Flordor: The Adventures and Trials of a Modeling Conference

Nine hundred dollars to get them in the door

Three days and two nights-it sounded so swell

One huge event no one could ignore

In the Land of Flordor where the palm trees dwell

One day to get them there. One day to woo them.

One day to fool them all and in long lines to screw them.

In the Land of Flordor where the palm trees dwell.

Prologue

On the East Coast, in an area known as Spotsylvania, there lived a guy. (An ambiguous if not too inclusive title.) He was known to many as Jesse The Gray, but to his companions he was just Jesse The.

A man of many words and gestures, Jesse was often found daydreaming of great adventures and fantastic ways of being discovered. So one day when he received a phone call from a well-reputed organization-whose name I shall not utter here (for fear of a lawsuit)-offering him a chance to go to Flordor for a grand conference, he couldn't refuse.

The cost was $900-a hefty sum in those days-but he would have the chance to gather with 900 other axtors and modelves in one of the grandest inns in all of North America. There he would be able to meet with various Lords and Ladies of The Industry, and compete for their attention.

Eager to get away from Spotsylvania (which produced snow and crappy weather far into the Spring) and pursue his dream, Jesse accepted. (No doubt helped along by the promised guy-maiden ratio of 1:3.) Holding aloft Visa, a card forged from sturdy plastic long ago by Citibank, Jesse swore to pay for this once-in-a-lifetime event.

He then waited for...a long, long time. He spent his waking hours in a wilderness of solitude and tortured employment. He became a very wretched creature, living on Little Debbie snack cakes and protein drinks, hoping and praying that his journey to Flordor would be a turning point in his life. But even the wise cannot see all ends...and since Jesse was not wise, he didn't have a chance in heck of knowing how things would turn out.

Had he known, or even had a glimpse of what would be, he would have stayed in his home in Spotsylvania. But that is neither here nor there, and so it is nowhere, which is exactly where this prologue is going.

Suffice to say, the day finally came for his quest to begin. And so begins the tale...

Chapter 1: It Began with Tuna Fish

Jesse awoke long before both the early bird and the worm, preferring to travel during the day than during the night. He stumbled out of bed, cursing this traveling preference, and got in the shower. Refreshed and at least half awake, he moved to the kitchen to make his breakfast.

Having little in the way of culinary skill, he made an exotic dish the likes of which has not been seen by men (thankfully) in many ages. It was mainly Macaroni and Cheese with Tuna Fish. -In fact that's all it was. Ah, but whether the fish was canned in spring water or vegetable oil remains a mystery.

After this hearty meal, Jesse felt ready to at last begin the long-awaited journey. He loaded his belongings (a runway outfit, portfolio, and some casual clothes in which to chill) into his Bird O' Fire. Created over a decade ago, the Bird O' Fire was a sleek antique driven by the might of 175 ponies. Casting one last look at his home, he pulled out of the driveway and headed south.

He wasn't alone of course, bringing along Reliant K, Supertones, and Evanescence to keep him company.

He had not gone far when peril found him.

Though it was the frigg'in month of March, darn nigh to April, the air was frigid. Jesse soon found his hands frozen to the wheel and had to keep the defroster on high for at least two hours so the windows wouldn't frost over. In addition, a dense fog settled over the land, reducing visibility to nil. ut nothing could daunt Jesse in his quest, and he plowed on, finally clearing Virgin of Ia.

Entering the Northern Carolina, his spirits lifted as the allowed speed was increased to 70 mph-which of course meant 80. The sky turned from black to dark blue and then finally to gray as the dawn approached. But there was no sun. No indeed. No sunrise. Instead, the dawn was heralded by a torrent of rain and blackened clouds. Determined to make his trip to Flordor feel like a trip to Flordor, the intrepid Jesse donned his sunglasses and rolled the windows down. Foolishly he believed he could give the weather a hint as to what it should be doing. Like all foolish things, nothing came from it, and Jesse had to drive through Southern Carolina and George of Ia in the foul weather.

Chapter 2: The Curst Land of Flordor

After nearly eight hours in his bucket-seated chariot, Jesse crossed the border into Flordor. Tarrying awhile to bask in the moment and stock up on fuel for his Bird, Jesse got his bucket-seat-shaped posterior out and walked around. -At least he tried.

