Tales Of The Fighting Ferrets

Part 1, Episode 24: Are You In Or Out?

2007-01-24T18:30:00.000-08:00

The balance of the day at Ferret Fest flew by for Conrad. He again felt himself flashing back to his younger days, but instead of picturing himself as an awkward goof he remembered the few, precious times when he had met someone new and began the blissful period of infatuation. He knew they did not last long, but they were enough to make a lasting impression, all the way back to when he hooked his first girl friend as a 16-year old. Few things in his life had ever felt better than that.

As Conrad and Kate walked by the area set up for youngsters, he thought back to one event that had topped everything, the birth of his daughter Connie. He saw a little girl that somewhat resembled Connie being led around on the pony ride and unconsciously stopped and stared at her. After a few moments, Kate asked, “Conrad, are you alright?”

Hearing her voice snapped him back to the present. “Yeah, I’m sorry, Kate. I was just thinking about my daughter?”

“I didn’t realize you had a daughter,” Kate said.

“Yeah, she’s a beautiful little four-year old girl,” Conrad said wistfully. “She lives out in San Diego with her mother.”

“I guess you don’t get to see her very often, do you?” Kate asked.

“No, but I didn’t see her too much when her mother and I were together,” Conrad replied. “I was too caught up in my work.”

They stood together near the pony ride for a moment, then Kate asked, “Would you like to sit for a bit? I could use something to drink.”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Conrad said. “I wouldn’t mind another cup of lemonade. What are you drinking?”

“Lemonade would be fine,” Kate replied.

Conrad walked Kate over to a picnic table and then went to fetch drinks. He rejoined her shortly carrying two large lemonades. Kate thanked him, and they both became preoccupied with their drinks waiting for the other to take the next step. After a few moments, Conrad told himself he was too old to get tripped up in these adolescent moments and took the initiative.

“I hope I’m not too forward in saying this,” he told Kate, “but for someone who is known as Satan’s Mistress, you are a lovely lady.”

He thought he saw Kate’s cheeks redden after he said that and wondered if he had, indeed, been too forward.

“Thank you, Conrad,” Kate replied. “That’s a very nice thing to say, at least the second part was.”

“I’m sorry if you hadn’t heard the first part before,” Conrad offered.

“Heard it,” Kate chuckled. “Hell, I started it.”

Conrad felt his eyebrows arch and had absolutely no idea how to respond to that. Kate, sensing that, sported a sly grin as she continued.

“You know,” she said, “that person, that evil bitch I am at work is just a role I play. It’s critical that I’m an effective gatekeeper for Mr. Farnsworth, and having people being scared to death of me really helps.”

“I’m sure it does,” Conrad said. “But isn’t that hard? Don’t you miss having friends at work, you know, someone who you can talk to and confide in?”

“I hear what you’re saying,” Kate said, “but I don’t believe in having friends at work. As a rule, it’s a bad idea. You don’t really know anyone when you just see them from 9-5. Particularly in my position, there are a lot of people that have agendas opposite to mine. You know, I’m supposed to give Mr. Farnsworth space and time to work, but there are those who want nothing more than to grab a chunk of that for themselves. It’s a naturally adversarial position, and I want everyone to know I’m a tough adversary.”

“So how do you spend your time away from work?” Conrad asked, genuinely interested.

“I don’t do much exciting,” Kate said. “I go to church, I do some volunteer work for a women’s shelter here in Midville, I read a lot, and watch old movies.”

“You don’t have a lot of cats, do you?” Conrad asked with a grin.

“Nooo, I’m not a crazy cat lady spinster yet,” Kate replied. “I’m saving something for my old age.”

“That sounds awfully lonely,” Conrad said.

“It can be,” Kate agreed, “but at least I don’t have the scars of bad relationships. I don’t have anyone to answer to but myself.”

“Simple doesn’t always mean good,” Conrad offered.

Kate looked down at the table for a few moments, then said softly, “I know.”
They quietly finished their lemonades and resumed their carefree tour of Ferret Fest. As dusk arrived and the festivities came to an end, Conrad and Kate parted ways with more questions than answers about each other and the nature of their relationship.

The next day back at the office, Conrad was distracted, and Gretchen picked up on that fact.

“Hey boss,” she said shortly before noon, “do you want to talk about it?”

“About what?” Conrad asked.

“What’s on your mind,” Gretchen said. “And don’t tell me it’s hiring a new football coach because it’s too early to start sweating that.”

“Well, Ms. Applebuns,” Conrad grinned, “you get an A for perceptiveness today.”

“Let me see if I can get the extra credit answer,” Gretchen said. “Would you have a certain executive assistant for a certain school president on your mind?”

Conrad gave her a bemused look and said, “A gold star for Ms. Applebuns today! Is that all around campus now?”

“No, no,” Gretchen assured him. “I just have my sources.”

“Have you thought about joining the CIA?” Conrad asked. “They need some help you know.”

“No thanks,” Gretchen said, “I’m sure the CIA is not nearly as entertaining as life with the Fighting Ferrets.”

“You’re probably right there,” Conrad agreed. “So what do you think?”

Gretchen looked down at the floor for a moment. Oddly, Conrad thought, she was not projecting any animal noises.

Finally, Gretchen said, “I think you’re all grown up and can spend time with whoever you want.”

“I appreciate that,” Conrad said, “but you know that’s not what I was looking for. Come on now, don’t be shy. You’ve got something to say, don’t you?”

Gretchen nodded, still looking at the floor. She eventually made eye contact with Conrad and said, “I know OF Kate but I don’t actually KNOW her. From what I’ve seen and heard, you can’t just stick one toe in the water and check the temperature. With her, if you’re in, you’re in all the way. I don’t think she understands or acknowledges the concept of casual dating.”

Conrad wasn’t surprised by this view since it was one possibility he had considered. “That’s good to know,” he said. “Thanks a lot Gretchen. I really appreciate your insight.”

“You’re welcome,” she replied. “Now let me ask you a question.”

“Fair enough,” Conrad said. “What would you like to know?”

“Well,” she hesitated for a moment and then proceeded, “are you going in?”

“You certainly worked through that shyness,” Conrad said. He stroked his goatee in a studious manner as he considered Gretchen’s question. “Not quite yet,” he finally answered. “I’ve got to get myself on more solid footing here, and I think any significant lifestyle changes would only distract me.”

“That sounds like a very wise approach,” Gretchen said, “just what I would expect from you. I noticed, though, that you didn’t say no.”

“That’s correct,” Conrad confirmed.

Conrad returned to his suite that evening for a disgustingly healthy dinner consisting of grilled chicken, carrots, and green beans washed down with spring water. He kept telling himself he would eventually adjust to his new healthy lifestyle, but it had not happened yet. In his mind he knew how silly it was to so desperately want to run down to Galaxy Burger and order a Star Burger combo (no cheese, only ketchup, of course), but he could not deny the constant yearning he had for the blissful combination of red meat, potatoes, and grease. Ummm, grease.

While he waited for Freddie to get home, Conrad looked around for something to occupy his time. He actually had plenty of work he could do, but he needed something to distract him and burn off this fast-food craving. He wondered, not for the first time recently, if there was a patch for recovering Galaxy Burger-holics. If not, he was convinced there should be.

As Conrad scanned the suite, his eyes locked onto the giant wheel. Freddie had on more than one occasion offered him the opportunity to take a spin in it, so it’s not like he would be violating Freddie’s space or anything like that. He decided this was the time to go for it. How difficult could it be?

Of course, that thought was the proverbial kiss of death. Conrad positioned himself delicately at the bottom of the wheel, trying to balance himself. He felt like he was a piece of fabric softener getting ready to be tossed around a spinning dryer, but he also took it as a challenge. If Freddie could navigate this contraption so easily, then by God so could he.

Conrad took a step forward with his right foot, then his left. As the wheel started moving, he lurched forward, holding onto the wheel while he tried to get his feet back under him. He thought if he tried to run faster inside the wheel, his feet would move ahead of the spin of the wheel and he could get himself upright. He was sadly mistaken.

As Conrad exerted more pressure with his feet, his right foot got caught between two of the bars on the wheel. Before he knew what happened, he had succeeded in stopping the motion of the wheel, but his foot was still caught in the spoke that was now at the top. He was hanging straight down, his hands still gripping a spoke now directly below his head.

Conrad felt his face redden with warmth as blood was flowing to it and wondered how he would get out of this mess. At this point, Junior popped through the trap door to Freddie’s room and scampered over to Conrad. Junior surveyed the situation for a moment, then proceeded to nibble on Conrad’s nose again.
Looking at Freddie’s adopted son, Conrad told him, “You know, Lassie would go for help.”

Fortunately, Freddie himself came through the door moments later and quickly rescued Conrad.

“You okay, buddy?” Freddie asked as he freed Conrad’s foot and helped him out of the wheel.

“I’m a little dizzy,” Conrad said, moving unsteadily toward his recliner while Freddie held his right arm, “but I’ll be okay.”

“Do you look for ways to get yourself in trouble?” Freddie said, shaking his head and smiling.

“Don’t have to,” Conrad said as he plopped into the chair. “It finds me with no problem at all.”

“Well, rest up pal because we’ve got a big day tomorrow,” Freddie bubbled.
“We do?” Conrad asked.

“You betcha,” Freddie replied. “First, I’m filming a commercial for the new Freddie Ferret energy drink, then we’ve got to go to Happy Trails to see Ferret Face run.”

“Whoa, back the truck up a minute,” Conrad protested. “Freddie Ferret energy drink?”

“Yeah, isn’t it great?” Freddie asked, the excitement clear in his voice and body language. “Two guys who graduated from Farnsworth came up with a new drink that’s supposed to be better than Gatorade or Powerade. They asked Mr. Farnsworth if they could name it after me and use me for the commercials. He said it was fine with him and then asked me. I said hell yes! Look out Michael Jordan, I’m starting my own product line!”

“Wow, Freddie,” Conrad said, his face beginning to regain it’s normal color, “you never cease to amaze me. What’s the drink taste like?”

“I haven’t actually tried it yet,” Freddie said. “The guys told me it’s thicker than Gatorade, more like a smoothie.”

“Smoothies are good,” Conrad asked. “Where’s the shoot?”

“It’s here at the Forum,” Freddie said. “They’ve got some students coming in to be extras, like fans in the stands. I’m going to do some of my routines, then the announcer will say, ‘This is Freddie Ferret, mascot and spirit leader at Farnsworth University. Freddie, where do you get all of that energy from?’ I’ll stop, take a swig of the drink, and say, ‘From Freddie Ferret Energy Drink.’ Then the announcer will talk about what makes it so good while I go back into my routine.”

“Not exactly Oscar material, there,” Conrad quipped.

“No, but Michael Jordan sells millions of dollars worth of stuff without being able to act his way out of a jock strap,” Freddie countered.

“Point taken,” Conrad said, knowing a good comeback when he heard one. “I’ll try and drop by.”

“Please do,” Freddie said. “I really want you to be there.”

“I’ll make sure I am,” Conrad assured him. “What time does Ferret Face run at Happy Trails?”

“Post time is 7:00, and he’s in the third race, so probably somewhere around 7:45,” Freddie said.

“It’s a good time to be the Ferret,” Conrad said.

“Damn straight,” Freddie agreed.

At about 3:30 the next afternoon, Conrad kept his promise to Freddie and entered the basketball arena in Farnsworth Forum to watch the filming of the “Freddie Ferret Energy Drink” commercial. The crew had been working for a while, and they were finishing their sixth take when Conrad arrived. Freddie saw him during the next break and bounced over to his friend.

“Hey buddy, glad you could make it,” he said to Conrad.

“I wouldn’t miss it,” Conrad said. “How’s it going?”

“Okay, I guess,” Freddie said. “They’re shooting different angles, getting me to mix up some of my moves. The producer says dance, I dance. He tells the crowd to yell, they yell.”

At this point, Conrad looked up and saw several hundred youngsters in the stands, the majority of them likely being Farnsworth students who had responded to ads posted in the student union.

“The camera loves you, Freddie,” Conrad told him.

“And I love the camera,” he replied. “This is great! Hey, I’d better get back. It looks like they’re just about set for the next shot.”

“Yeah, man, go for it,” Conrad said. He stepped back toward one end of the arena and marveled at how much fun Freddie was having. He really was a natural and he fed off the energy of the crowd as the producer began to whip them into a state of frenzy for the next take. Conrad caught himself smiling and shaking his head in amazement as his furry friend performed.

During the next break, Conrad walked up to one of the crew members and asked, “You guys got any extras of this stuff? I’d like to see what it tastes like.”
“Sure buddy,” he said. “We’ve got some over in the cooler over there. Help yourself.”

“Thanks,” Conrad said, and he made his way toward the cooler. He noticed several flavors: strawberry, raspberry, and banana seemed the most common. Since strawberry was always a favorite of Conrad’s he grabbed one of the plastic bottles and twisted it open. It had a nice strawberry smell to it, and he proceeded to chug down a couple of swallows of the drink.

He then looked around frantically for somewhere to spit.

Conrad had never tasted anything quite like “Freddie Ferret Energy Drink” before, and hoped he never would again. The closest thing he could compare it to was like drinking wet cement. He was convinced that if he drank the whole twelve-ounce bottle he would surely poop out a brick, although probably not in the near future. “My God, that was vile!” Conrad thought. He then slipped out the nearest door and made his way toward the student union in search of something less disgusting he could drink to wash that awful taste out of his mouth. Liquid cleanser would probably be more pleasant, he thought.

Conrad struggled for the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out what to say to Freddie about that horrible product. Freddie was very excited to have something named after him, and Conrad didn’t know how to break it to his friend that he would have to be at gunpoint to even consider drinking it again. He then came up with a rationalization: There were plenty of food and drink items he didn’t like that were very popular: sushi quickly came to mind, as did most items served at Chinese or Mexican restaurants. Therefore, the fact that he detested “Freddie Ferret Energy Drink” didn’t mean it was bad, it just wasn’t for him. Yeah, that’s it, he thought.

Freddie arrived back at their suite at 6:00, tired but still excited. He waved at Conrad, who was watching SportsCenter, and headed into his room to take a shower. Twenty minutes later, a refreshed Freddie Ferret emerged, ready for the trip to Happy Trails Race Track to see his namesake horse race for the first time.

Conrad listened intently to Freddie’s recounting of the day’s activities, enjoying the enthusiasm Freddie clearly displayed about the process. As he was wrapping up, Freddie asked Conrad, ‘By the way, did you taste any of the drink?” Conrad had been dreading this moment all afternoon. He gave Freddie a clipped “yep” reply.

“Tasted like crap, didn’t it?” Freddie said.

“Like liquid cement,” Conrad replied without thinking, then felt his blood run cold at the flip way he had responded.

“Yeah, that’s pretty accurate,” Freddie agreed. “I told the guys they needed to take my name off it. If they can sell this rotgut, more power to them, but it’ll have to be without any help from me.”

“What about the commercial?” Conrad asked with amazement. “I thought you were so excited about it.”

“Oh I was,” Freddie concurred. “It was a great experience, and I hope I get another opportunity to do one. That being said, however, I’m not going to compromise either my integrity or the school’s by advertising a drink that would probably be better used for spackle than a replacement for Gatorade.”

“Are they going to let you out of the contract?” Conrad asked.

“Oh yeah, it’s no problem,” Freddie said. “I had a clause inserted that gave me the right to pull myself and my name out of the process at any time if I did not like the product.”

“You’re a slick little ferret, my friend,” Conrad marvelled.

“Well, when you’ve been in college for over seven years like I have,” Freddie said, “you get the chance to study a lot of subjects. I took some classes in business and contract law a couple of years ago, just in case.”

“Maybe I’ll get you to negotiate my contract with the Old Man if he decides to keep me,” Conrad said.

“My services are at your disposal,” Freddie said.

“I bet you say that to all the girls,” Conrad said.

Freddie raised his index finger and pointed out, “Only the cute ones.”

Part 1, Episode 23: Days of the Unexpected

2007-01-17T19:02:00.000-08:00

Conrad felt the vibration of his cell phone ringing and instinctively knew it was bad news. It was his version of the “batphone.” No one ever called Batman on the batphone to tell him he had won an award, it was always a plea for help because the Joker or Riddler was creating havoc somewhere. Similarly, a call on his cell phone usually meant Conrad had to deal with some joker or other manifestation of chaos or just plain stupidity. This time proved to be no exception.

“Hello,” Conrad answered, the dread discernable in his voice.

“Sir, it’s me John Smith,” the panicy voice at the other end of the line said.

“What’s up John,” Conrad said, “and what’s that racket in the background?”

“I’m at the pool, sir,” John began, “and we’ve got a problem.”

“What else is new,” Conrad said as he felt his shoulders slump.

“Well, like you anticipated, we’ve got some media folks here for the water polo game,” John said.

“Okay, so what’s the problem?” Conrad persisted.

“Coach Fishwell stepped out of the locker room and saw the writers waiting for him,” John continued. “He ran back into the locker room and locked himself in the coach’s office. He won’t come out and the game is getting ready to start! What should I do?”

Conrad shook his head in disgust as he quickly decided on a course of action. “Tell the writers I’ll be down there in a few minutes with a statement,” he told John. “Just keep them out of the locker room until I can drag Biff out of there.”
“Yes sir!” John replied. “Ten-four!”

“Yeah, whatever,” Conrad said as he pushed the end button on his cell phone. He walked out to Gretchen’s desk and told her, “I’ve got some damage control to do down at the pool. After that, I think I’ll take my afternoon walk. Don’t wait up.”

“Good luck, Conrad. Hee-haw! Hee-haw!” Gretchen said.

How appropriate, Conrad thought as he hustled down to the pool, which was located on the opposite side of Farnsworth Forum from the athletic offices.
As promised, Conrad arrived at the pool within a few minutes of talking to John Smith. The writers were huddled near the door to the locker room waiting for any interesting development. Conrad approached the door and quickly addressed them. “Folks, I need to have a little chat with our coach. I will instruct him not to speak to the media until the conclusion of the season. Once I extract him from the locker room, I’ll make a brief statement.”

Conrad heard several questions being shouted at him by the gaggle of writers despite his preemptive strike, but he ignored them for the moment. He quickly walked to the coach’s office door and shouted at Biff Fishwell, “Biff, this is Conrad. Get your ass out of there now and come coach your team!”

“I can’t do it, Conrad,” Biff said. “I can’t face the media. I can’t face anyone.”

Conrad took a deep breath, then plowed forward. “Look, I told the writers you were off limits until the season was over. You don’t have to talk to them, Biff.”

There was silence for a moment, then in a voice more appropriate for a scolded eight-year old boy, Biff softly asked, “Really? I don’t have to talk to them?”

“That’s what I said,” Conrad continued. “I already told them that. All you have to do is pull yourself together and go out and coach your team. Dammit, you owe that to those kids.”

The room was again silent for a moment, then Conrad saw the door to the office slowly open. “You’re right, of course,” Biff told him. “Tell them I’ll be right out.”
“I’ll think I’ll walk out with you, if you don’t mind,” Conrad replied.

“Okay, let’s go,” Biff said, and followed Conrad out into the hallway.

Again, the reporters shouted questions, but Conrad ran interference until they reached the entrance to the pool. At that point, Conrad stopped and spread out his arms. “Hold on a minute, folks,” Conrad began. “While coach Fishwell is getting his team ready for the game, let me say a couple of things.”

