A Three-Donut Vacation: XII. Hot Glazed Now

Written 19-26 June, 2008

A Three-Donut Vacation

XII. Hot Glazed Now

“What would you like more than anything in the world?” Sweetie asked me.

I looked soulfully into her eyes.

“Not that,” she laughed. “I mean to eat.”

That was easy. “A donut,” I said.

“Just a donut?”

“No, a—a hot glazed donut. Mmm. Glazed donuts! A box of a dozen hot glazed donuts.”

“Pull over here,” Sweetie commanded.

Obediently, Top Cop pulled her freebie Gaxis golf cart getaway vehicle to the curb.

“See that sign?” asked Sweetie.

I squinted. “Let me zoom my camera… OMG! ‘Hot Donuts Now!’”

 “Yes,” said Sweetie. “It’s the first-ever virtual Krispy Kreme ® franchise.”

“And so we’re going to load up on donuts and then go find the secret world headquarters of the TSA and break in?” I asked dreamily.

“Not exactly,” Sweetie said. “TSA headquarters is six floors below street level. Directly below the Krispy Kreme.”

“That’s sacrilege!” I said. “Has our federal government no sense of donut sanctity?”

“You need ask such a question?” Sweetie asked.

“You guys be sure to bring me back a cruller,” said Top Cop. “I’d be drummed out of the Fraternal Order of Virtual Police if I missed an opportunity like this!”

“We will,” promised Sweetie. “You just be sure to be here when we get back!”

“Okay, okay,” said Top Cop. “It won’t be like last time. I promise.”

----

 “I’ll have two chocolate cake and one vanilla cake and four powdered and one apple cinnamon and one brown sugar maple and two crullers for our friend Michel—I mean Top Cop—and two blueberry filled and three lemon filled and four raspberry filled and one custard-filled and one with sprinkles and a dozen glazed,” I said to the counterman. “What’ll you have, Sweetie? I mean, Fashionista Bandit?”

And then Sweetie said the magic words: “Sweet donutty goodness.”

Without a word the donut man lifted a section of the counter, allowing us to pass into the inner sanctum of donut heaven. He strode to the walk-in cooler and opened the door. Sweetie stepped inside and motioned to me to join her.

I looked longingly at the automatic machinery in the store. It was rolling donuts six at a time down a shiny stainless steel ramp, dunking the dough in hot oil, turning and rolling the half-fried nuggets of, I have to say it, sweet donutty goodness, and, finally, running them under a nozzle to douse them with superheated supersweet sugar. “What about my donuts?” I asked, looking wistfully at the package I’d left at the counter.

“Hssst!” said Sweetie, and I scurried after her.

The donut man slammed the cooler door and Sweetie glanced at me. I typed in the number I, dear reader, entrusted you with while we were on vacation and which you were recently so kind as to read back to me. Well, thanks to Tycho Beresford, anyway. He was the only one who actually responded. We began to move downward.

“Secret elevator,” Sweetie said. “Did you notice the store had a health department rating of 71?”

“Dunkin’ Donuts has to be bribing the Department of Virtual Health,” I said. “Krispy Kreme is kicking their ass. The place looked clean enough to me.”

The elevator clanked and hummed as we descended. And of course, it being a Second Life elevator, we bounced around inside it like two crazy chickens.

 “How deep IS this secret headquarters place?” I asked. Why, oh why hadn’t I grabbed a chocolate iced as I ran through the kitchen?

“Deep” Sweetie said. “Below zero meters elevation.”

“Below zero meters!” I said. “Is that possible?”

“Anything is possible in Second Life,” said Sweetie. “Haven’t you learned that yet?”

“I suppose,” I said, remembering the time we had flown to 50,000,000 meters.

“Especially if you learn how to use the negative elevation simulator exploit,” she said. “Shush. No talking from here on.”

“But what are we here for? What’s our mission? Besides being fashionably attired while breaking and entering, I mean.”

The cooler ground to a stop and Sweetie opened the cooler door. “Follow me,” she said, “into the center of all evil in the Metaverse.”

A Three-Donut Vacation: I. Three-Donut Vacation

I don't think most of us get extra screening because they think we are terrorists. I think we get it because they know we're not. They screen people who are not terrorists because it helps them pretend they are protecting us, in the same way doctors in the middle ages used to wear tall hats: because they couldn't cure you. It's all show...

This is a flying nation. We fly. And everyone knows airport security is an increasingly sad joke, that TSA itself often appears to have forgotten its mission, if it ever knew it, and taken on a new one--the ritual abuse of passengers.

-- Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal, 23 February, 2006


For a history of our problems with the TSA, see the blog entry http://cheyennepal.blogspot.com/2007/05/teleportation-security-administration.html and the dozen or so posts that follow.

I have to say my vacation was the best I've ever had. I even had two days at home after the trip to lounge about and catch up on the mail. It was truly a three-donut vacation.

Oh, wait, did I say that out loud?

What I MEANT to say is OMG, I am SO glad to be home after the most horrendous misadventure with the Teleportation Security Administration!

It began, as most things do, innocently enough. Sweetie and I were doing a routine teleport.

Well, routine for us. Sweetie was wearing a bomb avatar. It didn't help that she kept making that whistling I'm-Falling-From-the-Sky sound.

But even then, we would have been okay if that TSA bastard at the security gate hadn't tried to nab my bottle of perfume.

"What's the deal?" I said. "It's in a quart-sized Ziploc bag, as regulation 44J-23-10-A2 requires."

"Ah, yes," he said. "But 44J-23-10-A2 says you can transport a 3-ounce bottle of liquid. This bottle is four ounces." He reached for it.

I moved it out of range. "What if I had two three-ounce bottles?" I asked.

"That would be acceptable," he said.

"So it's okay to bring six ounces of potentially explosive plane-destroying liquid aboard, but not four?"

"Pretty much," he said.

"I'm going to stand right here until I use up an ounce," I said. I imagined it would take weeks.

"Won't work," he said. "The bottle would still hold four ounces. And you would technically be loitering."

"Do you have a three-ounce bottle you could lend me? Or sell to me?"

"Afraid not," he said, and grabbed the bottle.

Strangely enough, when he tried to snatch it away, the bottle remained in my hand. His hand was attached to it, but didn't seem to be connected to the rest of his body.

"Sweetie," I said. "Tell me you didn't!"

"He was messing with my girl," she said, wiping her katana carefully and sliding it into its scabbard.

"My hand!" screamed the TSA agent. "They cut of my f***ing hand! I was just following procedures!"

"Oh, grow up!" Sweetie said. "This is Second Life. You can always reattach it."

"Help! Help!" he screamed, and a sea of blue shirts began to move toward us.

"Run for it!" I screamed to Sweetie, and I dashed through the metal detector and toward the nearest aircraft. Sweetie was close behind, despite stopping to have her boarding pass scanned. Sweetie is by nature law-abiding.

We scrambled down the jetway and through the entry door of the plane. Sweetie, behind me, pulled the door to and latched it.

"Listen up!" I yelled. "We are commandeering this aircraft in the name of the independent nation-state of Whimsy. We will be departing for Whimsy immediately. Stay calm and in your seats and everything will be fine. Nobody will get hurt. And extra peanuts for everyone!"

"What she said," said Sweetie, who had taken a post beside the pilot. Her katana was out again, its burnished blade reflecting the multicolored lights of the instruments. She waggled the tip at the pilot. "Quick, now! I want to hear those turbines!"

Fifteen minutes later, having hustled the first-class passengers back to the tourist section, Sweetie and I were sprawled in plush seats and knocking back Cosmopolitans. Sweetie was rapidly getting plastered.

"Do you notice something unusual about the stewardess?" she asked.

I took a long look. "No," I said, "although she looks a bit like..."

"Exactly," said Sweetie.

A Three-Donut Vacation: XIII. In the Belly of the Donut Beast

Written 26 June, 2008

A Three-Donut Vacation

XIII: In the Belly of the Donut Beast

The secret headquarters of the TSA seemed normal enough at first. I mean, for a secret world headquarters. It was, we would soon find out, far from ordinary.

We were in a lobby. The walls were festooned with posters bearing messages like “Know Your Enemy! No. 7: The Bagel” and “Friends Don’t Let Friends Dunk and Drive.” A reception desk sat empty before us. A phone rang.

Without thinking, I picked it up. “TSA,” I said. “All power to the donut. How can I help you?”

“This is Agent 99 at the Ahern regional telehub. I’m declaring an emergency. We’re running low on glazed.”

