Gold Diggers of 2014

[AuntShecky]

Gold Diggers of 2014

by Aunt Shecky

All Rights Reserved


Our mother always told us, “You know, it’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor man.” Yeah, well, the trick is making the guy fall in love with me.

Like I cared. At that time I was way too busy to worry about a social life. Whenever I broached the subject about increasing my hours down at the Burger Blaster, I got the feeling that Wally, the manager, actually listened to me. Which made me feel that maybe I was being groomed for an executive position.

More importantly, I had been spending most of my free time out in the garage working on my project, part of my long-term goal of developing an innovative alternative to fossil fuels. At that point I’d been fine-tuning my formula, based on ordinary cooking oil. I intended apply for a patent, sit back, and watch the petrochemical industry collapse into the ground. But first I had to produce a perfect prototype of my biofuel.

I knew from the get-go that revolutionizing the global economy wasn’t going to happen overnight. Just as I’d suspected, it had been a frustrating process of trial and error, a case of one baby step forward, two giant steps back. On top of everything else, it was imperative that I kept the entire operation top-secret. If the word got out, some billion dollar oil corporation could sneak in and steal my intellectual property. I was really careful about encrypting my notes. That’s exactly what I was doing one day when Janie barged into the bedroom. In two seconds I clicked “save,” closed the file, and snapped the cover down on the laptop, like I was a C.I.A. spy or something.

“What’s the big mystery?” Janie asked.

“What’s it to ya? And by the way, who invited you in here?”

“It’s my room too, you know!”

“Yeah, well, you could’ve knocked.”

Without even asking, she parked herself next to me on the side of my bed and grabbed the laptop. “Hey!” I yelled. “I was using that!”

As usual, my sister ignored me. While she waited for it to boot up, she killed time by picking at the so-called “invisible” tape which held an inspirational quotation which I’d copied on an index card and attached to the inside cover of the PC. It was my personal motto from the novel Blonde Entrepreneur by Miriam Maudlin Shipman: “I want to bask in the sun of the world’s admiration.”

Once she got online, Janie didn’t waste a second entering the URL in the browser window. She was typing so fast I thought she’d jam the keyboard. I asked her what was the big hurry.

“None of your beeswax, Nosy,” she said. “But if you must know, I’m looking for some eligible bachelors before all the good ones get snatched up.”

“Online dating sites?” I tried not to laugh. “Seriously?”

“Why not? Where else am I gonna find a single rich guy?”

Now I was roaring so hard that I slid off the bed.

“Go ahead and laugh, Liz. Like you’re going to be marching down the aisle any time soon. You don’t even look like you’re interested in guys. I mean, look at the way you dress.”

“Tell you what. When you nab your rich husband, you can treat me to a shopping trip. That way I can buy my jeans and sweatshirts at Lord and Taylor instead of K-Mart.”

Staring at the screen, Janie’s face brightened for a moment and then collapsed in a record three-tenths of a second. “Oh, crap. They want a credit card number.”

“You’re surprised? You think dating services are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts? Those sites are never free.”

“ I so wanted to find a rich guy!”

“Good luck with that one, kid,” I said. But Janie looked so disappointed that I almost felt sorry for her. Almost. “Wait. Don’t shut down yet. I’ve got an idea.”

“Of course you do, Genius.” She spat out the word like an insult. “I never hear the end of it. ‘Liz is the smart one. She’s got an Associate’s degree. Janie’s our pretty one, but she barely managed to make it out of high school, blah-blah-blah. . .’ ”

“You want to follow through on this or what? Then listen. Let me ask you something: every time you see celebrities and rich people on tv or in the papers, what are they doing?”

“Duh! Getting their pictures taken. ”

“I mean besides that. Going to galas, right? Showing up at benefits.”

Janie looked at me as if I had turned into a turnip. “Fat chance we’d ever get an invite to one of those things. Even I know that.”

“Let me finish, will ya? Honestly, you’re so dense. All these charity places–-they’re always looking for free help. That’s what you ought to do. Do an online search of the next scheduled local event and volunteer. It’s a long-shot, but it’s a chance to hobnob with the rich folks.”

“That’s it!” she shrieked. An insane look darted from her eyes as she grabbed my shoulders. “You gotta do it with me!”

“You’re on your own.”

“Please? Pleasepleaseplease!”

“No way, Jose.”

“Oh, come on, Liz! I’ll make it up to you. I know. Next time Ma wants to go to the mall, I’ll take her.”

“And her next three doctor appointments. . .”

“Ewwww, it’s so–o-o-o boring sitting around the waiting room.” Her face got all scrunched up in the effort of deciding. Finally: “Oh, all right. It’s a deal.” Within seconds she was typing again. “Such a funny name – Google.”

I told her that it was a math term. “It comes from ‘googol,’ a really gigundo number with a long string of zeroes. Bigger than billions. Trillions, even.”

“That’s just what I’m looking for –- a googolaire! I want to be his trophy wife.”

“Yeah? Where’s he gonna carve the inscription?”


One night about a week later the two of us reported for duty at the Verdana Country Club. I don’t know if we looked ready to work, but we sure looked the part: plain black pants, black Oxfords, long-sleeved white shirt, and a dorky black bow tie. “Get a load of us,” I whispered to Janie. “We look like a couple of kids playing hooky from a fundamentalist Christian school.”

Janie of course meant business, so she’d dolled up as much as she could by piling on killer makeup thicker than Mom’s homemade brown gravy. Before we left home, she’d practiced batting her eyelashes, and with each flutter, tiny bits of mascara flew off and stuck to the mirror like gnats on a No-Pest Strip. She never needed to rehearse her trademark hair toss; she had that move down by sixth grade. While we waited for instructions from the Head Volunteer, Janie was getting antsy.

We’d been at the gala six minutes, seven, tops before she spotted a likely prospect. “Don’t look now,” she whispered, “but see that dude standing over by that big potted plant?”

I stole a look. “You don’t mean that old guy who looks just like Uncle Herb?”

