Laurel Faye was well settled into her daily routine as head sandwich maker and officer in charge of the bi-weekly shuffle board tourney at the Tabor Home for the Incredibly Aged. She was quite content there since her thoughtful family members had kindly persuaded her that "it was time" to "explore new avenues" in her life. New avenues that did not include being forced by her employer (which this paper will keep anonymous to respect the wishes of its CEO, Robert Milton of Air Canada) to deal with those god-awful cretins with the utmost of care and respect.

"Utmost care and respect," she thought to herself. "Self," she said, then forgot what she was going to tell herself and instead took solace in the subtle comfort that the funny little road runner wind mill thingy that old Phil McCracken had cleverly crafted on wood carving day back in 1999 was bringing her this very moment.

She giggled to herself. "That's a cute wind mill. Hee Hee Hee." She found herself doing that a lot lately - having what seemed to be a brilliant thought and then being non-chalantly distracted by the simple things in life. She was feeling a little bit self conscious about doing this but then said to herself, "Self," then again forgot what she was thinking and again focused on that cute little road runner spinning franticly in the front yard of the finely manicured yard of "the Home".

"I don't think the coyote would have any trouble catching him now," she giggled to herself in a little school girl voice. She was finaly home.

Laurel was peacefully hand-crafting her sandwiches, which had become some what legendary aroung The Home. Why, just the other day Henry Finklestein had come right up to her during the bi-weekly cribbage tourney and told her right to her face that the sandwiches that she made far surpassed Wilma Heatherington's.

As it turns out, Wilma discovered that she had the hots for old Henry (after several tests ruled out gas) and everyone knew this, including Laurel. But Henry had the hots for our fair Laurel. Wilma had a huge grudge against Laurel for this and was determined to win over her man.

What Laurel didn't know was that Wilma had been doing some digging into her past. Wilma had hired the services of one of the most reputable newspapers in town, The HillBaley Ho-Down and Extravaganza to see what they could find on this new hussy that was muscling in on her ripened turf.

The Ho-Down didn't disappoint. It seems that Laurel had had a somewhat tainted past before coming to the home. Wilma had found out, through the Ho-Down, that Laurel had been employed with a reputable (though somewhat fascist) air travel company for some fifty odd years. Laurel had always claimed that she had retired from said company and no one had any reason to refute this...until now.

The Ho-Down had uncovered a human smuggling ring that was sure to bring down Air Canada and, in turn, Laurel Faye. It seemed that Laurel, being employed at Air Canada at the check-in counter, was an integral part of this scheme. The Ho-Down discovered that the Asian mafia, known as the Triads, had been smuggling Chinese migrants into the country via Air Canada. These migrants would appear as tourists coming to Banff for holidays when in fact they themselves were carrying precious cargo.

The Triads were smuggling immigrants and the immigrants were smuggling colostomy bags that were cheaply manufactured in Taiwan and at a fraction of the cost that Canadians pay. Laurel was the ring leader. She intended to sell the colostomy bags to her roommates at The Home when she retired. She had known that her family was intending to put her in the home so she had been preparing to turn a profit while she lived out her golden years. Because she worked at Air Canada checking in passengers and schmoozing customs offiers and various rampees (she schmoozed rampees just for the fun of it*), she had little trouble carrying out her part in the scheme.

Thanks to the exhaustive reporting by the Ho-Down, Wilma was about to blow the lid on the whole thing but was biding her time, choosing her moment. Wilma was going to wait for the Spring Concert on Saturday night.

Laurel had the starring role in the Tabor Home's adaptation of Broadway's Cats which was destined to be a smash hit in the Alzheimer's Circuit. Wilma would tell the world the real story of Laurel Faye and crush her in one fell swoop, destroying her high standing reputation at the home and winning over her man.

But Laurel was completely oblivious to this at the moment as she was partaking in her quilting session with all the gals at Tabor. Laurel enjoyed her quilting on Saturday mornings. "Quilting is a lot like skiing," she thought to herself. Then she had a revelation. "No, it's not. Its nothing like skiing."

She reminisced quite freqently about her glory days as a ski bunny, gracefully swooshing down the serene mountainside of the Canadian Rockies. "Wait a minute," she thought to herself. "I was never a graceful skier. I usually broke something or ripped something on my body or someone else's body."

This was a thought that she liked to repress. She firmly believed that she had rather slyly tricked her family and friends into thinking that she was as elegant on the slopes as a deer in the forest. (Little did she know that those same family and friends had a different take on her athletic abilities. They thought of her as having the gracefulness of a pregnant yak which, based on the Ho-Down's research, is far more accurate.)

But Laurel still believed that she had pulled it off believing friends and family when they would smile and say, "Yes, Laurel, you are a graceful swan, the best thing to hit the slopes since Peter Podborski." "Those simple minded heathens," she thought to herself. "All along they thought I was this upscale jetsetter type who just oozed coordination and grace. Suckers," she thought before again relapsing into that mesmerizing bird spinning uncontrollably in the front yard.

"Boy the wind sure is picking up out there," she thought to herself in a rather stating-the-obvious kind of way. Not a moment after she thought that, a large bright light came plumetting down to the earth and landed right on the hyperactive wood carving crushing it into a million pieces. "Good," she thought to herself, "I never liked that f%$#ing little bird anyway."

While she was wallowing in the glory of finally being rid of the captivating but doomed bird, she was completely unaware of what was happening in the front yard. She snapped out of her reverie to find an old two headed, ravenous, gall bladder beast staring her directly in the face. The ravenous gall bladder beast said to Laurel, "I am Zaphod Beeblebroxski, an alien life form of mixed Ukrainian-Czech heritage and I am from the planet Ukraine. I have come to take you back to the Motherland where everyone is like you, uncoordinated and backwards. Will you come with me?"

Laurel weighed her options as carefully as she could. She had always been an extensive traveller in her youth, which was eons ago, and couldn't resist the temptation of travel. "Sure I guess," she said to the ravenous gall bladder beast.

Wilma, witnessing the exchange between the two, screamed "Noooo!". The "clients" of the home, including the dashing Henry, came running. "My beautiful little sandwich maker. Where are you going? Don't leave me."

But in classic Laurel fashion, she was totally and utterly oblivious to what was happening around her and walked into the bright light as she had been taught by her loving family (and bumping her head as she entered). As with countless incidents in her long, long, long life, she was totally unaware of the mess that she had inadvertently left behind. "Hee, hee," she thought to herself as she boarded the craft, "that sure was a funny little bird."...

*The Ho-Down wishes to inform the reader at this point that the rampees had absolutly nothing to do with said smuggling ring and are a fine and reputable bunch (That last bit was a precautionary measure suggested by Ho-Down lawyer Cleveland Steamer. We don't need any flack from high powered unions such as theirs.)