I covered the mouthpiece with my size 20 hand. Or, rather, I tried. It wasn’t big enough for the job, so I went into Appearance and cranked my hand size up to 40.

“Ssst!” I said to Sweetie. “They’re low on glazed at Ahern!”

Sweetie grabbed the phone. “Why are you annoying us? Don’t you know it’s past five? Everyone has gone home. Take your donut crisis elsewhere!” She slammed down the receiver.

“That takes care of that,” she said. “Gosh, your hands are big.”

-----

We crept down a long corridor, passing countless locked doors. “Bo-ring!” I whispered.

“Ya think?” admonished Sweetie. “Look at the names!”

I began to check out the nameplates on the doors:

Honksfordonuts Johnson, Vice-President, Delivery Systems, Donut-and-Missile Division

Krullerme Happy, Group Leader, Donut Disinformation Bureau

Rollin Indough, Specialist in Sugar and Cyanide

Sprinkles Savvy, Pastry Weapons

“These seem like weird names for a donut shop,” I said. “Or for that matter, for TSA headquarters. They seem a strange blend of the two. Donuts and national security. National security and donuts. Say, are those footsteps?”

“Night watchman!” whispered Sweetie. She stepped to the nearest door and passed a plastic key card under a scanner. The door opened and we ducked inside and closed the door, barely daring to breathe. The steps grew louder, paused just outside the door, and then receded.

Sweetie opened the door, stuck her head out, read the sign, and closed the door. “This is the Forensic Donut Division,” she said wistfully. “but there’s no time to look around.”

I followed Sweetie into the corridor, but even at a glimpse I could see the place was amazing. There were donut hurling machines that had become gummed up because some fool had filled them with glazed rather than cake donuts, donut bombs that had prematurely exploded, and a white powdered donut with one bite taken from it.

Department of Donut Hole Science
Bureau of Glazes and Powders
Board of Icing Tinting, Colors Not Found in Nature Work Group, Hue McFinder, Director

“I like this one,” said Sweetie. “Frying Pan Maintenance Gallery; Happy Dish Slaves Since 2007.”

“Yeah, I said. “Iscrub Uscrub, supervisor.”

We passed a billboard.

“Memos,” Sweetie said. “Look at the titles!”

“’Donuts and Airport Security Devices,’” I read. “’Mutually exclusive?’”

“’Adjusting Your Sniffing Device to Detect Nutmeg and Mace,’” read Sweetie. “And look! ‘The Importance of Teleport Tom in Donut History.’”

“’What To Do When You Find Squashed Donuts in a Passenger’s Shoes,’” I read. “Looks like the TSA is taking over Krispy Kreme.”

“Oh, you silly! You have it all backwards!” said Sweetie.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Krispy Kreme has taken over the TSA. In fact, the United States Government is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Krispy Kreme Korporation.”

A Three-Donut Vacation: XXII. Confrontation at the Donut Factory

Heavy-Duty Donut Machinery

Written 8 July, 2008

A Three Donut Vacation

XXII: Confrontation at the Donut Factory

“Look!” cried Sweetie.

I had been gazing longingly at my bag of donuts, just feet away. But now I saw what had alarmed Sweetie. Across the room, the heavy steel door to the Donut Room was sliding slowly closed. We couldn’t possibly get there before it slammed shut—and once shut, it would STAY shut. Krispy Kreme is serious about donut security.

To my surprise, there was an English throwing scone in my hand. I had no memory of having grabbed it from its patent leather designer pouch. “One side!” I yelled. Sweetie ducked behind a bin of flour and I spun the scone away, using my best underhand throw. It bounced along the floor like a rock skimming across a pond and by sheer good chance skidded to a stop at the base of the door. The huge door hit it, shuddered, and stopped.

“God bless the English!” I cried.

Sweetie reached the door before I did. She squeezed through the opening without a problem, but I got stuck. “Damn my breast size!” I cried.

Through the thick Plexiglas picture windows of the Donut Room I could see the pastry-making machinery in motion. Donuts, in rows of six, were making their way through pools of hot oil. And I could see, in the narrow space between the conveyors, Sweetie and ImSoNotADiva engaged in a fierce sword battle.

I had gone into Appearance and was feverishly dragging the slider for breast size to the left. I didn’t think I would ever get myself small enough, but finally I popped through.

I had hoped to go to Sweetie’s aid, but straightaway a sword wielded by a second (well, third, if you count the head in the book bag) Diva nearly skewered me.

By the use of artful dodging I avoided my Diva’s blade long enough to find the watermelon gun in my Inventory ( MELONS). Sweetie is always on my case about being hyper organized, but in this case, the hours of sorting paid off. I attached the watermelon thrower, hit M for mouselook, and just as I was about to be split asunder by my Diva’s descending cutlass, I fired.

Watermelons are heavy; that’s why I had passed up the tomato gun INVENTORY> CHEY’S THINGS> WEAPONS> GUNS> GUNS WITH UNUSUAL PROJECTILES> FRUIT GUNS> NON-CITRUS> FRUITS OFTEN MISCLASSIFIED AS VEGETABLES). The melon hit my diva amidships and knocked her back hard against the conveyor. As she teetered, on the verge of righting herself, I fired again and she was knocked back into the hot grease. Her scream was horrible, but cut blessedly short as her open mouth was filled with boiling sugar as she passed under the glazer.

By then ANOTHER Diva was on top of me. This one was ridiculously armed with a donut hole gun. The little holes bounced ineffectively away—although they made a MESS of my Evie’s Closet gown.

“Take this!” I cried, and hit her with a stream of melons. She went down. I kept firing until she was lifeless, buried beneath a sea of pulp and rind.

Finally, I was free to turn to Sweetie. She was on the other side of the six-foot-wide conveyer belt, standing on a pile of headless Divas, fighting for her life with what I hoped was the last of our enemies. This diva was wielding a Hot Donuts Now gun. Had one of its glazed projectiles touched Sweetie, she would have been killed instantly. She was knocking the donuts aside with the blade of her katana, but this Diva was skillful, and one of about every four donuts was encircling the tip of Sweetie’s katana and sliding down the blade toward the hilt. The growing stack of donuts was making Sweetie’s parries increasingly clumsy and me increasingly hungry.

Things looked grim.

A Three-Donut Vacation: XXX: Donut Death Star

The Earth After Being Glazed By the Deadly Donut Death Star (Artist’s Impression)

Written 10 July, 2008

A Three-Donut Vacation

XXX: Donut Death Star

So once again, dear readers, we are back again in the first class section of the plane we hijacked, our feet up, imbibing Cosmopolitans and keeping a wary eye on the stewardess, who, we were morally certain, was another of ImSoNotADiva’s clones.

“The time has come, said Sweetie, “to talk of many things. Of TSA and Krispy Kreme, and Linden Lab and bling.”

“Huh?” I said.

“Virtual Lewis Carroll,” said Sweetie. “I’m going to fill you in on the mission.”

“Finally!” I said. “But is it safe to talk here?” I cut my eyes toward Diva, who was in the jump seat, leaning conspicuously toward us.

“Oh, she never makes it off the plane,” chuckled Sweetie. “Or most of her doesn’t.” She smiled disarmingly. “I know because I read through to the end of the blog.”

“I hate it when you do that!” I said. “I don’t even know the ending myself! I’m grievously concerned I’ve written myself into a hole I’ll never find my way out of.”

“Did you read the Lindens’ recent blog about their experiment with IBM?”

“Oh, yeah!” I said. “It’s a major big deal. They were able to successfully transport an avatar between Second Life and Open Sim.”

“Right. It’s a milestone in intergrid compatibility.”

“Do we get to take our clothes with us?” I asked. “And our hair and our skins and our shoes?”

“With luck, teleporting with mesh and attachments will soon be operational,” Sweetie said, “but only, at first, for platinum card fashionistas.”

“Thank god I got my ticket punched,” I said. “I would soooo not go to another grid as a newbie.”

“But what’s important is this WASN’T the first intergrid teleport.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No. Two years go—even before Linden Lab open sourced the software for their servers—Krispy Kreme opened its own grid, using information fed to them by Phyllodough Linden, their spy in the Lab. For six months now they’ve been passing avatars and objects back and forth between Second Life and the Donut Grid.

“Phyllo did a lot of damage,” continued Sweetie. “He was undercover for years. Because of him we have the insidious torus.”

“Oh, that’s right!” I exclaimed. “I never thought about it, but the donut has its own primitive type!”

