Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad

Today is the 40th wedding anniversary of Karen and Darrell Love, heretofore affectionately referred to as "my mother and "dude". 40 years ago they wed and began the greatest, most rewarding task of their lives: creating me.

Before that they were simple folk. My mother worked in the mail room of the Wichita Eagle Beacon, sorting out the checks from the envelopes that obviously contained cash, which found their way to the nether regions of her capacious bra. Dude toiled 9 hours a day in the Tawanda Mannequin Works, shaving raised creases off the plastic thighs of all big-and-tall dummies. It was Kansas. Life was plain, but it was good.

Good, that is, until he came to town one muggy, August evening; the blight of Sedgwick County: Chancho de Salsa.

Chancho de Salsa ruled the Wichita underworld with an iron wrist. He would have ruled with an iron fist, but he was born without hands--a deformity he was very sensitive about. He worked his way up the crime ring by telling people he was a skilled street fighter, and that he defeated anyone who got in his way until one day he was jumped by a dozen men who successfully relieved him of his appendages. The truth is that fighting--at least "fist" fighting--would have been very painful for Chancho, as his wrists were overly sensitive. So sensitive that the slightest breeze tickling his stumps would cause his knees to buckle and tears to stream uncontrollably down his cheeks. If you knew this fact, it would explain the mittens. But since most men were too terrified to ask, those knitted adornments on the wrists of Chancho de Salsa remained one of The Windy City's unsolved mysteries.

Chancho also had an eye for one Miss Teen Wichita; the Maiden of McComas; the lovely, Karen Gail Smith.

Late that summer, Karen started receiving Mysterious packages at work (Mysterious Industries was the company de Salsa used as a front to disguise his criminal dealings. They were Sedgwick County's second largest supplier of ball bearings and hair pins, but they also distributed cheese doodles to Wichita's north side. An odd combination, hence the name "Mysterious" industries. They used to be called "Ball Hair Doodles Inc" until de Salsa took over). Knowing their origin, and because she had her eye on someone else, Karen refused to accept the boxes of ball bearings, hair clips, and cheese doodles that were sent to woo her. This angered de Salsa, and he shook his mittened wrist nubs at heaven, vowing to destroy the man who had won the heart of Miss Teen Wichita.

Luckily, Dude was oblivious to the spectacle going on around him. He would whistle his little tune as he scraped piles of thigh plastic day after day. It was menial labor, so Dude would busy his mind with subjects that interested him, like time travel and knots. One afternoon, he got so distracted by his thoughts that he'd shaved the whole left leg off one of the mannequins. To cover his mistake, he shaved the right leg down to match and told his manager they had been sent a short person's mannequin by mistake. Reginald Hharrr, the manager of the mannequin factory and Dude's boss, wasn't so displeased about the midget mannequin that Dude had created as he was concerned about the massive pile of shaved plastic on the shop floor. Since shaved plastic was a key ingredient in cheese doodles, there was only one option: sell the stuff to Mysterious Industries. Reginald instructed Dude to sweep the plastic into a bag and deliver it to Mysterious Industries, a task Dude happily--and somewhat ignorantly--accepted.

But Chancho de Salsa was waiting. He knew Dude's job. He knew Dude's tendency to daydream. He knew everything about Dude, and he knew Dude would be arriving soon with a bag full of mannequin thigh plastic. Chancho de Salsa winced as he slid the knitted mittens onto his wrists--even woolen fibers irritated his sensitive stumps.

Dude arrived in the late afternoon, fighting the gusty winds as he gripped the plastic-filled bag. At Mysterious Industries, most of the employees had already gone home for the evening, so it was de Salsa alone who waited. Watching Dude walk naively up to the front door, de Salsa grinned. His only wish being the ability to wring his hands in diabolical anticipation. When Dude reached for the door, de Salsa bounded out.

"Ah ha!" Chancho de Salsa shouted, leaping wrist-mittens-first at Dude, "I have you now, Dude! You will never have Miss Teen Wichita! She's mine!"

The attack came so suddenly and startled Dude so severely, that he jumped backwards with fright, launching the bag of plastic shavings into the air and knocking the mittens from de Salsa's arms. Dude shouted his most forceful cuss word, "Gosh dang it!"

What happened next was never fully known. The bag of mannequin thigh shavings hung in the summer air like only a bag of mannequin thigh shavings can: briefly, before being ripped open by a severe gust of wind. That same gust blew the millions of sharp, plastic pieces into the face of de Salsa, and more importantly, onto his un-mittened wrist lumps.

The shrieks, it was said, could be heard as far away as the Flint Hills. And the pain that caused the shrieks drove Chancho de Salsa mad.

Later, the mayor came to the mannequin factory to award Dude with the keys to the city for ridding the town of the evil Chancho de Salsa. Dude smiled humbly, looked at Miss Teen Wichita, and uttered these famous words:

"Well I'll be . . . for heaven's sake."

Happy anniversary, mom and dad: hero and heroine of my own world, daring little fiction that it is.