October 13, 2008 --Wallace Webster Senatorial Campaign Headquarters, Hanover, NH
"We've got to do something, Barry," Wallace Webster said, rubbing a hand through his silvering crew cut. "We just barely beat Sununu in the Primary and Shaheen is creaming us in the polls."
"What can we do, Wally?" Barry Dulac, his campaign manager, asked. "She seems to have us beat on policy and Sununu wasted all the dirt on her in the Primary." The weedy little man went into deep thought and idly refreshed his web browser. And in a flash of news server serendipity, he had it. "What if we had some smoke and mirrors issue that Shaheen seems weak on? Like that nut in Nashua with the Handwaved Big rig?"
"Scare tactics?" Webster mused. A slow grin spread across his face. "I think we can do that, and I think I know just the target."
October 13, 2008 --Private Residence, Lebanon, NH
Eljay stepped back from his 2004 Neon after six hours' work applying Handwavium to every surface and wiped sweat from his brow. The goop seemed to be working as intended, since the scrape on the side from when his mother had sideswiped a granite underpass was smoothing out and matching the silvery sheen of the rest of the car as he watched. He looked at the bucket and was glad to notice he still had enough to try some of the other ideas he'd heard about on the internet. He smiled as he turned off the CD boom box that had played snippets of scores from Star Trek, Star Wars, The Fifth Element and Back to the Future. He closed the bucket very firmly, sealed it as best he could, and put it in his trunk.
"Well, Nene," he said conversationally to his car, "tomorrow we find out just how well things took." He patted the fender affectionately and stripped off his safety gear before going inside for a well-deserved session playing City of Heroes.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''
-- James Nicoll
"We've got to do something, Barry," Wallace Webster said, rubbing a hand through his silvering crew cut. "We just barely beat Sununu in the Primary and Shaheen is creaming us in the polls."
"What can we do, Wally?" Barry Dulac, his campaign manager, asked. "She seems to have us beat on policy and Sununu wasted all the dirt on her in the Primary." The weedy little man went into deep thought and idly refreshed his web browser. And in a flash of news server serendipity, he had it. "What if we had some smoke and mirrors issue that Shaheen seems weak on? Like that nut in Nashua with the Handwaved Big rig?"
"Scare tactics?" Webster mused. A slow grin spread across his face. "I think we can do that, and I think I know just the target."
October 13, 2008 --Private Residence, Lebanon, NH
Eljay stepped back from his 2004 Neon after six hours' work applying Handwavium to every surface and wiped sweat from his brow. The goop seemed to be working as intended, since the scrape on the side from when his mother had sideswiped a granite underpass was smoothing out and matching the silvery sheen of the rest of the car as he watched. He looked at the bucket and was glad to notice he still had enough to try some of the other ideas he'd heard about on the internet. He smiled as he turned off the CD boom box that had played snippets of scores from Star Trek, Star Wars, The Fifth Element and Back to the Future. He closed the bucket very firmly, sealed it as best he could, and put it in his trunk.
"Well, Nene," he said conversationally to his car, "tomorrow we find out just how well things took." He patted the fender affectionately and stripped off his safety gear before going inside for a well-deserved session playing City of Heroes.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''
-- James Nicoll