“It’s the only food product that does, beside the cone. The Ice Cream marketing people paid the Lab millions to develop the cone, but Phyllo snuck the torus right past them.”

“Did they catch him?”

“You know how is in the espionage business. When he was found out he just made an alt. Word is he’s now a sex worker in virtual Amsterdam.”

Sweetie took a big drink from her Cosmo and said, “Fearless Leader--"

"You mean Torley?" I said brightly.

"Shhh! He's known for a while now about the TSA’s dismantling of the network of ballistic missile doneutron bombs. At first he couldn’t figure out why, but he had an in with disgruntled members of Krispy Kreme’s pink-and-green worker support group. They told him about a secret weapon. An ultimate weapon.”

I had a thought. “It’s on the donut grid, isn’t it?” I asked. “The secret weapon.”

“Yes,” said Sweetie. “And it’s called the Donut Death Star. It’s almost completed, and as soon as it’s operational, they’re going to jump it between grids and use it annihilate the earth.”

"The real earth?"

"The real earth."

“By why?” I asked, aghast.

“For publicity, of course. “They plan to cover the planet with glaze and advertise it as the world’s largest donut hole.”

“That’s terrible,” I said. “And stupid besides. Who’s going to be left to see the ad? Martians?”

“What’s really frightening,” said Sweetie, “is the 20 tons of Leona Helmsley Shade 502 lipstick buried in Yucca Mountain. If the Death Star glaze comes into contact with it, the Earth will go up like a supernova.”

“We have to take that Donut Death Star out!” I exclaimed.

“That’s my Chey,” smiled Sweetie. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

A Three-Donut Vacation: XVII. Intelligence Service Debriefing with Agent Sweetie

Written on 3 July, 2008

A Three-Donut Vacation

XVII: Intelligence Service Debriefing With Agent Sweetie

Dear reader: How this highly classified document managed to slip out of our super secret headquarters to be leaked to the press and generate fantastic publicity for us with no redactions except a few icing smears, we have no idea. We publish this excerpt out of sequence, as it contains material that explains the interaction between Sweetie and BonBon Michelin in upcoming episodes of this increasingly ever more bizarre story line.

Q: Now that we’ve accounted for all the bodies and we have your expense report for several thousand bullets, ninja throwing scones, a replacement katana, one wrecked Gaxis golf cart getaway vehicle, and ten designer gowns, let’s move on to intel on your co–conspirators—but first I have to ask you, Agent Sweetie, what was with the tension between you and BonBon Michelin? He really seemed steamed at you when you met in the Museum of Donut History.

A: Ha! Not so much steamed as half-baked, if you know what I mean. You see, it all goes back to our shared interest in the paleodonolithic sciences. Prehistoric donut history is a fascinating though controversial topic.

ProtoPastries! HA! Jurassic Frying Oil! Crullerbites! When I wrote my now famous* dissertation on the theory of pastry evolution (* now famous because I just mentioned it here in interview which I will leak to a famous blogger—oh, did I just say that out loud?) the idea of natural taste selection was considered radical by proponents of the accepted Theory of Imperial Selection—so called because it proposed the divine right of kings as the driving force behind pastry achievement. In their desperate battles for confectionary supremacy, royalty hired the best (meaning French, of course) pastry chefs. The need for survival in this donut-eat-donut world led to more and more specialized pastry achievements.

This theory seemed at first to have some merit, but it was flawed because self-interested backers could imagine no higher evolution of pastry than the beignet. The beignet was the center of the pastry universe, around which the lowly scones, crumpets, donuts, and muffins must orbit. To propose anything else was culinary heresy.

It’s rumored that when I won the Nobel Prize for outstanding achievement in the culinary sciences, consumption, and criticism, the major proponent of the original theory, one BonBon Michelin, a black sheep of the royalty gastronomic Michelin family of France, went quite stark raving mad. He lost his filling, so to speak, and ran off to join some insane beignet separatist movement, seeking redemption and archeological evidence to restore the beignet to the top of the pastry food chain.

Considering the smaller filling capacity of beignets—only 22cc’s of jelly as opposed to more than 60cc for the new American superdonut—the imperial selectionist theory lead to an evolutionary dead end. Darwinian donut theory proves every culture had its own standard for selection of the tastiest. Only extreme manipulation by a corporate overlord like Krispy Kreme can warp this natural taste selection process.

Q: Oh, Sweetie, I’m so fascinated! What are you studying now?

A: (Sweetie polishes her Nobel medal casually, then checks to make sure her outfit matches.) Well, for a while I’ve been fascinated by donut astronomics. Dark filling matter. Dry, arid scones: can they support jelly? Is the so-called donut hole really a donut, or should we call those diminutive pastries donutoids? The Big Rise theory. Of course, the discovery of binary muffins was a fascinating topic; I have some of my grad students working on that—but I have to say my favorite intellectual pursuit at the moment is the development of icing string theory.

A Three-Donut Vacation: XV. The Museum of Donut History

Donuts of the Paleozoic. These protopastries formed when the oceans were made of hot grease. They survive in sediment because there was no one to eat them.

Except maybe that amoeba toward bottom left.

Donut History: Stone donuts were often elaborately carved.

Cheyenne on a Paleolithic Donut

Written 26 June, 2008

A Three-Donut Vacation XV: The Museum of Donut History

We were in a filing room. But such a filing room! It was immense. There were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of filing cabinets.

“Don’t these people digitize?” I whispered.

“This is the back entrance,” Sweetie said..

“To what?”

“To the Museum of Donut History.”

“I didn’t realize donuts had a history.”

“Of course they do.” Sweetie had led us to a door, and now she threw it open. “Look!”

-----

Our contact was late.

We had no choice but to wait. While we did, we learned a great deal about donut history. We walked through displays of famous donuts of history (“Look! The stone donut!” Sweetie exclaimed), donut publicists of the 18th and 19th Centuries, The Cruller Rebellion, Pastries of the Fin de Siecle. We read about the muffin controversy, the ongoing battles with bagel fanatics, and the Beignet Separatist movement.

Sweetie was particularly interested in the Beignet Brigade, which considered punched donut holes a sacrilege. “Mon Dieu!” one member was said to have exclaimed. “If God had meant donuts to have voids, He would not have given us our wonderfully hollow beignets!”

-----

“Bonjour,” said a voice to our right. “The beignet trees line the Seine. Do you have the countersign?”

A Three-Donut Vacation: XVIII. BonBon's Story

Powdered Sugar Excesses Like This Led to the Breakup

Of the Beignet Separatist Movement

BonBon's Michelin's Fraternity House at Bundt University

Written 2-3 July, 2008

A Three-Donut Vacation

XVIII: BonBon’s Story

“But where does BonBon fit in?” I asked.

“I am your guide,” sniffed BonBon. “I am here to lead you to your objective.”

“Ladies,” said Mordecai, “Mssr. Bonbon, I take your leave. I have other deliveries. In fact, I have a most special delivery for my lovely wife Kacy.”

“Is it true UPS delivers three times a day?” asked Sweetie with seeming innocence.

“Only domestic,” grinned Mordecai, and just like that he was gone.

“You will follow me,” said BonBon. “but first I must tell you my story.”

“Do we have time?” I asked.

“But of course,” said BonBon.

“Besides, you’re in need of filler so you can spin things out while you figure out how to write yourself out of the plot hole you’ve gotten yourself into,” said Sweetie demurely.

“I’ll just write a timed lock onto the door we have to break into,” I said.

BonBon straightened his beret. “And now here’s my story. I am a scion of a prominent family. My clan has a long and proud tradition of rating the finest of food establishments. We write the fairest and least biased reviews in all of Europe.”

“Then your last name is…” I began.

“Michelin, of course” he said. “I was the oldest son, and great expectations were placed on me. I had always been interested in the pastry sciences, but it was at university that I discovered my passion—that miracle of wheat and yeast and sugar and hot oil, the beignet. Beignets consumed me. I could see nothing else. I could eat nothing else.

“And so, beignets became my life. I earned a Ph.D. in donopaleontology at Bundt University. My dissertation on beignet evolution was much applauded. I made the strongest of cases for the Theory of Imperial Pastry Selection.” BonBon stroked his mustaches. “I returned home in triumph. At Michelin, I was given the much sought-after position of Chief of Pastry Reviews. My life was good. I had a wife, two children, a comfortable position. And then it happened.

