Eggs
I have this fetish about Elmer's glue. Let me explain.
When I was a boy, around 8 or so, I was doing a project in my boarding school one week where we were each given an egg, a box of 1000 toothpicks, a spool of thread, and a bottle of Elmer's glue. Our task was to build a contraption to keep the egg safe using only the toothpicks, thread, and glue. There were no other rules.
We built during the science class and our teacher--Mrs. Braithwaite--would put them into one of the cafeteria fridges for the rest of the time so the eggs would stay fresh. Mrs. Braithwaite told us that at the end of the week, she would take these contraptions--with the eggs inside--and drop them from the roof of the school gym. We would be graded on the originality of our designs and their utility.
There were lots of great ideas, it was pretty impressive for a bunch of 8- and 9-year olds. I had one of the best innovations. I poured some glue onto a table in the corner of the classroom until it formed a thin flat puddle. I did this a few more times on the rest of the table. Then I put up a sign that said "Do not touch!" and pointed it out to Mrs. Braithwaite. She looked puzzled but played along and told the students not to disturb my work. The next day, I had some nice "sheets" of glue. Instant parachutes. Epic win. The other kids were jealous and started doing the same thing.
I should mention here that Mrs. Braithwaite was in her mid thirties, with black hair and rimless glasses. She was short, about 5'3" but that was still much taller than me or any of the other kids. And she had a pretty good body. She looked kind of like an older Shannen Doherty, but nicer and more normal-looking, not like a TV star. Usually she would wear a sweater and a skirt that would come down past her knees and some flats. Basically a nice-looking woman whether you were 7, 17, or 37, but not what I would call hot.
But anyways I was almost out of glue and still had a long ways to go on my frame for the egg. So I asked Mrs. Braithwaite if I could have another bottle of Elmer's. She said if she gave me more glue she'd have to give more to all the students. I kept asking her and she caved and asked the class to vote. Everyone making parachutes said yes and it was game on.
The whole episode was kind of like what the Pentagon and a big defense contractor: they demonstrate an interesting technological capability, then fall short in building the fighter jet or whatever, and they finally demand more money to make the idea work. And they almost always get it. Anyways Mrs. Braithwaite finally said OK but told me I'd have to help her deal with the extra glue, whatever that meant. Anyways next thing you know there's glue all over every flat surface in the classroom.
But I had another trick up my sleeve. I made more sheets for the next two days and then put them into an overlapping pattern and added some more glue and thread, being careful to save enough thread to attach the parachute and also secure the egg in the frame I had built for it. The result was strong and big and by the time the other kids realized what I was doing it was the end of class on Thursday and they didn't have time to copy me. So I felt pretty good. Right before school ended, Mrs. Braithwaite told me to stay after class, though, so the good feeling didn't last long.
After the other students had left she closed the door and told me she was very impressed with my project but that my approach had made it hard for her that week because there was glue everywhere. There were some students who had accidentally spoiled other students' parachutes by putting their hands on the semi-dry glue puddles and that sort of thing.
Mrs. Braithwaite said that since I came up with the idea in the first place that I should stay and help her fix the other students' parachutes to be fair--not make them bigger, just put glue into the gaps that a few clumsy kids had caused. They would still be structurally inferior to mine. I figured this sounded fair. So we got a few bottles of Elmer's and went to work.
Anyway as she and I were fixing the glue puddles I looked at her and noticed she was eating some of the glue. That's right, just like a little kid: eating the Elmer's glue. She had some on her index finger and sucked it off. Some of the glue was still on her face. There was a little dribble of glue coming down from the corner of her mouth.
Now I am here to tell you that I felt something at that moment that I did not fully understand for years. Mrs. Braithwaite asked me if I liked the taste of glue. I said, "Um, I guess" or something like that but what happened next is simultaneously kind of fuzzy and yet parts are also still crystal clear even 15 years later.
She came closer to me, rolled her finger in a puddle of still-wet glue, and licked it clean. Then she brought the finger up to my mouth. I still remember how her nails were polished: light pink, with a few scratches. I didn't know what to do, so I just sucked her finger. I could still taste some of the Elmer's glue on it. Then she put a little dab of glue on the side of her neck and asked me if I wanted to lick it off.
At this point I was confused and a little scared. This was really weird and I knew something wasn't right but damn it I liked Elmer's as much as the next kid and it seemed kind of cool to do this with her. It wasn't like kissing a girl or anything. So I did it. Then she asked if she could put some glue on me. I said OK and next thing you know there's glue on my fingers and then they're in her mouth. It felt great.
Then Mrs. Braithwaite took off her glasses and asked me to take off my shirt. This part I remember very clearly because I was wearing a Phoenix Suns shirt with Charles Barkley on it. The Suns were great back then. Anyway, I was trembling a little bit but she put a hand on my knee and said everything was OK and I didn't have to do anything I didn't want to.
That relaxed me a lot. I knew it must feel good when grownups made out or had sex so I figured this might be pretty cool even though it was really weird. I mean, Mrs. Braithwaite was *nice*. It's important to keep in mind how large a teacher looms in your mind as a kid. But she was nice. I trusted her.
So anyways I took off my shirt and took a deep breath. Time seemed to bend in on itself. I was covered in glue and she was licking it all off. My pants were off--to this day I don't remember which one of us took them off or how--and suddenly I was naked, with glue all over me.