Flordor is known to the learned as a tropical land-that is it's humid and hot and has palm trees all over the place. So humid in fact, it is said that if one needs a drink, all one must do is swing a cup through the air and it will at once be filled to the top with a drinkable, if not warm moisture-much akin to the perspiration of one's armpits.

But with the past eight hours of vengeful precipitation, the air was unbearably moist. Instantly Jesse's curly locks frizzed into an afro-the size and weight of which would have been the envy of Shaft of old. (For truly he is one bad mutha-shut yo mouth! I was just talk'in 'bout Shaft.)

It was like a sauna that seared and scathed his lungs, coating his body in a pool of his own sweat. Cutting his tarry short, Jesse quickly leaped into his chariot and rode away, hastening to his destination. He had calculated it would be roughly two more hours until he reached a place to rest for the night. How wrong he was! The allowed speed had been 70mph for as long as he could remember, but now suddenly a bright orange sign appeared, bearing a disheartening warning: Construction Zone: Reduce Speed Ahead.

Suddenly, the allowed speed dropped to 45mph! Jesse scoffed indifferently at the sign, unwilling to believe anyone would be stupid enough to reduce a speed limit that much.

The next sign read: Construction Zone: Speed Limit 45mph --Speed monitored by rocket-bearing stealth aircraft. -Minimum Fine: $250.

Jesse quickly applied his breaks.

Now crawling along at a dismal 50mph, Jesse's timetable was horribly skewed. He sought justification for this anomaly but found only a few dozen orange cones and a large yellow tractor.

After twenty-two miles of this, the speed limit rose again to 65mph and Jesse's spirits soared-only to fall again after five miles when yet another Construction Zone appeared. For four hours he continued on in this way, slowing and stopping-accelerating and stopping, until he was utterly perturbed. He saw not one being of any species working the whole time-the reduced speed obviously being for the safety of inanimate rubber cones and gravel.

Thus it was, through Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Palm Coast and Flagler Beach. Finally, after what he guessed was a dozen changes in speed, he finally reached the fabled beach of Ormond near the Ocean Atlantic. He had already made arrangements to stay at an inn there, for he was very weary and did not have the strength to carry on to Orlando. He staggered into the lobby and asked to speak with the innkeeper. Very soon a man of foreign origin approached the counter.

"What id you be looging for?" he said, in the strange tongue of his people.

"I am Jesse The Gray, and I seek shelter for the night. I am expected," quoth Jesse.

"Ad your nabe plea sir?" the innkeeper asked.

"Jesse The Gray."

"You habe reserbation?"

"Yes, as I mentioned I am expected."

"Oh, berry goot sir. Ad de nabe on de reserbation?"

"Uh...Jesse The Gray," Jesse said, getting a bit confused.

"Oh I see. Ad you bish to stay here de night?"

The conversation went on like that for quite sometime until Jesse finally strangled the man and took the room key. The room was nothing spectacular but Jesse didn't care. He was just glad the mattress wasn't bucket-seated. He lay there, reflecting and reading the random fliers one can find in hotel rooms. One that caught his interest said: Welcome! Enjoy 4 channels of HBO-Free! Excited by this development (as bed time was still hours away), Jesse turned on the Boob Tube and found a movie he had not seen before.

Ten minutes into it, he made a startling discovery. The television operated on a satellite, and with the recent weather it was prone to be a bit temperamental. If Jesse so much as breathed in the wrong direction, the signal would be lost, and it wouldn't find itself again for at least five minutes. And sometimes it would just go out just because it was cheap. So the movie, as Jesse saw it, went something like this:

"Okay...I've finally got a plan! Here's what we'll do...kshhhhh...!" "Here goes nothing...ksshhhh..." "Thank God! How did we ever survive?" "I don't know, but that was the most exciting thing ever!" "It's a good thing-kssssh- showed up when he did and -ksssshhh-the bad guys." "Incredible! How did you know that-ksssshhh- was behind it?" "Simple. His whole master scheme came to me when he-ksssshhh-"

Roll Credits

"If you missed this, you can catch- kssssshhh- next week at kssshhhhhh..."

Thoroughly disheartened, Jesse wept bitterly until sleep finally overtook him.

Chapter 3: Crock of Poo

Jesse awoke to the Flordor sun streaming through the window. He forgot about the trials of the day before and felt refreshed and ready to take on whatever the day had in store.

