h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Fred Smith was a high-powered executive with a mortgage, an ex-wife, an expensive mistress and seventeen children (that he knew about) scattered over four continents. He wasn't a bad looking man, and he dyed his hair every month to cover the encroaching grey; a deep, dark secret that only his housekeeper knew.

But one day....

(Hey SMoB! I had great fun taking part in one of these stories about eighteen months ago on h2g2 (yes I'm an old hand here) - it was very funny but very bizarre - as I recall it involved lots of mauve weasels uncycling whilst juggling strings of sausage and whistling the Belgium National anthem! )

(In my best John Cleese voice) "Anyway"

...He discovered that his bottle of hair dye had run out. Very worried lest anybody but the sinister house keeper find out, he determined to buy another bottle. But how? He was already scheduled for fifteen important meetings today at work, with three in separate countries and he couldn't ask the housekeeper as they were too well connected and people might talk .

Thinking that those of his children not estranged from him might help, he decided to ring his most trusted, and accessible son, Jason.
As he dialled, the images of the frozen wastes span through his mind...
"Hello Jason", said Fred, "I've a top secret mission I need you to help with. Oh, and how is it down in the Antarctic these days"...

Oh good! I'm glad you enjoy them! And they DO usually turn out rather silly.

Back to our hero and his son....


....but it wasn't Fred who answered the phone at all!!! In FACT the voice sounded distinctly female!!!

"Fred? Fred Smith? Is that YOU? It's been years!!!"

Fred practically fainted at the sound of THAT VOICE!! It was no other than the Mysterious Myrtle Mawinthal, the one and only true love of his life. And what was she doing answering his son's telephone?!? He cleared his throat, and tried to speak, but no words would come out.

"FRED?!?" Myrtle sounded a little impatient, and Fred knew he had to say SOMETHING!!! Finally he managed to stammer out....

Cool ... I like the idea ... and if its okay with you I'd like to link here from my space!

anyway, back to Fred and Myrtle ...

"M ... m ... m ... Myrtle, is that you?" Fred stammered. He couldn't believe it was her, the last time he'd seen her was at the 1957 Miss Bognor Regis beauty pageant when she ran off with Morris Grimethorpe, Fred's best friend. So what on earth was she doing with Jason ...

As always, you're more than welcome, Mickey! I'm always happy for more publicity!

On with the story.

"Shhhhhhhh, Keep it down, Fred," hissed Myrtle. "This line's tapped."

The whole thing was getting weirder and weirder. Now Jason's line was TAPPED?!? "Uh, yes," Fred whispered. "Right." He wasn't sure he was getting any of this, but one thing he knew for certain was that in no way did he intend to lose Myrtle now he'd found her again.

Myrtle hissed "I'll meet you at the sign of the hair dye at midnight, and don't be late!"

There was a click, and she was gone....

"Who was that, Myrtle Honey" a male voice inquired.
"Err, no-one"
"No-one? You were speaking to No-one on the telephone?"
"Err, Yes. I, I mean No, I was speaking to Juan, he phoned from ... erm, Senegal. His mother's caught, erm, flu from the flying doctor and he wanted to know the number for the surgery."

Dexter could never find out about Fred, or his link to Jason. Jason was only just getting over the fact that ...

he was really a women but his father wanted a boy. jasons father wanted son to...

..perform the most secret of missions for him, so he could be underhanded in his business deals; and right now that secret mission was the obtaining of hair dye.

But Fred, as we have seen, had not managed to make contact with Jason; and the unexpected conversation with Myrtle had left him reeling. So much so that when he walked into his office that afternoon, having closed several business deals in the transatlantic flight, and had a teleconference with the President of the Universe, a telltale grey hair was peeking out from underneath all the previously dyed locks.

As soon as she saw him, his secretary SCREAMED!!!....

"Sorry, Fred," stammered Marge, getting up of the floor, removing her head from the Waste Paper Basket, her mouth full of semi-masticated Post-It notes and bits of Blu-Tak, "I thought you were someone else."

"Never mind, never mind," Fred replied, clearly agitated, "get those Post-Its out your mouth and patch me through to Downing Street"

"But Thlreb" said Marge, the blue-tack playing havoc with her vocal chords ...
"surely you're not serious ... don't you remember that nice Mr Blair asking us never to phone him again. He hasn't accepted a call from you following that episode at the post-election party when you ..."

"both wore exactly the same outfit!!!!"

Fred winced; the memory of that night was still too fresh, too painful. He'd been so proud of his new suit and golden cufflinks, and tiepin; and then to find that SOMEBODY ELSE WAS WEARING EXACTLY THE SAME THING!!!

Fred stared for a moment at Marge, who had somehow managed to stick a post-it note to her left ear, and then said

"I don't care, I'm going in!" and made his way to his office, in full confidence that his secretary would follow his orders.

Once he'd closed the door, he....

... went over to his mini-bar and poured himself into a large tumbler.

Flicking a switch at the bottom of the glass, he was tipped down the drain. A series of pipes and gutters led to his secret underground lair where he was quickly re-assembled by a hoard of Albanian Refugee Field Mice.