Conrad paused to make sure he had everyone’s attention. He would be addressing writers from the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Annapolis Capital, the Hagerstown Herald-Mail, and numerous other local newspapers, all because of that single paragraph in Sports Illustrated.

“First,” Conrad began, “let me say we are proud of our student-athletes for hanging in the way they have. Obviously, our water polo team has not been nearly as successful as any of us here at Farnsworth had hoped, but that lack of success has not diminished the work ethic of the players. They have worked very hard and I think they will all learn something from this experience.”

When Conrad paused to draw a breath, one of the writers he did not know shouted out, “So how much of an embarrassment has this team been to the school, since they haven’t even scored a goal this season?”

Conrad, angered by the question, snapped, “See, that’s why I’m not going to answer any questions here. I just told you we were proud of the way the players have handled this. Now how do you get embarrassment out of that?”

Conrad glared at the writers, who took the hint and did not ask any more questions. “As of this moment, anyone associated with the Farnsworth Water Polo team is off-limits to the media until the season is over. We don’t want this turning into a circus and let the media have their fun at our students’ expense. Any requests for access after the season will need to be directed to me and expect any interviews to be chaperoned. That’s all for now.”

Conrad then turned his back on the writers and walked out to the pool. He stood behind one end to see that Fishwell had indeed gathered himself enough to organize his team and get them ready, at least on some level, to face Little Falls College. He watched the first few minutes of the game and saw the Ferrets fall behind 2-0. Convinced a miraculous victory was unlikely today, he found John Smith. “John, keep an eye on the game and call me if there is any more trouble or, God forbid, we score a goal,” Conrad said. “Make sure the media people don’t try to ambush Fishwell after the game. Everyone is strictly off limits.”

“Yes sir,” John replied.

“Oh, by the way, that means you too,” Conrad added. “If anyone starts firing questions at you, tell them I said you’re also off limits.”

“Ten-four,” John replied.

Conrad turned back toward John and said, “John, that’s unnecessary on the phone and just plain dumb in person, okay?”

“Yes sir,” John replied as he stared sheepishly at his shoes.

Conrad walked out of the Forum and headed toward the field where the Ferrets’ field hockey team was facing Little Athletic Conference rival St. Mary’s. The Ferrets still had a chance of tying for first in the regular season standings if they won the rest of their games. The way they had been playing, that goal seemed well within reach.

He walked at a fairly brisk pace as he had been trying to do the last few days. One thing Conrad’s doctor had recommended to help lower his dangerously high cholesterol was more exercise, and brisk walking helped fill that prescription. It was a brisk fall day, but he was comfortable in his lined Farnsworth windbreaker. As he approached the field, he saw the scoreboard, which showed the Ferrets leading 2-0 late in the first half.

Then Conrad saw Coach Cage on the sidelines and did a double-take. Why didn’t he have a jacket on in this weather, he wondered? An even better question was why didn’t he have a shirt on? From his movements, Conrad could tell that Cage was cold, so why wasn’t he wearing a full compliment in clothes? Well, at least he was winning, so Conrad told himself he wouldn’t get worked up over a wardrobe malfunction, but he was still curious.

Conrad stayed around to watch the rest of the game, which the Ferrets won by a convincing 4-1 score, then made a dash for Coach Cage when the game was over.

Catching up with the coach just before they reached the Ferrets locker room, Conrad said, “Nice game coach. Your girls are on quite a roll.”

“Thanks Conrad,” he replied. “We’ve won twelve in a row and still have a chance of getting top seed in the conference tournament.”

“That’s outstanding,” Conrad added. “It’s nice to have a winner on campus. There’s one thing I have to ask, though. What’s up with the outfit, or lack of such?”

Coach Cage looked at Conrad very sheepishly and finally said, “I’m sending a message to the team. If I can take the cold, they can be tough on the field without whacking the other players with sticks.”

Conrad looked at Cage suspiciously, then shrugged and said, “Okay, whatever works. Just keep it decent.”

Cage laughed awkwardly and said, “Sure will, Conrad. Thanks for the good words.”

Conrad began his walk back to the office, wondering if he would ever figure out the strange crew at Farnsworth.

Conrad and Troy Flemstone suffered through another dismal football game on Saturday, a 38-6 beating, but didn’t let it get them down because they had something to look forward to the next day—Ferret Fest. During the second half of the most recent weekly drubbing, more of their on-air conversation was focused on the festival than the game.

Ferret Fest was an annual festival on the Farnsworth campus where the students and community came together for food, fun, and festivities. The first Ferret Fest was held eleven years ago, only weeks after Farnsworth University first opened its doors. Mr. Farnsworth wanted to have an event to invite the Midville community to check out and hopefully embrace the university. He spared no expense, and it was an immediate hit. It had grown bigger every year and now commanded two year-round employees to coordinate.

Freddie had actually stayed in Saturday night, resting up for his biggest day of the year. No one was more popular or busier during Ferret Fest than the Ferret himself. Freddie had looked forward to this since the beginning of the semester, not unlike a young child anticipating Christmas morning.

Conrad had arranged to pick Troy up and bring him to the festivities. When they arrived back on campus, it was as if the school had been transformed into a combination carnival/arts & crafts/concert venue. Everywhere Conrad and Troy turned, they saw booths with vendors, stages with acts playing music ranging from rap to jazz to country, or games and refreshment stands set up by various fund-raising organizations from both on and off campus.

They stood for a few moments and took it all in, then Troy said, “Wow, thith it really thomething! I’ve never theen anything like thith!”

“It is pretty incredible,” Conrad agreed. “It’s obvious the athletic department didn’t have much to do with this, or else something would be collapsing, exploding, or on fire.”

“Boy, thath pretty harth,” Troy replied.

“Just think about all of the chaos around here the last few weeks,” Conrad said.

“I know,” Troy said, “I didn’t thay it wathn’t accurate.”

After walking around for a while, they stopped at a refreshment booth run by the Farnsworth Catholic Student Union. Troy bought two slices of pepperoni pizza, an order of Ferret Fries, and a Coke. Conrad, refusing to yield to the temptation to violate his diet, ordered a grilled chicken sandwich and a cup of lemonade. As they walked over toward a group of picnic benches, Troy nudged Conrad.

“Hey buddy, you’ve got thomeone checking you out,” Troy said.

“Oh really,” Conrad said, his interest piqued. He turned toward the direction Troy was looking and made eye contact with a familiar face—Kate. Conrad smiled and waved to her, and Kate smiled and waved back.

“Look, I’m going to walk around for a while and enjoy the thighth,” Troy told Conrad.

“Hey, I’m not going to ditch you,” Conrad protested, “I’m the one who suggested we hooked up today.”

“Don’t take thith the wrong way,” Troy replied, “but if you would rather be with me than an attractive lady who’th giving you the eye, well, I’m not comfortable with that.”

A grin spread across Conrad’s face. “You’re a good man, Troy,” he said, “I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Or not,” Troy said. “I’ll cath a ride with thomeone elth, don’t worry about that.”

“Okay, if you’re sure,” Conrad said. “Enjoy yourself.”

“You too,” Troy said with a sly grin.

As Troy headed off, Conrad walked over toward Kate. He had recognized her face, but the rest of her looked like a completely different woman. As Mr. Farnsworth’s secretary, she always had a harsh look about her, nearly devoid of any trace of feminism. Her hair was tied back behind her head and her features were sharp and bare with little or no makeup. Conrad had assumed that represented who she was. As he gazed at her now, trying hard not to stare, he wondered if that was all an act, a costume she put on every day in order to play a convincing role.

The woman Conrad saw now bore almost no resemblance to the shrew he saw during the week. Her red hair was unbound and flowed over her shoulders with a fullness most models would envy. She looked like one of those women in a shampoo or hair coloring commercial. Kate had applied a judicious amount of makeup, just enough to soften her features and accentuate her piercing green eyes and soft skin, which was lightly sprinkled with freckles. Instead of her weekday outfit of a plain blouse and equally plain slacks, she wore a form-fitting sweater that announced her firm, round breasts and curvy figure. The tight jeans and high-healed sandals that completed her outfit led Conrad to an inescapable conclusion—Kate Sargent was a babe!

Kate had remained in the same spot where she caught Conrad’s eye and waited for him to approach. When he reached her, Conrad said, “So Ms. Sargent, I have discovered your secret identity.”

Kate chuckled, and Conrad thought that wasn’t a bad opening line. “Are you here with anyone?” he asked.

“No,” she replied softly with an underlying tone of sadness. “I hope I didn’t chase Troy off.”

“No, we’re not dating,” Conrad quipped, “we’re just friends. It’s amazing how quickly you can get close to someone after a building collapses on both of you.”
“I’m glad you weren’t hurt more seriously,” Kate said. “It looks like Troy is on the mend.”

“Yeah, it was a nasty fracture,” Conrad said, “but it appears he’s a quick healer.” A moment of awkward silence followed. Conrad flashed back to his high school days when he would struggle to approach a girl at a school dance. He shook off that image and moved forward.

“Since I’m new here, I could use a tour guide,” Conrad coyly told Kate. “Are you available?”

“It would be my pleasure,” she replied with a glowing smile.

Part 1, Episode 22: "New Rules"

2006-12-12T17:19:00.000-08:00

The tests went on for hours. An MRI, an X-Ray, and more EKG’s were the major ones, and enough blood was drawn to make Conrad feel like a buffet for vampires. Through this tedious process Conrad noticed two things; Freddie never left and no one would give him anything for the pain.

Finally, shortly before noon, another doctor came in and told Conrad, “Good news, Mr. Kondratowicz. We’re letting you go home.”

“So what did you find out?”

“The good news is that you did not have a heart attack,” the doctor said. “We’d like you to follow up with your cardiologist and get a stress test and an echo-cardiogram taken to make absolutely sure, but we’re confident you won’t walk through the doors and keel over.”

“That’s good. So what’s wrong?” Conrad asked with a trace of impatience in his voice.

“You’re blood pressure is troubling, and your cholesterol is almost 270 and it needs to be around 200,” the doctor continued. “You’ll need to cut out fats and greasy foods, like say, Galaxy Burger. Caffeine is also a no-no.”

Conrad gave the doctor a dazed look. “So what’s making my shoulder hurt?” he asked with a clearly impatient tone.

“We’re not really sure,” the doctor shrugged. “It could be a pinched nerve or something muscular.”

“Well, what should I do to stop this damned pain?” Conrad asked, his voice growing louder with each word.

“I would take about 800 milligrams of ibuprofen. That should help in a few days. The nurse will check you out,” the doctor said as he left the room.

Freddie stood quietly waiting for the outburst. He didn’t have to wait long.

“They kept me in here and ran up my bill for over nine hours and all they can tell me is to take some freakin Advil?” Conrad began. “I’ve been TAKING the freakin’ Advil and that doesn’t seem to have helped much, does it?”

Freddie fought the urge to answer, knowing that this was a rhetorical question.

“These nitwits scare the hell out of me, suck my blood out a vial at a time, don’t do anything for me, and then tell me I can’t go to Galaxy Burger when it’s all over!”

“If you have a pinched nerve, I can get you in with my chiropractor tomorrow,” Freddie said. “I’ve taken a few nasty spills and he really helped me out.”

“I should have gone to you for medical advice,” Conrad said. “That’s the most constructive thing I’ve heard since I got here. There might be somebody who would actually do something! What a concept!”

When Conrad had finished venting, the nurse came in to discharge him. Along with her instructions, she game him a copy of the hospital’s recommended low-cholesterol diet plan. Freddie then walked with Conrad out to the parking lot.

“Are you sure you’re ok to drive, buddy?” Freddie asked.

“Yeah, I can at least make it back to campus,” Conrad assured him.

“I’ll follow you,” Freddie said.

“Sure, whatever,” Conrad replied as he settled into the drivers seat of his Toyota Tercell.

Once they were back in their suite, Freddie flipped on the television to catch the Redskins-Rams game while Conrad staggered into his room and reprised his collapse into bed. This one took better than the one last night, as his sleep-deprived body finally gave in to exhaustion. He slept until the early evening, got up long enough to nibble at some pizza that Freddie had ordered in, then went back to bed and slept through the night.

When Conrad woke up on Monday morning, there was a note from Freddie, who had already headed out to an early class. He had an appointment at 11:30 with Dr. Smithson, a Midville chiropractor. Where doctors let you down, Conrad thought, friends step in to pick you up.

Dr. Smithson spent a few moments feeling around the back of Conrad’s neck while he laid face down on the examining table. “Yep, right here. I don’t think this nerve is pinched, but it’s severely aggravated. This hurts when I press down, doesn’t it?”

“Owww!” Conrad involuntary screeched.

“I’ll take that for a yes,” Dr. Smithson said. “Let’s get to work on it.”

The doctor proceeded to attach several electronic stimulus wires to Conrad’s neck and upper back, then fiddled with settings on the machine they were hooked into.

“We’ll leave you hooked up for about ten minutes and see how you do,” the doctor said as he stepped out of the treatment room, closing the door behind him.

Within moments, Conrad felt something he had not experienced in days-relief from the stabbing pain in his shoulder. It was still there, but had already approached tolerable levels. After the ten minute period had passed, Dr. Smithson reentered the room and asked Conrad how he felt.

“It’s amazing, doctor,” Conrad replied enthusiastically. “It’s still sore, but I can notice a significant reduction in the pain.”

“Good,” Dr. Smithson said, apparently not at all surprised. “That’s all we should do for today. Can you come back in tomorrow?”

“Hell yes!” Conrad said. “I’ll do this as long as I need to.”

“Good. My secretary will set up a time for you. We’ll probably need to do this up through Friday, then we can reassess. By the way, be careful how you use that arm. The best thing is to use it as little as possible for the next few days. Can you lift it up?”

Conrad, still lying down on the table, noticed he couldn’t even bring it up to the height of the table, much less raise it above his head. “No, I’m afraid I can’t.”

“Not to worry,” the doctor assured him. “There’s likely been some nerve damage. You’ll have to work to regain the movement and strength in the arm after we’ve healed it up a bit.”

“I can live with that, doctor, as long as the pain is manageable and I can get some sleep,” Conrad replied.

“You should see steady improvement in that, starting tonight,” Dr. Smithson said.

“Great,” Conrad said, filled with relief. “Thanks a lot for your help.”

“My pleasure,” the doctor said as he again left the room and closed the door.

Conrad returned to his suite and took a nap, the most restful sleep he had enjoyed in a week. He set his alarm to wake him up around suppertime. At the scheduled time, he arose and, while carefully protecting his still tender shoulder, took a badly needed shower. Feeling refreshed, he threw on some sweats and entered the living area.

He didn’t think much could surprise him any more, but he was taken aback with what he saw when he headed toward the kitchen. There was Freddie wearing an apron and a chef’s hat, both adorned with his official logo. He was baking some chicken in the stove. Before then, Conrad didn’t know for sure that the stove actually worked. On the burners sat two pots, one with carrots, the other with green beans. Conrad stood and took the scene in for a moment, at once both amused and touched that Freddie would go to this trouble for him.

“Hey Freddie, what’s going on,” Conrad asked with a smile. “Is the Queen of England coming for dinner?”

Freddie chuckled and turned toward Conrad. “No,” he replied with a smile, “just the King of Farnsworth sports. Glad you’re up and around. I guess my man did some good work on you.”

“Oh boy, he sure did,” Conrad enthusiastically responded. “I feel a lot better.
You didn’t have to go to all that trouble cooking dinner, man. Thanks.”

“Happy to do it, buddy,” Freddie said. “You’ve got to get that cholesterol down so you don’t go from the emergency room to the cardiac wing.”

“I just hope they don’t close down the Galaxy Burger in the student union as a result,” Conrad said.

“I’m sure it’ll still be there,” Freddie said. “They just won’t be able to give bonuses to the employees now.”

“Yeah, they’ll have to find someone else’s orders to mess up,” Conrad added. “I do have a wicked headache, though, probably because I haven’t had any caffeine in a day and a half. Let me reach around you here and grab a Diet Coke.”

Freddie moved over to allow Conrad to open the refrigerator.

“Hey, where’s my case of Diet Coke?” Conrad asked.

“I dumped them out,” Freddie said calmly. “Remember, the doctor said you couldn’t have any caffeine.”

“I know that, but I just need something to take the edge off,” Conrad said.

“Nope,” Freddie said. “No means no.”

“Aw come on, man! I need some caffeine,” Conrad whined.

“No, Conrad,” Freddie insisted. “Remember, you said you were going to quit feeling like a victim.”

“I’m going to make you feel like a victim if I don’t get some caffeine!” Conrad said.

Suddenly, he lifted Freddie up and threw him up against the wall, grabbing him firmly beneath each armpit, ignoring the pain running down his left arm.

“Where’s my Diet Coke, you overgrown rodent,” Conrad said through gritted teeth, shaking Freddie as he spoke.

Before he knew what had happened, Conrad found himself lying face first on the floor with Freddie on top of him with a knee buried in Conrad’s back, twisting his right arm behind him.

“Damn, Freddie, how’d you do that?” Conrad asked in amazement through gritted teeth.

“I wind up in a lot of places where they might not look so kindly on a guy wearing a ferret suit,” Freddie said. “I had to either learn how to defend myself or rest in pieces. By the way, I know 15 different ways to kill you from this position. I thought you might want to know that.”

“That is very interesting,” Conrad agreed. “Thanks for sharing that.”

“Now, I hope I have motivated you to apologize for the ‘overgrown rodent’ remark you just made,” Freddie said evenly.

“Highly motivated, my friend,” Conrad replied enthusiastically. “Highly motivated. I am truly sorry for losing it, Freddie. Please accept my sincere apology.”

Before Freddie responded, Junior burst through the trap door from Freddie’s room, not wanting to miss any of the action. He positioned himself in front of Conrad, still prone on the floor, and began chewing on his nose.

“Well,” Freddie said, “if Junior’s cool with it, so am I.” Freddie took his knee off of Conrad’s back and released his arm. He then lent a hand as Conrad slowly staggered to his feet.

“By the way,” Freddie added, “did you notice that I did not twist your bad arm?”

“Mighty decent of you,” Conrad said. “Hey, I’m really sorry for calling you a rodent and throwing you up against the wall”

“You called me an overgrown rodent,” Freddie corrected him. “I resented that because I work hard to stay in shape.”

“You look lovely,” Conrad said. “Can we sit down and enjoy the nice dinner you were kind enough to make?”

“Even without caffeine?” Freddie asked.

“Well, I guess I need to get used to it,” Conrad said, “so yeah, I’ll just have some water.”

Freddie reached in the refrigerator, pulled out a bottle of spring water, and handed it to Conrad.

“Thanks,” Conrad said. “You’ll make someone a wonderful wife someday.”

“Yeah,” Freddie said, “don’t you wish you could have some of this fur for yourself.”

“There’s a mental image I’ll spend the rest of the night trying to get out of my head,” Conrad said as they sat down to eat a peaceful dinner.

After dinner, Freddie handed Conrad an envelope. “Gretchen called me this afternoon and asked me to give this to you,” Freddie said.