Janie nodded. “That’s Sherman Collins. He controls all the Muckenmire Beer distribution between here and the Canadian border. I hear he just dumped Wife Number Three.”

“What’re ya, nuts? That geezer’s got to be pushing seventy.”

“So what? He’s loaded.”

“Listen, Janie, you’ve got to be subtle, play it cool–-“ I couldn’t get the words out before she was already slinking across the room, zeroing in on the fat cat to give him The Full Janie: the eyelash-fluttering, hair-tossing treatment that no breathing heterosexual adult male could resist.

Next thing I knew the Head Volunteer had thrust into my hands a gigantic circular tray. “Just mingle around the various groups,” the Head Volunteer directed. “You don’t have to say anything–the guests will just help themselves.”

Did he mean I was expected to walk with this thing? It was hard enough just to keep it balanced, with the wobbly wine glasses threatening to spill that expensive vino into the wheel of fancy cheese at the hub of the tray. It didn’t help that fashionably late people had started showing up at the shindig. The joint was getting crowded with rich folks, making it even tougher to try to move around with that big, round, embarrassing accident-waiting-to-happen.

I thought that I’d found a clear lane until I realized that I was stuck behind a couple who had found a personal parking spot for the duration of the evening. “Whom are we saving tonight?” the husband asked the wife. “The ducks or the whales?”

“Gee, Darling, I can’t remember. Perhaps the elephants.”

Meanwhile, my arms were getting tired. Without warning, I felt a tap on my shoulder, which freaked me out so much that I almost dropped the damn tray, until I heard somebody say, “Allow me,” as he took the heavy burden off my hands.


To Be Continued vvvvv

[AuntShecky]

“Gold Diggers of 2014,” Part 2


“Where do you want it?” the guy asked. “The tray, I mean.”

“Dunno,” I explained, as I threw my hands palms upward (now that they were free of the heavy load.) “Nowhere. Everywhere, I guess. We’re supposed to carry it around the room.”

“All evening? Why, that’s ridiculous.” After casing the joint for a few seconds or so, Richie Rich nodded toward a cozy corner, and as he led the way, I followed. It was awesome how graceful he was carrying that tray of glasses around. He didn’t bump into anybody, and he didn’t spill a drop. We stopped in front of an waist-high pedestal, with artsy-fartsy carvings of grapes and leaves and such all up and down the column. On top of it sat a sculpture of a grinning fat kid, who, if he hadn’t been naked, could have been the twin brother of Big Boy from the fast-food restaurant of the same name.

He made me hold the tray –“Just one more second, okay?” while he removed the sculpture and set it against the wall before parking the tray in Big Boy’s spot. “Voila!” he said. “You’re free at last.”

I always thought that rich people put on airs, but this one seemed down-to-earth, except he had this dreamy quality about his eyes which made me feel a little self-conscious when he looked into mine. “The name’s Darryl Dodge, by the way.” When I shook his hand, I noticed that it felt smooth and soft, as if he and manual labor were virtual strangers -- but then he had picked up that heavy stone sculpture without a single grunt. So I was completely confused. “And you are --?”

“Oh. Uh, I’m Liz Bennett.”

“It’s lovely to meet you, Liz, if I may call you that?”

“Why not? Everybody else does. Well, I suppose I’d better look busy. Thanks for your help.” When I started to walk away, I felt a gentle tug on my sleeve.

“Hold on a moment, would you please? I was wondering if you could do me a favor –“ this Darryl person said, with his hand still on my arm. “Do you see that man over there, the one who’s about the same age as I am?”

I nodded, but to tell you the truth, all these rich folks looked alike to me.

“Well, we know each other-- I mean, our relationship is at some point between acquaintances and friends, but for the life of me I can’t remember where I met him. Seeing him here puts me in a somewhat embarrassing situation. I don’t want to duck out on him -– don’t get me wrong, I’d love to talk to him -- but if he starts reminiscing about old times, I’m afraid of not hitting the right reference points. The last thing I want to do is make him feel uncomfortable.”

What did any of this have to do with me? “I’m sorry?”

“Oh, I know this sounds convoluted, but bear with me. I’m fairly sure I knew him at a university, but which one? That’s where you come in.” He squeezed my arm. “I’d like you to get close enough to eavesdrop on his conversations. All I need to find out is if he went to Harvard or Yale.”

Wait. Was he telling me that he went to Harvard and Yale? This was starting to get a little too rich for my blood and way out of my league.

“Gee, I don’t know, Sir–“

“Darryl.”

“Darryl. I’m not really good at spying on people –“

“Come on, you can do it,” he begged, with a puppy-dog look on his face which I couldn’t resist.

“Oh, okay, I suppose I could give it a try –-“

“Atta girl!” Darryl broke into a smile like the kind you see in toothpaste commercials, with tiny star-bursts reflecting off the perfectly-straight pearly whites. “Just mill around and see what you can find out. There may be a little something in it for you, an honorarium perhaps. I’ll wait for you in the general vicinity of the entrance, all right?”

Ho-boy, what had I gotten into? That’s two times in less than a week I was talked into doing something I really didn’t want to do, first by Janie and then by Mr. Sweet-talking Rich Guy. That’s a personal weakness you’d never find in Delphine DeLauro, the heroine of Blonde Entrepreneur. She set her own course and damned if she’d let anybody get in her way. Not only that, Delphine was a woman of her word. The least I could do is try to keep mine.

I wish I could say I knew what I was doing. I tried to appear inconspicuous as I wandered around the room, stopping every now and then near the designated target. Listening as hard as I could, I didn’t hear the guy reminiscing about college experiences back in the day. He did sound like a windbag though, I’ll tell you that much.

Meanwhile, Darryl’s request gave me a chance to use the mingling time to check on Janie. She seemed to be doing just fine, thank you very much, charming the pants off the Beer Baron. (Not literally, but you know what I mean.) From what I could see, she was using every tool in her flirting-tool box.