“Out of nowhere some, some, some American nobody named Sweetie published a paper on natural donut selection. Her reasoning was sublime, her ideas devastating to my career. I was ruined in academia. Soon my pastry reviews fell into disfavor with my father. And then one was rejected. Rejected!

“I went to my father in a fury. I pushed past his receptionist and burst into his office, and I saw it all. I saw the empty box on his desk, encrusted in dried sugar. I saw the crumbs on his bloated lips, which, as I raged at him, he wiped them again and again with a Krispy Kreme napkin.

“’How could you DO this?’ I shouted. ‘You have sold us out! And for what? For... for puffy American confections! Have you no respect for our culinary traditions?’

“I shamed him. He lowered his eyes and told me he was powerless over his addiction. ‘I meant to have only a small taste,’ he told me. ‘but I found myself wanting another and another. I now have a dozen a day habit. A baker’s dozen a day habit. How could I let you savage my beloved donuts?’ And then he grew angry. ‘One star, BonBon? A single star? One miserable star for such a delight of heaven? Compared to four stars for your accursed beignets? And worst of all, you have let an American make a fool of you. You are no son of mine!’

“And so I was cast out of my family. My wife left me and filed for divorce on the ground of irreconcileable pastry tastebud differences. I was not allowed to see my children lest I smuggle pastries to them. My life was ruined. Ruined!

“What choice had I? What choice did I have but to turn to the Beignet Separatist Movement? I went to them supplicant. I told them I would do anything they wanted. I would take the least rewarding, the most dangerous job. And so I was sent here, to the headquarters of the Krispy Kreme government, to work undercover, to sabotage the donuts. And sabotage I did.

“I took a position in the maintenance department; it gave me the opportunity to tinker with the hole punchers. Soon one in ten donuts was being made without a hole. Then one in seven!

“By now every Krispy Kreme donut in the world would have been but a beignet in disguise. But I was betrayed. The Beignet Separatist Movement, my adopted family, turned against itself. The movement separated into powdered sugar zealots and raspberry filling fanatics, and the in-fighting was bitter. They had no time for a lone patriot deep within the bowels of the Krispy Kreme establishment. My reports were not acknowledged. My stipend checks failed to arrive. The beignets they sent me, when they remembered to do so, were stale. Soon I had no money. I was a bitter man. I hated my university with its silly domed cakes. I hated my father for his weaknesses. And most of all I hated the American Sweetie, who had set me on my road to ruin. I swore if I ever found her I would make her rue the day she rejected the beignet in favor of the lesser pastries!

“At my lowest point I considered suicide by donut.

 “It would have been my statement to my family. ‘Michelin Heir Found Dead with Donuts.’ But at my blackest hour I received a message from Torley Linden. Would I help in the fight against the TSA? But of course I would. And so, here I am. My name is BonBon Michelin, mesdames, and I’m at your service!”

A Three-Donut Vacation: XXXII. The Sweetie and Chey Fan Club

The Whimsy Hard Hat is a Rare and Valuable Collectible.

This One Recently Sold at the In-World Sotheby’s for $135,000L

Written 12-14 July, 2008

A Three-Donut Vacation

XXXII: The Sweetie and Chey Fan Club

“You there,” said Sweetie. “In the cockpit. There’s been a change of plans.”

The captain turned in his chair and peered through the open cockpit door. “Sweetie?” he said. “Cheyenne? SWEETIE! CHEYENNE!”

“Judge Camper!” we cried.

“That’s Captain Camper to you,” he said proudly.

It was our old friend, the chair-camping judge from the trial Sweetie vs. The United States of America!

“You’re a pilot now!”

He puffed up his chest. “I took the 178 Lindens I made for sitting in that judge chair during your trial and bought a blue uniform with lots of brass buttons,” he said. “Then I just hung out at the regional teleport hub until someone got finally got up from a flight captain’s camping chair, and here I am!”

“You’re CAMPING?” I asked incredulously. “Right Now?”

“Sure, but the rate! I’m making five Lindens every ten minutes! That’s sixty Lindens an hour. SIXTY LINDENS AN HOUR! Say,” he said, “I’d better not be talking to you gals. It seems some meanies have hijacked this plane and are demanding they be landed some place called Whimsy.”

“That would be us,” I said, “and our plans have changed. We’re not going to Whimsy any more.”

“Okay, then,” said Captain Camper cheerfully. “Where to?”

And his chair said:

Boeing Flight Pilot’s Camping Chair, Deluxe Model: “You have just earned five Lindens for sitting in this chair for ten minutes. You have earned a total of 5012 Lindens.”

-----

“This is your captain speaking. We’re now passing over Paris 1900. If you look to your left, you’ll see one of the many virtual Eiffel Towers in Second Life.

“Folks, you’ll notice we’re making a turn to the left as we pass the tower. That’s because we’re coming to a new heading. It seems our hijackers will be diverting us to a Second Life landmark sim, the infamous Black Swan. This will add perhaps 30 minutes to our teleport time, which means 15 lindens earned for me in this captain’s chair, woo hoo!. To make up for the inconvenience, the flight attendant will be handing out double donuts today. Enjoy.”

Diva gave him a dirty look, then dutifully pushed a stainless steel cart into the passenger section. Seconds later she returned in a run amidst a hail of donuts.

“Captain,” she said, “Steerage is revolving! I, uh, mean the passengers in Tourist are rioting!”

A thin, nervous-looking man wandered out of the Tourist section. “I’ve been elected spokesperson,” he said. “We were promised peanuts. We want peanuts. There are some very unhappy people back there, and there’s going to be trouble if they don’t get their peanuts.”

“Attendant, do we have any peanuts on board?” asked the Captain.

“Yes sir. We keep them for cases of donut allergy, but there aren’t nearly enough to go around.”

“Distribute them. And look on SL Exchange for some sort of free, copyable non-pastry snack.”

She looked away for a second. “Uh, all I could find were some Lucky Charms,” she said. “I ordered them. and I already have a blue box telling me they’re here.”

“They’ll have to do,” said the Captain.

“Mmmm, Lucky Charms!” I said.

“They are,” said Sweetie, “magically delicious. Like me!”

Diva gave her a dirty look, then went back to pass out the cereal.

I said, “Did you notice that guy was wearing a Whimsy hard hat?”

“I did,” said Sweetie. “and a Sweetie & Chey t-shirt.”

“What a nice coincidence!” I said. “to have a member of our fan club on board. Let’s go back and say hello to him and maybe give him a publicity photo.”

I parted the curtains separating First Class from Tourist and Sweetie stepped through. I followed, bumping into her, for she had stopped abruptly in the aisle.

“Oh, my god,” said Sweetie.

“Oh, my god,” I said.

Tourist was awash with yellow Whimsy hard hats and gaily-colored Sweetie & Chey t-shirts.

A Three-Donut Vacation: XXXVII: Dénouement

Written 14 July, 2008

A Three-Donut Vacation

XXXVII: Dénouement

And there you have it, the true facts of my three-week, three-donut vacation with Sweetie.

I still live on Whimsy—if you can call it living. The heart has gone out of me. I go through the motions—pay the tier, keep the sim lag-free, buy a frock from time to time so my platinum fashionista card won’t be cancelled. Life is almost bearable at times, but there is no joy.

Sweetie is gone. I have to face it. Its been weeks, and there’s been no sign of her. I fear the worst.

And yet I dare to hope. There’s been no attack from the deadly donut death star, after all. Maybe Sweetie managed to pay the 200 Linden dollars to Black Rose and find her way through the wormhole to the donut grid. Maybe she took that donut death star out in the best ninja fashionista style. Maybe she’s trapped on the donut grid at this very minute, trying to find her way back to me.

But maybe not.

I guess I’ll never know.

I miss her terribly.

A Three-Donut Vacation: VIII. The Consultant

Written 23 June, 2008

A Three-Donut Vacation

VIII. The Consultant

We were in luck. Our friend Tozh was available and willing to help.

She teleported in in a Catwoman crouch, which was entirely appropriate, as she was in Nekofab mode.

Most nekos play cats so cutesy-wutesy I want to go throw up in the woods. You know what I mean. They lick their wrists, stand prissily about, swish their too-long tails. It’s the universal bad neko AO, I suppose. Tosh (and my brother Mordecai Scaggs) are different. Mordecai is a dignified Victorian tiger and Tosh—well, let’s just say Tozh was working a Salvador Dali / R. Crumb / M.C. Escher / Edvard Munch look. She looked fabulous.

“What’s this emergency?” Tozh asked.