Opening the envelope, Conrad found a copy of a page from Sports Illustrated. It was from an advance of the issue coming out the following weekend, a page from their front section, called “Scorecard.” The magazine included several short noteworthy items, and one of this issue’s carried the heading “Scoreless.”

“Oh holy crap,” Conrad said ruefully as he read the item, slowly annunciating each word. “We are officially an item of curiosity on our way to becoming a laughing stock.”

“You mean Farnsworth got mentioned in Sports Illustrated?” Freddie asked with amazement.

“Yep,” Conrad replied. “They did a short piece on our now infamous water polo team.”

“That can’t be good,” Freddie said.

“No, it isn’t,” Conrad said. “They pointed out that not only have we not come close to winning a game this season, we haven’t even scored a goal.”

“Well,” Freddie added, “at least they got their facts right.”

“They closed with a cheap shot I don’t think you’ll care for,” Conrad added. “To quote, they wrote ‘apparently, Ferrets aren’t very good swimmers.”

“Those bastards!” Freddie said contemptuously.

“We can expect to get some press coverage for our next game because of this,” Conrad said. “If the streak continues, it will just build up over for the last two games.”

“Yeah, and without a sports information director, that’ll fall onto you to coordinate it, won’t it?” Freddie asked.

“Yep,” Conrad replied with resignation. “I needed this like I needed another freakin’ hole in my head.”

Conrad began to eat the meal that Freddie had served up while they were talking. “This is great, Freddie! The chicken is moist and very pleasantly seasoned. How did you get to be such a good cook?”

“Well,” Freddie said, “you’d be amazed at how ladies love a man that can function well in the kitchen. It’s a skill that I practiced and that’s come in very handy.”

“You furry gigolo,” Conrad said. “You know, the last time a woman fixed me a nice sit down meal, I had to sleep with her. I’m assuming that’s not part of the deal here, right?”

“You’re a nice guy and all that,” Freddie said, “but I’m afraid things might get weird between us afterward.”

Conrad stroked his goatee and nodded. “Good point, my friend. We wouldn’t want things to get weird around here, would we? So, what’s for dessert?”

“You are a greedy little bastard, aren’t you?” Freddie asked. “This is it pal.”

“Oh, you’re such a tease,” Conrad said with mock disgust. “Hey, wasn’t today the reading of Father Ferret’s will?”

“Yes it was,” Freddie replied.

“So whatcha get, whatcha get?” Conrad asked.

“A horse,” Freddie answered.

“Aw, that’s sweet, the little ferret boy got a horsie,” Conrad said in baby talk. “No, really, what did he leave you?”

“A horse,” Freddie reiterated. “A race horse.”

“Really?” Conrad said with astonishment. “Wow, how cool is that?”

“It could be pretty cool,” Freddie agreed. “He’s stabled at Happy Trails Racetrack, you know, about 30 minutes from here. He’s running a race next week and I was wondering if you’d like to go with me and check him out.”

“Would I?” Conrad shrieked. “Of course I would. Just remind me to leave my credit cards here. If I remember correctly, they’ve got slot machines there and, well, I’ve got a bit of a problem in that environment.”

“Sure thing,” Freddie said.

“Oh, by the way, what’s the horse’s name?” Conrad asked.

“Ferret Face,” Freddie replied.

“Perfect,” Conrad said with an approving nod.

Part 1, Episode 21: "A Dab of Reality, A Pinch of Mortality"

2006-12-05T17:37:00.000-08:00

As Conrad walked toward his office the next morning, he could hear growling from Gretchen’s cubicle, an early warning sign of trouble. He felt his pace, already slower than usual after another restless night because of his sore shoulder, reduce to nearly a crawl. After the emotional ringer he had been through the last few days, he just didn’t need to start the day with a new problem.

As he reached his office, Conrad saw that this was not a new problem. Rather, it was a new episode of an ongoing concern. “Conrad, I really, really need to see you,” the water polo coach, Biff Fishwell said as he stood to greet his boss. Conrad stopped, took a deep breath, and escorted the coach into his office accompanied by the background noise of Gretchen’s barking.

After plopping into his chair and grimacing when it felt that a hot knife had been stuck through his shoulder, Conrad engaged the obviously troubled water polo coach. “What’s on your mind, Biff?”

“I can’t take this anymore, Conrad,” Fishwell blurted out. “I just can’t freaking take it!”

“I’m assuming you didn’t win yesterday,” Conrad said.

“Are you kidding?” Fishwell screeched. “We don’t win. We lose and lose and lose, and then you know what? We lose some more. I can’t take it!”

Conrad sighed and gingerly sat back in his chair. “How bad was it yesterday?” he asked.

“14-0,” Fishwell spit out. “14-0! You just can’t lose a water polo game 14-0. This is an embarrassment. My reputation will be ruined! I can’t take it anymore.”

Conrad pulled his chair up to the edge of his desk, sat up straight, and locked into direct eye contact with Fishwell. “Look, Biff,” Conrad said, measuring his words in a very firm tone, “you talked Mr. Farnsworth into starting this program. You told him you could put together a decent team when common sense would tell you otherwise. Now you have failed miserably and you want to bail out!? Are you really that much of a weasel?”

Fishwell looked at Conrad for a moment and softly said, “I’m afraid I am.”

Conrad, not for the first time since coming to Farnsworth U, fought the urge to jump over his desk and strangle the person sitting in front of him. After again successfully resisting that urge, he looked at Fishwell and said, “I will not allow you to bail out on those poor kids that have tried their best to represent this school. They’ve been put in a no-win situation, literally, and I will not let you sneak out the back door. You make sure your ass is at practice today working with those kids and trying to salvage something out of this disaster. They deserve your best effort, and you had better give it to them. Understood?”

“Yes sir,” Fishwell sheepishly said.
“Good. Now get out of my office,” Conrad concluded and turned toward his office window.

Another Saturday meant another exciting afternoon of Fighting Ferret football. For this game, Conrad and Troy Flemstone had to make the three and one-half hour trip to Charlesport, Pennsylvania to broadcast Farnsworth’s game against the Charlesport College Charley Horses.

The Ferrets entered this game at 0-8, having suffered two blowout losses since their last-second defeat vs. Key College. Charlesport’s season was heading in the opposite direction, with only one loss in their eight games. Conrad and Troy both expected to watch another bad beating vs. the Horses, and agreed that the only thing worse than watching your team get slaughtered was having to go so far out of your way to do so.

Conrad and Troy correctly anticipated the outcome, a 45-3 thrashing. Perhaps the most discouraging thing about it for Conrad was the fact that the Ferrets had not made many mistakes. They had drastically reduced their tendency to turn the ball over deep in their own territory and set their opponents up for easy scores. That should have been encouraging, but instead the Farnsworth team was physically pummeled on both sides of the ball.

Charlesport did not need turnovers to dominate the Ferrets. They totally controlled the line of scrimmage and methodically marched downfield nearly every time they had the ball. Stump Williams’ team seemed helpless to do much about it. The defense had kept them in games early in the season, but that unit appeared to have nothing left in the tank at this point.

Troy noticed Conrad was unusually quiet on the trip back from north-central Pennsylvania, passing countless bars and adult bookstores on the winding and hilly country roads. Conrad mentioned how sore his shoulder was and asked Troy how his collarbone was healing. The news from his doctors was good and he was healing at a rapid pace. He was now nearly off the painkillers and feeling a lot more like himself.

“Do you have any of those with you?” Conrad asked.

“You mean my painkillerth?’ Troy replied.

“Yeah, you got any on you?” Conrad reiterated.

“Why?” Troy asked. “You aren’t thopothed to take thoth without a prethrcipthun.”

“I know, but one would hopefully take the edge off and let me get some sleep tonight.” Conrad said.

“Well, I gueth tho,” Troy acquiesced. “You really thould eat thomething with that, though. Let’s thtop at the next gath thation and get a thnak.”

“Okay, whatever,” Conrad agreed. “I don’t need to get sick to my stomach on top of my shoulder throbbing.”

“Ith none of my buthineth, but have you thought about theeing a doctor?” Troy reluctantly inquired.

“Yeah, but I hate to take the time,” Conrad said, trying to blow off the suggestion. “I’m sure I just slept on it wrong or something. I just need to get some sleep and give it time to heal up.

“I hope you’re right,” Troy said, feeling he had nudged Conrad as hard as he was comfortable doing. About 15 miles outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Troy saw a gas station with a food store and pumped gas while Conrad went in to select snacks for them both. Back on the road, Conrad quickly downed his Twinkies and a bottle of water along with one of Troy’s pain pills and managed to doze off before they crossed the Mason-Dixon Line back into Maryland.

Troy drove Conrad to his suite on campus and refused the gas money offered to him. “You’ve got the next trip,” Troy said, “jutht try to get thome retht. If you don’t get any relief, pleath go and get your thoulder looked at.”

“I will Troy,” Conrad lied, “thanks again for the ride.”

It was still before 9:00 PM on a Saturday night, but Conrad had eyes only for his bed. He went to his room, closed the door, and plopped on the bed without bothering to take his clothes off. He had figured he still had some buzz from Troy’s pain pill and wanted to get the maximum benefit.

Conrad slept until nearly 1:00 AM when he awoke to a burning, searing pain now shooting down his shoulder through his left arm. Still not fully awake, his clouded mind told him he might get some relief by going out onto the couch, where he could get some support for his shoulder. He tried that for a while with no noticeable relief. Nearly crazed with pain, he got up and paced around the suite. Junior popped out of Freddie’s room acting like he wanted to play whatever game he thought Conrad was playing, but all he succeeded in doing was nearly being stepped on. Finally seeing the little ferret at the last second, Conrad avoided squishing Freddie’s adopted son.

That momentary distraction from the pain provided a moment of clarity in his foggy thoughts. Shooting pains down the left arm, he thought, that sounds like a heart attack, or at least some type of heart problem. Oh my God! I’ve got to break down and get this checked out, he thought. I’m not going to just stand here and keel over like my dad did.

Since the hospital was less than two miles away, Conrad decided to drive himself to the emergency room and not disturb Freddie. He knew late Saturday night/early Sunday morning was the worst time to go, since he would get mixed in with victims of bar fights, shootings, and other alcohol related mischief, but he was too afraid to wait until later in the morning. Maybe at least they could give him something for the pain while they diagnosed what the cause was, he hoped.

It was after 2:30 AM when Conrad walked through the emergency room door at Central Maryland Hospital. Apparently there was not the usual amount of Saturday night mayhem, or else it had occurred earlier and been cleared out, because he had only a short wait before being called up to the admission window.

Trying to get an asian-american nurse to spell his polish-american name probably kicked his blood pressure up at least another ten points, but the effort finally proved successful. His blood pressure checked in at a disturbing 180/110, which probably accounted for the warmth he felt in his face and ears. This usually happened when he was angry or frustrated, so it was a sensation he had become all too familiar with the last few weeks.

The beds in the emergency room were not known for comfort, and try as he might Conrad could not get himself positioned in a way that did not exacerbate the nearly overwhelming pain in his shoulder that was steadily making its way down his arm, now passing below the elbow. His blood pressure was checked again, now registering 185/113. The obligatory “just-in-case” IV tube was inserted into a vein just above his left wrist, a normally unpleasant feeling that tonight was agonizing.

After only a few minutes of waiting, an attendant showed up with an EKG machine. The leads were quickly attached, and the test was run. “Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks I’m having some type of heart episode,” Conrad thought. He received further confirmation of that a brief time later when a doctor came in holding the printout.

“Mr. Kondratowicz, there is an irregularity in your EKG,” the doctor, with “Patel” on his nametag, told Conrad. “We’ll be sending you down for an MRI shortly to check it out some more.”

Before Conrad could ask any questions, the doctor was gone and replaced by a nurse who was setting him up with oxygen. “Can I get something for this damned pain?” Conrad asked her.

“No sir,” she answered, “not until we run some more tests. Now just lay back and rest until we take you downstairs.”

Seeing no other options, Conrad did as he was told. He laid back and tried to take his mind off the pain still shooting down his arm and the possibility of a life-threatening event actually going on inside his body at that very moment.
He was scared, and he was alone.

Conrad had never felt so alone in his life. There had always been his parents there as a kid, his mother, at least to some extent, as a young adult, and then Camilla. But now, both his parents had passed on and Camilla was 3,000 miles away. When asked who should be contacted in case of an emergency, he had given the nurse his own home phone number and Freddie’s name. She gave him a strange look, apparently not familiar with Farnsworth U.

Conrad’s life had reached the point where the person closest to him in the world was a guy in a ferret suit. His best friend for over 25 years, Nick Petrocini, had apparently lost his phone number. Even the last couple of times Conrad had given in and called him, Nick got him off the phone as quickly as possible. How in the hell could things have come to this, he thought.

Suddenly, he heard a commotion down the hall and saw several members of the emergency room staff dash by his bed in a blur. The noised continued for a few moments until it was replaced by an eerie quiet, almost as if the oxygen had been completely sucked out of the area. A short time later, he saw a couple he believed to be husband and wife shuffle by his bed on the way to the exit. The woman was walking with her head buried in her husband’s shoulder, and Conrad could hear her quietly sobbing. Walking a few feet behind them, with a very somber look on his face, was a priest.

“Father, what happened?” Conrad called out to him without thinking.

The priest stopped and walked toward the foot of Conrad’s bed. “That couple just lost their four-year old son,” he said. “He had run out into the street and been hit by a car.”

“Geez, that’s terrible,” Conrad said.

“Yes, it was a very painful loss,” the priest agreed.

“I’ll offer a prayer for them, father,” Conrad said.

“Bless you,” the priest said. “I should be going.”

“Of course,” Conrad said, “Thanks for stopping by.”

Conrad began to drift off into sleep, still awaiting his MRI exam, when he heard a familiar voice. “Hey, Conrad, what’s goin’ on?” He didn’t even have to look to see the furry face that voice belonged to.

“They think I may be having a heart attack,” Conrad said.

“No!” Freddie said in astonishment. “Is that tied in with the pain you’ve been having in your shoulder?”

“They think so,” Conrad confirmed. “They said I had an abnormality on my EKG, whatever that means. I’m supposed to be going for an MRI to check it out further.”

“Damn,” Freddie said, clearly shaken. “You still in a lot of pain?”

“Oh yeah,” Conrad said ruefully. “I guess they don’t want to knock me out until they come up with a diagnosis.”

“You know,” Conrad continued, “I saw something pretty tough before you came.”

“Oh yeah?” Freddie replied. “What was that?”

“I saw a couple walk by that had just lost their four year old son,” Conrad said.

“He got hit by a car and died just a short time ago down the hall.”

“Man, that is tough,” Freddie agreed. “That’s about your daughter’s age, isn’t it?”

“Yep,” Conrad said. “It sort of puts things in perspective.”

“What do you mean?” Freddie asked.

“What I mean is that,” Conrad said, “even though my marriage is over and I’ll probably seldom see my daughter in the future, and I might be having a heart attack, at least at this moment I’ve still got a chance. I’ve already had chances that poor little boy never even dreamed of, and even though I’ve pissed those away, I’m still here. I can still get it right. I’m tired of feeling like a victim, Freddie, and if I walk out of this place, I will NOT be one going forward.”

“I hear that!” Freddie said as he watched tears stream down Conrad’s red cheeks.

“I mean it man!” Conrad shouted through sobs. “Whatever’s wrong with me physically, I’ll get it fixed and get on with my life! I can’t make up for the 43 years I’ve piddled away in bad relationships and working for ungrateful bosses, but I can make damned sure I stop that cycle right now!”

“You the man!” Freddie said, pumping his furry fist in the air.

“First, though,” Conrad concluded, “I need to find out what’s going on inside of me.”

Part 1, Episode 20: Digging Deep

2006-11-28T18:08:00.000-08:00

Still stinging from the harsh words from Camilla, Conrad returned to his suite and found Freddie sitting in the dark, staring at a blank television screen.

“What’s wrong, Freddie,” Conrad asked, suspecting he already knew the answer.

“He passed away a couple of hours ago,” Freddie said somberly, referring to the demise of Father Ferret.

“I’m really sorry buddy,” Conrad said, trying to console his friend. “I know he meant a lot to you.”

“He sure did,” Freddie said, still staring at the television. “He sure did.” Freddie then snapped out of his semi-trance and turned to Conrad. “How did your meeting go?” He asked.

“Well, I got what I wanted in the agreement, but it was still tough,” Conrad replied.

“Did you and she exchange words?” Freddie asked.

“Yeah,” Conrad sighed. “If you could make money as a ‘bitch-for-hire’ she’d get rich.”

Conrad joined Freddie on the couch and they both sat silent for a few moments.

“Look, this isn’t going to do either one of us any good,” Conrad finally said. “Let’s go out, throw down a couple of brewskis, and get some stuff off our chests.”

Freddie pondered that suggestion for a moment, then stood up and said, “You know what, you’re right! Let’s get out of here.”

Conrad drove them to “Chaps and Spurs” which, on a Wednesday night, was fairly quiet. Most of the customers there that evening were focused on the baseball playoffs, which held little interest for either Conrad or Freddie. Would the Yankees win again? Neither one cared.

They sat down in a corner booth and began sipping their first beers. Conrad then said to Freddie, “Tell me about Father Ferret. Gretchen filled me in on who he was to the school, but why do, er, did you feel so close to him?”

After contemplating that question for a few moments, Freddie began. “I guess she told you that he mentored me for a year before he went off to law school.”

“Yeah, I know that part,” Conrad replied.

“Well, Mr. Farnsworth knew my family from some business dealings he had with them, and he had suggested that I come to Farnsworth U to pursue my education. He told my folks he’d look after me. Not long after I began my freshman year, he called me in to his office and suggested that I take Father Ferret’s spot as the face of the school.”

Conrad again noticed that Freddie never referred to himself as a mascot, and correctly so. He was much more than that to Farnsworth. He was more like an ambassador in the community.

“I thought he was nuts,” Freddie continued. “I was real introverted, believe it or not, and just couldn’t see myself jumping around at the games, much less making the kind of public appearances that Father Ferret did. Mr. Farnsworth wouldn’t take no for an answer, though, and he can be a real persuasive dude. He assured me that Father Ferret would work with me during my first year, and that I wouldn’t just be thrown into it.”

“So you two really connected that year, I gather,” Conrad interjected.

“Oh, it was much more than that,” Freddie said. “As he got to know me, he found a person buried inside me that I had only dreamed of being. Once I put on this suit, I was free to find out who I really was. It turns out, I’m a hell of a guy!” Freddie said, extending his arms for effect.

Conrad grinned, smiling for the first time that evening. Freddie continued, “Father Ferret showed me how to come out of the shell, no, more like a prison that I had built around myself. He showed me that, inside this suit, I could start over and remake myself into the person I really wanted to be but was always steered away from.”

“What do you mean, steered away from,” Conrad asked.

“My parents were overprotective. No one I knew growing up really encouraged me to do much of anything. I wasn’t part of any group of friends, which is like a living death for a teenager. So I just sort of drifted off by myself, marking time.”

“Then you put on the ferret suit, and everything changed,” Conrad added.

“Absolutely!” Freddie agreed. “It wasn’t overnight, but by the end of that first year I became the furry gigolo you know and love today. Once I got out and around people, I realized I really loved it. Not only that, but for the first time in my life, other people really enjoyed having me around. I love feeding off that energy! If it wasn’t for Mr. Farnsworth pushing me into it and Father Ferret showing me the way, it never would have happened. This life I have now, and that I’ve had for over seven years, I owe to both of them, and now one of them is gone.”

