A dark and stormy Yule Gift Write Off
Dec 21 '00
Electricity off. Heater broken. I lit my Cuban cigar with the flame from one off the many candles which lined my office. "Puerta del chongo," I thought, "Verrrrrry nice." Thunder rolled in the distance. All evening I’d been shooting whiskey to keep warm, even though I was still on business hours. When you’re a private dick, all hours are business hours.
Cleaning my desk again, I glanced at my digital clock. It read 99::3300 and I deduced it must have been nine thirty—so I decided to send Mark Anthony Brooks, my secretary and personal bodyguard, home for the night. I was just about to ring him up on the intercom, when I heard a knock on the large oak door and Mark peeked his head in.
"Hey, Boss. There’s a woman here to…" and before he could finish, the woman sauntered in. I nearly knocked my collection of antique Coca-Cola bottles over in a frantic attempt to straighten my tie and throw on my sport coat.
She was stunning—a German beauty with a face like an angel and a body like a devil. The kind of devils that visit me in my whiskey-soaked sleep, anyway.
"Mmmmasdhnasd askfhanm?" I said. I had forgotten to take my cigar out of my mouth.
"Excuse me?" She spoke and the room became illuminated. The electricity had come back on. I knew that must’ve been more than a coincidence.
"I said, What can I do for you?"
"You don’t remember me, do you?" Her eyes pierced like daggers.
"Only from my dreams, baby."
"You really don’t remember me, do you?"
"Of course I do. You’re… ahhhhh… ummm…"
"Petra."
"Petra. Exactly. I knew I remembered you."
"You trust me on epinions, yet you never read any of my reviews."
"Oh. Thaaaaaat Petra. Right. I’m sorry, I’ve been very… busy."
"Sure. Busy drinking whiskey and wallowing in your own stench." She was one tough cookie. I knew I couldn’t talk my way out of my shortcomings that easily. I began to spit out another excuse, when she continued. "That’s not why I’m here. I have an assignment for you. Some investigative work."
"Well, you’ve come to the right place." I laughed, trying to look cool. Only looking drunk.
"Listen. I have a friend who goes by the name of ‘melllyn’. I’m looking for a gift for her for the holidays, but I don’t know what to get. Money isn’t a problem. I need you to follow her, learn about her past, her likes and dislikes. Figure out who she is as a person and provide her with the ideal present."
"Sure." I jumped at the chance. As a gumshoe, the only real assignments I’d been getting were finding lost car keys or spying on girls in pay toilets. I’d been longing for some real, honest-to-god, detective work.
"One catch. You must only pursue your investigation of melllyn on epinions."
Crickey. There went my all expenses paid trip to Alabama.
I shook her hand and agreed to the assignment, provided she not hate me for not keeping up with her reviews.
"Awwwww," she said, "I could never hate you, Mr. Monkey. I know that now that school’s wrapped up and you’ve got holidays ahead, you’ll go back and catch up with everything you missed."
"Shucks." I took another puff of my Puerta del Chongo to cover up the fact that I was blushing. She turned around to leave, but I stopped her. "…and Petra."
"Yes."
"Call me Repulse."
The more whiskey I drink, the more smooth I get. Petra left and the electricity went right back out. Typical.
Tracking down melllyn proved painless. I simply typed her name into the library computer and began my investigation into her "personality." She was an English teacher and mother of two girls, ages 15 and 11, who was currently pursuing her Masters degree in education.
At once, all my epinions knowledge rushed back to me. The system had been intended to provide internet users with product information, but the writers had strayed from the system’s original intent. Writers began posting articles which not only gave readers a sense of the product, but also a sense of themselves. Those writers with the most accessible personalities became the most trusted and, thus, the most read. You could write a thousand dry music reviews and still not get as much response as the guy who writes his reviews sparingly and personally. There was an art to epinions, not a formula.
I scanned those sections where I could get a glimpse at melllyn’s true personality. Editorials. Comment sections. Her profile page. All these gave me glimpses into her psyche and hints at what she might need for the holiday season. Going into the assignment, I had hoped she would be a notorious criminal mastermind, so that I might end up in the papers and give my business the boost it needed. To my dismay, she appeared to be a genuine, witty, strong-willed belle with an undying passion for knowledge and for children, especially her own.
But, while warmed by her personality, I became baffled at the thought of presenting her with a gift. At least if she were a criminal I could have given her the gift of bail. Now I had to look deeper toward discovering something she required but did not possess.
