The Skinny on Sarah

By Michael R. Farley

After Pandemonium and Chaos endure an arduous journey from Greece to America, they soon discover they are expecting a package from the ubiquitous stork of legend. But little do they know that the ill wind that blew in the stork is an ominous harbinger of things to come.

Saradopoulos officially arrives at 12:01 a.m. on Friday the thirteenth. The first twenty-five pound baby with a full set of teeth, she is quickly named Sarah for practical purposes. After Sarah bites a nurses finger clean off with her enormous set of choppers, word spreads about the unique child; she is immediately isolated, provided with a custom-made muzzle, and ushered out of the hospital in the dark of the night so as to avoid the crush of curious onlookers. Despite several attempts by her parents to abandon her, Sarah manages to grow up, attend law school, marries, and become an attorney.

In this tongue-in-cheek, satirical tale, Sarah throws herself headfirst into a life filled with adventure, a band of misfit friends, and a never-ending quest to be normal in what turns out to be a very abnormal world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9781450282871

Michael R. Farley

MICHAEL FARLEY was born in Charleston, South Carolina and spent the years of his early youth in Miami, Florida. In college, he studied engineering and later worked in the paper and chemical industry. He keeps up with world events, writes and travels, while now enjoying retirement and living in Georgia.

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Contents

Introduction

Part I

Mom and Dad

(Pandemonium and Chaos)

Bon Voyage

Deliverance

A Whole New World

It’s Arrived

Interlude

Part II

Pheneous Stephanopoulos

and

Brother Will Devine

Blanch Kart

Me People and the French Cousins

Tobias Longstreet Culpepper

The Master Plan Comes Together

Reunion and Retribution

Epilogue

Introduction

If I had to describe myself with just one word, it would be survivor. I had the benefit of having a twin brother who, during much of my life, has been my main support group. Traumatized during our childhood, we both escaped this nightmare and enlisted in the military. We left home with just the clothes we were wearing and, at the ripe old age of seventeen, were sworn in to do four years of active duty. This was the time of great antiwar sentiment, when others were doing everything to avoid the draft. I had qualified for a chance at army helicopter pilot training and would have been surely destined for the most hazardous assignments in Vietnam. However, since I was just seventeen and still a minor, I had to have the permission of a custodian to bring these plans to fruition. Permission was not given because I was told, You might end up in Vietnam. I could not receive that permission unless I selected the air force instead of the army. So, with the situation at home being intolerable, I opted for the former.

Because of the ongoing war and needs for manpower, basic training was shortened from eight to six weeks. I had spent the previous three high school years in an extremely harsh military school, so I was very well prepared, and for the first time in my life, I enjoyed a cornucopia of wholesome, nutritious food. As soon as I got to my first duty assignment, I volunteered for Vietnam. After a year of military police training and duty, I found myself halfway around the globe. The minute I walked into this environment, my world was completely turned upside down. As an expertly trained machine gunner, I was assigned night duty with the prestigious Tiger Flight. Words cannot describe the accumulative effect of heat, humidity, monsoons, insects, foreignness, and distressing fear. I served three tours of duty in Vietnam. As a combatant, I always volunteered for the most dangerous assignments. This was not out of heroics but rather for a sense of youthful invincibility and the adventures, which were both distinctive and unforgettable.

Although I physically left Vietnam, the memories and ramifications live on. Using the GI Bill and working any job I could get, I put myself through college and obtained an engineering degree. Although it was a difficult undertaking, perseverance prevailed. Starting from the ground up, I finally ended up at a Fortune 500 company as a senior research analyst. After my retirement, I found that the best way for me to manage with circumstances was to write about my various adventures, real and envisioned. Throughout my life, I have had many experiences and have met many strange and unusual characters. Using a lifetime of knowledge, relationships, and the tools of fact and fiction, I have written The Skinny on Sarah.

Sarah, the main character, and her sidekick Klepto Pearl resemble individuals that I encountered during one of the aforementioned life experiences. During a few private conversations, Sarah, who hadn’t missed too many meals, often expounded on her proud Greek heritage. Klepto Pearl, on the other hand, had a profound and pernicious propensity for unprincipled procurement. These are, of course, just a couple of the many characters in this book. Some of the stories are loosely based on facts; many are fictional.

