Face-Lift 257

Guess the Plot

With Gloves Off

1. Lou Sweeney enrolled in med school because he knew it would finally lead to an outlet for his sexual deviance. But what will the proctology department director say when he sees Dr. Sweeney performing examinations au naturale?

2. With the village busybody on vacation, it's up to grumpy Nomar Underpants to gain the upper hand over a seedy glove maker who may have fingered the wrong man.

3. Devout Catholic Dana Carmichael wears gloves to avoid picking up psychic impressions from everything she touches. But when a demon torments her with his theory that Jesus was a zombie, the gloves come off.

4. Miss Judith Mostly's dress, a calico print shirtwaist that draped to the floor, had demure written all over it, in contrast to the brilliant satins and taffetas of the society ladies. But it's her arrival without gloves that sets tongues wagging and signals the end of Miss Judith's future.

5. After the championship football game, sophomore Suzy Snarple conquered her obsessive compulsive disorder, determined to hold the love of tight end Brett Studdington. Little did she know what would erupt under the bleachers when she stroked more than his ego . . . with gloves off.

6. Zelda has trouble: the Curse of the Giblet. When a power outage occurs on Gloves Off Day for her germ-o-phobic support group, Zelda gets arrested as the mastermind of an alleged grope-fest. Can old Voodoo Bob use psychic rays to neutralize the Giblet and save her?


Original Version

Dear Agent Person:

I'm offering With Gloves Off, a 90,000 word fantasy novel. [I don't care if your gloves are on or off; what's the title of your book?] An SASE is enclosed for your response.

As a devout Catholic, it is a mortal sin for Dana Carmichael to use her psychometry, even if she can't help picking up psychic impressions from the objects and people she touches. That same ability and her status as a "foreigner" in the Illiniwek Nation leaves her little choice but to take the one job open to her: psychic researcher. [I can't say I know what the employment situation is like in the Illiniwek Nation, but I would be amazed to find that the one open position is psychic researcher.] [If she can't use her psychometry, why does she have little choice but to take a job as psychic researcher? That's like an Orthodox Jew having little choice but to take a job as a food taster in a bacon factory.]

Dana thought that boring work authenticating museum pieces would be a low-profile way to make a living while she lobbied the bishop for a dispensation. What she hadn't counted on was working with a demon who torments her with theories about werewolf popes [Actually, I pulled up some papal portraits, and have reached the conclusion that Popes Gregory XIII, Sixtus V and Innocent VI were probably werewolves:



























I also contend that Pope Pius V was actually Santa Claus.]


or whether Jesus was a zombie. [Considering that atheists are often called upon to explain how Jesus could have risen from the dead if he were not the Son of God, I'm surprised more of them haven't embraced this zombie theory. It seems to explain everything.] [I checked through some art depicting Jesus after the resurrection, to see if any showed him as a zombie.



This painting, by von Kulmbach, doesn't show his face, but it's obvious that at least three of the people watching the ascension are zombies. Also, note that the man kneeling in the left foreground has six toes on each foot, and the third person from the right in the back row--the one whose lower face is obscured--isn't looking upward, as you'd expect, but seems to be looking across the way at the bald guy who looks like Peter Boyle in Young Frankenstein. Does this prove Jesus was a zombie? Not entirely; you'll have to read my book, The von Kulmbach Code for the additional evidence.] Nor had she expected to be pulled into a hunt for the person behind a series of deadly monster attacks.

Yuseph Szabo is an aethereal genius [Aethereal genius? An odd way of saying "evil overlord."] intent on creating the perfect monstrous assassin [Are we still in the same book? This is turning into a James Bond novel.] and he's using the citizens of Checagou as his guinea pigs. Dana must use her psychic abilities to stop Yuseph, risking Church approbation, perhaps even excommunication.

[Dana: Well, thanks to my psychic abilities, I prevented the creation of the perfect monstrous assassin, and saved untold lives.

Bishop: Great. I hear the Protestants are hiring.]

And if she does stop him, save her job and her soul, she still has to contend with a surly demon.

I would be delighted to send you the full manuscript for your review. Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,


Notes

It seems like any job, anywhere, would be a low-profile way to make a living while she lobbied the bishop for a dispensation. Why is psychic researcher for the Illiniwek Nation the one Dana chooses? Why is she there?

She lobbies the bishop for a dispensation (permission to commit mortal sins) before the monster attacks? On what grounds?

In researching werewolf popes, I strayed outside the Roman Catholic religion, and discovered the current pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church, who is clearly a werewolf.

Interestingly, I came across this article in the Harvard University Gazette, describing a meeting between the Coptic Pope and a student named Miranda Yousef. Note that her last name is the same as your villain's first name. Coincidence? Right. And I suppose it's also a coincidence that Yuseph Szabo, anagrammed, spells O yes! Zap Bush! The evidence continues to mount. Remember, that's The von Kulmbach Code, coming soon.