“We need something special for a counter-counter terrorism breaking-and-entering,” Sweetie said. “None of our usual unusual outfits seem to work.”

“And you’ve tried mixing and matching, I suppose?” asked Tozh.

Sweetie favored her with a withering look.

“Right, then,” said Tozh. “That means it’s time to shop.”

-----

Tozh, like Sweetie, carries a platinum Fashionista union membership card. (My own is mere gold. I’ve been told it won’t be upgraded until I lose my resource-consuming Mai hairdo from Zero Style, but I get a lot of compliments on it from strangers who are able to overcome my avatar rendering cost enough to type, so I’ve not yet been able to bring myself to drag it to the Trash folder. Well, once I did, but it was by mistake. I misplaced it, and there it was, in the last place I looked. It was good I peeked in the trash, for besides my hair, my folder of fabulous poseballs was there. I still break out in a cold sweat whenever I empty the trash.)

Being a platinum member, Tozh of course knows all the hole-in-the-wall boutiques. We hit three or four of them, without luck. But in the fifth!

“These are astonishing!” said Sweetie.

“Yep,” said Tozh. “Hand-drawn. Lovingly Photoshopped. Unnoticeable seams. And they come with prim shoes, which of course you must immediately throw away.”

“Yeah, I said. “Shoes that come with outfit = fashion disaster.”

“Who’s this designer?” asked Sweetie.

“An unknown. Apparently she was once high-up in government circles, but she had some sort of breakdown. She had a hard time after that, camping, working as an escort. Finally, she opened this little shop. It’s an underground hit in Second Life fashionista circles.”

“I’ve heard of it,” said Sweetie

“I haven’t,” I said.

Sweetie gave me a pitying look. “You wouldn’t have,” she said.

“Yeah,” said Tozh. “It was the subject of a notice on the Platinum Fashionista group.”

“A group?” I asked. “A group for platinums? Grrr!” I resolved to straightaway dump the Mai hair so I could be advanced to the fashion elite. Tiny Empire players have nothing over fashionistas when it comes to desire for advancement! Not that I’m competitive!

“I remember the notice,” said Sweetie. “The place was called—”

I looked at the sign above the door. Savidton. There was something about it. Savidton. Savidton. Then I read it backwards.

Sweetie and I spoke at the same instant. “NotDivas!”

“OMG!” said Sweetie. “Say, isn’t that a Copybot leaning in the corner?”

Indeed it was.

The three of us turned our pitiless fashionista gazes on the merchandise.

“Say,” said Tozh. “I know this top. It looks like a Last Call blouse.”

“Those are PixelDoll swimsuits,” I said. “I know; I have the polka-dotted one.”

“Those gowns are from Rebel Designs,” said Sweetie. “And—”

“Look!” I gasped. I pointed at a poster above the door. And guess who the photo was of?

Sweetie raised her gaze and immediately swooned (meaning she looked in her Animations folder, found her Fall Down Stiff pose, and double clicked on it). When she had been revived, she said, “I’m calling for professional help.”

“We already have professional help,” I whispered, nodding toward Tozh.

“No, silly Chey. Not fashion help. Police help.”

A Three-Donut Vacation: X. We are Go for the Mission! (Except for My Shoes)

Houri Chey

A Three-Donut Vacation

X. We are Go for the Mission! (Except for My Shoes)

“Okay,” said Tozh. “I’ma tell you what I’m’a gonna do.”

We had hit an additional half-dozen boutiques, with the net result that Sweetie had purchased three hats and a pair of shoes and I had succumbed to temptation and bought a fat pack of a dress that looked horrible when I put it on. We had seen nothing suitable for a fashionista breaking-and-entering.

“I wouldn’t do this for just everyone,” Tozh said, “but I owe you two. You were kind to me when I was a noob, and I like you both a lot.

“I have two outfits that are special to me. I think they’ll work just find for your purpose. But they’re one-of-a-kind. You have to promise to take good care of them and give them back to me when you’re through with them.”

“Cross Sweetie’s heart and hope to die,” I said.

“This one," said Tozh, “is for Sweetie. It was made specially for me by Ginny Talamasca.”

“Which Ginny?” asked Sweetie. “The new one or the one who…”

“The late Ginny,” said Tozh. “She was a most special person. Back when I was in my Picasso period she saw me and made an outfit specially for me. Knowing your discerning tastes, I think you’ll be happy with it.

Chey, I think this one-of-a-kind from Fashionista Fair will suit you.” She dropped an outfit on me.

-----

I watched Sweetie as bits of her new gown began to be appear.

“This is beautiful,” Sweetie said. “Or I think so, anyway. It’s still rezzing.”

“I was high bidder for your outfit, Chey,” said Tozh. “It set me back 40,000 Lindens.”

“OMG!” I said. “That’s like…”

“Yeah,” said Tozh. “With the way the dollar has depreciated over the last few weeks, $3800.00 U.S. So be careful with it.”

“I will,” I promised.

“I mean it,” said Tozh. “Bloodstains are notoriously difficult to remove.”

“OMG!” I said. We totally have to find shoes to go with our outfits!”

“I bought shoes for Sweetie’s outfit,” Tozh said, “when I wore it.”

Sweetie blanched. “OMG! This dress has been WORN?”

“Only for a fitting,” Tozh said hastily. “What sort of fashionista do you think I am? I’m not the kind of woman who would send you out to battle against the totalitarian forces of the Teleportation Security Authority in a pre-owned gown! Especially,” she added, “since someone might associate it with me.”

Sweetie fanned herself vigorously with a three-prim Japanese fan. “Thank goodness! I was afraid I would have to add you to my ever-growing list of people to be assassinated!”

I had been trying on my own outfit. Now Sweetie turned to me, eyes wide.

“What?” I asked.

“Since Sweetie will be doing the heavy lifting, I’ve dressed you to distract,” said Tozh.

I looked at myself! Good grief!

“I look like a houri,” I said.

“Indeed you do,” said Tozh.

“Woo hoo!” said Sweetie. “Sexy! No one will even notice me.”

“You’re sort of hard to ignore,” I said, “but I accept the compliment.”

A Three-Donut Vacation: XXIV. Lipstick Bomb

Leona Helmsley, Wearing her Non-Explosive Shade 505 Lipstick

Written 8-10 July, 2008

A Three-Donut Vacation

XXIV: Lipstick Bomb

With all the Divas out of the way, it was time to complete our mission. Carrying eight fried and glazed heads (yes, yes, eight heads in a book bag!) we made our way to the elevator, bumped and shook all the way back down to TSA headquarters, and raced to the Teleport Tom Communications and Control Center. There, Sweetie held one of the Diva heads up to the scanner and swiped a key card we found on one of the bodies (Sweetie was convinced that one was the original ImSoNotADiva Bartlett). The door opened and we made our way inside.

“Wow” I said. “Look at all this stuff!”

“Yeah!” said “Sweetie. Those TSA guys are major geeks.”

“Look at this concurrency counter,” I said. “Why is it reading 47? There are usually at least 45,000 people on line.”

“This is a special counter,” Sweetie said. “It shows how many of the inner circle of the Executive Branch are in world . See that light there? That means the President himself is here.”

“It’s lit!” I said.

“Yeah. The buzz on FLICKR is the President and Vice-President and pretty much the whole Cabinet are in Gor, in their second week of training to be kajirae slave girls. Except Condoleeza Rice. They’re making Condi play one of those nonspeaking animals. An ass, I think.”

“What’s this red button?” I asked.

“DON’T TOUCH THAT!” Sweetie cried. “It might still be hooked up!”

“Okay, okay, don’t bite my head off!”

“Sorry to yell. That’s a launch button. If you had pressed it, and if it’s still functional, deadly donut intercontinental missiles would be on their way to every major city in the world.”

“OMG! Thermodononuclear?”

“Worse. Doneutron bombs. They’re fine-tuned to destroy every possible competitor to the donut.”

“So no more bagels, beignets, croissants, blintzes, scones, or crumpets?” I said. “No more turnovers, cream puffs, tarts, stollen, baklava, cinnamon rolls, or muffins?”

“Not only that, no more of the ethnic donut workalikes most people have never heard of. No more Argentinean facturas, Viennese krapfen, Dutch oliebollen, Croatian krofna, Grecian loukoumas, Icelandic kleinuhringir, Indian vadas, Lithuanian spurgos, South African vetkoek, Hawaiian malasadas, Polish pacszis, and of course, no more Berliners.”