Freddie’s voice trailed off, and the two sat quietly for a few minutes. Freddie then turned to Conrad and asked, “So, tell me about your wife. What happened?”

This was the first time that Freddie had ever asked about his personal life outside of Farnsworth in much depth, but after the insight he had just shared himself, Conrad felt obligated to dig deep and reciprocate. He let out a deep sigh and then began his own exposition.

“I guess if I had to point to one thing, it’s that we didn’t know each other well enough when we got married,” Conrad began. “We were both in our early 30’s when he got hitched and looking to start a family sooner rather than later. We were both more focused on that goal rather than understanding the other things we wanted from a relationship and eventually a marriage.”

“So why did the wheels start coming off the cart?” Freddie inquired.

“First, let me be clear,” Conrad replied. “Part of this is my fault. I was so focused on building my career, on proving my parents wrong, on shutting up that nagging voice in my head, that I didn’t save enough energy to be a very good husband, and certainly not much of a father.”
“Your folks didn’t think you would be successful?” Freddie asked. “How is that possible with someone like you?”

“They thought I could make something out of myself,” Conrad said, “but just not in sports. They didn’t think it was a ‘serious’ way to make a living, and that I certainly couldn’t support a family working in sports administration. My mom, in particular, wanted me to be an accountant. Can you believe that? It was safe and secure, she told me. Business will always need accountants. You’re so good with numbers, she told me.”

“So why didn’t you go into accounting?” Freddie asked.

“Well, about a week after I graduated high school,” Conrad continued, “my dad died. He just keeled over in his truck one day from a heart attack. He smoked two packs of cigarettes a day, something I make a point of not doing myself. Anyway, I realized that life was too short to get pigeon holed into a career I didn’t particularly want to pursue. I knew from the time I was in junior high school I wanted to work in sports and, after seeing first hand how quickly life could end, I was determined I was gong to spend mine doing something I enjoyed. My mother never accepted the fact that I went against her advice and held it against me until the day she died two years ago.”

“Wow, that’s tough man,” Freddie said. “Hey, what’s wrong? You don’t look very comfortable.”

“I’ve been having spasms under my left shoulder blade,” Conrad replied. “I must have slept on it wrong. So anyway I had spent several years going in and out of relationships when a co-worker at EAPU introduced me to Camilla at a party. He was her cousin and knew that, like me, she was looking to settle down. We hit it off right away. She was hot, and looking into her eyes stirred a rumbling in my loins I had previously reserved for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. We dated for about six months before I proposed to her on New Year’s Eve. We got married the following May. It was all going to be happily ever after.”

“Was it ever good?” Freddie asked.

“Oh yeah,” Conrad quickly confirmed. “We had a lot of fun when we were together, and we really got into some wild monkey lovin’ underneath the sheets. Damn she was hot!”

Conrad drifted off for a moment, then Freddie asked, “so what changed things.”

“We waited a year, then tried to get pregnant. I knocked her up pretty quick, but she miscarried. After another year she got pregnant again, then miscarried. Finally, on the third try we had Connie, who was a beautiful, healthy little baby girl.

Despite that, Camilla was never the same after the miscarriages. We didn’t have fun that much anymore, even before Connie came into the picture. We went from making steaming passionate love to having ritualistic sex so I could try and plant my seed inside her. We both retreated away from each other and into our work. The more successful she became as a research scientist at Johns Hopkins, the more she resented the time I spent working at EAPU. Just like my mom, she did not treat that as a serious career path, and the more time I spent there, the less she respected me.”

“Boy, that’s got to be tough to live with someone who doesn’t respect you,” Freddie says.

“You’ve got that right, my furry friend,” Conrad replied. “She claims that losing my job at EAPU was the final straw for her, but I think she had been looking for an excuse to bail out and run back to mommy and daddy in San Diego for a while. She hated Baltimore and complained all the time about the environment she was trying to bring Connie up in. She may have tolerated our marriage a while longer if I had agreed to get a job out there, but I think that would have only put a band-aid on things. Eventually, our marriage would have bled to death.”

“What are you going to do about Connie,” Freddie asked.

“I don’t see much I can do,” Conrad said with a tone of resignation. “Camilla is right when she says I wasn’t much of a father. How could I be when I was seldom there? Ultimately, she’s better off with her mother and grandparents in San Diego. I just hope I can get another chance at being a father and try to do it right this time.”

A memorial service for Father Ferret was held at the chapel on the grounds of Farnsworth University, per his request before passing on. The service was scheduled to begin at 3:00 pm, but when Conrad and Gretchen arrived from the office at 2:30, all of the pews were completely filled. Classes had been cancelled that afternoon, and it appeared that most of the staff and many of the students had taken advantage of the opportunity to attend.

Conrad had noticed his shoulder continue to worsen, which now made standing in one place for any period of time uncomfortable to the point of being excruciating. He was determined to gut it out, though, and not be the only member of the Farnsworth Athletic Department not to show for the funeral.

It turned out Julius Rosencrantz was Jewish, so the service was officiated by Rabbi Ira Lewis from Midville’s B’nai Israel temple. It was easy to pick out Julius’ family, since they were the only group seated together wearing yarmulkes. Everyone else in attendance appeared to be a gentile.

As the pain in his shoulder worsened, Conrad found himself struggling to follow the details of the service. He did catch most of Mr. Farnsworth’s remarks, where he spoke of how Julius had almost single-handedly been responsible for developing school spirit at Farnsworth.

The Old Man talked about how Julius had taken the role of mascot and expanded it beyond his wildest dreams, and as a result was as responsible for the school becoming an integral part of the Midville community. He also shared stories of former and current students who had met Father Ferret when they were youngsters (he was called that even then, he did not want to be known as just ‘The Ferret) and thought about how cool it might be to attend Farnsworth when they were old enough. He also announced plans to rededicate the ferret statue outside Farnsworth Forum in Julius’s name.

Mr. Farnsworth’s comments were followed by the formal eulogy given by Freddie. Conrad strained to see if Freddie had a yarmulke on, but it appeared he did not. While the Old Man had put Father Ferret in the proper historical context from a “big picture” point of view, Freddie focused on the direct relationship between him and Julius.

Freddie spoke emotionally but eloquently, a feat that, according to what he had previously told Conrad, he would have been unlikely to do before being taken under Julius’ wing. Freddie’s comments were not quite as revealing as what he had shared with Conrad at Chaps and Spurs, but they still served to portray Julius as a kind and giving man who was responsible for turning Freddie’s life around.

As Freddie closed his remarks, he took out a black armband, strapped it around his left arm, and asked all Farnsworth athletes to wear one for the balance of the school year. Although Conrad wished Freddie had ran that by him first, he made a mental note to issue a department-wide e-mail supporting that request and turning it into policy.
The service concluded with the Farnsworth chorus giving a beautiful rendition of “Amazing Grace,” then the crowd slowly filed out. Conrad slowly made his way to the front of the chapel like the proverbial salmon swimming upstream to see Freddie. Finally reaching his friend, Conrad put his hand on his shoulder and said, “Excellent job, Freddie. I’m sure Father Ferret would have been deeply touched by your words.”

“Thanks, Conrad,” Freddie said. “That was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do.”

“Well, you did great,” Conrad added. “Where are you heading?”

“The Rosencratz family invited me to the wake, so I’m going to spend some time with them,” Freddie said.

“Good,” Conrad said. “I’ll see you whenever you get home.”

Conrad had planned on taking in the end of either the field hockey or women’s soccer games, but instead walked around campus lost in his thoughts. He had never met Father Ferret, but just watching such an outpouring of grief was very unsettling. It made the dozen or so people that gathered for his mother’s funeral seem even paltrier in contrast.

Like most people, Conrad had never dealt with death very well. Although he had been brought up in a catholic home, his faith had waned greatly over the years, making the thoughts of death even more troubling by diminishing the focus on a happy afterlife. He had lost so much over these past few weeks, he thought, and he was damned tired of it. As his shoulder continued to throb, he just felt very, very tired.

Part 1, Episode 19: "Comings and Goings"

2006-11-21T17:54:00.000-08:00

Father Ferret continued to hover near death for a couple of days, and a noticeable pall had descended upon the Farnsworth campus. Conrad finally called Gretchen in to his office and asked, “What is the deal with Father Ferret?”

“What do you mean,” she replied.

‘I understand that he was the first mascot here,” Conrad said, “but the way people are acting, it’s like he founded the place. I’d expect that if the Old Man were sick, but not a former mascot.”

“Oh, so no one’s told you his story yet, huh? Meow,” Gretchen said.

“No,” Conrad said.

“Well, if you’ve got a few minutes I can fill you in,” Gretchen offered.

“Please do,” Conrad said. “I’m all ears.”

“Sure,” Gretchen began. “Julius Rosencrantz, AKA Father Ferret, enrolled as a student here when Farnsworth opened its doors eleven years ago. He was studying pre-law.”

“Can I insert a joke here?” Conrad said snidely.

“I wish you wouldn’t,” Gretchen admonished. “We didn’t have any sports teams that first year but plans were underway to start an athletic program in the second year. Mr. Farnsworth held a contest among the students to find the best possible mascot for the school.”

“So Fighting Ferrets wasn’t his brainstorm?” Conrad said.

“He added the fighting part, but no, ferrets came about as a result of the contest,” Gretchen said. “There were at least a couple hundred entries, and they pretty well ran the gamut from traditional, you know, lions, tigers and bears…”

“Oh my!” Conrad interrupted.

Gretchen glared at her boss for a moment and began barking. “Are you going to let me finish this?” she asked with a very peeved tone.

Conrad sat back in his chair, hunched down like an admonished little boy. “I’m sorry, Gretchen,” he said. “Please continue.”

Gretchen stopped barking and resumed telling the story. “As I was saying, the entries into the mascot contest ranged from the traditional to the downright weird. One guy came up with “The Fire.”

“That doesn’t seem so strange,” Conrad said.

“Not on the surface,” Gretchen agreed, “but it turns out he was just a pyromaniac who was looking for an excuse to set things on fire. He nearly succeeded in burning down the gymnasium during tryouts. Anyway, it came down to ferrets and aardvarks.”

Conrad stared at Gretchen for a moment. “You’ve got to be joking,” he said. “What kind of drugs was the committee on?”

“There was no committee,” Gretchen said. “It was solely up to Mr. Farnsworth. He was going through a divorce at the time, I think it was his fourth, I lose track, and we weren’t quite sure what medication he was taking.”

“Aardvark?” Conrad asked.

“Mr. Farnsworth obviously liked the idea of having a unique mascot,” Gretchen said. “He considered aardvark because that would put our school first alphabetically on any listing of college mascots. So anyway, it came down to Julius’ ferret and Andy Aaron’s aardvark.”

“Was Andy any relation to Hank Aaron,” Conrad asked, unable to stop himself from yet another smart-ass remark.

“Funny you should ask that,” Gretchen replied. “Andy told everyone he was a distant cousin of Hanks, but no one really believed him. That ultimately hurt his chances of gaining Mr. Farnsworth’s approval.”

“Why did people doubt him?” Conrad asked.

“Mainly because Andy was white,” she said. ‘Yes, it was still possible he was related, but no one really bought it.”

“So what finally swung Mr. Farnsworth to pick the ferret,” Conrad asked.

“It was really more like he picked Julius than his falling in love with the ferret,”
Gretchen said. “Julius somehow got a ferret suit made for him, one that looks a lot like what Freddie wears now.

“Any idea why he wanted to be a ferret?” Conrad asked.

“I think it was something about him having one for a pet as a child. The story goes that he really loved it, but it got run over by a pet supplies truck.”

“Can’t escape the irony there,” Conrad interrupted.

“Anyway,” Gretchen said after a deep sigh, “There was something about him that was hard to describe. He really seemed like the embodiment of what school spirit should be about. Julius was the most enthusiastic person anyone could remember every being around. Mr. Farnsworth felt he would be the perfect person to become the face of the school.”

“So he went all around town like Freddie does now?” Conrad asked.

“Even more so, if you can believe it,” Gretchen said. “In a very short time, a public event wasn’t worth the effort to put it on if Father Ferret wasn’t there. He did everything from new building dedications to birthday parties. He was everywhere, and everyone loved him.”

“Was he called ‘Father Ferret’ then?” Conrad asked.

“Yes, he was,” Gretchen replied. “From the start, Julius was simply magical with little kids. That’s where he’s a bit different than Freddie, who is more comfortable with other adults. Julius loved kids, and they loved him right back. There are students on campus now that enrolled here in large part because they remember Father Ferret playing with them or hugging them or just carrying on like a nut and as a result they grew up wanting to come to the school with the Ferret.”

“Wow, talk about a genius stroke of public relations,” Conrad said.

“It sure was, and it’s a tradition that Freddie carries on very well now,” Gretchen said. “We’ve needed to keep the focus on the Ferret given the lack of success our sports teams have had and the occasional indiscretion from Mr. Farnsworth.”

“Well, did Julius mentor Freddie?” Conrad asked.

“He sure did,” Gretchen said. “Julius was the Ferret for two years, but he knew he would never make it into law school without giving his studies full focus during his final year. He told Mr. Farnsworth, who then found Freddie. Julius taught Freddie the ropes for his first year, then left Freddie on his own when he went off to law school.”

“Did Freddie try out for the spot like Julius did?” Conrad asked.

“I don’t really know how Mr. Farnsworth came up with Freddie,” Gretchen admitted. “It was like all of a sudden he just appeared on campus in the ferret suit. No one I know of has ever seen him without it or even knows what his name was. He’s just always been Freddie Ferret.”

That was true enough, Conrad thought. Freddie didn’t just play the role of the ferret; he WAS the ferret.

That evening, Conrad entered his suite following his stop at Galaxy Burger shortly after Freddie had returned from another visit to Father Ferret, who was still in intensive care at Johns Hopkins. “Hey Freddie,” Conrad greeted him. “You want to go out and throw down a few and try to get your mind off things tonight?”

“I’m not sure I would be very good company,” Freddie said.

“That’s okay, I can be charming enough for both of us,” Conrad told his friend.
Freddie smiled at hearing the familiar line. While he was considering the invitation, Conrad’s cell phone rang. John Smith was on the other end of the call.

“Hey boss, are you in the middle of anything?” John said excitedly.

“Not really,” Conrad asked, fearing there was another disaster for him to clean up. “What’s up?”

“I think I’ve found your bowling team,” John said.

“You found an entire team?” Conrad asked incredulously.

“Yep,” John assured him. “Can you come down to Town Square Lanes and check them out?”

“Yeah, why not,” Conrad said. “They are prospective students, aren’t they?”

“Yes sir,” John said. “They’re going to Midville Community College this semester.”

“That’s encouraging,” Conrad replied. “I’ll be right down.”

After hanging up the phone, Conrad turned to Freddie and asked, “You want to come along with me and check out some prospective bowlers?”

Freddie did not immediately jump at the opportunity.

“They’re young ladies, you know,” Conrad said.

“Let’s roll,” Freddie said as he jumped to his feet.

Conrad and Freddie arrived at the Town Square Lanes on the other side of the tracks. No really, they had to cross railroad tracks to get there. Anyway, Freddie’s arrival caused quite a stir, and Midville’s favorite celebrity passed through the throng of bowlers hugging the ladies and shaking the men’s hands. They found John Smith waiting for them near the far end of the bowling center, waving at them like he was trying to land a plane.

“Alright John, here we are,” Conrad began, “where’s the bowlers.”

John pointed to the pair of lanes immediately in front of them. There, wearing identical pink bowling shirts with “Midville Beauty Center” in black script on the back were five identical looking girls.

Conrad and Freddie stood and stared for a moment, and Conrad felt his jaw drop slightly. John, pleased with the dramatic impact, said “Gentlemen, I give you the McNulty quintuplets; Jan, Jean, Jen, Joan, and June.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Conrad finally managed to get out. He looked up at the scores being flashed overhead and saw that the quints were destroying their competition, “Barney’s Bail Bonds.” “What kind of averages are they carrying?” he asked.

“They’re all in the 180’s,” John replied. “They’ve been bowling since they were eight, and they’ve got a bunch of trophies they won along the way in different age-group tournaments. They might be pros somewhere down the line.”

“Are they interested in a college education?” Conrad asked.

“Oh yeah,” John replied. “They’re going to Midville Community College now because that’s all they can afford. They’re all working part-time to pay for it while they still live at home.”

“This would really be something, quints on the same college team,” Conrad said, considering the possibility of the Ferrets’ sports program actually receiving some positive recognition in the media.

“That’s what I thought, sir,” John said. “Look, they’re finishing up their final game. I asked them to stay around afterward so you could meet them.”

“Sounds good,” Conrad said. “Freddie, let’s grab a seat and watch them finish up.”

Conrad, Freddie, and John sat together and watched the McNulty quints finish up a sweep in their match. Conrad couldn’t help but notice how cute they were. All five girls were blonde, between 5’ 5” and 5’ 7” with average builds but, unlike so many young girls these days, they had curves.

Conrad’s mind raced, imagining their pictures on calendars, posters on the walls of teenage boys all around Midville. He imagined them posing in a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue in the section where they featured attractive athletes. Look out, Anna Kournakova, here come the McNulty quints!

The girls finished up their match and, seeing Freddie sitting with the others in the snack bar, squealed with excitement and rushed to meet him. “Oooh, Freddie, you’re so cute!” Jan said. Or was it Jean? Maybe it was June. Could have been Jen. Perhaps it was Joan. Could we please have them wear name tags if they’re going to be in this story, would that be too much to ask?

By the time 7:00 came around the next evening, Conrad was wrung out. It had been a fairly quiet day at work and John Smith was moving along full steam ahead on drawing up the paperwork to offer financial-aid scholarships to the McNulty quintuplets, pending NCAA certification of the Farnsworth bowling team as a varsity sport. There was no change in Father Ferret’s condition, although his time on earth still appeared short.

Conrad had been bothered all day by muscle spasms below his left shoulder blade, but what had really weighed on his mind was the meeting scheduled with Camilla that night. He no longer thought of her as his wife, rather, as his future ex-wife. She had bailed out on him and took their daughter 3,000 miles away from him, effectively extinguishing the final dying embers of their marriage.

What Conrad had found out since then was that, despite the pain his marriage had brought him, he still desired female companionship. How else could he rationally explain his attraction to the stupid football coach just because he was dressed in drag? He still had trouble thinking about that little escapade.

It would be several more months before a divorce could be finalized, but Conrad did not want to wait that long to restart the romantic portion of his life. It may be all for naught, he may not find anyone that tickled his fancy, that he truly wanted to be with, but he knew he wanted the door to be open just in case.

That was the mindset with which he approached this meeting with Camilla and their attorneys at the Baltimore firm of Rabinowitz, Fine, and Sheckel, Camilla’s representatives. “That controlling bitch would have to have ‘home court advantage,’ wouldn’t she,” he thought. She hadn’t even bothered to bring little Connie cross-country with her, making it clear she wanted to spend as little time in Conrad’s presence as humanly possible. They had agreed to meet to tie up any remaining loose ends and establish the framework for their divorce settlement, making the final hearing after the required 12-month separation a mere formality.

