BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Part 1 of 2…

Her Majesty Queen Eebil Kat threw me for a loop again…

Now before I get into the crux of the story I need to clear up a little something about E K. The truth of the matter is this: while she is without a doubt 113% pure evil, she has a soft spot. And, that soft spot is none other than Nature.

Yeah, nature… As in, the environment and all creatures big and small. I’m not just talking about kittens and puppies, mind you. E K apologizes to spiders if she disturbs their webs, scoops up the errant wasp or hornet that finds its way into the house and returns it to the wild unharmed, and I’ve even seen her move the lawn sprinkler to avoid drowning out an ant colony. The Evil Redhead is so wildlife conscious we sometimes call her Kippy the Environmental Terrorist, because if she catches you damaging the environment she will… well, let’s just say you don’t want her to catch you and we’ll leave it at that. (By the way, we call her Kippy behind her back because if you call her Kippy in front of her back, well… See notice above about damaging the environment. Pretty much the same thing applies.)

But, this isn’t what threw me for the loop. We’ll get to that in a minute…

So, in the interest of full disclosure I also have to point out that as environmentally conscious as E K is, she does in fact have a “hit list” where so called disgusting creatures are concerned – although, as you would expect, it is very short. Topping it, of course, is the male of the species homo sapiens. But, we already knew that so it is kind of a given. Also on the list, as you have recently discovered, is the Japanese Beetle because it simply doesn’t belong here, making it an invasive species that threatens the ecosystem. That really and truly seems to be the “proverbial litmus test” for her. If it’s invasive and threatens the natural order of things, she’ll terminate it with extreme prejudice.

Come to think of it, that whole threatening the ecosystem thing is probably why men in general top her hit list…

But, back to the story… You see, apparently there are a couple of other entries on the “most wanted wall” I hadn’t realized were there. They don’t actually fall under the “invasive, ecosystem destroying threat” clause. They are, for all intents and purposes, covered by the well-known and often invoked, “Don’t Annoy The E K” statute.

Yeah… This is where the loop throwing comes in…

You see, I heard a ruckus in the kitchen the other day. I knew I should simply ignore it, but there’s this personality quirk we writer types all seem to have. We’re overly curious. And, unfortunately that little flaw sometimes gets us into trouble. Living with E K I know this all too well because giving in to curiosity gets me into hot water more often than not, therefore you’d think I would have learned better by now.

But, like I said, it’s a flaw…

So, yeah, you guessed it. I couldn’t leave well enough alone and I went to investigate the ruckus.

I poked my head around the corner and peered into the kitchen. “What’s going…”

The rest of the sentence caught in my throat and remained unspoken, because what met my eyes was to say the least just a bit unexpected.

The Evil Redhead was standing at the sink, all dolled up in Pleather dominatrix gear. Now, as intriguing – and dare I say titillating – a sight as this happened to be, what really got me was the empty Popsicle
stick with which she appeared to carrying on a conversation.

“I’ve got all the time in the world,” she instructed the flat piece of wood as I listened from the doorway “Trust me, you will talk…”

Throwing caution to the wind I silently crept farther into the room, what with that whole curiosity thing working on me, and all that jazz. Once I came closer to The Evil One I could see that the Popsicle stick, while definitely not containing a frozen confection as one would think, was also not actually as empty as I had originally imagined it to be.

And that was when my irresistible curiosity led me down a dark and scary path…

More to come…

Murv

To be continued in: Mistress Of The Flies…

We have a server based LAN in our house. I suppose it stemmed from being a computer guy for so many years, but since we have several systems, both desktop and notebook, it seemed logical to keep all of the shared files in one place. Over the years of remodeling, etc, CAT-5E has been threaded through the walls, high-speed switches mounted, wireless access points added for convenience, and the whole nine yards. Because of this, the computing power and peripheral device integration in our home has increased exponentially over the years, thereby becoming an important part of our lives where household management and even personal management of my profession is concerned.

Still, no matter how much computing, printing, scanning, or communications power all these electronic devices have, they are still nothing more than machines.

Then something happened that made me question that notion…

“Dammit…” E K muttered.

Her exclamation was followed by several angry sounding beeps, all punctuated by the staccato clicking of something patently plastic in sound. Several more beeps filled the air, then came a hard, bass chord that seemed to say, “stop right there!”

A frustrated yowl – much the same as one would hear coming from an angry Siamese feline – caught in The Evil Redhead’s throat, rumbling back at the noise as if a cat fight were about to ensue. Given the sound, my guess is that possibility was only off by a single letter, that being a K instead of a C followed by an at.

“DAMMIT!” she hissed, this time with far more feeling.

All of this was occurring behind my back – literally…

I was seated at my desk, answering email and generally enjoying my five minute break from being E Kay’s personal lackey. She’s occasionally generous like that. On Christm… I mean Katsmas, she even lets me have a whole 15 minute break, though usually not all at once. There are after all her needs to be considered, and they greatly outweigh my need for a break, or so I am told.

But anyway, I was just entering minute 2 of my serendipitous 5 minute break – the first one I’d been granted since Katsmas, mind you – and her grumbling started. I considered remaining quiet in hopes that she would forget that I was even in the room, but I knew it was a lost cause. E K misses nothing.

Resigning myself to the fact that I had no choice but the forfeit the remaining 3 minutes of my break, I spoke up.

“Oh High Exalted Queen Of All that Is,” I began – that’s what she makes me call her, you see – “What seems to be the problem?”

She let out an extremely frustrated sigh, then hissed back at me, “The network won’t let me access anything. It says I’m a threat.”

It was at this moment I realized our network was more than just a bunch of machines strung together by wires and high frequency signals. It had somehow become the thing computer scientists have been striving to create since the first faint glow of UNIVAC’s vacuum tubes.

I mean, just think about it for a minute… A pile of circuitry and wiring recognized the fact that E K is… well…evil… and it considers her a threat to the network. I don’t know about you, but I’d call that some pretty sophisticated Artificial Intelligence.

More to come…

Murv