Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the Parti poodle here to introduce Chapter Three of my story Corn Maze. I have spent most of my free time this past week tormenting the Maltese. Sometimes he requires more torture than usual. Don’t think he’s innocent in all this. The Maltese have their nefarious ways. Oh, yes. Nefarious ways indeed. One can never be too careful about them. Their noses change color. In the summer months it turns black. In the winter months it turns pink. Apparently, this is called Winter Nose. Right now, it is both pink and black at the same time. I find the whole thing terrifying. My nose it always black. I cannot understand nor trust a dog with a nose that cannot make up its mind. Anyway, here is Chapter Three of Corn Maze. Nasoloditisya!

Corn Maze

by

Gigi the parti poodle

Chapter Three

Monday evening Farley sat on his front porch swing overlooking the stretch of land where his corn would be grown. Right at the edge of it sat the Hutton farm. Harley’s parent’s farm. He and Harley hadn’t spoken for nearly five years. As he was sitting there, a Magnetic Gray Prius came driving down the long driveway that led up to his porch. The Prius stopped and the driver shut off the engine.

Out of the car stepped a slightly rotund twenty-something woman with fake blonde hair. She looked like she didn’t come from around these parts. More citylike but oddly friendly. She waved her hand and said, “Hello there!”

Farley waved back, “Well, hello,” he said. “You lost?”

“I was looking for the Hutton Farm and I think I made a wrong turn.”

“You’re close. The Hutton farm is right over there.” Farley pointed across his future corn maze towards Harley’s parent’s farm. “They’re my neighbors…for now.”

“Oh,” she said.

“You a friend of the family?”

“I’m Harley’s girlfriend.”

Farley narrowed his eyes. “Are you now?”

“Yes. Harley just moved back in there.”

Farley glared over at the Hutton farm and then looked back at the woman. “When?”

“A few days ago.”

“Well, isn’t that interesting.”

“His mom and dad asked him to take over the farm.”

“Huh.”

“They haven’t moved out yet, but I think the moving trucks are coming tomorrow. Should I tell Harley you said hello?”

Farley shook his head. “Nope. I’ll surprise him.”

“Thank you for the directions.”

“Oh, you’re welcome, Miss…?”

“Mallory. Mallory Blander.”

“Good to meet you, Mallory Blander.”

“See you later.”

“Oh, you will.”

Farley marched up to Harley’s house and pounded on the door. It was four in the morning and Farley had been up the entire night fuming.

Harley came to the door yawning, wrapping his buffalo plaid robe around himself and tying the belt. It took a second for his bleary eyes to come into focus and recognize his neighbor and nemesis.

“Harley,” Farley said menacingly. “Looks like you’ve come home.”

Harley scowled at him. “It’s four in the morning, Farley.”

“Is your girlfriend up in your parent’s big bed?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Mallory, is it?”

Harley studied Farley’s face. He still had that vindictive quasi-smile. “Who told you about Mallory?”

“Mallory.”

“I put her up in the guest room.”

“Well, she’s a cutie, I’ll tell you that.”

Harley clenched and unclenched his fist.

“Harley,” a nasal voice said somewhere behind the front door. “Who are you talking to?”

“Go back to bed, Mallory,” Harley said.

Mallory ignored Harley and shuffled around behind him in her fuzzy hot pink slippers. “Oh,” she said. “It’s you. What are you doing here? What time is it anyway?”

“It’s four ten in the morning,” Harley said. “And Farley was just leaving.”

“Why do you always have to be so exact about time? Couldn’t you just say it’s four in the morning? Who cares if it’s a few minutes past the hour?”

Farley grinned. “Lady has a point.”

“What did you want to talk to me about, Farley?” Harley asked.

“Why, I just wanted to greet my new neighbor.”

“At four…,” Harley looked at the wall clock, “…eleven in the morning?”

“The early bird catches the worm. Besides, I wanted to extend an invitation to you.”

“What kind of invitation?”

“I’m getting married.”

“Congratulations!” Mallory said jumping up and down and clapping her hands.

“Who’s the “lucky” girl?” Harley asked.

Farley’s eyes twinkled. “You remember Valerie, don’t you?”