She was chatting up her “googolaire” over by Big Boy’s former pedestal, now the perch for my deserted cocktail tray. I noticed that many of the original wine glasses were gone, and some, not all, had been returned empty, like beer bottles and cans ready to be cashed in at the Cost Cutter for the five-cent deposit. Not only that, the cheese display in the middle looked as if had been attacked by a street gang of starving mice. “Excuse me,” I said, wedging myself between Janie and her new-found crush, and picked up the tray, weighing much lighter than before.

Right after I removed the tray, the beer baron bent down and picked up Big Boy and replaced it in its rightful spot. “My, you’re strong!” Jamie gushed, at least having enough smarts not to add “for a geezer.” With her eyelashes in full-flutter, she asked, “Do you work out?”

When I finally managed to catch her eye, I shook my head and mouthed the word “no,” but she shot me a quick frown and returned her full attention to Mr. Got Bucks. As for me, all I had to show for the evening was garbage, which I carried over and slammed on top of the service bar. “Ready for a refill,” I told the Head Volunteer. “And this time keep it under a hundred pounds, will ya?

“My, you seem to be taking your responsibilities seriously, my dear. I wish I could say the same for your darling little sister.” The Head Volunteer pointed across the room to Janie, who at this point was actually feeling the old codger’s puny biceps through his monkey suit.

“Oh, she’s been a busy little bee from the moment we arrived.” (Which was true.) “She’s very socially conscious, too. Right now she’s doing her part for economic equality.”

At that point, the Head Volunteer started removing the wine glasses one by one. I’ve seen snails in our yard move a lot more quickly. You’d think the guy was being paid by the hour, but of course, like the rest of us that night, he was working for nothing.

“Looks like this will take a while,” I said. “I’ll be back.”

I found Darryl waiting by the front entrance, just where he said he’d be. “You’re here!”

“You sound surprised,” I said.

“Should I be?” His smile lost a little bit of its luster, and his voice was impatient. “Well? What did you find out?”

“Nothing very useful. Sorry. All I heard was your friend’s one-sided conversation. He was going on and on about some kind of megabucks real estate deal, I guess.”

Darryl’s eyes got rounder than that nasty tray. “Really! But, uh, what about our mutual Alma Mater – - was it Yale or Harvard?”

“Beats me.”

“Damn. Was he wearing anything unusual?”

“Huh? What d’you mean, like some kind of obnoxious men’s cologne? I didn’t see anything strange about his outfit, other than the typical rich guy’s suit and tie –“ I snapped my fingers–- “Wait! His tie clip – - I noticed it because it was kind of cute. From where I was standing, it looked like this little bitty bull dog.”

“That’s it! An Eli!” With that this virtual stranger gave me a bear hug. “I should have known. You can always tell a Yale man – - but you can’t tell him much.” One of those famous “awkward moments” followed as Darryl waited for my laugh. (Which didn’t come.)

“Well, I guess I’ll be running along. Nice meeting –“

“No! Wait!” The movie star grin resurfaced. “There’s that matter of compensation.”

“What? Oh, no. That’s okay. Forget about it.”

“Now, now! We had an agreement, remember?” Darryl dug into his pocket to pull out his billfold and then turned his back to open it, just like my Dad does whenever he pays the tab at the Cost Cutter. Darryl partially turned his head to look back at me. “Ah, you wouldn’t happen to have change for a hundred, would you?”

That’s when I laughed.

Finally facing me with what Miriam Maudlin Shipman calls a “sheepish look,” Darryl stroked his squared-off chin.

“This is, well, it just isn’t my night.” Before this he was all smooth-talk; now he sounded a little jagged around the edges. “One embarrassing moment after another. Let me make it up to you. I’ll get in touch – like on Facebook, or something. Liz Benson, right?

“That’s Bennett, but I’m not on Faceb--” I started to say, but by then he was three-quarters out the door and most likely didn’t hear me.




To be continued vvvv

[AuntShecky]

Gold Diggers of 2014 Part 3


Flash forward a week, maybe ten days, and I’d put all that stupid business at the Verdana Club behind me. It didn’t take long for the truth to sink in, that what’s-his-name had stiffed me out of the dough he’d promised. As far as I was concerned, all ties linking me to the One Percent had been broken.

Janie, I’m sorry to say, was not about to let it go. Like some airhead in the an old school romance novel, she’d “set her cap” on snaring a prospective bridegroom, in her case that seventy-something meal ticket. Now here’s a chick who’d rather die than pick up a newspaper, not even the comics page, but every morning after the Verdana gig, she got up early and snatched the East Hogwash Pennysaver off the front porch long before our dad got a chance to check the Mets score. She’d rifle through the paper until she found the Society Page, which was like a treasure map to her. All the rest of us got to read were Janie’s cast-off pages, bled-through with highlighter ink or squared-off holes where she’d cut out all the articles with the slightest mention of Sherman Collins.

Me, I was more realistic, such as getting to the Burger Blaster on time. Even that wasn’t easy one day in particular when I had to maneuver around a group of protestors marching back and forth in front of my workplace. They were all carrying signs saying “Fair Play for Fast Food Workers” and “Citizens for a Living Wage.” I felt funny crossing a picket line and sure as hell didn’t want to be a whatchamacallit – - a “scab.” Even so, I was expected to show up at my job, and like Delphine DeLauro, the Blonde Entrepreneur, I honor my commitments. Or at least I try.

Despite the controversy going on outside the building, I’d thought things were going well at work until Wally got all up in my face, with his own face all stern and boss-like. “You wanna explain this?” he demanded, waving my time card around as if it were Exhibit A in a homicide trial.

“What? I haven’t been late in months. If anything, I always punch in early.”

Wally started nodding like a bobblehead doll. “That’s just it. You gotta keep strictly in the parameters of the Schedule. No extra hours or minutes. No overtime. That comes directly from Mr. Blankenship. He insists that we follow the Corporate guidelines.”

None of us shift-workers ever saw the franchise owner in person. Brankenship was one of those whosiewhatsies – a “silent” partner - who rakes in a ton of dough from a lot of different companies while delegating the day-to-day operation of the business to his designated staff, namely clowns like Wally.