After a hearty breakfast of a crust of bread and watered down orange juice-courtesy of the inn-Jesse loaded up his Bird O' Fire and headed out on the last leg of his journey.

To his complete surprise, there was construction ahead, and once again he switched from 45mph to 70mph then to 55mph and back up to 60mph. He didn't care. The day was warm and sunny, allowing him to justify wearing his sunglasses. He had his windows down and the muggy Flordor air beat gently against his fro. At about 11 o'clock he finally arrived at the inn. After parking a quarter of a mile away in the parking garage, he casually made his way to the lobby. Once inside, he stared in affixed wonder.

The lobby was like an airport terminal, both in size and setup. Coffee shops, souvenir shops and eateries littered the walls. There were bars and lounges and over twenty conference rooms. But what amazed him most were the people. He had never seen so many modelves and axtors in his life! There were some normal people walking about who looked very out of place and stared in awe at the plethora of eye candy walking about on two legs.

It was easy to spot the modelves. The men all walked with heads held high, seeming to look with great interest at nothing at all. They swung their arms dramatically and moved in slow motion-taking a good twenty seconds to complete a blink. The hair was arranged in fascinating ways, ranging from the "I stuck my finger in an outlet today" to the "I didn't even know I had hair" to the "Each hair on my head has a fixed location and position" style.

The maidens seemed to have large quantities of helium in their nostrils-thrusting their noses forty-five degrees into the air. They were liberal with their makeup, and many had applied Johnson's Water Sealant to protect it from the elements. Jesse watching in awe as several of them were shot point-blank in the face with .50 caliber machine guns-and the bullets bounced away harmlessly. Jesse was pondering the oddity of this when a man fell down at his feet. He wasn't a modelf and he didn't seem to be an axtor either.

"B-beware!" he coughed weakly. "Beware of the hi-ip-hips..." and then he died.

"What do you mean?" Jesse asked desperately. He looked up to call for help, when he saw what the man was talking about.

The maidens, though also moving in slow motion, stepped in such a way as to thrust their hips violently from side to side with great fervor. The force of this distorted motion was enough to crack concrete, and indeed some of the pillars of the lobby were crumbling from maidens who had walked too close. Couches and chairs were flung across the room, and anyone who did not give them at least a four-foot leeway soon found themselves careening off into space. From behind, the maidens looked to Jesse like wrecking balls with two toothpicks sticking out awkwardly beneath them. Heeding the poor man's advice, Jesse cautiously made his way to one of the main desks.

"Greetings! I am here for The Conference," he said, smiling pleasantly to the hotel employee.

"I see," she replied, matching his smile. "Well check in isn't until three o' clock."

"I know. I was just wondering if there was anyone here from The Conference I could talk to."

"Oh yes indeed. Here," she said, offering him a pair of binoculars. "Do you see that guy modelf in a white shirt down there?" Jesse looked through the binoculars and focused them until he spotted the guy.

"Indeed I do. The one not more than two miles away near the furthest conference room?"

"That's the one!" she replied cheerfully. "That is the end of the line for registration."

Jesse felt his jaw drop. "And...where does the line start?" She pointed to a fold up table a few meters from where she was standing.

"Right here."

"Cows of Uncommon Holiness!" Jesse exclaimed. "But I thought we weren't supposed to be here until three o' clock!"

The employee stared at him dumbly. "Oh no. They started registration at eight this morning. They didn't tell you?"

"No indeed," he replied grimly. Shaking off feelings of enmity, he smiled and thanked her for her time. He fancied himself lucky, as there was yet another line, twice as long as the registration line, for temporarily checking in luggage.

'Tis fortunate that I drove-no matter how tedious', he mused.

After an hour or so, he made it to the end of the line-which had lengthened considerably since he started walking. And so, in that line he stood. An hour passed. Then another. And yet another. Finally, he reached the registration table. There he received a vinyl bag that looked like a purse with The Conference emblem on it. The maidens simply swung the bag over their shoulders, but unwilling to compromise his status as a guy, he simply held it by the top. Inside he found a black shirt, which also bore the emblem, as well as a key chain that broke when he touched it. He was told to go into the conference room to pick up his audition materials. Once inside, he waited for an hour. Then a little more...and at last he had his materials. He took a brief look at the audition sheet he had to memorize.