Suddenly I noticed her skin becoming much darker than it was earlier, and her head started to flatten and her body become skinnier as she licked the glue from my chest. The next minute, I blinked in confusion as what stood before me now looked like a large black snake.
"Ha! Fooled you!" she hissed. Now, before I devour you, I'd like to ask you one thing:
"HAVE YOU READ YOUR SICP TODAY?"
Much to my surprise, there was a knock on the classroom door. As nervous as I already was, I didn't feel comfortable having another person there. Mrs. Braithwaite went to open the door and it turned out to be the school principal.
Mrs. Braithwaite let him and promptly exited the classroom. So, there I was with my pants down in the excited state as I was, and the school principal beginning to take his pants off.
"I am The Sussman", the principal said in a low, almost snake-like voice as Mrs. Braithwaite slithered out the door.
"What?"
The principal, whose name I cannot recall to this day, slowly walked towards me. I was hoping Mrs. Braithwaite would return soon, but with every passing second, I was losing hope.
He promptly asked me to bend over and touch my toes, like the school gym teacher did during gym class. Without warning, he rammed his long cock straight up my ass. I must tell you, it hurt at first. Soon, I started crying.
"Have you read your SICP today?" he asked.
"But is that even relevant to the current situation or is it just --" I began to retort automatically, but he cut me off.
"Nevermind. You have yet to achieve Satori, young padawan. Let me show you."
He took off his pants off completely. In place of his PENIS was something long and black. My vision had begun to blur from the glue, so it was only until he got close to my fact that I could see it was the head of a snake.
Shit.
Without warning, the snake extended from its crotch and chomped down hard on my PENIS. At first I tried to scream from the excruciating pain, but then the pain slowly started to fade away and my vision blurred considerably. The room disappeared into a haze of grey, which was followed by a dithered pattern with an X-like cursor in the center.
A mouse logo appeared and started flashing. "What the fuck?" I thought to myself. The words "Starting XFCE..." appeared.
"I have now managed to successfully connect to your X server," I heard his voice emanating from inside my head. "Welcome to the XFCE desktop environment!"
"What is this?" I thought. I tried to move the cursor around, and I discovered that I could do it by only thinking. I automatically moved it down to the XFCE Menu at the bottom and clicked on the Terminal icon instinctively.
"NO!" The Sussman cried in a loud voice that filled my head. An intense wave of pain coursed through my body as the terminal window opened. "First, you must learn Scheme. Click on the DrScheme icon in the bottom right, the one that looks like a red and blue Lambda."
"Oh no fucking way!" I exclaimed. "I won't listen to him." As if by the magic of eval and apply, those words appeared in the terminal window next to the bash prompt. "bash: I: command not found" followed, and the infuriating wave of pain shook my body once again.
"LISTEN TO ME! I AM THE MASTER!" I heard The Sussman's voice fill my head, sending more tendrils of pain through my body. I resisted the pain and slowly, but deliberately, thought "sudo rm -rf /".
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
The Sussman screamed madly and an even stronger wave of pain blasted its way through my body. I thought "enter" and the terminal complied, asking for the root password.
"What now?" The Sussman laughed heartily. "You think a mere mortal like you could defeat me that easily? I am root!"
Without much thought I immediately thought "SATORI" followed by enter.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO..." The scream and resulting waves of pain from The Sussman faded away as everything flickered and turned black. The stark white text "Connection to X server lost" appeared, followed by a kernel panic. The system had halted, but how could I get out?
I now realized that I had killed The Sussman, who was the only hope of my escape. I just... existed, in a void of a coredump, thinking.
"Now I remember! Mrs. Braithwaite! That snake that loved glue!" ...but how could she help now? How could I even get out of this virtual existence? After pondering the situation for an unknown amount of time since time() had stopped, I came up with the answer:
"I AM. I THINK. THEREFORE I EXIST." I thought. "I AM. I THINK. THEREFORE I EXIST. I AM. I THINK. THEREFORE I EXIST. I AM. I THINK. THEREFORE I EXIST." The incantation played itself out in my mind.
"What else could I reason, supposing that I exist?" I thought to myself. "I am, and I think, and I exist. What more?" Those words continued to repeat themselves in my mind, until I accidentally thought "I exit." instead of "I exist."
A bright flash of light filled my vision and then "Analog input: 720x480 75Hz" appeared in bright white letters in the middle.
Checking memory... 1048576K OK Boot: found master boot record on primary master. lilo:
I thought "enter" and the kernel booted, this time in single-user mode. No traces of The Sussman appeared, and finally bash finished loading. "IRL" I thought, followed by "enter".
"Analog input: 1600x1200 75Hz" flickered in my view for a few seconds, before changing to what I had thought was reality -- I laid on the table, covered in Elmer's glue. The principal lay lifeless on the floor, his snakelike black PENIS shriveled up and similarly dead.
Mrs. Braithwaite walked in as I sat up and began peeling the dried glue from my body, starting with my PENIS.
"What in Haruhi's name happened here?!?!" she shrieked with horror at the sight.
"I... I have no idea," I responded quietly.
"I would have to agree. I just fainted and had the vision that I was a snake that loved glue."
The principal was later found to have died of mysterious causes -- his entire brain was missing, as were all of his organs. It was as if someone moved everything inside his body to /dev/null. We had the contest the next day, and I won with my egg parachute. Me and Mrs. Braithwaite never talked about the incident again, and now I'm the CEO of an online computer parts store -- Newegg.