Though I can’t say that Wally was the world’s best micro-manager. He must have missed the training session which advises supervisors to reprimand employees in private. Here he was yelling at me right on the sales floor, in full earshot of my co-workers. In front of the customers, too. I bet they enjoyed it , too – watching somebody getting chewed out was a hell of a lot more entertaining than the Connect-the-Dot paper placemat under their burgers and fries.

“Okay, Wally, have it your way.”

“Don’t say that here! Oh! I almost forgot what I wanted to tell you in the first place. Mr. Blankenship wants to cut down on overhead. So, starting next week, there will be a schedule change.”

Finally! I had asked and asked for more hours, and at last my wish was coming true. Miriam Maudlin Shipman was right when she wrote: “It pays to be persistent.”

Wally was persistent too, but not in the way I’d hoped. “On your scheduled days, we’re gonna ask you to come in an hour later and leave an hour earlier until further notice.”

How’s that for – whatdyacallit - irony. After the shock hit me, I did some quick calculating in my head. “Seriously? That’s only fifteen hours a week! And you’re only paying me minimum wage. How am I supposed to live on that?”

Not only that, it would leave me with practically nothing to help out my parents. Every week after I cashed my chickenfeed paycheck, I’d go to give my mom a portion of it to cover room and board, and every time she’d refuse until I insisted that she take it. Not that I’m bragging about being such a generous person – but I’d have to pay a lot more for rent and stuff if I weren’t living at home. So it was only fair. I knew that my mom wouldn’t mind letting me skate, but I didn’t want to put her in that position. My options had been swept off the table, like so many crumbs from a sesame seed bun. Wally had put me in a really bad place.

“This sucks,” I said under my breath.

“Excuse me?.” Wally cupped his hand over his ear for dramatic effect. “I’m sure I didn’t hear you right. I’d hate to have to write you up for insubordination.”

For a minute there I thought about fighting back. I sure as hell had something on Burger Blaster that would shut down the joint quicker than changing the channel whenever that creepy funeral home commercial comes on. I can’t forget the day when, on the lookout for cheap raw materials for my experiments, I’d asked about how the BB disposed of the grease they used to nuke the French fries in. “Do you recycle it or what?”

Wally’s answer shocked -– shocked! -– me. “Yep, we recycle, we really do. We use the same batch over and over again.”

At that point, an older couple sitting in a nearby booth had overheard us. Each spit out a huge mouthful into a napkin and hightailed it out of there as if somebody had yelled “Fire!” You can imagine the can of worms that would be opened if someone - say, a disgruntled employee - decided to notify the County Board of Health.

Not long after that I found out something even more scandalous. True, the BB used and reused the grease, but eventually it got so nasty – dark in color with ancient flakes of fried potato and lord knows what else floating around in it – that even Burger Blaster couldn’t use it any more. So from time to time late at night after closing a couple of goons would haul the sickening batch away in a barrel and secretly dump it straight into the Kikkerzompkill, otherwise known as Frog Creek.

You can understand how much a pollutant that yucky stuff would be in the water and the harm it would do to the delicate lungs, gills, and skins of the little amphibians, fish, and other wildlife who made East Hogwash’s natural waterway their home. One quick email and the State Department of Environmental Conservation would be padlocking the entrance of the Burger Blaster quicker than you can say Kikkerzompkill.

So you could say I had the goods on the Burger Blaster and had been keeping the Environmental card close to the vest for a few months. Maybe I was waiting for the right opportunity to play it. Maybe this was the day, BUT–- something held me back.

Did I worry about old folks and little kids getting sick on the overused French fry grease? Sure. Didn’t I care about the well-being of all the little froggies and the fishies? Of course. But notifying the authorities just because Burger Blaster screwed me personally would make me just as hard-hearted and mean-spirited as the Corporation. Delphine DeLauro never stooped down to the level of her enemies. And neither would I.

Or maybe I was just chicken. I reached way down deep and tried to come up with something like bravery. “Look, Wally, give me back those ten hours or I’m outa here.”

“You sure? Half a loaf is better than –“

“My original hours or I walk.”

“Then so long! Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

I ripped off my cap and the Burger Blaster shirt-jack, rolled them both up and shoved them into Wally’s beer belly. He followed me half-way out the door and screamed, “And don’t even think about applying for unemployment!”

Meanwhile, the protestors got an earful of all this, so they raised their signs higher, and their shouts got louder. One guy yelled right at Wally. “We were thinking about taking a break and buying a bunch of burgers. But you can just forget about it now!”

I guess they were going to take their business elsewhere. Like me.


To be continued vvv

[AuntShecky]

Gold Diggers of 2104 Part 4


Needless to say, sudden unemployment is no picnic. On the other hand, you don’t have to see it as a negative experience limiting your options. As Miriam Maudlin Shipman wrote, “When Life hands you limits, make limit aid.” Losing a job can open up a whole new door to opportunity. So, rather than getting all bent out of shape, I embraced my joblessness as a gift of freedom. At last I had all the time in the world to do what I was meant to do: revolutionize the fuel industry.

Instead of moseying down to Lucky’s Tavern to drown my sorrows in a couple of Muckenmires, I headed straight to the Fortress of Innovation, my personal lab in our garage. The instant I arrived, I found that I had my work cut out for me – but unfortunately not in the way that I would have liked.

What I found there discouraged me so much that I almost returned to the Burger Blaster to beg Wally for my old job back. A horrible accident had occurred seriously damaging my the essential raw material for my project, threatening my dream.

I tried to speculate on how such a thing could have happened. All I could think of was that a heavy garbage truck or something barreling down Folsom Street caused some vibrations that made something heavy fall off the shelf and land on the entire inventory of supplies I needed for my experiment. The culprit was the box of pink-colored, barbell-shaped weights Janie had bought back when she'd decided to work on her upper body contour. (I knew that she’d lose interest in them and store them away, just like the Slenderizer 3000 which she’d convinced mom to go halfsies on with her one January only to stick the machine back here in the garage by the following March.)

