Wouldn’t it be cool if you were invited. The first thing I’d do is use the bathroom and go thru the medicine chest to see what drugs she is on.

That is funny lol.

I think we have a good start on chapter one. Thanks Morris Sheppard, Nefarious Lesley and Steve Audio and Mommybrain — it’s been fun!

She fixed me with her steely gaze.

“Mr. Noir, you look to me like the kind of man who ignores gathering storm clouds. You look like you’d rather be anywhere, even that stinking fishing town Piscacatawamaquoddymoggin, than right here, right now. It’s time to step up, Noir. What would you say if I said I had proof of every lie they’ve ever told. Would you help me then?”

Maybe she was right. Maybe it is time to take my head out of…the sand. Maybe the commenters are right, maybe there was something odd about the last two landslide presidential elections. Or the repeal of the 22nd Amendment in ‘07 due to the code red possibility of a terrorist attack during the election. But everyone knows those commenters are nothing but commie pinko fags.

Or are they?

“Sure, doll,” I sniggered. “Let’s see your proof.”

surfer @
210

The 30 GB iPod was playing “Ain’t Gonna Work on Maggie’s Farm No More”. Something was about to go off inside me. I needed time.

“Back off, Toots!” I said. Maybe I should check to see if she was carrying a jello mold. “How do I know you aren’t just jerking my chain?”

Something about spreading a virus-like poison at a church pot luck struck me as just flat wrong. Still…

“Listen”, I said. “This isn’t your normal situation. It is going to require sacrifice. Are you willing to part with your Lamont sticker?”

She stiffened and I thought she was gonna refuse. Suddenly, her face crumpled and she uttered a low moan.

“If I have to,” she said slowly, fixing me with a suddenly-steely gaze.

“I know it’s valuable,” she said. “That’s not what I care about. No, to me it’s a symbol, a symbol of the promise of early ‘06, when it looked like we could really turn it around by exercising our constitutional right to vote the bastards out!”

I knew what was coming. The Cataclysm. Rove’s October surprise. Black Wednesday. The complete and sudden collapse of the American economy on that crisp fall morning.

Literally. They say Osama bin Laden flew a plane into it, but I wouldn’t know about that.

She might as well twist a stiletto in my ribs. A symbol of the promise of early ‘06 indeed. For the most part I’d been able to ignore the storm clouds gathering over the good old US of A, but I was a sucker for symbols.

Standing there looking into her steely eyes, I wished for the comforts of my old scallop fishing village in Maine. Piscacatawamaquoddymoggin might not appeal to everyone, but it beckoned me like a lighthouse on a foggy night. Somehow I sensed that a world in which a Lamont sticker might play such a critical role, was not a world to play lightly.

The tune on the 30 GB iPod was playing “Ain’t Gonna Work on Maggie’s Farm No More”. Something was about to go off inside me. I needed time.

“Back off, Toots!” I said. Maybe I should check to see if she was carrying a jello mold. “How do I know you aren’t just jerking my chain?”

Something about spreading a virus-like poison at a church pot luck struck me as just flat wrong. Still…

“Listen”, I said. “This isn’t your normal situation. It is going to require sacrifice. Are you willing to part with your Lamont sticker?”

She stiffened and I thought she was gonna refuse. Suddenly, her face crumpled and she uttered a low moan.

“If I have to,” she said slowly, fixing me with a suddenly-steely gaze.

“I know it’s valuable,” she said. “That’s not what I care about. No, to me it’s a symbol, a symbol of the promise of early ‘06, when it looked like we could really turn it around by exercising our constitutional right to vote the bastards out!”

I knew what was coming. The Cataclysm. Rove’s October surprise. Black Wednesday. The complete and sudden collapse of the American economy on that crisp fall morning.

Literally. They say Osama bin Laden flew a plane into it, but I wouldn’t know about that.

“Back off, Toots!” I said. Maybe I should check to see if she was carrying a jello mold. “How do I know you aren’t just jerking my chain?”

Something about spreading a virus-like poison at a church pot luck struck me as just flat wrong. Still…

“Listen”, I said. “This isn’t your normal situation. It is going to require sacrifice. Are you willing to part with your Lamont sticker?”

Mommybrain @ 114

surfer @ 108

Morris Sheppard @ 72

It’s a slow night on the blog that knows how to keep its secrets. But on the twelfth floor of the Acme building one man is pondering life’s persistant mysteries, and trying to stay awake, Guy Noir, private commenter. Sleep begins to overtake him as he begins to nod and dream of Keith and the lovely Jane, when there is a knock on the door.

[ … ] A Lamont Sticker! Electricity crawled up his spine like lightening on the distant horizon. Slice it anyway you wanted, that sticker was worth a fortune. Since the great financial crash of ‘06, Lamont stickers had risen in value by a factor so huge that it would make Capone sweat bullets.

As she leaned close I could see her suede suit was actually plether. A Democrat. I could feel her pain.

“Well,” I said modestly. “I have brought a few men to their knees with a well-aimed mot. What is you want?”

“I want you to write a column. A snarky column, Mr. Noir, one that will make the world see, once and for all, the inhumanity of these fools, their moral and intellectual bankruptcy, how we’re all being taken for a long ride off a short pier.”

Her lip quivered with passion and her smouldering eyes burned into mine.

I had to admit she was getting to me. Those lips, those eyes … that Lamont sticker. Sure as she had a 30 GB iPod in her pocket, she was playing my tune. But was she playing me?

“What’s in it for you?” I said. “Did your old man take off with his webmaster, or have you just trolled one too many comment threads?”

Her eyes got damp, but she kept a handle on it. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Mr. Noir.”

The story she told me curled my nosehairs; a story so wild only a chump would believe it. Say hello to a chump.

This cabal, she said, has been around for years, working their way into the fabric of the one place you think you’re safe – the church potluck.

They had developed a potion, a single atom of which resulted in total brainwash, with pre-programmed behavior for the next 20 years. Sunday by Sunday the had spread their poison throughout the land.

It was in the jello mold, the cream of mushroom casserole, the mac and cheese. Only a small number of people are naturally immune. They’ve come up with the antedote. She had it in her hand.

“I just want my country back, Noir. That’s all.” The tears spilled down her silky cheeks.