“Those evil bastards!” I said. “A world without pacszis would be no world at all!”

“We’re going to take out this control room,” said Sweetie,. “but most of the missiles have already been dismantled.”

“Why would the TSA do that?”

“Because of their new secret weapon.”

“/me wishes you would tell her what the hell our mission is!”

“I’ll tell you in a moment,” Sweetie said. “Give me one of Diva’s heads.”

I reached in the bag and pulled out a sticky glazed Diva head and handed it to Sweetie. Then I licked my fingers. MMMM, glaze!

“Ewww!” said Sweetie.

“I’m hungry!” I said defensively. “We came into this place and I ordered donuts, what, eight hours ago, and my bag of assorted flavors is still sitting on the counter! What ARE you doing with that head?”

“Just shush and hand me another,” Sweetie said. She had removed a panel from the wall and was stuffing the head inside.

“Ouch! This is hot!” I said. The second head was too hot to hold.

“Good,” said Sweetie. “That means the reaction has started.”

“What reaction?” I asked with suspicion.

“Leona Helmsley Shade 502 lipstick wasn’t discontinued because it was unpopular,” Sweetie said.

“God, Sweetie. You know I aspire to be a platinum fashionista like you, but is this really the time to talk cosmetics?”

“Shush up and listen. Shade 502 was dropped because there was a class action lawsuit. It seems quite a few customers combusted while wearing the product. And, specifically, while wearing it and eating glazed donuts. It was eventually determined a chemical in the lipstick reacted violently to confectioner’s glaze—to sugar. The Helmsley corporation chemists tried to modify 502, and in fact succeeded in slowing the reaction, but couldn’t stop it. And so, Leona, greedy moneygrubber that she was, finally ordered the discontinuation of Shade 502. And because she's so cheap, the continues to wear it, and will until the supply runs out.”

“Oh!” I said. “Yes! I remember you mentioned Shade 502 in your interview in The Whimsical Times. ”

“ImSoNotADiva must have obtained a quantity of 502 before it disappeared from the shelves,” said Sweetie. “Or maybe she just hadn’t finished her last tube and the clones were sharing it.”

“Ewww!” I said.

“We can surmise this isn’t the original highly volatile 502, but the modified version, because if it had been the original there would have been an explosion in the donut room. But these heads are far from safe. Any single one would eventually burst into flames, but together they create a critical mass. I wouldn’t want to be around when they go off.”

One by one I handed the Diva heads to Sweetie, who stacked them into a neat pyramid in the hollow inside the wall. I handed her the panel, but she shook her head.

“We need a countdown script,” she said. “What kind of bomb would this be without a countdown script?” And so I rezzed a prim and quickly wrote a script that would send us popup menu boxes us as it counted down to detonation. Only when I had finished and put the prim inside the wall did Sweetie screw the panel into place.

A blue box popped up on the upper right hand corner of my screen. It read “This bomb will detonate in two minutes.”

“Run like hell!” Sweetie said.

A Three-Donut Vacation: XXVIII: Tom Panics

Written 10 July, 2008

A Three-Donut Vacation

XXVIII: Tom Panics

CNN was showing video of the grid map. “This spot of ocean was the former location of the Krispy Kreme private island,” said the announcer. “It disappeared ninety minutes ago and hasn’t reappeared, despite frantic attempts to reboot the sim.”

We were in queue for security. “Look!” I said. “It’s Neelix Nesselrode! That reporter from your trial!”

“We take you now to reporter Sleezy Spinoza, who is on assignment on the nearby nonprofit Donuts for World Peace sim.”

“Sleezy!” I cried.

“Sleezy Spinoza here.s I'm in the normally peaceful Donuts for World Peace region—but there’s no peace here today! We’re on the western edge of the sim, where trees are down and structures flattened, presumably by whatever happened on the adjoining Krispy Kreme region. And there are donuts—hundreds of them—and not sugar glaze covering everything. Officials from the Krispy Kreme Empire haven’t returned our calls and police haven’t yet released information, but the Street is saying there was an explosion.

(Cut to a noobish-looking avatar with a porkpie hat and overalls).

“Me and the chums was at the Calleta hobo yard when I looks up and sees this big mushroom cloud up toward the north. A mushroom cloud. I says to my pal Joey, I says, ‘Ain’t that that donut place?’ and Joey, he says, ‘So what if it is? Bastards could never spare me a cruller. Let ‘em blow up and to hell wid ‘em.’ And then donuts started fallin’ all around and it was like we was in hobo heaven! ‘Glory be!’ says Joey, ‘Dip me in sugar and call me a donut!’ And then he ate hisself sick.”

(Fade to Sleezy Spinoza.)

“So there you have it, Neelix. We don’t yet have official word of what has happened over at Krispy Kreme, but things aren’t looking good. Perhaps—”

(Abrupt Cut to Neelix Nesslerode)

“Sorry to cut you off, Sleezy. This just in: sources at the Teleportation Security Administration have just announced an increase in the level of national security from Condition Tom is Overwhelmed to Condition Tom is Panicking. This is the highest alert in the history of this country. Security at teleport hubs is being tightened and many flights have been delayed.”

(Cut to an apoplectic Teleport Tom).

“We’re rushing to deploy our new security bracelets,” he said .* He sounded like Speedy Alka-Seltzer (who, readers might remember, was one of his fathers [Click here  for the shocking story of Tom’s paternity]). “We’ll be asking teleport passengers to wear them on their right wrist. This elegant and functional armwear will be a signal to TSA agents that the passenger is Condition A-OK with Teleport Tom. There is no—repeat, no—truth to the rumor that the bracelets contain circuitry that will allow TSA personnel to send painful prim-twisting shocks to unruly or suspicious-looking avatars.

“Our design teams have made the bracelets as inoffensive as possible,” Tom continued. “They are, in fact, quite beautiful.”

(Cut to full-screen shot of glazed donut.)

“Horrors!” exclaimed Sweetie. “That’s the ugliest damn pastry I’ve ever seen.”

“God don't make ugly donuts,” I said. “All donuts are perfect. Some donuts are just less perfect than others.” But in truth, it was one damn ugly donut.

“Look at those sprinkles!” cried Sweetie. “They have bling in them!”

“Yep,” I said. “That donut reminds me of those avatars with skin oil.”

“Yuck!” Sweetie said. “You’re right!”

“That’s one donut even I wouldn’t eat,” I said

Someone changed the channel to Fox News. A talking head was claiming Barack Obama was responsible for the disaster. “Or if not Barack HUSSEIN Obama, then Bill BLUE DRESS or Hillary BALLBUSTER Clinton. Or pick any Democrat. Thank god for the bracelets. Any American who doesn’t give up his Constitutional rights and clamp one on is no true American. We all know America isn’t about freedom! It’s about hype and the APPEARANCE of freedom. And doing the bidding of the Dark Lord Rupert Murdoch? That’s the best!” He raised his arm, showing its encircling bracelet. Suddenly he began to twitch and jerk.

“It works, bigod,” said Bill O’Reilly’s voice from somewhere off screen. “I’m going to make all my guests
were them!”

“Sweet Jesus!" I said. "I hate Bill O'Reilly."

"No kidding," Sweetie said. "We should write a book."

"We're too late," I said.

"Speaking of time, we’ve none to lose,” said Sweetie. “We have to get through security before they deploy those bracelets. You know what ‘voluntary’ means to those TSA bastards!”

By signing autographs and handing out publicity stills to the people in line ahead of us, we worked our way to the head of the queue. Just as I was taking off my shoes, a cart carrying a load of boxes marked “Non-Shocking (LOL) Security Bracelets” screeched to a stop beside the conveyor belt.

-----

* We're not kidding. According to a July 1, 2008 article in that bastion of conservativism The Washington Times, those bastards at the real TSA are considering requiring airline passengers to wear bracelets that would let TSA and airline personnel torture and torment airline customers at will. The TSA denies this. Of course they deny it. But they are looking into it.

If the Washington Times article doesn't come up, try here. Or just Google TSA Shock Bracelet.

-----

"The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes." -- Thomas Paine

A Three-Donut Vacation: XXXIV. Into the Maelstrom

Written 14 July, 2008

A Three-Donut Vacation

XXXIV: Into the Maelstrom

I was feeling so sorry for myself that I didn’t at first hear the commotion in Tourist. Finally, I came to myself.

“Come out of there!” someone cried.

“Won’t!” said a muffled voice that could only be Diva’s.