In any event, those weights Janie had forgotten about got their revenge - not upon her, but on me by tumbling out of the carton and knocking every last bottle of Cost Cutter brand cooking oil to the garage floor, where all those thin plastic bottles split open spilling their contents everywhere. Liter after liter of yellow liquid flowed like lava in every direction, until the individual streams congealed into one oily river hellbent on making it through the open garage door, down the driveway, onto Folsom Street and other points in the neighborhood. It would only be a matter of time before local haz-mat teams, the State Environmental Conservation Department, maybe even the feds from the EPA would be here asking all kinds of questions. Not only that, at any moment my mom could come out looking for her dust mop or something, slip on the mess on the hard concrete floor, and break her hip. Worst of all, Janie could sneak out here for a cigarette, drop the lit match to the floor and - FOOM!

Was the entire experiment ruined? Was my dream doomed? Nah. Just a temporary setback, that’s all, even though I was yanked back to Square One. But before I could start a do-over, my first priority was to get all of this freakin’ cooking oil out of the garage.

On the other hand, I also knew I couldn’t tackle the massive clean-up by myself. Getting Janie to give me a hand would be harder! She avoids housecleaning like cheapskates avoid picking up a tab. My sister is what you might call a “natural woman,” ‘cause like Nature, she abhors a vacuum. Really though, I had no choice but to go inside the house and look for her.

The TV was blasting full volume, so I made a beeline for the living room. No Janie. Typical of her to forget to turn it off, but what was odd was the half-finished glass of diet cola and an almost-full bag of chips left on the coffee table. Now, I know my sister better than she knows herself, and one of the things I know about her is that she never, ever opens a bag of potato chips without scarfing up every last crumb. I noticed another strange thing when I picked up the remote – she’d been watching the local cable news channel, not by any stretch her favorite viewing choice.

Some kind of press conference was going on in front of East Hogwash City Hall downtown. In front of a tangle of microphones stood the Mayor, with his familiar store-bought tan and his personal bodyguards - a bunch of former hall monitors from East Hogwash Senior High School - standing in a row behind him.

“And so it gives me great pleasure to announce this multi-million dollar construction project, “ Hizzoner said, as he rocked front and back on his heels while occasionally shooting his cuffs. “This exciting undertaking is guaranteed to breathe new life into East Hogwash, revitalize our business district, and generate a number of jobs for our community. So I want to thank two of East Hogwash’s most distinguished citizens. First, Mr. –“ the name was garbled, and I didn’t catch it, but he looked exactly like the guy Darryl had asked me to track at the Verdana Club. I couldn’t quite make it out on our TV screen, but I’m willing to bet he was still wearing his little bulldog tie pin.

This being East Hogwash, security wasn’t what you might call “tight,” so as in all local live broadcasts, people spotted the cameras and started waving – especially teenagers, jumping up and down flashing the peace sign and other gestures using fewer than two fingers.

“And of course,” The Mayor went on, “lest we forget – East Hogwash’s favorite booster, who was instrumental in getting this project off the ground --Mr. Sherman Collins. You know him, you love ‘im as the Beer Baron. Give ‘im a big hand!”

Then I noticed somebody familiar among the wavers and jumpers, except this one wasn’t mugging for the camera but trying to get the Beer Baron’s attention. Oh. My. God. “Janie?”


To be continued vv

[AuntShecky]

Gold Diggers of 2014 Part 5

All of a sudden, my immediate priorities had changed – let the garage mess go hang! The most important thing to do was to race down there and rescue Janie before she made a bigger fool out of herself than she already was.

I considered taking the bus but quickly thought better of it than standing on the corner and waiting forever. So I opted to run, sprinting all the way downtown like an Olympic runner.

By the time I arrived at City Hall, the news conference had already broken up. The so-called “dignitaries” were gone – Hizzoner and his entourage of burly keepers, along with the high muckamucks of East Hogwash’s business community, including the mystery man with the doggy tie-clip. No Beer Baron. No Janie, either.

The only one left was a cameraman from the local cable news station who was loading the last of his equipment into the truck with the crazy satellite dish on top. “Excuse me, I’m looking for somebody.” When I flipped open my wallet the cameraman’s eyes got big. Maybe he thought I was about to hand him a twenty for the info. But when I showed him Janie’s photo, his eyes grew even bigger. “Have you seen this girl?”

“Wow!” he said, letting out a old-fashioned wolf whistle. “I saw her around here a little while ago. Hard to forget a hottie like that!” The cameraman told me that he thought he say her getting into a limousine. “With some geezer, if you could believe that. Lucky stiff!”

That’s when panic hit me. My imagination starting going wild, as a sinking feeling came over me with the thought that my little sister and the Beer Baron might have eloped, driving cross-country to Vegas. I could almost see – and hear - the Elvis impersonator officiating at the ceremony. The whole scenario made me sick to my stomach, but in a way I had to admire Janie’s guts. And I’d give a million bucks to be there, just to listen to Janie trying to explain that the old guy standing next to her is the groom and not the father of the bride.

But still – the entire thing was embarrassing, for her, for me. Devastating, really. I’d failed to stop my sister from ruining her life. “Jeezus, Janie!” I said aloud.

I felt a tug at my sleeve. I thought it was the cameraman. “Oh, sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

“You’re not?”

It was Darryl, of all people. “ Liz! I’ve been looking all over for you – Facebook, Twitter, the entire blogosphere.”

I wasn’t expecting to see him, but he couldn’t have shown up at a better time, with my financial status on its last legs. But I didn’t mention the money he owed me. Neither did he.

Quickly I explained that I was looking for Janie. Like a gentleman, Darryl offered to help me. The two of us walked to a parking lot located at the end of a sketchy alley. It really was a creepy one, even in daylight. But Darryl’s vehicle, I’m sorry to say, looked at home there.

I don’t know what I was expecting – a Mercedes maybe, at least a Volvo - but I was really thrown by this “car” – I use the term loosely ‘cause this mash-up of scrap metal looked like a hunk of rust held together by wire, duct tape, and spit. I assumed it was some kind of “shabby chic” thing – like trophy wives dropping a thousand bucks on a pair of designer jeans with rips and holes deliberately cut out.