Jesse stared in wonder at the awkward little script, but before he could ponder its stupidity any longer, his stomach started growling. Yes indeed, it was time to eat. He pulled a green piece of construction paper from his "bag" that was his meal ticket and walked outside into the blazing heat to get some food. It was a buffet...but a very queer buffet. Two people stood guard at each table. They took his ticket and gave him a plate. It seems that once a person went through the line that was it. They could not come back at all. A one-trip buffet.

This shocked and horrified Jesse, until he saw the cuisine. Large shafts of brown lard disguised as hot dogs, complimented by a congealed substance that was passed off as macaroni and cheese. A white mass with bits of green constituted as mashed potatoes with some kind of spice, and desert was some of the most fattening substances known to man-chiefly croissants with Crisco on top. How he yearned for his real macaroni and cheese and tuna fish!

Chapter 4: Of Hotel Registration and Companions

Putting the horrors of his "lunch" behind him, Jesse made his way back into the hotel to get his room. By now it was nearly six o' clock, and he was looking forward to a short rest before dinner and orientation. If the line had been long for the conference registration, it was very long for hotel reservations. For by this time all 900 modelves and axtors had arrived and registered, and now all at once they wanted rooms. But to Jesse's keen eyes, the line seemed so much longer than it should have been-and with good reason. Upon interrogating one of the employees, he found that the intelligent Lords and Ladies of The Conference had over-booked.

'That's mighty strange', thought Jesse. 'The only way you can over-book a hotel would be if some rooms fell off or blew up. But it doesn't look like that's the case.'

For in fact, the hotel was whole...not a single brick seemed to be missing. Taking a closer look, Jesse noticed that there were many folks there who were not modelves or axtors. They were Tourists-or so appeared to be. But a closer inspection revealed them to be the parents of some of the modelves! The Lords and Ladies had invited minors to the event, necessitating the accompaniment of at least one of their elders. Jesse asked another employee about this and his observation was confirmed. In fact, the number of attendees was not 900 as Jesse was lead to believe-but nearer to 3,000!

The number was staggering, and Jesse sank to the floor. The line hadn't begun to move yet, although it was well after three o' clock. Those near the middle of the line had been standing there for almost two hours.

'It's at least a five- hour wait from the end, or I'm a fool', said Jesse. And although in many ways he was a fool, he wasn't wrong about this. He had just taken his place in the back of the line when a modelf by the name of Jackie spoke to him.

"Good sir, you know the hotel is overbooked?"

"Indeed I do, maiden. And I am distraught."

"I hear rumor that a bus is taking many to another hotel not far from here."

"Truly?" Jesse exclaimed, his hopes rising. "Then we must away at once, or be forced to wait until we perish!"

So Jesse and Jackie-accompanied by about thirty other strangers-boarded a charter bus that took them a half mile away to an inn called The Peabody. The inn bore the huge emblem of a duck, and Jesse laughed in spite of himself. His beclouded mind couldn't think of how the name Peabody and a duck would have any connection, but he took it all in stride.

Once inside, there was a comparatively short wait of an hour and a half to get the hotel key. It was there that Jesse met his roommate-a stout fellow by the name of Dan. In fact, it was Dan of Buffalo, (which means nothing to anyone who doesn't live in Buffalo) and Jesse and he soon became friends. In fact, they had the exact same date of birth, though Jesse was one year his senior.

Once in their rooms, they spoke at length about their lives and the conference, and even went over some lines from the script. They explored their room, finding a Playstation hooked to the TV, several bottles of water that could be purchased for six dollars a piece, and an elegant bathroom with a television next to the commode. At last they decided to venture out for dinner and to retrieve Jesse's belongings from the garage.

They found themselves wading through a mass of people, all there for hotel registration. Jesse sighed with relief. He had made it just in time. First they walked to the garage and retrieved his parcels and carried them back to the Peabody. This took nearly an hour, and on their way out again they stumbled into a conference room littered with two to three hundred people, all sitting dejectedly around the room like prisoners. Jesse knelt down and asked a maiden why they were there.