When Conrad arrived, Camilla and both attorneys were already in place. He had
under estimated the flow of traffic along Interstate 70, and it was nearly 7:15 when he entered the meeting room. Camilla, impatient as usual, was visibly annoyed but said nothing. Not hello, how are you, nothing. Conrad’s attorney, Myron Lebowitz, began the meeting by reviewing the terms he and Camilla’s representative, Ira Finkelstein, had negotiated.

Conrad was pleased that there were no surprises as they went through the arrangements. Their house would be offered to the current renter after his one-year lease expired. If he declined the option, it would be put on the market with Conrad and Camilla splitting the receipts. There would be no alimony and, since Camilla made significantly more money than Conrad, he would be liable for only a token child support payment. In exchange for that, Camilla was not obligated to bring Connie back to the east coast at any set time. Conrad would have to take the initiative and bear the expense of traveling to California to visit her.

The final item discussed did catch Conrad by surprise. Camilla had requested a stipulation that both parties were free to have any and all levels of involvement with members of the opposite sex short of marriage during the separation period without penalty. He was all too happy to accept this, and the meeting ended with all parties signing the document and the attorneys leaving the room.
Conrad stood up and stared across the table at Camilla, who was quickly gathering her belongings and ready to make a quick exit. “So you’ve found someone else, huh?” he asked.

“Why do you say that,” Camilla responded coldly.

“You wouldn’t have agreed to that clause if it wasn’t in your interest,” Conrad said. “You’d leave me hanging if you didn’t already have your next victim picked out.”

“He’s a good man who meets my needs,” Camilla said, still not looking at Conrad. “He adores Connie, and she has taken to him very well.”

“You didn’t waste much time finding a replacement,” Conrad said.

Camilla looked sternly into Conrad’s eyes and said, “The position has been vacant for some time. I finally had the opportunity to fill it with a qualified person.”

Conrad was reeling internally from that vicious blow, but was determined not to show it. “Goodbye, Camilla.”

She turned and headed out the door. Without looking back, she said, “Goodbye, Conrad.”

Part 1, Episode 18: Four F-The Man, The Myth, The Moron

2006-11-09T18:24:00.000-08:00

From the telltale mooing he heard outside his office, Conrad knew trouble was approaching. Gretchen stuck her head in the door and said, “Hazel Broomhouse is here to see you, Conrad.”

That sounded harmless enough, he thought, although he wondered what a Hazel Broomhouse was and why she wanted to see him. “What is she here for?” he asked.

“Something about a bowling team?” Gretchen replied, sounding puzzled.

“Oh, okay,” Conrad said. “We’re looking at starting a varsity bowling team next season.”

Gretchen hesitated for a minute, looked out towards the hall, then back at Conrad. “You said a varsity team, right, not one we’re sponsoring at a local bowling alley? Moo!”

“Sure. We’re not going to fool with sponsoring anyone,” Conrad replied. “This is strictly varsity. Mr. Farnsworth told Four F to start doing some recruiting and send prospects in to see me.”

“Ooookay. I’ll send her in. Moo!” Gretchen said.

Moments later, a 50-ish lady who reminded Conrad of a less-attractive Shelly Winters strolled in to his office. Conrad stared at her until Hazel broke the silence. “I’m here for the bowling team,” she announced.

‘Okay,” Conrad said. “Have a seat.” He pondered how to handle what seemed to be another Four F foul up. Finally, he said to Hazel, “You realize that this is a varsity team.”

Hazel just stared back at him. After a moment, Conrad continued, “That means you would have to be a student here and enrolled in at least 12 credit hours to be eligible.”

Hazel’s face scrunched up, obviously unhappy with this news. “That Farnsworth fella didn’t say nothin’ about takin’ no classes,” she barked. “He said you folks were puttin’ together a bowling team and he thought I was good enough to be on it. I carry a 187 average in the Tuesday morning league, you know!”

“That’s a very strong average, Miss Broomhouse,” Conrad said. “I’m sure you’re good enough to make any team around here. The problem is, however, that Four F, er, I mean Fred Farnsworth neglected to mention that our team was only for students. I’m sorry you wasted a trip in here.”

“You mean you people ain’t sponsorin’ no bowling team!” Hazel barked.

“No, I’m afraid we’re not,” Conrad said. “We just get involved in activities with students.”

“You folks have money. It wouldn’t kill you to spend a few bucks and sponsor a team, you know!” Hazel said with great indignation.

“I suppose we could afford it,” Conrad said in his best conciliatory tone, “but we’ve got our hands full with the student activities. We just can’t take anything else on.”

“Yeah, I heard someone blew up your stadium a while back,” Hazel said with a sneer, “you’d probably find some way to louse this up, too.”

“You might be right,” Conrad said, wondering if she might actually be correct. “Again, I apologize for the misunderstanding.” He rose to signal the end of the meeting, and was relieved when Hazel took the hint.

“You people need to get your act together,” she said as she huffed out of Conrad’s office. “How can you run a school when you can’t even get straight what you’re doin’ with a bowling team?” Walking by Gretchen’s desk, Hazel heard the mooing. “What’s your problem, sister?” she asked Gretchen in an accusatory manner. Gretchen said, “I’m sorry,” and then began whimpering like a hurt puppy.

Conrad, still shaking his head in amazement, walked to his doorway and motioned Gretchen to come in. She took a seat in front of his desk while Conrad walked back to his chair. “Another fine mess that moron got us into,” he began.
“I assume he didn’t bother telling anyone they needed to enroll in classes to be our bowling team. Woof!” Gretchen said.

“That’s right,” Conrad confirmed. “Unfortunately, I think we can expect more visitors like lovely Hazel. If anyone calls to set up an appointment, tell them the situation. I’ll handle anyone who gets really irate.”

“What if somebody just shows up like she did? Woof!” Gretchen asked.

“I’d better see them. If I’m not around, page me,” Conrad replied.

They sat quietly for a moment, Conrad stewing about yet again having to clean up after Four F. “We’ve got to find something constructive for this clown to do!” he exclaimed.

“Well, I know he sure can talk his way into anything,” Gretchen offered. “He can talk others into doing stuff too. He’s like a used car salesman! Grrrrrr!”

Conrad leapt out of his seat and slammed his palm on the desk. “That’s it! Sales! Let him go out and schmooze all the time, that’s all he’s good at anyway.”

Gretchen momentarily whimpered after Conrad’s burst of excitement startled her, then gathered herself and asked, “What would he sell?”

“Farnsworth athletics! He can go out to businesses large and small, visit groups, encourage them to buy sponsorships or blocks of tickets,” Conrad said, pumping his fist with excitement.

“Do we really need much of that?” Gretchen asked.

“Not right now, no,” he answered. “If we aspire to go big time at some point though, which Mr. Farnsworth has clearly stated is his vision for Ferret sports, then we’ll need more cash inflow. I know his pockets are deep, but I’m sure there’s a limit to how much he’ll put into sports. We’ll need to supplement that with sponsors and support from the business community, and I think Four F might actually be able to go out and get it.”

“You know, Conrad, you just might be right!” Gretchen said, beginning to share her boss’ excitement.

“And as an extra added bonus,” Conrad added, “it will keep him off campus and out of our hair most of the time. What’s not to love?”

“That last part is really appealing,” Gretchen concurred.

“Okay then, call Kate and see when I can get in to the Old Man and pitch it. I want to do it ASAP before Four F causes more trouble for us.”

Almost as if he were a puppy that had been summoned for dinner, Four F stuck his head in the door. “Hey guys, how are ya!” he bellowed.

“We’re doing okay, Fred,” Conrad replied wearily.

“Have any of my bowling recruits come in yet?” he asked.

“I just met one of them,” Conrad said. “I’m afraid she didn’t work out.”

“Why not?” Four F said with astonishment. “They were all terrific bowlers.”

“I’m sure they were,” Conrad said, “but the lady I just talked to didn’t seem to grasp the part about having to be a student here.”

“Well geez, anyone would know that,” Four F said in a condescending tone.

“Apparently not,” Conrad countered. “I’ve got a hunch we’re going to run into that same problem with the rest of your so-called recruits.”

“Go figure,” Four F said, not acknowledging any contribution to this problem. “Good help is so hard to find these days.”

“Tell me about it!” Conrad exclaimed. “What brings you in today?” Conrad asked, trying to move him along.

“Oh yeah, I was looking for my briefcase,” Four F replied.

Conrad quickly flashed back to the previous Saturday. Two weeks of relative peace and quiet had passed since the disaster at Civil War day, and he had joined Troy Flemstone for his return to the broadcast booth for the Ferret’s football game vs. Aspiring Novelists College. The debris from the cannon blast had been cleaned up, and a large tarp was covering the hole in the right corner of the press box, protecting the equipment and announcers from the elements.

As expected, Farnsworth was being taken out to the woodshed by the Writers, losing 30-3 late in the third quarter, when Conrad felt a tap on his shoulder during a stoppage in play. He turned around and was surprised to see “Sarge” Bennett, a Gulf War hero who was now the head of security at Farnsworth University.

“Conrad, we’ve got a situation here,” Sarge said.

“Can it wait?” Conrad said, “We’re getting ready to go back on the air.”

“No!” Sarge barked. “You need to come with me right now.”

Troy looked up with concern, and Conrad told him, “Just keep the play-by-play going until there’s a reason not to. I’ll hopefully be back soon.” Troy nodded, and Conrad walked down the press box stairs with Sarge.

After reaching the exit to the press box, Sarge led Conrad around the corner and pointed at a briefcase propped up against the structure. It was a deep, dark brown, and the covering looked like real leather. “That object has been sitting there unattended since after halftime. We’re concerned it might contain explosives,” Sarge told Conrad.

“Explosives!” Conrad shouted, understandably sensitive regarding that notion. “Geez, did someone declare war against us?”

“I don’t know about that, Conrad,” Sarge said, “but we’re at the point where we need to treat this as a suspicious package.”

“Okay, what should we do?” Conrad asked while he wondered why the briefcase looked vaguely familiar.

“I’ve already called in the bomb squad,” Sarge said, “and I think we should evacuate the area as a precaution.”

“I understand,” Conrad said, wanting to insure there were no additions to the list of casualties at Ferret sporting events this season. “I’ll get on it.”

Conrad then hustled out to the Farnsworth sideline and, during a stoppage in play, attracted the attention of the referee.

“We’ve got a bomb threat,” Conrad said quickly, “and we need to clear the stadium. Quickly, let’s get the head coaches together.”

The referee, fighting the urge to freak out, motioned for both coaches to join him and Conrad at midfield. When they arrived, Conrad spoke. “Look, we’ve got a bomb threat here at the stadium. The bomb squad is on its way. We need to clear the field.”

“What about finishing the game?” the Writers’ coach asked.

“I think we all know how it’s going to turn out,” Conrad said. “Let’s just call it here and make sure everyone’s safe. Just get your teams into the locker room and have them stay there until we give you the all clear.”

Both coaches nodded and proceeded to take their teams off the field. Conrad then grabbed a bullhorn from one of the cheerleaders and addressed the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please. We have a bomb threat here at the stadium. Please exit the stands at either end of the field quickly but calmly. The game will not be resumed. Thank you and we are sorry for the inconvenience.”

Conrad then rushed to the press box and ran up the stairs. Troy had been describing the departure of the team and fans, but had not wanted to make a specific announcement until talking with Conrad. Huffing and puffing after his dash up the stairs, Conrad told Troy, “Just announce there is a bomb threat, everyone is being safely evacuated, the game is final, and then sign off and get the hell out of here!”

Troy dutifully broadcast exactly what Conrad had told him to and signed off. Conrad waited to help his still gimpy friend down the stairs. “Whath the ruth?” Troy athked, er asked.

“Because there’s a suspicious package down by the bottom of the stairs,” Conrad replied.

“Hey, I’m going to want hatherdouth duty pay,” Troy said only half jokingly.

“I hear you, pal,” Conrad said. “Just keep moving down the stairs and let’s get clear of this.”

Ultimately, everyone cleared the field safely while the package rested against the press box intact. As a final resolution, the bomb squad blew it up in a controlled explosion and found that it was merely a briefcase full of papers. While waiting for word from Sarge Bennett, Conrad and Troy wondered what would blow up at their next home game.

“What does your briefcase look like?” Conrad asked Four F.

“It’s dark brown with a leather exterior,” Four F said. “It’s sweet, but I’m more concerned about someone finding it and going through the contents.”

“What was in it?” Conrad asked.

“Some magazines,” Four F replied.

“Magazines?” Conrad asked.

“Yeah, ones that I wouldn’t want anyone else to find, if you know what I mean,” Four F said with a wink.

Great, Conrad thought, we stopped a football game and evacuated the fans to blow up a briefcase of porn. Just when it looked like things at Farnsworth couldn’t get any stranger, they did.

“You have to go now,” Conrad told Four F.

“Okay, but let me know if you see it,” Four F said. “Remember, no peeking.”
“I’ll give him such a peek,” Conrad said through clenched teeth within earshot of Gretchen.”

“Woof! Woof!” she said.

“I couldn’t’ agree more,” Conrad said.

That afternoon, Conrad did one of his periodic sweeps of the athletic facilities. The red-hot Ferrets’ field hockey team, winners of eight games in a row, was facing conference foe Southwestern Eastern Shore University and, by the time Conrad arrived, had a comfortable 3-0 lead in the third quarter. He noticed that Coach Cage was wearing only a polo shirt, shorts, and shoes with no socks. This seemed to be an odd outfit for a crisp October afternoon where the temperature was struggling to stay above 50 degrees and a steady breeze was blowing across the field. While noticing Cage was obviously cold yet refusing to don a jacket, this did not register with Conrad as being particularly strange given what he had seen at Farnsworth in less than two months on the job.

Conrad stayed long enough to see the Ferrets stretch their lead to 5-0, made his evening stop at Galaxy Burger, then headed home. Freddie was on the phone when he entered, and when Conrad’s wave hello was not acknowledged he sat down and started channel surfing on the television. Freddie completed his phone call shortly thereafter and sat on the couch, looking out into space.

“What’s wrong, buddy?” Conrad asked.

“It’s Father Ferret,” Freddie said, still off in the distance.

“Something wrong, I assume?” Conrad followed up.

“Yeah,” Freddie replied, “he got hit by a Petco truck.”

Unfortunately, the first thing that flashed into Conrad’s mind was the classic scene in the old Mary Tyler Moore show when Chuckles the Clown met his demise when, dressed as a giant peanut, an elephant had tried to eat him.

Seeing how upset Freddie was, Conrad doubted he would see the ironic humor here, so he bit down on his tongue so hard he felt tears trickle down his cheeks. Finally, he managed to say, “That’s terrible, Freddie,” without laughing.

“Yeah, they don’t know if he’s going to make it,” Freddie said dejectedly.

“Anything I can do for you?” Conrad said, now over his potential giggle fit.

“Can we just hang out tonight?” Freddie said.

“Sure, man,” Conrad replied. “How about watching the Monday Night Countdown show to get ready for the Cowboys-Eagles game?”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Freddie said.

They sat together as the game stretched past midnight, and Conrad was amazed at how much comfort a person could find in just having a friend to sit with and not having to face a problem alone.

Part 1, Episode 17: "Talk Soup"

2006-10-30T17:26:00.000-08:00

Conrad arrived at Old Man Farnsworth’s office a few minutes before nine the next morning to a warm greeting by the ice maiden herself, Kate.

“How are you feeling, Conrad?” she asked.

“I’ve got a mother of a headache, but other that that I’m fine. Anyway, you’ve got to play hurt if you going to be successful, you know.”

He received a warm smile followed by a reassuring, “I’m glad you’re okay. They’re ready for you.”

Conrad was surprised, knowing that Four F’s attention to detail, or lack of same, meant that he was seldom on time for any scheduled event when he bothered to show up at all. Could he actually witness Four F getting dressed down by the old man? He could only hope.

“Connie, please have a seat,” Mr. Farnsworth warmly greeted him. Four F was sitting across the desk from his grandfather, the look on his face indicating he had already had a piece of his ass chewed off by the Old Man.

“Obviously, we need to talk over the unfortunate events of Saturday,” Mr. Farnsworth began. “Connie, first of all I’m glad you weren’t more seriously injured. I understand you saw Troy yesterday. How is he?”

“They’re operating on his collarbone today,” Conrad answered. “He’ll be in rough shape for awhile, but he’ll be fine eventually. I don’t think we should even try to do a football broadcast next Saturday.”

“I agree, Connie,” the old man said. “I doubt it will be much fun for our loyal listeners, either. Anyway, Frederick and I have spent some time chatting about what went wrong on Saturday. What’s you’re take on it?”

Conrad sat for a moment, carefully considering how to proceed. “I actually thought the pre-game activities went pretty well. I think the full-blown reenactment, particular the horses, was too much to squeeze in at halftime. Fred, you shouldn’t have had to tell the guys with the cannon not to load it with live ammunition…”

Four F jumped in, “See, I told you, Grandpa!”

Conrad continued, “…but when you organize an event with as many moving parts as the Civil War deal on Saturday, something will invariably go wrong that you had no reason to anticipate. That’s why either you’ve got to be there, or designate someone reliable to cover it. There’s always something that needs an impromptu decision or that requires intervention. You just can’t have an activity like that run itself, no matter how much preparation went into it before hand.”

Four F slumped in his seat. Conrad thought he saw Four F’s lower lip sticking out, but he figured he must have just been imagining that.

“Thank you for your input, Connie,” Mr. Farnsworth interjected. “I owe you an apology. I know you were hesitant to go along with this idea, and I overruled you. As a result, you and Troy were hurt, and I’m thankful there weren’t more casualties.”

The Old Man paused for a moment, took a deep breath, and continued. “Frederick, you are on leave without pay until Connie and I can determine a suitable role for you. I want to fine a spot for you here, but I’m not going to rush into something this time. Connie, you can look at this more objectively than I can. I need your help figuring this out.”

“You’ve got it sir,” Conrad said eagerly.

“That will be all Frederick. I’ll be in touch,” Mr. Farnsworth said, dismissing his grandson.

Four F schlepped out of the room, staring at the floor the entire way.

The Old Man then turned his attention toward Conrad. “Now, my boy, you said there were a couple of items you needed to discuss with me.”

“Yes sir,” Conrad replied. “First off, will the school pay Troy’s bills if he consents to begin therapy to get rid of his lisp?”

“Speech therapy?” Mr. Farnsworth asked.

“No, more like psychological therapy. You know, with a shrink,” Conrad said.

“Are you saying Troy is disturbed?” the Old Man said with a trace of indignation in his voice.

“No sir, not at all,” Conrad said, trying his best not to be defensive. “I talked with him for a while yesterday, and from what he said, the recurrence of his lisp was due to a psychological trauma. If he can work with someone to resolve that issue, it should clear up his lisp.”

“Did you mention this idea to him?” Mr. Farnsworth asked.

“Yes, and he was quite receptive,” Conrad said. “He just said he couldn’t pay for it.”

“Well, I certainly can, and I will,” the Old Man said decisively. “I’d love to see him back to what he was. Tell him to send the bills to me. Stay on top of that and make it happen, will you Connie?”

“It’ll be my pleasure, sir,” Conrad responded.