He didn’t open the car door, which probably would’ve fallen off. To tell you the truth, I was relieved, as I was leery of getting into that junker. Darryl hoisted himself onto the top of the dented trunk, which again surprised me as it seemed to hold his weight. He stared at me standing in front of him in that filthy parking lot, rubbed his palms together, and announced, “Let’s talk.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I mean, before we go any farther, I want to be perfectly straight with you.”

By now Janie was probably two or three states west of here, so what the hell. “Okay. Shoot.”

“All right.” Darryl cleared his throat. “This is going to seem like a very strange question, but tell me, Liz, what are you really after?”

“What?”

“I just want to know: what is the one thing you want out of life?”

What did I have to lose? Might as well tell him, I thought. “ I want to bask in the sun of the world’s admiration.”

One of Darryl’s eyebrows hopped up on his forehead. “That’s quite an ambitious goal, Liz. As for me, I’d be content just being able to survive.”

“Wait. What do you mean, ‘survive’? I thought you said you went to Harvard and Yale.”

“Who, me? Nah. Three semesters at Cortland State. Only one of them sober.”

“Then how? What?” I was totally confused.

Ever hear the song “I Get By With a Little Help from My Friends?”

“The Beatles, right?” I knew the song, but I always hated it.

“Well, I live that song, Liz. I make a living hanging out with the Beautiful People, sponging off their good graces, pretending to be one of them.”

This was all pretty weird, like something I was watching on a DVD. “Wow! Just like Will Smith in Six Degrees of Separation. Or what’s-his -name in that other movie, The Talented Mr. Ripley.”

“Believe it or not. I’m nothing but a social climber, a party-crasher worming my way into elite society, hobnobbing with the rich and famous, and hoping that I could catch a little of their luster via osmosis, settling instead for their leftover crumbs. Perhaps in the back of my mind I intended to steal the heart of an heiress. But now I’m not all that certain I was cut-out to be a fortune hunter. If – that is to say, when - I get married, it’s going to be for love.”

Darryl gave me That Look. I hoped he wasn’t noticing how much I was blushing.

“Bottom line, Liz. Meeting you that night opened my eyes. I’m impressed by your authenticity. You’ve inspired me. From now on I’m going to change. I’m going to concentrate on what I really want to do with my life. And that’s pursuing a career as a singer-slash-songwriter.”

Darryl slid off the top of trunk and opened it up. He took out a big leather case and opened that, too.

“Oh. It’s a guitar,” I said.

“Obviously. What did you think it was?”

“Yeah. How stupid of me! Duh!” To tell you the truth, I was relieved it was just a guitar. I certainly didn’t want a replay of what happened the last time a guy got something out of his car. My mother and her busybody friends are always trying to “fix me up” with some jerk who happened to be single, apparently the only qualification my mother required. The last time she set me up on a blind date it was with an amateur ventriloquist. He was such a loser he wouldn’t let me talk to him directly. Everything had to be filtered through the dummy.

Darryl returned to his spot on the trunk and started strumming. And singing:


If you don’t have it to spend
It don’t mean a thing
With a little luck come up with a buck
And make that register sing
Ka-ching!

The Lottery of Life decides
Who will win the cash
If Chance has turned her back on you
You’re no better off than trash.

To grab the almighty dollar
That’s my cause divine
I live to lift lucre out of your pocket
And put it in to mine

“Gee Darryl, that’s –“

He raised his index finger to let me know he wasn’t done:

The Architect of the Universe
Made the beauty of the day
On which man stuck a price tag
So you gotta pay your way


Some say the world will end with a bang
Some say it will go out with a ping
You can bet there’ll be paid admission
When the angels and registers sing
Ka-ching!

He flashed me a big smile. I suppose he wanted me to say something. What, though? I knew I didn’t want to lie.

“Well! I guess you’ve got some pretty strong opinions there about money.”

“Absolutely. I’ve discovered that rich people don’t need to think about it and poor people can’t think about because it’s too frustrating. It’s only the middle class who gives a damn about money. But be that as it may, perhaps we ought to start looking for your sister.”

I shook my head. “Nah, that’s okay. She’s an adult – well, kinda. She’ll come home on her own.”

“Are you sure? I’m happy to help. In any event, I’m glad we had this opportunity to talk. Thanks for letting me unload on you.”

“Don’t mention it,” I said. “And don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.”

“It is?”

“Sure. I mean, it’s not like we’re going to see each other again.”

“We’re not?” Then he made an expression exactly like the one Miriam Maude Shipman used in Blonde Entrepreneur to describe Basil Withers, when the love of his life, Delphine DeLauro, dumped him: “His face fell.”

That’s not all that was falling. From my vantage point I could see dark liquid dripping down from the undercarriage of Darryl’s clunker. His engine – if you can call it that --was leaking oil.

I slapped my forehead. The garage!

[AuntShecky]

Gold Diggers of 2014 Conclusion


I couldn’t believe that I’d totally forgotten about the cooking oil disaster back in the garage. Still, the mess had to be dealt with, no question about it. But I still needed help, and with Janie suddenly out of the picture – not that she’d be much good - I had to swallow my pride and ask Darryl to lend me a hand. Of course this involved explaining to Darryl how the cooking oil happened to be in the garage in the first place, so that meant divulging my secret. I had no choice but to come clean, but somehow I felt I could trust him.

So we both got into his sorry excuse for a vehicle, which miraculously managed to sputter along, all the while splattering drops of oil on the mean streets of East Hogwash. We made a quick stop at the nearest discount store to pick up some generic paper towels, a couple of sponge mops, and four bottles of off-brand detergent. I’d heard news reports that after all those off-shore oil spills, environmental activists used heavy duty dish liquid to de-grease the wings of marine birds, so I thought maybe using the stuff full-strength would help take the curse off a concrete floor. At least it would be worth a shot. Unfortunately, the cost of the cleaning supplies had emptied my funds, with no possibility of refilling them anytime soon.