"There are no rooms for us. We have to wait and see what they're going to do," she replied, her voice quivering. Jesse shook his fist in the air as a melodramatic gesture of his sympathy for her plight and moved on. Dinner was much the same as lunch, with the garbage in a slightly different form. Jesse and Dan searched for a place to eat their gruel, and soon Jesse spotted Jackie at one of the tables. They sat down and talked gaily of the crappy day they had and what hellacious fate awaited them at orientation. At length they began talking with others at their table, and soon they had become friends.

There was Johnny of Los Angeles, Jackie of New Jersey, Chris of The Hamptons, and Lauren from Med School. Including Dan of Buffalo and Jesse of Spotsylvania, there were six companions in all.

"So," said Jesse, "We are the Fellowship of this Thing." They all cheered and raised their Dixie cups (filled with yellow water that vaguely tasted like some kind of lemon beverage) in unison. They were all quality folks with intelligence and personality and got along splendidly. And that was the only good in the entire Conference-as you shall see!

Chapter 5: Lords and Ladies of The Conference

Shortly after they had finished the last of their unsavory dinner, the Fellowship was summoned to the Great Conference Room for orientation. They sat amidst the heat and noise (that can only be created by 3,000 people packed in one room in Flordor) for nearly an hour before the conference started. But after having to stand in line for over six hours that day, sitting and waiting for 45 minutes was almost a God-send. Finally the monotonous tunes of the ghetto that had been playing in a never-ending-loop ceased, and a very loud and obnoxious gentleman took the stage, under the impression that the people wanted to hear him rap.

The words, which I cannot repeat here, (for there enough stupid things in this world without them) were garbled and unintelligible, due to the fact that the gentleman had the microphone inside his mouth. He flapped his arms and said "Yeah! Yeah! What? C'mon!" a lot, but the rest was lost. Jesse found himself dozing during the noise, awakening only after the first speaker took the stage and began rambling. How many speakers there were, Jesse could not say. The universal message that they all shared in one way or another was this:

"You all are doomed. This whole thing is a hoax and a scam. But you are all winners, boldly pursuing your dreams. We thank you for putting our children through college, and hope that this crock of poo will not permanently derail you."

And then, to add a false sense of morale to those who still looked for it, they gave testimonies on how they or someone they knew became a success. Two and a half hours later, the preposterous air bags (as Jesse came to call them) dismissed the masses and bade them good luck. The Fellowship talked long into the night, trying to justify to each other why The Conference was not a waste of time. It was then that Jackie made a startling revelation.

"On the bus over to the Peabody, a lady I had never seen before approached me," she began slowly. "She looked at me and smiled, and said I was beautiful and would do well. Then she asked for my measurements, and I gave them. She then told me I was okay, but needed to loose a few inches in the hips. I thanked her and walked away."

The Fellowship was silent for a moment. Jesse casually looked down at Jackie's hips (which were very not concealed beneath her modelf-esq clothing) and saw that there was not much there. In fact, for Jackie of New Jersey to lose the said inches, she would have to shave them from the very bones of her skeleton.

\"I'm sure she was an agent or something," Johnny of LA said, consoling her.

"Yeah, I thought so too...that's why I didn't tell her to go -kkssshhhh-herself."

They all agreed.

At last Jesse tired, and the Fellowship broke for the night. He made his way back to the hotel, noted that there were still people without rooms, offered his room if they never got one, and got in the elevator. Once in his room he collapsed into bed and knew no more till morning.

Chapter 6: Lost Pants, Lost Hopes, and More Lines

Jesse awoke bright and early, and again put the woes of the day before behind him. Though in fact his quest was turning into more and more of a disaster by the minute, he would not be daunted. He went for a swim in Peadbody's pool, and then showered. He greeted Dan of Buffalo who had just awoken and began studying his lines for the axtor audition. At long last they left the hotel and made their way to the other hotel where the competitions would start.

Dan of Buffalo was to be among the first of six groups of models that would be seen that day. He arrived five minutes late and panicked, afraid he would miss his chance on the runway. After all, the Lords and Ladies at the Orientation had warned the modelves to be fifteen minutes early-at least. Frantically he asked one of the employees where he needed to be. She didn't know. He asked another, and she too did not know. So he approached a modelf standing in a very very long line and asked him.

"Oh...this is the line. I've been here for half an hour...it hasn't moved yet."

Relieved, Dan and Jesse made their way to the end of the line. It didn't move for another hour.

