likeness, without permission, for the grotesque monsters depicted in the blockbuster video game he eventually invented.

Aside from the general discomfort associated with living several years as a single cell possessing only 23 chromosomes, this proto-Gin's life prior to college was uneventful except for the shocks of two near-tragedies. The first brush with oblivion occurred when the still youthful Master Mullins -- whose predilection for misbehavior already is noted herein -- caught his crotch on the top of a chain link fence and nearly castrated himself while fleeing a wrathful neighbor after maliciously tying an empty Campbell's soup can to the tail of that person's beloved Calico cat. In the second event proto-Gin, who had fallen in with a bad crowd at the time, narrowly avoided a trip down the bathtub drain with millions of her companions when culmination of the pubescent Master Mullins' particular act in the shower was interrupted by his mother knocking on the bathroom door.

Remarkably, these two events so indelibly marked proto-Gin that today Ginger possesses otherwise inexplicable attractions to Kitties, Andy Warhol paintings and showers.


While attending college at Princeton. . .the teenaged Master Mullins somehow having avoided incarceration, murder, or both. . .it was noted by those responsible for keeping track of such things that proto-Gin was an indifferent student prone to gazing dreamily out windows and analyzing the fashion sense of nearby students and faculty. In fact, the point generally is conceded that proto-Gin depended heavily on the vacuous academic talents of the barely maturing Master Mullins rather than actually apply herself while at Princeton.

Nevertheless the fact remains that, with only minimal conflict between Mullins and the local authorities, proto-Gin eventually did graduate from that august institution -- on the whole, an extraordinary feat for a single-celled organism.

After college the adult Mister Mullins buckled down, regrouped and hit his stride. Foreseeing the need for more readily accessible pornography, he first invented the Internet. However this invention languished initially -- like an Information Superhighway with no traffic. With the foresight of a delinquent schoolboy composing an alibi while being questioned about his crime, Mullins eventually perceived that a thing to connect TO needed something to connect WITH and created the Personal Computer, which he sold by the millions on street corners to passersby. After a respite to pilot several Space Shuttle missions Mullins ultimately became the father of Doom, to universal acclaim.

He also somehow managed to romance a young woman, unite the proto-Gins and conceive the squiggly blob of protoplasm that today walks amongst us.

To Be Continued