I took the long way back to the office, in order to collect my thoughts. In between flashes of pink elephants and Petra’s words ringing through my mind like an alarm, I reviewed the knowledge I’d gained from melllyn’s epinions. It began to rain. I, halfway between my office and the library, and miles from the nearest pub, sat down in the street, took off my hat and let the drops run down my face to keep me awake. "Provide her with the ideal gift," Petra had said. And I didn’t want to come back empty-handed.
There I sat, delusional from the whiskey, the Coca-Cola and the Cuban cigar smoke when the sun began to slowly rise above the buildings. I realized I had spent the night in an alleyway, struggling to provide melllyn with the ideal gift.
I stood up, brushed myself off and took the long walk back to the office.
When I arrived, Petra was in the lobby, waiting for me. My secretary, Mark, gave me a look that asked "What the hell happened to you?"
Petra rose. "Well?" she inquired, "Did you find out anything interesting about my friend? Any insight?"
But before I could respond I collapsed. Right there onto the tiled floor.
When I awoke, I had the answer. Petra’s words had triggered a stream of thoughts that bounced through my unconscious mind. I had melllyn’s gift, and not only did it seem perfect, but also plausible.
melllyn’s epinions, like any great artist, always seemed to come back to central themes. She wrote of a father whom she had been taught to hate, but met and learned to value as a human being. She wrote of her daughter who showed a genius-level aptitude for learning and the application of knowledge, whom she refuses to label as "gifted". She wrote of yours truly (little did I know that all the while, she’d been hired to follow me, as well), and an unfounded bias she had toward an epinionator whom she initially backed away from, only to resist that urge and appreciate even a type of reviewing which she might not normally read.
melllyn gleams with a passion for understanding people—teenagers, Hell’s Angels, sarcastic punk-rock monkeys—in a way that transcends their exterior traits. She yearns to learn about people without judging them by her initial reaction, to resist the urge to run from that which she does not understand and, instead, take the time to ask questions, look deeper and find ways to relate to each individual, so that she might learn about the world and about herself.
It’s a good thing she’s a teacher, because that’s one of the best traits any teacher can have—and too few actually possess.
My gift to melllyn is one which I think she will inevitably receive: the privilege to know and teach children from all walks of life, of all religions and cultural backgrounds, rich and poor, athletic and artistic, eager and disinterested, and the children’s parents as well; to learn from them as much as they will undoubtedly learn from her. I give her the patience to see it through, no matter how frustrated she gets, to treat her children and students with honesty, love, respect, and acceptance (as she herself prescribes), and to take pleasure in knowing that—merely in her willingness to understand—she is changing these children’s lives and taking a great, positive part in their future as human beings.
Now, before I go back to my dark and cold office, back to my whiskey and Coca-Cola, this cynical old gumshoe sits smiling—reminded why he’s so in love with education, and those who devote their lives to it. And I light up another Cuban cigar…
Upon reading this epinion you have stumbled into a vortex known as the Yule Gift Write Off. After checking out melllyn’s work at http://repulsemonkey.epinions.com/user-melllyn, I urge you to visit the other participants:
panterad00d, chrisjoker, pcrepairguy, guiseppy, cking, moonfey, superflychick, lsebastan33, kvanvoorhis, lessaleigh, vemartin, thundersangel, schlamozzel, driver4t5, lunadisarm, psugrowler, cheekylass, snakeayez, jo.com, bobrocks, aribuzz, prfstars, debbie26, gagirl40, akabecky, dosite1, rotten , bunnyjaw, inganamort, lap0530, juliette, linda1527, craigmoosh, viper1963, azbrotha, kellydeal, seracorde11 ,orator, flak-attack, petra, muttgirl, noniabidnis , mattjoe, jdinpa, althaea, adriene10, gpatters, blackelve, pogomom, madbunnie2, pianomam, dr_valerie, ladydagey1, macresarf1, annexation, ogur, rongould, pharder, and macenthe
***This has been posted under "Developing an Epinions Personality", because this write-off aims at finding out how we come across to other Epinionators.
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Epinions.com ID:
repulsemonkey
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Member: Ambassador of Epinions Love (and sometimes BBQ)
Location: Oops Upside Your Head
Reviews written: 29
Trusted by: 192 members
About Me:
Love me.
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