“What else did you have for me?” the Old Man asked, obviously trying to pick up the pace of the meeting.

“Sir, I think we have come across a sport that Farnsworth University can compete in at the Division I level next year,” Conrad announced.

Mr. Farnsworth’s face lit up. “Really? Tell me about it.”

“Well, sir, it’s women’s bowling,” Conrad said.

The Old Man slumped in his seat. “Oh,” he responded.

“I know it’s not a glamour sport,” Conrad said, trying to close the sale, “but it is a legitimate Division I sport. We’re working on the application process right now.”

“I didn’t realize bowling was a varsity sport,” Mr. Farnsworth said with disdain.

“To be honest, I didn’t either. My intern, John Smith, dug it up. The champion last year was Nebraska, so there are some big time schools involved,” Conrad said, neglecting to mention that the Cornhuskers were the ONLY big time school he saw competing in women’s bowling.

The name dropping had the desire effect. “The Big Red, eh?” the Old Man said, obviously warming to the idea. “Okay Conrad, go forward with the process and I’ll sign off on it. Actually, we could have Frederick start to look for players to recruit.”

Conrad considered this for a moment, thinking that this would be a harmless project for Four F to take on, and it would buy him some time to think of a more long-term solution for the Old Man’s idiot grandson.

“That works for me, sir,” Conrad replied.

“Do you have a coach lined up?” Mr. Farnsworth asked.

“I’ve had some bowling experience, so I just thought I would take on the interim title and see how it goes,” Conrad said.

“That’s entirely up to you, Connie,” the Old Man replied. “Just don’t take on too much. You’re already got some key positions to fill as it is.”

Conrad thought to his need for a sports information director, the upcoming change in football coaches, and his desperate need for a real assistant athletic director. “I’ll be careful, sir.”

“Splendid. Don’t lose track of that other task you need to perform,” Mr. Farnsworth said in closing.

Conrad, remembering the directive to neutralize the problem at Edgar Allen Poe University, nodded his head and exited the office.

Shortly after lunchtime, Conrad was minding his own business in his office when he heard Gretchen barking. Knowing this meant trouble, he sat back in his chair and braced himself for the bad news.

Gretchen knocked and entered the office, “Conrad, I just got a call from Mr. Farnsworth’s secretary Kate. She said you need to find someone to cover the “Ferret Forum” radio show while Troy is laid up.”

Conrad stared at Gretchen in disbelief, then slumped in his chair and muttered, “Oh crap.” He was annoyed with himself for not realizing that a fill-in host would be needed, probably for at least a week. He also should have known it would be his responsibility to come up with the replacement. Conrad then decided to do what he normally did in this kind of situation; he nominated himself.

“Call Kate back and tell her I’ve got it covered,” Conrad told Gretchen.

“Are you going to do it yourself?” she asked.

“Unless you’d rather step in,” Conrad replied with a smirk.

“Have a good time,” Gretchen told him as she headed back to her desk.

A few minutes letter, it occurred to Conrad to call the station and see who Troy had booked as today’s guest. He found out that no one had been booked for the entire week. Apparently Troy wasn’t one for much advance planning, usually setting up guests no more than a day ahead of time.

Faced with the prospect of essentially talking to himself for an hour on the radio, he tried to think of who he could grab on such short notice. Instinctively, he picked up his phone and dialed a familiar number.

“Hello, Freddie Ferret here.” Freddie cheerfully answered his cell phone.

“Hey Freddie, this is Conrad. I need you to do me a big favor,” Conrad said.

“Just name it pal. I’m at your service.”

“I’m stuck hosting the Ferret Forum radio show today, and I don’t have a guest lined up. Can you drop in for the hour? The show starts at 5:00.”

The phone line was quite for a moment. “Freddie, are you there?” Conrad asked.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m here.” Freddie said hesitantly. “I’m sorry, Conrad, I can’t do it.”

“Oh, have you got a late class?” Conrad asked.

“I just can’t do it! I’m sorry! I’ll talk to you later.” Freddie hung up.

“Great,” Conrad thought. “What got under his fur?”

Conrad arrived at the WFUR studio, only a couple of miles away from the campus, at about 4:30 to give himself some time to get acclimated to the studio. He had been a guest during the first week of “Ferret Forum,” only days after the Old Man’s infamous appearance, so he had an inkling of how things would work.

After showing Conrad what buttons to push and, even more importantly, what ones not to push, the show’s producer, Bob Browne, asked Conrad, “So, who’s you’re guest today?”

“I wasn’t able to get one,” Conrad replied.

“Oh man, that’s not good,” Browne said.

“Well, I was hoping I could open up the phone lines and just interact with the fans,” Conrad said.

“Good luck with that,” Browne said. “After the lesbians and sex addicts figured out this was a sports show, we haven’t gotten very many calls.”

“Wonderful,” Conrad said dejectedly. “This could be a long hour.”

Conrad survived the broadcast, although the final two segments of the program were reduced to a recital of each Ferret team’s schedule and results and some of the key statistics. Conrad then paid a brief visit to Troy in the hospital, who was still out of it after his successful surgery. Following his ritualistic stop at Galaxy Burger, he returned to his campus suite still in a foul mood. He felt Freddie had hung him out to dry and was determined to find out why.

When he entered the suite, Conrad found Freddie aimlessly channel surfing on the television, something he seldom did. Freddie greeted him with a sheepish “hey.”

“Hey yourself,” Conrad responded. Deciding to eschew the small talk, he got right into it. “So what was the deal today? Why couldn’t you tell me what was going on? Did you hear any of that miserable show? I was reading freakin’ box scores and press releases! I didn’t think anything could get worse than the football broadcasts, but I proved myself wrong today.”

“Conrad, I’m really sorry,” Freddie said, staring at his paws, feet, whatever they are. “I just couldn’t do it.”

“Why did you pick today to get shy all of a sudden?” Conrad asked, still fuming.

“It wasn’t about being shy,” Freddie insisted defensively. “I just don’t do interviews, okay! I don’t like people asking me questions.”

All of the anger was sucked out of Conrad, who realized what a bad position he had put his friend in.

“You’re afraid that people will ask about your time before you donned the fur, aren’t you?”

Freddie continued to stare at his paws, feet, whatever, then looked directly at Conrad. “I’m terrified of it,” Freddie said very softly. “I’ve left all that behind. I’m Freddie Ferret now, and that’s all that matters. I even legally changed my name, did you know that?”

No, Conrad did not know that. Talk about getting into your work!

Freddie struggled to continue. “I enjoy being around people at functions and parties, that kind of thing. Nobody tries to interrogate me there. I’m just Freddie Ferret, loveable mascot and ferret about town. That’s great.”

Freddie stopped and took a couple of moments to gather himself. “Any good interviewer, and even some crappy ones, make the effort to ‘get beneath the fur,” he said. “I don’t want that, Conrad. I just want to be Freddie Ferret! Is that a freakin’ crime?”

Conrad walked over and put his hand on Freddie’s shoulder. “Absolutely not. That’s your right, and I apologize for not thinking of it.”

“You don’t have anything to apologize for, Conrad. It’s my issue, not yours. I’m the one hiding in a ferret suit, not you.”

Without thinking, Conrad asked, “What are you hiding from?”

Freddie considered that for a moment, then said, “I didn’t like who I was before I came here. No one else really did either. Once I put on this suit, I felt free to find out who I really was. It turns out I’m a hell of a guy. You know, fun at parties, bah mitzvahs, popular with the ladies. I was never any of that before, and I don’t ever want to look back. I just want everyone to know Freddie Ferret, not that other loser.”

“Man, this is deep,” Conrad thought. “Now that I know how strongly you feel about that, I’d better tell you something,” he said.

Freddie, with a look of terror in his eyes, sat silent. “The Star-Bulletin beat reporter, Jimmy Harris, is trying to go Bob Woodward on you,” Conrad said.

Freddie, with the hurt obvious in his voice, asked, “Why would he do that?”

“Simple,” Conrad said, “to make a name for himself, to come up with the story no one else could. I’ve tried to steer him away from it, but he seems hell-bent on ‘outing’ you.”

Freddie held his furry face in his hands and muttered, “great.”

“I don’t think he’s got anything yet, and he promised me he’d give me a heads up before he ran a story. Nonetheless, if you need to contact anyone and warn them, you’d better get to it.”

Freddie gathered himself and said, “Thanks for the warning, Conrad, I really appreciate it.”

“No problem,” Conrad said. “For the record, I don’t give a crap about any of that stuff. I know who you are now, and I’m proud to have you for a friend. The school is lucky to have you as its representative.”

Freddie stood up and gave Conrad a big bear, er, ferret hug.

Part 1, Episode 16: "The Day After"

2006-10-25T17:58:00.000-07:00

After Freddie left, Conrad had two more visitors to his hospital room, Gretchen and John Smith. John did most of the talking, since Gretchen was busy whining like a little puppy, obviously distressed at seeing her boss laid up. While they were there, Conrad could have sworn he saw another familiar face outside in the hall that looked a lot like Kate. Gretchen and John had their backs to the door so Conrad was the only one who could have seen her. It appeared to him she was ready to stick her head in, but when she saw that he was not alone, decided to beat a hasty retreat.

Conrad was still not sure how much he should trust his senses after getting knocked out only a few hours before. If he was fantasizing about Kate rather than, say, Catherine Zeta-Jones or Heidi Klum, maybe he was hurt worse than his doctor thought.

Conrad was kept in the hospital overnight for observation and released late Sunday morning. Upon his discharge, he headed toward Troy Flemstone’s room.

When Conrad knocked on Troy’s door, he noticed that Troy was watching Sportscenter. Good man, he thought. “Hey Troy,” Conrad called in, “are you up for some company.

Troy’s face lit up when he turned and saw Conrad. “I’d love thome,” he enthusiastically responded, “it’h been a long lonely night. Pleath, thit down.”

Still a little unsteady on his feet, Conrad was happy to do so. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Pretty rough around the edgeth,” Troy said. Conrad took in the sight of his injured comrade. Flemstone was probably in his late 40’s, Conrad thought, and in pretty good shape. “If it came down to it, a healthy Troy could probably kick my ass,” Conrad thought. His jet black hair, normally combed into a large old-style pompadour and rigidly maintained with industrial strength hair spray, was flat and askew. His eyes were not sharply focused, undoubtedly the result of pain medication, and he looked older than his years.

“They’re going to operate tomorrow,” Troy continued. “It wath a pretty methy theperathion, and they’re going to have to put the collarbone back together thurgically.”

“Wow, that sounds rough, Troy,” Conrad sympathetically replied. “I’m really sorry.”

“It’h not your fault, Conrad,” Troy said reassuringly. “What idiot thought it wath a good idea to load the cannon with live ammunithion? How could that pothibly have ended well?”

“We’re going to look into that starting tomorrow,” Conrad said. “I’m sure there’s going to be legal problems we have to deal with as a result of all this.”

“Do you know how they ended the radio broadcatht? My latht wordth were ‘Look out!” Troy asked.
“Gretchen and John filled me in last night,” Conrad said. “Apparently the engineer running the board at WFUR wasn’t much of a football fan, because he had fallen asleep during the fourth quarter. He didn’t wake up until the phone started ringing at the station with people asking what happened. There was some concern it may have been a terrorist attack.”

“Why would terrorithtth target a Farnthworth football game?” Troy asked incredulously.

“Beats me why someone would think that,” Conrad replied, shaking his head gingerly. “Anyway, the engineer checked and found that the station wasn’t picking up a signal from the field, and then he ran back the last few moments of the broadcast. Well, this blockhead, who is one of our less gifted students, panicked and went on the air live to say that there may have been an attack at Farnsworth Field. He told everyone to seek shelter until they knew more information.”

“Geeth, what a drama queen,” Troy said, now shaking his head.

“The saving grace is that WFUR doesn’t have much of an audience yet,” Conrad continued, “so it’s not like the masses flipped out. By the time word might have spread, a few of the spectators at the game had called in to the station and told them what they had seen. It was strange, but beats the hell out of a terrorist plot.”

“Yeah, inthtead of El Queida we were attacked by Thivil War tholdierth,” Troy said. “Go figure.”

“I’m just thankful that it was southern soldiers that shot the cannon,” Conrad added. “If it had been the northern army, some nuts would have tried to start another Civil War in Midville.”

“Wow, you’re right,” Troy acknowledged. “There’th a lot of NRA memberth up thith way who wouldn’t have hethitated to lock and load and get ready to thoot thomething.”

“Yeah, we’ve got a mess to clean up,” Conrad said wearily, “but it could have been much, much worse.”
Conrad hesitated for a moment, gathered himself, then continued. “I understand it could have been a lot worse for me personally if not for you.”

“Oh, thomeone told you about that, huh,” Troy said.

“Yeah. Considering the hit you took, a simple thank you doesn’t seem very meaningful, but it’s all I’ve got right now,” Conrad said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Troy said, trying to downplay his heroism. “I’m exthpendable, but you’re the futhure of the Farnthworth athletic program. You’re the man who can turn thingth around here. I’m jutht filling a thpot until you can get thomeone better.”

“Don’t diminish what you did, Troy,” Conrad said emphatically. “I can count on one hand the people I know who would have responded the way you did in that situation. I can count more people who would have pulled me over so I could have been hurt WORSE.” Conrad fell silent for a moment, then added, “You know, the funny thing is that first group, they’re all people at Farnsworth, people I’ve only known a few weeks.” Stunned at that realization, Conrad looked off into the distance and mumbled, “damn.”

Conrad then turned back toward Troy and asked, “So what’s your deal, anyway? How did you wind up at Farnsworth?”

Troy sighed and then began, “I uthed to be a popular DJ out in wetht Texas. I did morning drive during the week and called high thchool football gameth on the weekendth. It wath a pretty good life,” he said wistfully.

“Sounds good,” Conrad replied. “So what happened?”

Troy took even a deeper sigh and said, “Well, one afternoon I came home and found my wife in bed with my producer, who I thought wath a clothe friend. Ath it turnth out, he wath clother to my wife. I had a bad lithp ath a kid, but after yearth of therapy I reathed the point that I could talk normally. After I found my wife cheating on me, I thtarted lithping worth than ever. Needleth to thay, my career went in the toilet. There’th not much market for a radio announcer with a bad lithp.”

Conrad knew that last fact all too well. “How did you wind up here?” he asked.

“I had met Mr. Farnthworth in Texthath,” Troy replied. “He thponthored a lot of activitieth there and I got to know him fairly well. You know fertilizer is a big deal in that part of the country. I gueth he remembered me but forgot about my problem.”

“Yeah, they do pile it higher and deeper in Texas, no doubt,” Conrad said. “Anyway, I’m willing to bet he did remember your problem,” Conrad said. “I guess he was hoping that giving you some steady work would help you get your game back.” Conrad paused to think, “The Old Man really likes reclamation projects. No wonder he hired me.” After pausing a moment, Conrad asked, “Troy, would you be willing to go into therapy to try and get rid of the lisp?”

“You mean a thpeech therapitht?” he asked.

“No, I mean someone who could work with you psychologically,” Conrad said gently. “From what you told me, it sounds like you slipped back into lisping as a result of the emotional trauma of your wife cheating on you. It seems like if someone can help you work through that, you might get back on track.”

“That thoundth intriguing, Conrad, but I can’t afford that,” Troy said.
“I don’t think cost will be a problem.” Conrad assured him. “Knowing what I do about Old Man Farnsworth, I’m confident he’ll pick up the bill. I’ll be happy to approach him about that if you like.”

“You would thtick your neck out for me?” Troy said. “I didn’t think you even liked me. I don’t want you to think you owe me anything becauth of yethterday.”
“I just needed to make a little effort to get to know you,” Conrad said. “If anything good can come out of yesterday, this is it.”

“Thanth, Conrad,” Troy said. “I gueth you’ll have to get someone elth to call the game next week,” he said nervously.

“Nah, I think we’ll be better served just not broadcasting it,” Conrad replied, obviously pleasing Troy. “After all, you are the voice of the Ferrets. Besides, we’ll probably get killed down at South Lake, anyway. The fewer people that know about it, the better off we’ll be. Let’s see how you’re doing in a week or so and go from there.”

Conrad paused for a moment, then said, “Look, I need to be going. Freddie is probably waiting for me downstairs, and you need to get some rest. Don’t worry about things at school; just take care of yourself. I’ll be back tomorrow to check on you.”

“I can’t thank you enough for coming by, Conrad,” Troy said, tears welling in his eyes.
“Hey, what are friends for,” Conrad replied with a smile.

Troy, unable to extend his right arm because of his broken collarbone, stuck out his hand. Conrad reached across the bed and grasped it firmly, then headed toward the elevator.

Following the short drive from Central Maryland General Hospital to their suite at Farnsworth University, Conrad got comfortable in his recliner and picked up Sunday’s Star-Bulletin. On the front page was a photo of the damaged press box with the caption, “Civil War day Blows Up at Farnworth; Two Injured in Cannon Blast.” “Yeah, this will be one for the old scrapbook,” Conrad said to Freddie, who had settled on the couch, flipping the television remote in an attempt to catch up on the days NFL action.

After settling in to watch the Chiefs-Raiders game, Conrad received a call on his cell phone from football coach Stump Williams.

“Conrad, how are you feeling?” the coach asked.

“I’ve got a nasty headache and I’m sore, but nothing major,” Conrad replied. “What’s going on?”

“I just wanted to give you a heads up,” Williams replied. “This dumb ass Edwards told me last night he’s going to sue the school.”

“What!” Conrad screamed into his phone. “On what grounds?”

“He’s claiming mental duress for being scared by the cannon and slipping in horse poop,” Williams said. “Talk about a pile of crap!”

“Geez, the kid finally figures out how to catch the ball and I guess he thinks he was on his way to stardom,” Conrad said disgustedly. “I’ll tell the Old Man tomorrow. Thanks for letting me know.”

“Hey,” Conrad caught Williams before he hung up, “what was with that off-tackle play on the last possession yesterday. How could you think that was a good call?”

Williams hesitated, then responded in a soft voice, “I thought we had a time out left.”

Conrad was flummoxed, “You lost track of time outs!?”

“Yep,” Williams replied dejectedly, “I’m a transgendering moron.”

“Funny, I was thinking the same thing myself yesterday,” Conrad instinctively replied. After a moment, he asked. “Is Edwards going to play next week?”
“I don’t think so,” Williams replied. “Too much mental duress.”

“Oh of course, I forgot,” Conrad said sarcastically. “I guess he now has a fear of cannons and horse poop. Hey, offer him a school-paid trip to a psychologist. If he doesn’t go, he’s probably got no case. If he does go, they should see through his act and figure out he’s just a whining little boy.”

“I wish I’d thought of that,” Williams replied.

“That’s why I get the big bucks,” Conrad said, ending the call. Conrad and Freddie sat back to watch more of the game but after only a few moments Conrad’s phone rang again.

“Connie, how are you feeling?” Mr. Farnsworth said.

“Sore, but nothing major,” Conrad said. “I’m doing a lot better than Troy. Did you know he pushed me out of the way and took the brunt of the debris himself?”

“No,” the Old Man replied, “but that sounds like something he would do. He’s a good man.”

“Yes he is,” Conrad agreed. “I’m glad I found that out. I’m just sorry it took these circumstances for that to happen.”