It goes without saying that it took hours to make inroads on the greasy garage. It hadn’t taken very long for me to realize that Darryl wasn’t used to doing manual labor, so I lost precious time having to show him how to use a mop. Eventually we made a good team, with the two of us working our butts off getting the job done. Toward the end we located the guilty pink-colored barbells, which had rolled every which-way across the once-slippery floor. We returned them to their original container which we replaced on the shelf, though to be perfectly honest with you, I was tempted to heave all those pink weights into the trash. Janie would never miss ‘em.

Well, all of that’s history – things have changed a lot since then. I got another job, this time at different chain restaurant – the Pasta Palace. Unfortunately, the hours and hourly wage aren’t that much better than the Burger Blaster, but since the Pasta Palace has table service, at least that means the chance of earning some tips. The work involves hauling food around on these huge circular trays – again! Like the one at the Verdana Club, trays are just like that obsessed detective in the Les Misérables DVD – they keep stalking me.

I haven’t given up my long-term goal of developing an alternative fuel, but I’ve put the project on the back burner for a while. I’m thinking about looking into student loans and signing up for a couple of chem courses at Downstate University at Hogwash this fall, just to get some idea of what the hell I’m doing.

Darryl’s all for my enrolling in college. I’ll say this much for him – he’s pretty supportive. For my part, I try to encourage him, too, without getting pushy about it. As far as his employment prospects go, his dance card is empty at the moment. But he’s looking. Give him credit for that.

Once or twice I casually mentioned that his career prospects would be better with just one quick email or phone call to a couple of his rich friends -- er, acquaintances. But he insists that he’s tired of being a parasite, that whatever he does, he wants to do on his own. And I respect him for that.

We’ve get along together pretty well. I don’t want to say we’re “dating,” ‘cause that would involve spending cash which neither of us has to spare. Between the two of us we’re hard-pressed to come up with the dough for a small latte at Kneadbucks. So when we get together, we pick an activity that doesn’t cost anything, like taking long walks around the DUH campus or canoeing down the Kikkerzompkill.

I think that Darryl has put his musical career on hold, as I haven’t seen his guitar lately. Maybe it’s in hock. Poor old Darryl’s going through some tough times right now, like coming up with his rent and so forth. Every so often he’s had to resort to crashing on our living room couch. My father rolls his eyes, but he’s pretty much cool with it. But my mother keeps asking Darryl how he’s “doing,” meaning she wants to find out if he’s got any chance of ever striking it rich. She pressures me, too, when she demands to know if the relationship is “serious.”

“No, Mom. We spend a lot of time telling jokes.”

That isn’t too far from the truth. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no expert on love, but I do know that once a couple stops having fun together, it’s all over.

Oh! I almost forgot – Janie. As you might have guessed, her dream of hitching herself to the Beer Baron’s wagon never came true, but Mr. Collins did offer her a position at the distributorship. This came as complete surprise to the entire family, since none of us thought we’d ever see the day when Janie would be gainfully employed.

She works at the main office at the reception desk, where she answers phones and greets customers. Even when she was little, Janie always said wanted a career in show business. Maybe that’s still the back-up plan if the rich husband thing fails to work out for her. Since Janie’s main responsibility at her new job is to be “pleasant” – which isn’t an automatic part of her personality - she gets opportunities to practice her acting skills.

Like me, my little sister is still single, but she’s got a boyfriend. Janie’s going out with a co-worker, a beer truck driver by the name of Corky, Corey, something like that. Needless to say, Corky is a long, long way from becoming a “googolaire,” but he’s good about sharing the unsold Muckenmire’s products left on the truck at the end of his shift. When Corky shows up at our door, he presents these leftover brews to her like candy or flowers, and every once in a while he slips her a twelve-pack.

[MANICHAEAN]

Lovely Aunty. Sardonic humour, rival sisters, realistic dialogue and a touch of suspense at the end of the first instalment.

For some obscene reason, which my daughters cannot grasp, I have been engaged for the last two/three weeks watching the superficiality of the spoilt rich on "The Millionaire Matchmaker" and "Real Housewives of Miami." it's a pleasure to read of a take from those that "only stand and serve."

Look forward to more.

Best wishes
M.

[MANICHAEAN]

Whilst writing a response on Chapt 1, I was washed away by a tidal wave of subsequent instalments.

Excuse therefore my limited input, whilst I read the rest.

[YesNo]

Nice humorous story. It looks like they're doing OK even if they didn't get their googleaires.

[DATo]

Greetings AuntShecky!

Thanks so much for posting this. I had more than a few laugh-out-louds reading it. I absolutely love your sense of humor!

The narrator in your story reminded me a lot of Isabel Spellman who is always the first-person narrator in the Spellman series of books by Lisa Lutz. I think you and Lutz would make great pals.

PERFECT ... nothing to criticize or suggest ... extremely well done!

[AuntShecky]

Thank you very much MANICHAEAN, YesNo, and DATo for your generous replies.

I'm pretty much onboard with the 1930s movie mogul who said "If you want to send a message, use Western Union," even now that telegrams have been rendered obsolete by modern technology. But if you scratch this piece hard enough you might get a glimmer of a notion that Americans (especially) are collectively deluded into believing their dreams can come true, despite the fact that (for most) their aspirations far exceed their abilities. That's too serious, though, when this thing -- which owes much to Anita Loos and an apology for Jane Austen-- was mainly designed to generate yucks.

Thanks for laughing in the right places.

Auntie

[prendrelemick]

An entertaining piece, perfectly pitched - gentle and funny with no great fuss or drama - I admired the way you managed to keep yourself, as author, subservient to, and within the story so it was not drowned by idiosyncratic style. That shows a skill and maturity as a writer that is rare on these threads. My interest was kept by the character of the narrator - who rang consistent and true throughout and by the gentle, dare I say Austinian humour.

One thing, I thought "East Hogwash" was a step too far.

Oh and Janie was more Lydia.