I made my way to the back of the telecraft. “What is it?” I asked. “What’s happening?”

“The flight attendant has locked herself in the bathroom,” someone said, “and she won’t come out. And some of us gotta go!”

“You can use the head in First Class,” I said, and there was a minor stampede.

“She’s up to something in there,” Sweetie said. Her ear was to the lavatory door. “I’ll stay here and keep an eye on her. You go tell Captain Camper we won’t be actually landing at Black Swan. He has to take the plane through the wormhole. And let’s pray to the heavens the portal is still there and operational.”

“Wilco,” I said, and hurried forward.

------

“You want me to do WHAT?” said an incredulous Captain Camper.

“I want you to dive the plane straight into that vortex down there,” I said, pointing to the swirling mass of plasma at the center of the Black Swan sim.

“Let me get this straight,” he said. “I’m supposed to risk my virtual life for a measly 60 Lindens an hour?”

“That pretty much sums it up,” I said.

“Hold on a second,” said the captain. “I’m getting a transmission.”

“This is the Black Swan. We have in our infinite wisdom instituted a $200L charge to enter the Black Swan and pay homage to our sculpties. You must remit immediately upon entry or you’ll be hunted down by our killer robots.”

“That’s horrible!” I said. “Charging to enter a sim! And letting ‘bots do the dirty work. Those damnable Rezzables!”

“I don’t see we have a choice,” said Captain Camper. “We’re low on fuel. We’d never make it to another sim.”

“Ordinarily I’d refuse to pay on principle,” I said, “but under the circumstances, I guess you're right; we’ve no choice. At least we have the money. I had 56 Lindens and Sweetie had 48. There are 150 screaming Sweetie fans in back, and they tipped generously. We took in, uh, let’s see, carry the one, 93 Lindens. Ninety-three Lindens! Can that be right? Those cheapskates!”

“That’s $197,” said the captain. “You’re three Lindens short.”

“Will you—“

“I suppose you’re good for it,” he sighed, and paid me three Lindens.

“Tell Black Swan we’ll pay,” I said.

“Uh-oh,” he said.

“Uh-oh what?” I said.

“They’re not talking about $200L for all of us. They want $200L for each avatar. With 187 people on board this telecraft, we’re talking big money.” He scribbled furiously on a scratch pad and then looked up, aghast. “That’s nearly a whole month in this chair!

“I hate to tell you this,” I said, “but it's two months in the chair. You’re not accumulating money nearly as fast as you think you are. Five Lindens every ten minutes isn’t sixty Lindens an hour.”

“It isn’t?”

“No. Do the math.”

He scribbled furiously. “So, uh, darn, gosh, I’m only making thirty Lindens an hour! And all this while I thought I was making sixty!

I shrugged. “Use that pencil and multiply 187 by 200. What does that equal?”

He told me: $L37400.

“Oh my god,” I said. “We don’t have that kind of money!”

A Three-Donut Vacation: XXIII: Confrontation at the Donut Factory: Promised Cliffhanger Ending

Ad for Deadly Donut Gun. Don’t be fooled. This is not a toy!

Written 8 July, 2008

A Three-Donut Vacation

XXIII: Confrontation at the Donut Factory: Promised Cliffhanger Ending

I fired my watermelon gun at the last remaining ImSoNotADiva Bartlett clone, but the melons had no effect. Damn! She had enabled Movelock! And I couldn’t bring my Mystitool orbit weapon to bear because Havok4 has screwed push (in fact, my Well of Death, which used to toss avies 150 meters into the air, is now more a Well of Annoyance).

The blade of Sweetie’s razor-sharp katana was invisible beneath its sheath of glazed donuts, and she was visibly tiring from their weight (even heavenly puffy glazed donuts add up). I had to help her—but it was too far to jump across the conveyor full of hot oil, and it would take entirely too long to go around.

“The scones! Sweetie gasped. “They’re our last chance! Use them!”

My first toss missed. The throwing scone embedded itself, quivering, in a thick Plexiglas window.

The Diva glanced at me and snarled, and that’s when I threw the second scone. It zinged toward her, too fast and too close to dodge, but my aim was off. The scone merely grazed her arm.

And now my Sweetie’s katana, heavy with the weight of accumulated donuts, was falling to one side. Smiling with glee, Diva began to raise her hot donut gun, preparing to Krispy Kreme Sweetie to oblivion.

I had one scone left, and I knew I had to make it count. Calling on my years as an inveterate Second Life pool hall gambler, I calculated the trajectory and threw the scone, as hard as I could, directly into the hot oil on the conveyor.

It was a risky move, I knew. A miscalculation would have been disastrous. I might have missed Diva entirely and splashed the bubbling grease onto my precious Sweetie. But my shot was true. A great gout of hot oil flew up in an arc and drenched Diva. She screamed and wavered just long enough for Sweetie to flick her blade to the side, freeing it of its donuts. Then she spun on one foot, the blade raised, and snickety-snack, off came Diva’s head. It tumbled into the hot oil, was flipped by mechanical fingers like any donut, and quick as a flash was glazed with liquid hot sugar.

A Three Donut Vacation: VII. Whatever Does One Wear When Engaged in Espionage?

Dangerously Overworked Poseballs at the House of 1000 Pleasures

Chey and Amazon Sweetie. My Apologies for the Quality of the Photo.

The Film was Mysteriously Fogged When Going Through TSA Inspection at a Teleport Hub.

Note the Height Differential. Chey stands 6'10" high with shoes and hair.

Sweetie is Like What? Nine Feet Tall?

Written 23 June, 2008

A Three-Donut Vacation

VII. Whatever Does One Wear When Engaged in Espionage?

“Time to plan,” said Sweetie.

“That’s right,” I said. “We have a lot to consider. What weapons will we take? Which getaway vehicle will we use? And we’ll need to case the joint.”

“No, no, no,” said Sweetie. “You’re forgetting the most important thing.”

“That being?” I said.

“What will we wear?”

“Oh, that’s right!” I said. “A fashion opportunity like this doesn’t come along every day!”

-----

So many gowns, so little time! And we had to make the best choice so we would look ravishing when photographed, if caught.

The floor of the House of 1000 Pleasures was littered with boxes and our inventories were a mess. Of course, Sweetie’s inventory is ALWAYS a mess. That’s why she so often wears snippets from three or four outfits. She’s not mixing and matching. She’s just grabbing what she can find. And yet she always seems to make a fashionista statement.

“How about this?” I asked, twirling around.

“It’s a beautiful outfit,” said Sweetie, “but you could never get that huge prim skirt through a doorway.”

“Probably not,” I said, “but it would make a great parachute.”

“More to the point,” said Sweetie. “What do you think of my outfit?”

“It’s perfect,” I said. She was wearing her Amazon Sweetie shape, which pushed her height to something more than seven feet, and a high hairdo with a braided ponytail that reached to her butt—quite a distance in that shape. Her hairdo and platform stomping boots added another foot to her height. She was armored from head to toe and bristling with weapons.

“Can you see out of that tiny slit in your helmet?” I asked.

“Well, duh!” She said.

“Oh, right,” I said, remembering camera position is a few meters above and behind the avatar. “Of course you can.”

“No good,” she said, and began taking off her many and varied attachments. “I won’t be exactly inconspicuous at this height.”

She didn’t stop until she was completely naked. Our eyes met and I jumped on the Resolution poseball. Because Sweetie is so often barefoot (we’re the same height, but my CFM pumps make me about 5” taller), I usually take the blue ball, but considering Amazon Sweetie’s height, I took the pink ball.

“We’re not going to get anywhere at this rate,” sighed Sweetie. It was some thirty minutes later. We’d been forced to abandon Resolution because it had overheated and was throwing off sparks. “I’ve tried on every avatar and outfit in my inventory. And that’s the third poseball we’ve ruined this week.”

I sighed. “I think we need expert help.”

I saw Sweetie’s virtual eyebrows raise. “Tozh!” she exclaimed.

“Tozh,” I said.

A Three-Donut Vacation: IX. "Just The Facts, Ma'am."

This hairdo is all that stands in the way

of my very own Platinum Fashionista Union card.

Written 23 June, 2008

A Three-Donut Vacation

IX. Just the Facts, Ma’am

Our friend Michel—I mean Top Cop—arrived in swat gear. She was all business.

“Just the facts, Ma’am,” she said to Sweetie.

“That poster there,” said Sweetie. “The one that reads “I would dance the hootchie-cootchie buck naked on my mother’s grave before I would wear a stolen garment.”