“Yes, speaking of these circumstances, my boy,” Mr. Farnsworth said, “we need to get together and chat about that tomorrow morning, say 9:00.”

“Of course, sir,” Conrad replied. “I’ll be there.”

“Good. So will my grandson,” the Old Man said, to Conrad’s surprise. “How do you think he handled things yesterday?”

“Mr. Farnsworth,” Conrad said, “I never saw him yesterday.”

“Not at all?” the Old Man asked incredulously.
“No sir,” Conrad replied evenly.

“Hmmm,” Mr. Farnsworth said, “we’ll discuss that tomorrow morning. I’m glad you weren’t hurt too badly, Connie. Rest up tonight.”

“Yes sir, thanks,” Conrad said, and the Old Man hung up.
“Meeting with Mr. Farnsworth tomorrow morning?” Freddie asked.

“Yeah, with Four F in attendance,” Conrad said, the surprise still obvious in his voice.

“Ooooh, someone’s going to get a beating,” Freddie said. “Can I come?”

“No, but I’ll give you a reenactment tomorrow night,” Conrad said.

“Haven’t we had enough reenactments for a while?” Freddie asked, causing Conrad to bust out laughing.

As the Chiefs-Raiders game moved into the third quarter, Conrad felt his mind drifting when he wasn’t totally focused on the television. He noticed Freddie engaged him in conversation a couple of times, trying to keep him alert, something strongly recommended for someone who has recently suffered a concussion. After he locked in on the game again, he received yet another phone call.

“Hey Conrad, anything new?” It was Jimmy Harris, the Star-Bulletin beat writer, being a smart ass.

“Not much,” Conrad played along. “Seen anything blow up today?”

“No,” Jimmy responded, happy to see Conrad’s sense of humor had survived intact, “not today.”

“Bummer,” Conrad said. “Slow news cycle for you. I bet that ratbag of an editor of yours was sorry to see I survived.”

“No comment,” Jimmy replied.

“Hey, I thought that’s my line,” Conrad jabbed back.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Jimmy said. “I’m sorry to bother you, but since you don’t have a sports information director, I had to check with you to see if the school is ready to give out any additional information about yesterday.”

“I don’t have much for you yet, Jimmy,” Conrad said. “I’m meeting with Mr. Farnsworth tomorrow morning, and I’m sure we’ll have a release sometime in the afternoon. I’ll have Gretchen call you as soon as it’s ready.”

“Thanks,” Jimmy replied. “By the way, whose bright idea was that whole Civil War thing?”

“Can’t you guess?” Conrad asked.

“Oh, of course,” Jimmy said knowingly, “it had to be Fred the Fourth.”

“He shoots, he scores!” Conrad said. “I’ll have more for you tomorrow. By the way, good job on the write-up in today’s paper.”

“Thanks,” Jimmy replied. “Get some rest.”

Easier said than done, Conrad thought as he hung up the phone. He couldn’t help but wonder what next week’s disaster would be. Aliens landing on campus and performing anal probes, perhaps? Nah, too conventional, he thought. Whatever happened next, he was sure he wouldn’t see it coming.

Part 1, Episode 15: "Losing the War"

2006-10-17T17:00:00.000-07:00

The day was billed as “The War Within the State,” a takeoff on the synonym for the Civil War, “The War Between the States.” This was actually appropriate since the Fighting Ferrets’ opponent on the football field was in-state rival Key College. For a school better known for producing engineers and soccer players, they had a strong football team for Division III this season.

The match-up on the field promised to be as lopsided as the Civil War battle that would be reenacted at halftime, The Battle of the Monacacy. In that battle, the grey-clad northern troops made quick work of the blue-clad southern army on a battlefield that was now, along with many such sites in the Maryland-Virginia-West Virginia region, a tourist site maintained by the National Park Service.

The day’s festivities began with both armies marching through campus and setting up behind the end zones on the football field, ready to engage in battle. Conrad noticed the first minor glitch in the proceedings when the northern troops stationed themselves behind the southern end zone and the southern army staked out the territory behind the northern end zone. He doubted that very many fans would notice this, however, unless they started including compasses with flasks for liquor. Conrad made a note to himself to investigate marketing that unique idea.

By 11:00, two full hours before the kickoff, the area outside Farnsworth Field was bustling with activity. The parking areas closest to the field had been roped off and used to set up a Civil War fair, complete with vendors and historic exhibits. Of course, Freddie was there, working the crowd, hugging small children, and having his picture taken with adoring fans.

Conrad noticed the two best sellers at the vendor booths were anything with a Confederate flag and Freddie Ferret dolls clad in a southern soldiers’ uniform with the school’s distinctive “FF” symbol. Fortunately, the school was using that now instead of the even more distinctive “FU” that formerly adorned Farnsworth souvenirs. That was one mess that Conrad had not been required to clean up himself, although sales had dropped after the switch.

In the moments preceding kickoff, the Farnsworth band played “The Star Spangled Banner,” then followed with a rousing rendition of “Dixie.” Although Midville was located only twenty miles below the Mason-Dixon line, it was solidly a southern sympathetic town. If a casual observer had not noticed the preponderance of Confederate “Stars and Bars” shirts and other apparel, not to mention the countless flags adorning pick-up trucks in the parking lot, they would have been taken aback by just how raucous the crowd became after hearing “Dixie.”

This excitement carried over past the start of the game, and the unusual enthusiasm displayed by the home crowd appeared to pump some life into a Ferret squad devoid of any spark in their last two lopsided defeats. The Key College players found themselves knocked back on their heels, apparently surprised by the energy the Farnsworth team showed in the early going.

Late in the first quarter, the game was still scoreless and the Ferrets faced a third down and fifteen-yards-to-go situation on their own 26-yard line. At this point an amazing thing happened—they scored a touchdown. This might not seem like a big deal, but after going three-plus games without crossing the goal line, it was a monumental achievement. Any question of that would be removed by the play-by-play call from Troy Flemstone.

“The Ferreth have the ball third and fifteen at their own twenty-thix yard line. Thingletary dropth back to throw. He feelth prethure from the left. He rollth to the right. He stopth and throwth downfield. Edwarth is open at midfield. He makth the catch! Heth got one man to beat at the thirty-five. Heth pulling away. Heth going to thcore! Heth going to thcore! Thon of a bitch, heth going to thcore! Touchdown, Fighting Ferreth!”

Translated, Farnsworth quarterback Seymour Singletary had found wide receiver Paul Edwards wide open near the 50-yard line, and he streaked in for a 74-yard touchdown, the Ferrets’ biggest play of the season. The fact that Edwards was wide open was hardly a surprise. He was a 6’3” 195 pound sophomore with great speed and good moves. Edwards had been clocked as fast as a 4.35 in the 40-yard dash. Unfortunately, he usually could not catch the ball. His attempts to do so often looked like someone trying to pick coins up off the floor while wearing mittens. Have you ever tried that? Not very pretty, is it? Therefore, teams that had scouted Farnsworth seldom bothered to give Edwards more than token coverage in their defensive schemes. For reasons unknown to anyone, he managed to hold on to this pass, and once he did, no one in a Key uniform was going to catch him.

The Ferrets’ offensive outburst proved to be a fluke. The Chains of Key College decided they should cover Edwards a little closer and, not used to any kind of defensive attention, Edwards was not heard from again in the first half. Farnsworth turned the ball over twice in its own territory in the second quarter, but the defense rose to the challenge. Still fired up from the shock of Edwards’ score, they stuffed Key and held them to field goals following both turnovers. This enabled the Ferrets to leave the field at halftime to a chorus of cheers and holding a 7-6 lead.

Both teams moved off the field very quickly, since the Civil War reenactment participants had been edging closer and closer to the field during the last five minutes of the half. In fact, on Hopkins’ second field goal, the ball sailed through the upright and knocked the rifle out of a surprised northern soldier’s hands, drawing a loud roar from the crowd.

Despite their home-field advantage, the south went down to defeat in this Readers’ Digest version of the Battle of Monacacy. The reenactment had not been condensed quite enough, however, because the teams returned to the sidelines while the battle still raged. A warm-up kick by the Johns Hopkins punter went astray and landed in the middle of a charging group of northern soldiers. With the north momentarily in disarray, the southern army, egged on by the crowd, pressed the advantage and quickly gained the upper hand. The north regrouped, however, and the participants returned to the script.

When the southern general ordered his forces to retreat, the crowd rained boos down upon the field. Conrad swore he saw some money changing hands, meaning some spectators had bet on the south. He hoped they were not history majors at Farnsworth.

The start of the second half was delayed even further when, after the players reclaimed the field, they discovered something left behind by the combatants. More precisely, the horses they used had left calling cards on the field. Unable to find Four F, Conrad, via walkie-talkie, organized members of the Farnsworth maintenance crew to get out BIG shovels and clean up the field.

By the time the field was cleared, most of the energy had left the stadium, and so had nearly half of the 9,000 fans, the biggest Farnsworth crowd in four years. Apparently as many people had shown up to see the reenactment as had to watch the football game. Well, Conrad thought, at least they saw a decent half of football. He hoped they would kick themselves for missing the first Ferret victory of the season, but his team would probably have to find a way to score at least a few more points to make that happen.

The delay and malaise in the stands affected both teams, and the quality of play dropped off sharply in the second half. The game became a battle of turnovers and field position, and unfortunately for the Ferrets no team turned the ball over as often as they did. Twice more in the second half, Farnsworth miscues set Key up in scoring position, only to see the Ferret defense hold the Chains to field goals. As the clock wound down late in the fourth quarter, Key clung to a 12-7 lead.

The Ferrets had one last chance, returning a Chains’ punt to their own 24-yard line with 55 seconds remaining in the game. Having used up all of their timeouts on defense trying to get the ball back, Farnsworth would have to go to the air to try and pull this game out. Everyone in the stadium thought that except Ferrets’ coach Stump Williams. Farnsworth’s first play from scrimmage was an off tackle play that burned up 23 precious seconds. Conrad had to walk away from the broadcast microphone to avoid calling Williams a “cross-dressing moron” on the air. “Everyone else probably already knows that,” Conrad ruefully thought.

The Ferret’s next play was a pass that gained only two yards. The receiver stayed in bounds, forcing quarterback Singletary to take the next snap and throw the ball to the ground and stop the clock. There were only five seconds left on the clock. Conrad thought that a second miracle play today was extremely unlikely, so he prepared himself to see Farnsworth’s record fall to 0-6. He was not all that disappointed, however, because the squad had showed some spark and stayed with a team that he thought would beat the Ferrets by three touchdowns.

Singletary dropped back into the shotgun formation to take the last snap of the game. He had three wide receivers on the left side and Paul Edwards split out to the right. Singletary took the long snap, put the ball in his left hand, looked left, pumped left, then suddenly spun around, switched the ball to his right hand, and
flung it downfield.

Once again, Paul Edwards was open. He had drawn coverage on this play, but broke free with a nifty cut to the sideline on his pass route. Singletary had been hit late in his delivery, causing the ball to hang in the air and wobble on its way toward Edwards. He came back about five yards for it and made a fingertip catch at the Key 45-yard line. A Chains defender had caught up to Edwards when he had to backtrack, but Edwards still had a step on him. Edwards, having done a Jerry Rice impression with his catch, proceeded to run like Bob Hayes and quickly put distance between himself and the defensive back. By the time he crossed the 20-yard line, he was a least four yards ahead of the pursuit. As he crossed the 10-yard line, Edwards began to hold his arms up in the air.

Conrad, watching from his perch next to Troy Flemstone in the press box, was pumping his fist, enjoying what would be the highlight of the season. Then, he heard what sounded like an explosion.

Then everything went dark.

Conrad felt himself coming around, not immediately sure what had happened or where he was. After a few moments, he was finally able to focus his vision well enough to determine he was in a hospital. Turning slightly to his left, he spotted a nurse checking readings on a machine, probably a blood pressure indicator.
“What happened?” he asked the nurse.

“You suffered a concussion, Mr. Kondradowicz,” the nurse replied.

The throbbing headache Conrad was experiencing had led him to already conclude that. “Anything else wrong with me?” he asked.

“A few bumps and bruises, but nothing serious,” she said.

“Wow, I had the weirdest dream while I was out. I had been fired from my job and wound up at a school out in the sticks where the mascot was a freakin’ ferret. And the guy wore a ferret suit all the time!” The room fell silent, and Conrad slowly turned his head in the other direction. There, he spotted the freakin’ ferret.
“How long was I out?” he asked the nurse.

“About two hours, it looks like,” she answered.

Conrad slumped further into the hospital bed. After a moment, he turned toward Freddie and said, “Hey man, I’m sorry for that remark. You deserve better than that.”

“No prob, Conrad,” Freddie answered. “You’ve had a tougher day than I have.”

The nurse completed her work and left Conrad and Freddie alone. “So tell me, what the hell happened?” Conrad asked.

“Are you SURE you want to know?” Freddie asked hesitantly.

“Since you put it that way, probably not, but I guess I have to. What happened?”

“Right before the ceiling fell in, do you remember hearing a loud boom?”
“Yeah, what was that?”

“The group that did the Civil War reenactment thought it would be cool to bring a cannon along and shoot it off if by some chance we scored a touchdown.”

“But they didn’t when we scored in the first quarter. I would have heard that over the crowd.”

“That’s right. They had whatever they use to fire off a cannon like a blank in a pistol. It didn’t work, so I guess one of these geniuses thought they should try live ammunition if we scored again.”

“You mean the press box was fired on by a cannon?

“Yep. I guess it just happened to be pointed at the press box when they fired it, and the shot clipped the top corner right above you.”

“God almighty. Did anyone else get hurt?”

“Well, Troy suffered a broken collarbone and got banged up pretty bad, but no one else was injured.”

“That’s too bad about Troy, I’m sorry to hear that. Well, we may have taken casualties but at least we won the game.”

“Yeah, about that. We lost.”

“What are you talking about? Edwards had the ball around the five-yard line the last I remember and no one was around him.”

“That’s right. Unfortunately, they shot the cannon off before he had actually crossed the goal line. Well, the explosion scared him and he dropped the ball. When he tried to dive for it, he stepped in a pile of horse poop the ground crew missed when they cleaned up after halftime. Key recovered the fumble, and that was that.”

Conrad stared at his furry friend for a moment. Finally, he shook his head slowly and said, “Un-Freakin’ believable. That’s bizarre, even for Farnsworth.”

“It could have been worse,” Freddie said.

“How?” said Conrad, incredulous at the notion.

“You could be the one with the broken collarbone,” Freddie replied. “Apparently Troy saw the ceiling falling in and pushed you out of the way. The bulk of the debris fell on him.”

“Yeah, I remember falling down right before the lights went out. That was him pushing me, wasn't it.” Conrad said.

“Yep,” Freddie confirmed.

“Thufferin thucotath,” Conrad said as he prepared to beg the nurse for morphine.

Part 1, Episode 14: Questions and (some) Answers

2006-10-09T18:10:00.000-07:00

Now totally flummoxed, Conrad tried to think of something intelligent to say but could only utter, “Huh?”

“I AM a woman, Conrad,” Frank insisted. “I’ve walked around in the body of a man all my life, but over the years I have come to the realization that inside I am truly a woman.”

Conrad looked at Frank for a moment then managed to spit out, “What do you mean?”

Frank, becoming frustrated with Conrad’s lack of understanding, said, “I’m in the process of going through a sex change. That’s why I’m going to turn in my resignation after the season. I don’t think the school, or the world for that matter, is ready for a male football coach to turn into a female and keep coaching.”

That was the first thing Frank had said that made sense to Conrad, but he was still unable to wrap his arms around this whole situation. “But you’re a football coach, Frank,” he said. “Granted, not a very successful one, but geez, it’s not like you’re a florist or a hairdresser. That wouldn’t be much of a stretch. Besides, how do you know you’re not just gay?”

“I wondered that for a long time myself, Conrad,” Frank replied. “It’s taken many years and a lot of counseling to understand who I truly am. Anymore, I feel like I’m living in someone else’s skin, wearing someone else’s clothes. You see Frank every day, but in my heart, my soul, I’m Frankie and I desperately want everyone to see me that way.”

Conrad wisely thought this would be a bad time to point out just how unattractive he thought Frankie was, but then again maybe the whole sex change process would help that. He really didn’t want to know, already having learned more than he cared to. Being a naturally curious person, though, he just couldn’t help himself.

“So,” he hemmed and hawed, “just how far along are you in the process?”

“I still have my penis if that’s what you mean,” Frank replied. “I’m taking hormone therapy now. It is, as you could imagine, a very complicated and lengthy process.”

That would explain those strangely soft hands, Conrad realized. “Here’s one thing I don’t get, Frank,” Conrad, pressing on, wondered. “I’m not a deeply religious man myself, but by doing this, aren’t you saying that, in effect, God made a mistake by giving you a male body?”

“Not really,” Frank patiently replied. “Think of it as more like a birth defect. Babies are born all the time missing vital body parts or congenital conditions like a hole in their heart. My defect, to simplify it, was too much testosterone and not enough estrogen. Oh yeah, and the penis.”

Conrad pondered that for a few moments, then said, “Wow. This whole process has to be really tough, isn’t it?”

Frank smiled and, nodding his head, replied, “You betcha. It’s better than the alternative, though.”

“What’s that?” Conrad asked.

“Looking in the mirror every morning and loathing the reflection I see,” Frank said as he stared at the floor.

“Come on, Conrad. Take a good look around,” the bartender said.

After finding his clothes and leaving Frank’s house, Conrad had returned that night to “Chaps and Spurs,” or, as he now thought of it, the scene of the crime. He was glad to see the same person behind the bar that was there last night, and was determined to find out why no one had bothered to tell him that he was hanging out with the cross-dressing, or pre-woman, or woman-under-construction, or whatever he/she was, Farnsworth football coach.

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Conrad asked.

“Just look around this place,” the bartender insisted.

“Okay, I see the posters and memorabilia on the walls. There’s Ferrets’ stuff, Redskins, Orioles…” Conrad said.

“No, take a REAL GOOD look around,” the bartender insisted. “Look at the people.”

Becoming more frustrated by the moment, Conrad huffed and agreed. “Let’s see, there’s two guys sitting at the far end of the bar, two girls shooting pool, another couple of girls shooting pool, two guys holding hands in the corner,” Conrad abruptly stopped. “Two guys holding hands in the corner! Everybody’s paired up boy-boy, girl-girl, and the girls look like they could easily kick the boys’ asses! Oh my God, this is a gay bar!” Conrad shrieked.

“Duh!” the bartender condescendingly replied. “That’s why nobody said anything to you. We figured if you were hanging out here you must be gay.”

“Oh, heavens no!” Conrad replied, annoyed at how gay that probably sounded. “I’m not gay. I’m the exact opposite of gay. I’m totally un-gay. I don’t even like to use Ben Gay.” Realizing he was now sounding like a homophobe, he quickly added, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you.”

Conrad took a deep breath, then asked, “So just how many cross-dressers do you get in here, anyway?”

“Well, I’m not exactly sure. We don’t exactly check under everyone’s hood when they walk in, if you know what I mean” the bartender sarcastically replied.

“I wish I had,” Conrad said wistfully. “I guess you wouldn’t be interested in doing that yourself anyway.”