"Good Afternoon, Sir, and how was your flight?" inquired a short, dark woman with a severe haircut and the worst case of halitosis this side of Cheltenham.
"Fine thank you, Elaine. Any messages?"
"Yes, Sir. There's two from your mistresses husband requesting your presence at the Gala Dinner for the Association for Cheated Spouses; the President of Cheesaholics Anonymous called wondering why you hadn't been recently and was hoping you hadn't lapsed -"
"I wish he'd leave me alone" Fred said irritably, "I've never even met the guy ... how much is a restraining order these days?"
"I'll look into it for you sir," she replied, reaching for her crystal ball.
"Anything else?"
"There was one other thing ... a woman answering to the name of Myrtle called wanting to speak to you - Urgently. She wouldn't say what it was about but she sounded as if seduction was on her mind." Elaine went on, "It wouldn't surprise me if ...

... you had been smoking some of those strange ciggarettes you brought back from Afghanistan ...
"FRED! ... FRED!" shouted Marge.
Fred woke with a start ..."Wow!" he thought, I must remember not to smoke before coming to work.
"FRED" Marge sounded agitated "It's Tony ..." she pointed to the phone " ... Blair" ...

For a moment Fred was still there with Myrtle, the Albanian Refugee Field Mice, the pipes, the gutters, the cheesaholics, the....BLUTACK?

Suddenly two facts collided in Fred's brain. Marg had succumbed to her office supply fetish again, and there was an awful smell coming from under his desk.

Oh... and the prime minister was on the phone. That might need some priority.

He picked up the phone, and said....

"I'm a little teapot, short and stout, here's my handle here's my spout, when the water's boiling hear me shout. Tip me up and pour me out"
"Milk and one please" replied the Prime Minister, seemingly unperturbed by this bizarre outbreak.
"Good morning, Sir, thank you for allowing me to speak to you."

This bizarre ritual was one performed by all of Tony's closest allies. In the crime ridden world in which we live, you could never be too careful - even your closest friend could turn on you at the drop of a hat.

"I think you'll find it's afternoon, Fred, none the less, it seemed urgent. How can I help?" inquired the PM.
"Well, Tone, you remember Myrtle Mawinthal, the Bognor Beauty?"
"I do," replied the PM sombrely, knowing what could happen if news of their daliances ever got out. He had been a naive student, unaware of the harsh realities of real life, she had been a Beauty Queen, wise in the ways of the world ...

...and how was he to know that every level of Bognor society had been infiltrated by the KGB. Maybe her red underwear should have been a give away, or the way she clicked her heels before jumping into bed or perhaps the way she always used to be on the phone with her brother Oleg and sister Ivana ...
Anyway, that was a long time ago now.
"She's back Tone" said Fred "and do you know what ..."

I've wanted to ask her all this time?

Where does she keep her toothbrush? Honestly, have you EVER seen how sparkly white her teeth are? And smelled how lovely her breath smells? Yet never have I seen a toothbrush in that perky little leather case of hers."

"Funny you should say that," Tony replied, "because...

"... I've found the secret."

"You have?", exclaimed Fred, barely concealing his excitement, "What is it?"
"Sorry, old chap, it's a matter of supreme executive secrecy", the PM replied. "I could tell you but it would be of little use as I'd have to knock all your teeth out, and not being a dentist, that would be unreasonable."

Fred balked at this change of tune from his old mate, Tone. They'd been best of chums in the halcyon days of the 70's. Rarely seen apart, and seldom, if ever, together. Theres was a relationship built on the surest of foundations; an unbreakable bond that had weathered even the stormiest of passages. Had it not been for the unfotunate Cornflake Incident in the early part of 1982, they would undoubtedly still be seen, parading up the pier in Bognor, arm in arm, wearing nothing but a smile.

"But Tone," Fred implored, "think of all the good times we've had; all the memories we've shared. Surely you're not going to let that unfortunate incident with a popular breakfast cereal come between us again?"
"Change the tune, Fred," Tony barked in reponse. "Things have changed, it's time to move on. I've got a wife and kids to consider now, and you've got ..."

... to get rid of those horrible green underpants if you ever want to see me again"
Fred was taken aback ... how could he part with his lucky green pants? These pants were very special. These weren't just any old pants. These had seen him through his first snog (with Bessie Blenkinsop's scouse cousin; Priscilla White. Fred often wondered what became of her ...), he'd passed his O levels at Grimethorpe Comp. wearing these lucky pants, his Oxbridge degree was down to them and most importantly of all, the green pants had helped him when

aliens had kidnapped him and taken him up into his spaceship for weird invasive experiments.

No, there was no way he was going to get rid of them. Not even for the Prime Minister of the country!

Without another word, he hung up the phone. Tony wouldn't even get a goodbye after THAT! So much for friendship!

The slightest of noises alerted him that he was not alone in the room. Most people wouldn't have picked it up, but over the years, Fred had trained himself to super-keen hearing, had his retinas altered (in a secret government experiment) to infrared and ultraviolet vision, and to feel auras.

He turned sloooooooooooowly so that the unknown intruder would not know that he had been alerted to them. So he was astonished when he actually saw it was....