The grievous dissolution of a relationship or being extricated from an unfortunate experience can certainly cause a contrary and calamitous cacophony of collective conundrums. However, I found that distancing yourself from such an event can lift a great burden from you. By writing this tongue-and-cheek epic, I trust that I have been successful in bringing some levity to those who can empathize. Everyone should enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. No matter what happens to you in life, the sun will always come up tomorrow. Go ahead and laugh. You’ll feel better!

Part I

A Genesis

Mom and Dad

 (Pandemonium and Chaos)

The torrential rain and booming thunder claps on a cold February evening were foreboding. The earlier calm had bid adieu to blue skies, only to be supplanted by darkness and discontinuous lightning strikes. A Greek couple from Athens was expecting a package from that ubiquitous stork of legend. Little did they know that the ill wind that blew it in was an ominous harbinger of things to come. They were the thunder and lightning of this portentous endowment.

Not quite a year earlier, their lives had been in complete turmoil. Apparently, Dad, or Chaos (the first created being in Greek mythology), had been the obviously domicile-challenged village idiot. Citizens tired of his benign but recurrent naughtiness had tied him to and ridden him out of town on a donkey that they had appropriated. In much of the Western world, this would have been considered cruelty to animals, the four-legged one, anyway. Mom, or Pandemonium (a demon in Greek mythology), single and unappealing, nevertheless was imbued with a finely tuned business acumen. She learned how to pinch drachmas at an early age. She ran a thriving, although illegal, chop shop out of her own kitchen. Securing the proper sanitation credentials and a business license would have been an incommodious waste of time. Furthermore, it was not cost effective. Regrettably for her, she lived in the Jewish part of Athens. She had purposely moved there to get away from her strict Greek Orthodox family. Jewish congregants had made numerous complaints to their local rabbi. She was selling untaxed and discounted pork chops to wayward and voracious members of their faith. Not only was this cutting into their own pious businesses, it was not kosher.

This was not tolerable in the faith they engendered and the mandated dietary restrictions they at least overtly professed.

Seething at the loss of income to an irreverent outsider, an impromptu crowd was easily worked into a wild frenzy. Torches were lit and a mindless mob meandered through the winding back streets. Preceding the horde was the Doppler effect of doors and windows being shuttered. Sensing imminent danger and bodily harm, Pandemonium barely had time enough to dress, grab some cash on hand, and flee. As she escaped through a back door, members of the mob kicked in the front door. Save the kitchen, the whole house was ransacked. The accompanying rabbi walked into the kitchen, closed the door, and began chanting a purification prayer against the blasphemer. After a few minutes, all went silent. The crowd waited anxiously but reverently. After an hour, the rabbi told those present to open the kitchen door and come in. To their astonishment, he was holding a basting brush in one hand and a pork chop in the other. His salt-and-pepper beard and cooking apron were smeared with various sauces. He then looked at the bewildered throng and nonchalantly asked, Have you tried the baby backs?

As fate would have it, the admonished woman ran into the exiled idiot at the famous Alexander’s Well in the foothills outside Athens. Legend has it that Alexander the Great would come there and rest on hot summer nights. Local businesses that catered to tourists validated the legend by posting a plaque on the well, proclaiming, Alexander the Great ate, drank, and reveled here. Surely, this would whet any ignorant tourist’s appetite. A lingering tourist was a paying tourist. The local economy depended on it. Fudging historical facts never hurt anyone. Besides, it could have happened!

The future mother of destiny’s child, who had fled from the hostile crowd, caught a glimpse of the poor dimwit in the moonlight. She had been startled by his sporadic outbursts of near maniacal laughter. She put the obvious questions to the babbling man: What are you laughing about, and why are you tied to that unfortunate animal?

Nearly breathless and almost beside himself in ebullient bliss, he replied, Those stupid neighbors of mine gave me a nice little donkey, a new rope, and a free ride out of town. The best part is it didn’t cost me a single drachma!

Pandemonium followed up with another question, to satisfy her curiosity: Weren’t you humiliated?

Chaos chuckled, in glorious condescension. "Oh no; the last time, they made me catch it myself and pay for the rope too!"

Pandemonium tried to collect her thoughts about the events that had recently transpired. What to do? What to do? Perhaps this moron was an opportunity that the Fates had provided her to facilitate extraction from this present quandary. As she thought of her plight, she couldn’t help but notice the sight of torches in the distance. It was akin to a spiraling, elongated snake, and it was headed in their direction. From the top of the hill, the port of Piraeus could easily be seen. This bustling harbor was the largest port in Greece. It was where foreign goods were imported and Greek products were shipped out. Perhaps she and