Finally, it began to move; one hundred people at a time. After two hours, Jesse and Dan were near the middle of the line, and Jesse became hungry. After all, he wasn't due until later that day, and he'd need all his rest to handle his line. So they parted and Jesse went off and found some overpriced pizza, forsaking the death-to-your-arteries cuisine of the one-time-through buffet. Jesse mused that many lives were saved because of that fact. If any mortal had been allowed to go back for seconds, they would surely have perished before they were done.

After eating, he decided to go back to the Peabody to get dressed for his appearance on the runway. He went to his room, and put on his runway shirt and undergarments. He reached for his pants...and they were not there! He searched the room, the hallway, everywhere, but could not find them. Putting on a pair of shorts, he traced the path from the Conference inn to the Peabody and back to the garage. Nothing. Certain he lost them in the half mile hike between the inns, he called upon the lost and found.

"Do you have a pair of black, cuffed, Ruffini pants by any chance?" he asked the man at the desk.

"What time did you lose them?"

"It must have been around four o' clock yesterday," he said.

"Let me check," the man said, and called a number. After a few moments, he hung up the phone.

"No pants were found or turned in at four o' clock yesterday," he said. "I'm sorry."

"What about four-o-five?" Jesse asked.

"Let me check," the man said. He called the number again, and hung up.

"No sir."

"How about four thirty?" Jesse asked, wondering if there were different lost and founds for every five minutes of each day. Again the man called and again he found nothing.

"What about five o' clock?" Jesse asked, losing his patience.

"Look sir, we can't check every time for you. I'm sorry." Jesse walked away, dejected and completely unraveled. To this day he has not found his trousers, and he still wonders, "What if I had asked for 6:25?"

Without his pants, the special two-toned shoes Jesse had brought wouldn't work...and without those the vest wouldn't work either. Feeling much like a maiden, who must have everything coordinate lest it be damned, he donned a set of his "chill" clothes and made his way back to the Conference hotel.

There is not much to say for the rest of that day. Jesse waited in line for two hours before he made it to the back room, where he waited with three hundred other modelves for another hour. At last he walked, and in fifteen seconds it was over. But he felt good...he had walked well. Left foot...then the right foot...and so on and so forth. He didn't run or skip or fall. He walked. Never had he felt more like a modelf in his life.

After that, he had to go back to the room and wait until all the models behind him finished. Then they all walked out one last time, much like a train, and that was it. Then he waited in line for another two hours to audition, and in a minute that was also over. By then it was late. He met with the Fellowship for an hour or so and then went to bed. It was rather early, but he needed his rest. After all, he had to pack his things, check out of the Peabody, and be in the Conference room by eight o' clock the next morning.

Chapter 7: The Quest Comes To A Merciful End

The next day, the Fellowship sat in the Conference room until nine o' clock waiting for the final competition and awards to be given out. Jesse knew he was no modelf, but his audition had been strong, and he was certain he stood a good chance of being one of the twelve axtor finalists. Just after nine, the judges decided to walk in. As they passed by, Jackie of New Jersey grabbed Jesse's arm.

"There's the lady...right there. The one who told me to lose my hips." Jesse looked to where she was pointing, but shook his head in confusion.

"All I see is a multitude of people sharing one head. They must be hiding under that tarp."

"No...'they' are her. That's the lady."

As it turns out, Jackie was right. The multitude of people was in fact one person. The tarp was the only article of clothing big enough to encompass her immense girth. Jesse felt pity in his heart for the floor of the room.

"The bride of Jabba," he muttered under his breath. The Fellowship laughed in unison at his well placed Star Wars analogy. But that didn't take away the horrid truth. She was a judge. And once all the judges sat down, there were still a few empty chairs that were never filled. No one had any doubts what ill fate had visited those missing judges. The answer was waddling down the aisle. Putting aside that grim bit of business, they all steeled themselves for a very long morning.

The whole ordeal lasted nearly three hours. At the end of it, Jesse had pulled every curly lock of hair from his head, and had tried unsuccessfully to end his tortured existence with several sharp objects and even a few blunt ones. Bleeding and battered, but unfortunately conscious, he reflected on the horrible competition.