“Yeah,” said Top Cop. “Ironic, isn’t it? The poster is bitching about theft of intellectual property and at the same time ripping off the “I won’t wear fur” PETA posters. The poster is intellectual property theft in and of itself. I’m going to have to take it in as evidence.”

“It can be your wanted poster, too,” said Sweetie. “The woman in the photo is ImSoNotADiva Bartlett, the owner of this little shop of knockoff horrors.”

“How hypocritical,” I said, “for that poster to be placed in a palace of purloined products.”

“Come to mention it,” said Top Cop, “I recognize that $1000L outfit. It’s a freebie from New Citizens Plaza.”

“It’s about more than posters and charging ridiculous prices for freebies,” said Tozh. “Every item in this store is an exact copy from a top designer.”

“That makes it a $10.99,” said Top Cop. “That’s a Copybot felony. We can charge her under the RICO act.”

“Oh, yeah, the organized crime act,” I said. "The uh Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act."

“No ma’am,” said Top Cop. “The Raking in Income from the Clothing of Others Act." You can get life for that. I’m calling for backup.”

“I’m getting some interesting chat on the Platinum group,” said Tozh.

“Me too,” said Sweetie.

“I’m not, dammit!” I said, for I, a mere gold card carrier, wasn't a member. “What? What?”

Sweetie pasted the messages in Chat:

(10/23 13:22:03): <>: I could swear that’s my Dior knockoff gown at her shop.

(10/23 13:22:05: <>: I KNOW that’s my Chanel knockoff!

(10/23 13:22:10: <>: Don’t worry. She’ll get hers sooner or later.

(10/23 10:22:12: : And maybe sooner than later. I see a cop in her shop. Just a second… a van and three squad cars just pulled up, and SCTV and Metaverse Messenger have helicopters circling. She’s busted!

“You redacted the names?” I complained. “That’s the most important part!”

“Sorry,” Sweetie said. “You’re not authorized.”

“DAMN this hairdo!” I said.

“Wait!” Tozh said. “There’s more.” She pasted the chat:

(10/23 13:22:31: ImSoNotADiva Bartlett: Muwahahahahaha! My little friends in blue are too late. Too late! I’ve already procured a fortune peddling your pathetic products. I’ve made enough for a Get Out of Jail Free card. So charges will be dropped. Then I can grease the wheels of the bureaucracy and buy my way back into power!

(10/23 13:23:13): ImSoNotADiva Bartlett: You’ve served me well, you, you fashion fascists! I’m back! Ba-ack! Muwahahaha!

(10/23 13:23:46: : That’s it! You can bet she won’t be an officer in the group after this!

Diva, who had been walking the thin line between sanity and madness even during Sweetie’s trial, had gone over the edge!

A Three-Donut Vacation: XX. Teleport Tom is Your Friend

Written 5 July, 2008

A Three-Donut Vacation

XX: Teleport Tom is Your Friend

“This is it,” said BonBon in a conspiratorial whisper. “Our destination.”

We were standing at a doorway with a bright picture of Teleport Tom pasted on its door. Tom was still in Condition “Tom is Vigilant." A nearby sign read “Teleport Tom is Your Friend!”

Without a pause Sweetie pulled a Sharpie from her smock and drew mustaches and thick eyebrows on Tom.

“My apologies, BonBon,” she said, glancing at his not dissimilar features.

“He could be a cousin,” BonBon shrugged. “And now I am off to France. I just checked my PDA, and it seems I’ve been promised a position with the Baguette Publicity Board. It’s not much, but it’s a start!”

Sweetie hugged him, and I did too (he pinched my bottom), and BonBon was off to a brilliant career as a bread publicist.

The door was locked, but Sweetie produced her plastic security key and ran it through the scanner. The door didn’t open.

“Rats,” hissed Sweetie. “They’ve raised the access level! And only two people have Level I access.”

“Who?” I hissed.

“The Director,” she said, “—and...”

“ImSoNotaDiva Bartlett.”

Sweetie was shocked. It’s a condition that rarely afflicts her. “How did you know that?”

“Who’s writing this blog?” I asked. “Of course I figured it out. She’s the logical choice for a villain. Besides, leaving your arch-nemesis out of the story would be like Superman without Lex Luthor. We’ll come up with some plot contrivance to explain how she got back in grace here so quickly after that Copybot fiasco.”

“We have to find her,” Sweetie said. “I wish BonBon were still here.”

“Me too,” I said. “I liked him.”

“So somehow,” I said, “we have to get Diva’s security card away from her and bring it back here.”

“Well, not only her card,” Sweetie said. “There’s an additional security device.”

“Oh, no!” I said. “What?”

“See that screen there? That’s a retinal scanner.”

I was beginning to think those scone weapons would come in handy.

A Three-Donut Vacation: XXV. The Getaway

Chey and Sweetie Search in Vain for Their Gaxis Golf Cart Getaway Vehicle

We Find the Gaxis, but Officer Top Cop Is Nowhere To Be Seen

Written 10 July, 2008

A Three-Donut Vacation

XXV: The Getaway

We were racing down the hallway toward the elevator, zipping past the doors. Board of Anti-Nutrasweet Propaganda. Department of Frying Temperature Optimization. Bureau of Metric Equivalents, Baker’s Dozen Section. Court of Confectionary Misdemeanors.

“One hundred seconds to detonation,” read the blue box at the upper right hand corner of my screen. “Press Y to accept your fate.” I pressed the N key.

Sweetie and I reached the elevator at the same time. I frantically pressed the UP button.

“Ninety seconds to detonation. Press Y to give up now. You know you’re not going to make it on that slow elevator.”

I typed N. Sweetie said, “The bomb script is right. We can’t wait for this contraption! We have to take the stairs.”

“Sweetie!” I cried. “You know I HATE Second Life circular stairwells. They mess with my camera. I’m always walking off the side and falling to the bottom.” I braced myself and said the noble thing: “You have to go ahead without me.”

“Never,” said Sweetie. “I’ll never abandon you! I have an idea! Go into mouselook.” She pushed me toward the stairwell.

“Eighty seconds to detonation. Press Y to die as a martyr.” Instead, I pressed M for mouselook.

“Seventy seconds to detonation. You should have taken the elevator. Press Y to be blown up in a most spectacular fashion.” Damn, but I hate circular stairs!

The countdown clock was at thirty seconds when we reached street level (I, despite mouselook, having tumbled off the stairs three times).

As we raced for the door, I grabbed at the bag of donuts on the counter. Sweetie knocked my hand away. “No time!” she hissed.

“Twenty seconds to detonation. You are still in the kill zone. Press Y to teleport to heaven, where you’ll be given a swell house and lots of virgins. If you’re Muslim. Just a condo and a blind date otherwise.”

“The entire sim is going to go!” cried Sweetie. We had reached the street, which was beginning to buckle. And empty. “Where the HELL is our Gaxis golf cart getaway vehicle?”

“That damn Michel—I mean that doggone Top Cop!” I said. “She can’t have gone out for donuts. I mean, we already HAD gone out for donuts.”

“I’m IMing her,” said Sweetie. “She’s saying something about a recall by the Gaxis company. Seems the golf cart needed an adjustment for Havok4.”

“And she had to do it NOW?” I wailed. “She is so not getting her crullers!”

“We can’t make it,” said Sweetie. “We die here, together. So right now, on behalf of the League of Extraordinary Fashionistas. I promote you to Fashionista First Class.” She embraced me, kissed me on both cheeks in BonBon Michelin style, and pinned a platinum pin to my chest.

“Ten seconds to detonation. You know this is it for you. You and your stylish outfits will be blown to smithereens! Press Y for a definition of smithereen.”

“I love you, Sweetie!” I cried. “You’ve made my Second Life ever so much more stylish!”

Just then a familiar brown boxy shape careened around the corner and screeched to a stop beside us.

“What can Brown do for you?”

“Mordecai!” I cried.

“Quick, climb in!”

We scrambled inside. I could see the UPS truck was heavily armored, but I didn’t think that would protect us from the blast which would be coming in just…

“Five seconds to detonation. Press Y to kiss your ass goodbye.”

The windows of the Krispy Kreme suddenly blew out. “Mordecai, we’ll never make it!” I cried.

“No problem, sis,” he said. “In its benevolent wisdom, UPS has equipped this vehicle with a turbo teleporter.” He reached out and pressed a button on the dash.

The world turned into hot white light and I knew no more.