[AuntShecky]

An entertaining piece, perfectly pitched - gentle and funny with no great fuss or drama - I admired the way you managed to keep yourself, as author, subservient to, and within the story so it was not drowned by idiosyncratic style. That shows a skill and maturity as a writer that is rare on these threads. My interest was kept by the character of the narrator - who rang consistent and true throughout and by the gentle, dare I say Austinian humour.

One thing, I thought "East Hogwash" was a step too far.

Oh and Janie was more Lydia.

Thank you, prendrelemick, for your kind comment.

"East Hogwash" wasn't consciously created as a parody of English place-names such as are found in 18th and 19th c. novels (or like "East Coker" in TSE's Four Quartets.) Actually, it's a long-standing name of a town recurring in several of yours fooly's droppings, including the sporadically posted holiday blogs of Debi Snotenlocker, the Real Housewife of East Hogwash, as well as the home of the upstate campus of DUH (Downstate University at East Hogwash)-- which reminds me I'd better get started on this year's commencement address! Muckenmire's Discount Beer also frequently appears, but somewhere along the line the brand name's spelling changed from "Muckenmeyer's. It's still, however, the vin ordinaire of E.H.

Space and time as well as plot unity forced me to consolidate the Bennetts' five marriageable daughters down to two, "Janie" being at initial thought a more contemporary-sounding name than Lydia. But it turns out that "Lydia", along with "Olivia," become recently popular as a baby name. I'm old, not THAT old, but I know the Marx Brothers' movies from TV. As a result, I can't hear the name "Lydia" without automatically thinking of Groucho Marx and his tune, "Lydia the Tattooed Lady"-- "On her back is the Battle of Waterloo/Beneath is the Wreck of the Hesperus crew/And proudly above waves the Red, White, and Blue/ You can learn so much from Lydia!"

Also, general stores in the late 19th c. carried a medicinal concoction called "Lydia Pinkham's
Ladies Tonic, " whose updated variety can still be found in Walgreens, Walmarts, Rite-Aid and other fine retailers. I read that on the Internet, so it must be true. (Ahem.)

PS Double entendres (aka "dirty jokes") aren't really Austenian, unless author Jane was saucier than we give her credit for!

[prendrelemick]

Lilly the Pink, is well known over here - thanks to this song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x8D4T--0v4&feature=kp&hd=1

(guess which one is Paul MaCartney's brother)

[108 fountains]

“Where do you want it?” the guy asked. “The tray, I mean.”

“I should have known. You can always tell a Yale man – - but you can’t tell him much.”

These are great one-liners, and I echo the previous comments that the light comedy of the piece was refreshingly entertaining. I’ve been subscribing to literary journals for about the past 18 months or so to get an idea of what kind of stories get published these days - seems to me the only thing these journals want to publish are doleful tales of anguish and personal failure and gloom. There’s no humor in any of ‘em. I bet if I wrote a story about a drug-addicted woman struggling with her lesbianism with flashbacks to an alcoholic father and abusive mother I’d be published in an instant. So it’s really nice to see some humor out there - I think it’s badly needed.

What struck me most about your piece, though, was the central theme of economic and social inequality that sometimes took a back seat to the humor. I would like to have seen your characters dig a little deeper into the unfairness of a society that allows the one percent to get away with being the one percent. For example, I really enjoyed the scene where the boss at Burger Blaster holds up Liz’s time card and complains that she’s been coming to work early and getting extra minutes - like an extra 20-30 minutes at minimum wage is going to impact the company’s finances. (Similar scenes to this take place in real life all the time.) Later in the scene, Liz mentions that she knows about the franchise owner illegally dumping waste cooking oil into the river, but when she is fired she does not use her knowledge of the illegal dumping to fight back; instead, she rather meekly walks out the door and goes on with her life. I would have liked to see her fight against the system more.

On the other hand, throughout the entire story Liz, Janie and Darryl are all portrayed as trying to pick up crumbs from the one percent rather than fighting against the system, and perhaps that is the point of the story after all. You said it yourself in your own comment: “if you scratch this piece hard enough you might get a glimmer of a notion that Americans (especially) are collectively deluded into believing their dreams can come true, despite the fact that (for most) their aspirations far exceed their abilities.”

So despite the humor, the real message is deadly serious - maybe Liz did not fight back because she knew it would be useless; maybe we are all so deluded that we meekly accept things as they are and go on with our lives without trying to change things; maybe we 99 percenters will always be out here just trying to pick up what crumbs we can get. The use of humor and subtlety to convey a serious message is powerful, and I think you did a great job in doing that with this story.

[DATo]

108 fountains.

What a great review! I enjoyed reading your critique to this gem of a story almost as much as the story itself! Perhaps your true vocation is to be found in literary criticism despite the fact that you are a wonderful author in your own right. Your depth of analysis opened my eyes to some aspects of the story which I had not considered, such as the main character's ambivalence to the unfairness of her treatment.

I agree with you about the humor.

I shook my head. “Nah, that’s okay. She’s an adult – well, kinda. She’ll come home on her own.”

Loved that line, as well as all the others which contributed to the humor of the piece, and I agree with you that mainstream publication these days does seem to veer toward the dark and macabre rather than the light-hearted and humorous. Perhaps it is a sign of the times. The philosopher Schopenhauer's pessimism went largely unappreciated until after the Napoleonic wars when the state of Europe was in shambles and then he was discovered by the general public, quite possibly because his philosophy echoed the feelings of the people as they gazed upon a devastated and chaotic landscape. Today it seems that every news broadcast and every economic report tells of death, destruction and hard times ... is it no wonder that people are drawn to stories which appear to fit the ethos they have been conditioned to accept and consider normal.

Excellent review of an excellent story! My compliments!

[Steven Hunley]

I'm with 108 Fountains on this one. The Original Gold Diggers was 1936 wasn't it? The middle of the Depression? We're in the Money? The economic situation is very much part of the story. Loved all the snappy dialogue, it was as good as a thirties movie too. The attitudes of the characters, the humor and one-liners, and the contemporary setting were all simply top-drawer.

[Hawkman]

Very entertaining, Auntie :)

Live and be well - H