There was nothing to say about the competitors except that they seemed to have been drawn at complete random. There were three categories: singing, modeling, and acting. The singing category, though the ultimate winners were hardly the best, was at least plausible. In fact, Dan of Buffalo won second place with a fetching tune from Garth Brooks. But the modelves and axtors who won that day were shams. It seems that the night before, the judges got wasted in a tavern downtown. They then burned the few notes they had taken, and instead put all the numbers in hat. (Each modelf and axtor was given a number at the time of the initial competition the day before.) The then randomly pulled forty-eight numbers, and those were the finalists. (The few who opposed this method were promptly consumed by the tarp-wearing judge.)

In fact, one of the finalists announced for the acting category seemed very surprised. When he got up to the stage and gave his name, he confessed his shock was due to the fact that he hadn't even auditioned for the acting portion of the competition. He was promptly eaten by the tarp'd judge.

The axtors were atrocious, and to watch them was to snort anthrax. Jesse conceded that he knew little of modeling and so could not truly judge. although he could not see the method in the madness. But as for the acting he knew poo when he saw it. And what he saw was poo after poo after poo. In fact, a very acute logic struck him. See if you can follow along.

There were six different rooms with different judges in each one. The auditions weren't recorded. So how did the judges determine the top 12 male and female actors. How can a judge from Room 1 say "123, 32, 111, and 3000 were the best ones I saw." And then a judge from Room 2 say "222, 423, 23, 1222, and 338" were the best I saw." And so on and so forth? If each panel of judges convened (which is doubtful) and agreed on their top 12, that's 36 of the best guy axtors. And if they picked the top two in each room, who is to say that the third pick of one room wasn't actually better than the first pick of another room?

Whatever the logic, whatever the circumstance, those axtors picked didn't seem to know what a stage was, let alone what to do on it. But at last, the torment ended. The winners were declared and the mass was dismissed for call backs.

Chapter 8: Callbacks

And so begins the shortest chapter in this tale. Jesse The Gray had to stand in line under the letter "G" for his callback. By no random twist of fate, it happened to be the longest line in the whole alphabet...dwarfing even "A" and "B". All 3,000 modelves and axtors got callbacks, guaranteeing that no one would leave consciously feeling pillaged.

After an hour, Jesse got his callback envelope. He had a total of four-three of which were the ones every mother's son and daughter got. He made his way upstairs and waited in the main line for two and a half hours. Then he went into the different rooms, where the callback lines wound around and through each other like the many snakes of Madusa's hair. Another two hours.

Reaching the front of the line, Jesse was given a card, and a lady behind the fold up table said: "Here, o' victim of perilous scams! Take this card and visit my website. Send me a headshot and we'll talk. Farewell."

And thus ended the callbacks for Jesse The Gray.

Epilogue

Thus the quest ended for Jesse The Gray. He left the Conference hotel a good four hours later than he had planned on-and empty handed at that. He made his way back to the coast, stopping and slowing and accelerating sporadically as he went.

His Bird O' Fire began to sound very worn out and all 175 ponies heehawed in protest. Upon reaching the main road, he spent a good two hours sitting in traffic. As luck would have it, there were three different accidents several miles apart involving young guys who had modified rims, lowered bodies, and windows that were tinted black. It may very well have been that they were painted black, for that at least would have given just cause for why their drivers couldn't drive.

Jesse could not make it back to his little home in Spotsylvania in time, and so had to make an unplanned stay in dump that passed for a hotel only because someone charged people to stay there. The room reeked of cigarette butts and human butts, and was falling apart in countless places. Jesse mused that the inn must have been built when the Earth was very young...perhaps on the eighth day of creation. But he weathered the night, and finished his journey home in fifty-degree weather.

Upon arriving at home, he took off his One Ring and threw it in the fire to feel like he had accomplished something, but then regretted it because it was very precious to him.

The next day he fell ill with ear infections and bronchitis, and so lay on his back for a week.

Thus ends the merry quest and adventures of Jesse The Gray, who traveled through four states (twice), paid $240 for gas, oil, and inns, put another 3,000 miles on his Bird O' Fire, and caught a horrible cold...and then had nothing better to do but write it all down in a mostly non-fictional third-person narrative.

How shall history know him? Shall he be vindicated? Even the optimists say "nay".

But even the wise cannot see all ends...

For never was there a tale of more woe

Than that of Jesse getting screwed in Orlando