Harley’s face went ashen. “Valerie…”

“Gladhart. That’s right.”

“She moved back here?”

“Right after college.”

“When’s the wedding?”

“You should tell him congratulations,” Mallory told Harley tugging on his sleeve.

“When’s the wedding?” Harley repeated jerking his sleeve away from Mallory.

“After the corn maze competition.”

“Right. The corn maze competition.”

“You going to make one, or you going to pussy out?”

“You’ve made corn mazes, Harley?” Mallory said surprised.

Harley was considering the most effective way to shove Farley off his front porch. “I’ve helped my parents design some,” he told her.

“How come you never told me that?”

“Yeah, Harley,” Farley said. “How come you never told her that?”

“Get off my porch, Farley.”

“I will, I will. But before I do, I’d like to extend a second invitation.”

“Yeah, and what’s that?”

“Come on over to the house and have dinner with us Wednesday evening. Get reacquainted as they say.”

“Oh, that would be fun!” Mallory said. “Wouldn’t that be fun, Harley?”

Harley glared at Farley. The two eyeballed each other for an uncomfortable minute. Then Farley chuckled. “Val would love to cook dinner for you guys. Besides, we can chew the fat about our corn mazes, can’t we Harley? Be seeing you around say, seven o’clock?”

“We’ll be there!” Mallory said jubilantly.

“I’m looking forward to it. Yes, sir, I certainly am.” Then he jumped down of the porch and left.  

MY BOOKS

You can check out my books Chicane and the five installments in my Musicology book series Musicology: Volume One, Baby!, Musicology: Volume Two, Kid!, Musicology: Volume Three, Twist!, Musicology: Volume Four, Sweetie! and Musicology: The Epiquad on Amazon in Kindle and Paperback editions. You can also check out Musicology’s web site at www.musicologyrocks.com and vote for who you think will win Musicology!!!

STREAM OF THE WEEK-DOWNFALL-THE CASE AGAINST BOEING (2022)-Netflix

A great acting teacher I had once said, when two people from different classes marry, they both fall. He was referring to Stanley and Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire. I, however, am referring to McDonnall Douglass and Boeing. My favorite line from Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby is, “If you ain’t first, your last” and this applies to the former. McDonnall Douglass was a second-rate aerospace manufacturing company who needed a brand name because they built lousy passenger planes that crashed. They were last. Boeing, on the other hand, was originally the best of the best aerospace manufacturing company founded on July 15^th, 1916, by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. His engineers and workers were expected to be extremely precise and careful and build the best aircraft without cutting corners. They had an unrivaled record for safety.

Then came whoring guttersnipe McDonnall Douglass who wooed and “married” Boeing but just brutally raped them in a bathroom stall after getting them good and drunk. Little by little under the name Boeing, the upper management snakes of McDonnall Douglass began to fire safety staff and engineers, you know the people who know how to build things. They drove their entire staff to focus exclusively on the stock price and not really build anything anymore. Why? Because the reality is many graduates from business schools who become upper management are nothing but banal inept manipulative psychopaths with delusions of grandeur who have never nor will ever be able to do anything of worth. Occasionally one will wear a strait jacket as they are wheeled out on a dolly while wearing a modified hockey mask, so they don’t sink their fangs into anyone before they give a lie-filled press conference and tell you they love your suit.

Which is exactly what happened to Boeing after the McDonnall Douglass merger. They killed men, women, children, dogs, cats, and anything else they could get on their airplanes and indifferently crashed them knowing the planes they built were faulty. Not accidentally, mind you, but killed them because they didn’t want to put money and time into research, training for the pilots, and, oh, yeah, for profits and to drive up the stock price. And then after they face a senate hearing do they put what money they have left into rebuilding the company? No. They give the sub-par CEOs they fire a multi-million-dollar paycheck and say thanks for the deaths and profits. It was fun. Think of mundane moron Marissa Mayer who ran Yahoo into the ground and walked away with a wheelbarrow of cash.

This is a straight-forward, well-researched documentary from Ron Howard and Brian Grazer directed by Rory Kennedy and written by screenwriters Keven McAlester and Mark Bailey. An excellent microcosm exemplifying why America is on a runaway train heading straight into inferno.