“I’m as hetro as you are, pal. They hire straight bartenders here. Management figures that way they don’t have to worry about the help hitting on the customers,” the bartender told Conrad.

“That’s the first thing I’ve heard that makes sense,” Conrad pointed out.

“Anyway,” the bartender continued, “coach Williams has been coming in here for a long time. He figured he could blend in and people wouldn’t bother him. Everyone knew who he was and why he hung out here, so there was no problem.”

“Not everyone knew, my friend,” Conrad replied testily.

“What do you want us to do, put up a chart with pictures and names of known cross-dressers?” the bartender replied. “Give me a freakin’ break.”

“You could at least put up a sign saying ‘Welcome to Chaps and Spurs, proudly serving gays and cross-dressers in the Midville area,” Conrad suggested.

“Yeah, I’ll get right on that,” the bartender sneered. “Look, I’m not sure what your problem is, but it takes most people about 10 seconds or less to figure out what type of clientele we serve. Without a sign,” the bartender insisted.

After pausing a moment, the bartender said “Hey look, Conrad. I’m sorry you had a rough time. Let me buy you a beer and make it up to you.”

Conrad began waving his hands. “Noooo thank you. I had quite enough last night. I will take a diet cola, though, if you’re buying.”

“My pleasure,” the bartender replied. “You’ve been a good customer. Just because you’re not gay doesn’t mean you’re not welcome here. Come in anytime. Just be careful who you leave with, okay?”

Conrad smiled for the first time the entire day. “Sound advice. Yeah, this IS a nice place. You just might see me back here, after all. Now where’s that diet cola?”

Conrad stayed at “Chaps and Spurs” long enough to finish watching the late NFL games, then headed back to the suite he shared with Freddie. Upon entering, Freddie greeted him with, “Hey, did you make a road trip last night?” Then, after thinking for a moment, he asked, “Wait a minute, aren’t you still married?”

Conrad plopped down in the recliner he had claimed as his territory in their living area and replied, “No, there was no road trip and yes, I am still technically married.”

Freddie pressed on, “Sooooo?”

“So what?”

“So where were you last night? I know you never made it back here.”

“Aw, it’s nice to know you cared.”

“Yes, I care. Now give, what happened last night?”

“I almost feel like I need to go to confession for this.”

“Oooo, it must be juicy. Tell, tell.”

‘Well, you know this lady friend I told you I’d been hanging out with the last couple of Saturday nights.”

“Yeah. Frankie, isn’t it?’

“Yes and no. It turns out Frankie was actually Frank.”

Freddie began laughing so hard he fell off his perch on the couch.

“I’m glad YOU think it was funny. Even worse, Frank turned out to be “Stump” Williams, the football coach,” Conrad continued.

“What, you didn’t know he was rehearsing for his sex change?” Freddie asked incredulously.

“Nooo, I didn’t,” Conrad replied with a tone of great indignation. “Am I the only one on campus that DIDN’T know that?”

“Maybe,” Freddie responded. “How did he ‘reveal’ himself to you?” Freddie asked, beginning another laughing fit.

Conrad hesitated and began intensely studying his shoes. “I wound up in bed with him last night,” he finally spit out.

Freddie’s laughing fit escalated to the point where Conrad was concerned he would go into convulsions.

Finally, Freddie pulled himself together enough to ask “don’t tell me, you met him at ‘Chaps and Spurs’, our local gay sports bar?”

“I guess I didn’t get that memo either,” Conrad said with disgust.

Freddie resumed rolling around on the floor in convulsive laughter while Conrad looked for something to hose him down with.

Later that week, Conrad was at Farnsworth Field watching the men’s soccer team take on Backstreet College, one of the challengers for the league title. It was late in the first half of a tense 0-0 match when Conrad saw his protégé John Smith running toward the stands. John jumped the bleachers two rows at a time, obviously excited about something. My God, Conrad wondered, could this be good news. “Would the earth open up and swallow me whole if that happened? Well, at least I’d go out on a good note,” he thought.

John, proving he was not a candidate for the track team, was almost completely out of breath by the time he reached Conrad on the top row of the bleachers. Conrad wished he had a paper bag to give John, convinced he would soon be hyperventilating. “Whatever’s on your mind, I hope it was worth all this,” Conrad told his young associate.

“I, gasp, think, gasp, it, gasp, is,” John haltingly replied.

“Come on, take a minute to catch your breath John,” Conrad advised. After waiting for John’s breathing to approach normalcy, Conrad asked, “Now, what’s all this about?”

“Bowling,” John replied, still struggling for breath.

“At least I won’t have to worry about the earth opening up to swallow me now,” Conrad thought. “What, did you win free passes to go bowling? Okay, I’ll block out an evening when we can go, it should be fun.”

‘No sir, it’s not about us bowling. It’s about the school bowling,” John said.

“What, you want to have a school bowling tournament?” Conrad asked. “I guess we could, but it doesn’t seem worth getting all that worked up over.”

“No, no. The school could compete in bowling,” John said, still gulping for air.

“Oh, you mean sponsor a team in a local league? I don’t know, I’m not sure how that would look,
Farnsworth University taking on Al’s Auto Parts,” Conrad replied.

“Sir, you don’t understand,” John said, becoming frustrated with Conrad’s lack of comprehension. “The NCAA sanctions women’s bowling as an intercollegiate sport.”

“I didn’t know that,” Conrad replied. “Well, since we have lanes at the student union, I guess we could field a team.”

‘Here’s the best part, sir” John said, the excitement building in his voice. “They don’t have it broken up in three divisions. There’s only one women’s bowling division. Therefore…”

“Therefore, we could compete in Division I!” Conrad said, the light bulb switching on.

“That’s right, sir” John concurred, pumping a fist while he did so. “That would enable you to meet the stipulation in your contract.”

“Darned if it wouldn’t,” Conrad replied, recalling the clause that Mr. Farnsworth had inserted requiring him to establish a Ferret team in Division I within six months. “Do any big schools compete in this?” he asked John.

“Nebraska’s the only big-time school so far, and they’re the defending national champion. Right now, it’s a mix of smaller D1 schools, some in D2 and a couple in D3. We’d be at the low end of the totem pole, but at least we’d be on it.”

“True enough. Do they just have women’s bowling?” Conrad asked.

“Yeah, for some reason that’s all,” John replied. “Maybe they’re afraid men’s bowling would just turn into a kegger.”

They both chuckled at that thought, although Conrad added, “I don’t know, with some of the women’s leagues I’ve seen I think that’s still a risk.”

After another chuckle, Conrad shifted into business mode and began to give John directions. “I think water polo was the last sport Farnsworth added. I need you to go through the files and find the paperwork that had to be filled out and use that as a guide to get the ball rolling on this, so to speak.”

“Will do sir,” John said as he snapped to attention, also shifting into business mode. “I’ll try and roll it right in the pocket for you.”

“Nice bowling lingo there, John,” Conrad replied. “Just keep it between us, though. Play it very straight on the paperwork. And for crying out loud don’t let Four F get wind of this. He’s liable to stick his nose into it and make it nearly impossible to pull this off.”

“Should we talk in bowling codes, sir?” John asked.

“That won’t be necessary,” Conrad asked. “Why don’t you sit down and watch the rest of the game.”

“No thanks, sir. I want to get a jump on this,” John replied in that Boy Scout manner of his.

“Okay, go for it. Nice work finding about the bowling, John,” Conrad called after his dutiful assistant.

“Thank you sir,” he replied. “I’ll make you proud.”

“That boy’s got to get a life,” Conrad thought, “but not too soon. Maybe that can wait until after I get a contract extension from Old Man Farnsworth.”

The Ferrets wound up losing to the boys from Backstreet 1-0 when their shot at the tying goal caromed off the goal post with less than two minutes remaining in the game. Conrad was of course disappointed with the loss but very pleased with the level of play. At least there was one team I don’t have to worry about right now, he thought as he walked toward the parking lot.

On his way, he saw Jimmy Harris, the beat reporter from the Star-Bulletin. When they made eye contact, Conrad gave him a friendly wave and Jimmy hustled over to meet him. “Tough loss, huh Conrad?” Jimmy asked.

“Yeah, it would have been nice to get the tie here, but we played really well,” Conrad replied. “Ferret soccer is definitely heading in the right direction.” His sincerity behind that statement was bolstered when he saw a couple of young boys, probably fourth or fifth graders, run by wearing t-shirts with a cartoon image of Freddie Ferret bouncing a soccer ball off his head.

Soccer could become a fairly big deal at Farnsworth, Conrad thought. For a place he had always thought of as a hick town, he had been surprised by the size of the international population in Midville, particularly the Latino community. After drifting off for a moment, Conrad then refocused his attention on Jimmy.

“So what kind of review will we get in your fine publication?” Conrad asked with a smile.

“Pretty much what you just said, except longer,” Jimmy responded, his smile matching Conrad’s. “You guys are really competitive at this level. I wonder, though, what your buddy Troy Flemstone would do with these names,” he added.

Conrad burst out laughing at the thought of announcer Troy Flemstone trying to pronounce names like Chavez, Guevara, or Guerrero. Even the thought of him getting his tongue tied on Garcia or Gonzalez was amusing. “Let’s hope it never comes to that,” Conrad said.

After a brief pause, Conrad turned to directly face Jimmy and asked, “Have you thought about what we discussed last week?”

“You mean the whole sportswriting vs. news reporting thing?” Jimmy asked.

“Yeah, that,” Conrad said, already disappointed with Jimmy’s flip summary of what he had hoped was a heart-to-heart talk.

“Yes, I have,” Jimmy firmly responded. “You made some real good points about getting stuck covering the city morgue and stuff like that. But I also don’t want to spend the rest of my life at Division III field hockey and soccer games, either. I need to break news if I’m going to earn respect in this industry, and that needs to be my main focus.”

“I suppose that means you’re going to go ahead with digging into Freddie’s background,” Conrad said with a tone of resignation.

“I don’t know of any other story around here worth investing any effort in,” Jimmy shrugged. “I don’t have anything against the ferret, but you have to admit that there’s got to be a story to tell about why a guy decides to wear a ferret suit 24/7. Was he abused as a child? Is he hiding some deformity? Is he a wanted felon? Whatever it is, it’s likely to be newsworthy.”

Conrad knew Jimmy was right but still tried to re-direct him. “Even if there is a very good reason why he wants or needs the story to stay untold?” he asked Jimmy.

“If it’s true and I can prove it, it’s news,” Jimmy replied with a tone of finality.

Conrad picked up on the tone of Jimmy’s response and realized he had a new problem to deal with. Sure, he was curious about Freddie’s background, probably more so than Jimmy, but he also respected his privacy. Looking at the bigger picture, an expose of Freddie probably wouldn’t help him or the school. In fact, depending on what the story was, it could be a severely damaging public relations blow to the university. Rightly or wrongly, Freddie was the public face of Farnsworth University. Any attention given to the person inside the suit could diminish Freddie’s stature and, indirectly, the school’s presence in the community.

“Will you at least give me a heads up before anything goes into print and give me a chance to deal with it?” Conrad finally asked.

“Sure. For what it’s worth, I really hope it’s a good story,” Jimmy responded in a more conciliatory manner.

“Me too,” Conrad sighed.

Good Week to Catch Up

2006-10-03T14:01:00.000-07:00

Conrad and the folks are taking a break this week, so it's a good chance to catch up on any episodes you've missed. We'll be back next Tuesday with Episode 14.

Part 1, Episode 13: "Coach in a Blue Dress"

2006-09-26T16:39:00.000-07:00

“This hasn’t been a bad week, has it?” Conrad asked his trusty sidekick, John Smith.

“No sir, not bad at all. For here, it’s been very quiet,” John replied.

Indeed, this was the first week of the fall sports season that had gone by without incident, a milestone Conrad was taking a moment to savor late Friday afternoon. John was in his office providing his rundown on how the various Fighting Ferrets’ varsity teams were faring on the field, and for the first time there were no new off-the-field issues mixed in.

The men’s and women’s soccer teams had emerged as the most likely teams to challenge for a fall championship in the Little Atlantic Conference, the league that Farnsworth University joined nine years ago. Conrad was still amazed that the Ferrets had not won a single league championship in any sport. Not all of the teams were as bad as the football squad, but Farnsworth had seldom even fielded a competitive team during their dismal sports history.

Last week had seen one of the cross-country runners disqualified from a meet because she had wandered off the course, but that hardly ranked as a major issue. It would have been, Conrad thought, if she were driving the team bus. Neither the men’s or women’s cross-country teams were very good, so it was not like that misdirection had really cost the team anything.

Soccer, however, was a different story. Both the men’s and women’s coaches had adopted a strategy last season of recruiting any foreign-born player in the region that was not good enough to earn a scholarship from a Division I or II school. This resulted in their rosters reading like a United Nations meeting, but these kids also knew how to play soccer.

Even more significant, in most cases they had grown up with their primary athletic focus on soccer (some players still called it football), and it was not a default choice for them after failing at football or basketball. This infusion of talent had helped the Ferrets place a strong third in the LAC last season in both men’s and women’s soccer, and they were challenging conference powers Conservative Arch University and Wright Wing College for first place so far this year.

Finishing his roundup, John told Conrad that the volleyball team appeared to be destined for the middle of the pack in the conference, and the field hockey squad had won twice more since collectively reigning in their tempers.

John understood that he was not to bring up the football team unless there was a very compelling reason to do so. This unspoken directive was not difficult for John to comply with, since he did not want to address that depressing subject any more than Conrad did.

There was, however, a football related matter that he did need to discuss. “I’ve got some information for you on the halftime show next week for the Key College football game,” he told Conrad.

This was a matter of great concern for Conrad. Last Monday, he had received a call from Mr. Farnsworth imploring him to find something tangible and constructive for Four F to get involved with. Without thinking, Conrad had blurted out, “Well, he could put together a halftime show at our next home football game.” The Old Man loved the idea, thanked Conrad for suggesting it, and went about engaging Four F in planning “a halftime spectacular,” as he referred to it.

To Conrad’s way of thinking, this could be a spectacular disaster, but he really had no choice but to observe and hope no one got hurt. Four F had been secretive about this project, which made Conrad even more apprehensive. Feeling that being forewarned led to being forearmed, he had directed John Smith to sniff around and find out what he could about Four F’s plans.

Conrad now sat back in his chair and braced himself for John’s report. “Okay, tell me what you found out,” he said.

“He’s doing a Civil War theme. He’s got some exhibits out front during the pre-game, they’re doing a battle of the Monocacy reenactment at halftime, and anyone wearing a Civil War uniform gets in free,” John told him.

“You’re putting me on. He’s got people to do a freakin’ Civil War reenactment in fifteen minutes?” Conrad asked incredulously.

“Apparently. Civil War reenactments are a big deal up here. The Monocacy Battlefield is just a few miles away from here, and we’re not all that far from Antietam, which was the bloodiest battle of the Civil War,” John replied.

“Okay, but tying it in with a football game?” Conrad asked, maintaining his incredulous tone.

“What I heard is he’s trying to make Farnsworth U and Key College into a Civil War type rivalry. The outcome should be just about as bad at the Monocacy battle. The North gave the South a real butt-kicking in July 1864, and I doubt we’ll be much more competitive with Key,” John offered.

“Yeah, even if we were armed,” Conrad mused. “Boy, give our quarterback a loaded gun and the safest person in the world would be the one he is aiming at.”

John chuckled at the thought of their scatter-armed quarterback, Seymour Singletary, trying to hit a target with a gun. “Precision is not exactly his strong suit,” he replied.

“Why is it that I spend more of my time worrying about casualties at our events than us actually winning some of them? We need to get that fixed,” Conrad said, with John nodding in agreement.

The next day he observed the Ferrets suffer yet another blowout loss on the football field, this one 41-6 at Shallow Valley College. Conrad decided on the drive back to Midville that he would head directly for the Chaps and Spurs sports bar and begin unwinding a bit earlier than usual.

Upon arriving at the bar, he quickly scanned the crowd for his friend Frankie. Conrad did not find her, but he was not disappointed, either, since it was still late afternoon and he had not seen her there ahead of the early evening hours. He was able to snag an empty pool table and shoot by himself for a while. Conrad had determined that there would be no rematch with Frankie this week. After suffering through another football debacle, he did not need to be humiliated again in billiards.

As he had hoped, Conrad became totally focused on shooting pool. After a while, he didn’t even pay attention to any of the multitude of college football games on the televisions scattered throughout the bar. He was in the zone and began reconsidering taking Frankie on, but figured he would be better off quitting while he was ahead.

Conrad had lost track of how many racks he had played when he looked up at the clock and saw that it was nearly 8:00. He had held the table for over two hours and saw that there was still no sign of Frankie. With his concentration broken, he finished his current rack and yielded the table. After settling up with the cashier, he sat by himself at the bar and caught up on the day’s football scores.

At it approached 9:00, Conrad was considering leaving while he was still fit to drive himself home. He was startled to feel a tap on his right shoulder and hear a raspy, “you wanna buy a friend a drink?” Frankie had finally arrived and she looked really beaten down.

“Wow,” Conrad thought, “things must be really tough at work for her.” “Sure,” he said. “I was afraid you weren’t coming tonight. This is the highlight of my social life, you know.”

“Yeah, mine too, I’m afraid,” Frankie said. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Conrad said wearing a rueful grin. They were indeed two lost souls finding temporary refuge in each other’s company. That was OK with him, because there were worse ways to spend a Saturday night. Being alone, for example.

“You look like you’ve had a rough week. Things getting worse at work?” Conrad asked, trying to draw Frankie out.

“Not so much worse as just staying really, really bad. It’s wearing me down, Conrad. I feel helpless. I’m not this bad, but you couldn’t tell it from the results,” Frankie said, the frustration building in her voice.

“Why don’t we get a table and throw down a few?” Conrad suggested.

“That sounds like just what the doctor ordered,” Frankie quickly agreed.

After sharing a couple of pitchers of beer, Conrad noticed Frankie beginning to wind down. They began focusing on the Texas A&M-LSU game, and Conrad was impressed with how much Frankie understood about the X’s and O’s of football. “See, LSU is playing a 3-4 defense, but they don’t have any pass rush on either edge. There’s no way you can pressure a quarterback in that defense without at least one guy coming from the outside to compliment a good push from your interior linemen,” Frankie observed after watching A&M convert two third-and-long situations due in part to their quarterback having plenty of time to throw.

“You really know your football, don’t you?” Conrad commented.

“Yeah, I grew up in a family that was football nuts, and grew to really love the game. I don’t think there’s anything that gives me more pleasure than watching a good football game,” Frankie replied.

“Anything?” Conrad asked mischievously.

“Yep. Anything.” Frankie responded firmly.

If memory served, Conrad could think of something he used to do what seemed like eons ago that beat watching any sporting event, but it probably wouldn’t help anything to bring that up now, he thought.
They sat quietly for a while, drinking and watching football, neither in any hurry to leave and rejoin the real world.

Eventually Conrad felt himself drifting off. Later, he began stirring and immediately noticed he had a pounding headache. “No,” he thought, “pounding doesn’t do it justice. It’s more like a jack hammer drilling on top of my head.” He struggled to sit up and, noticing he was wearing only his underwear, saw the sun streaming in through the window. “Looks like a nice day,” he thought.

As he was slowly gathering his wits about him, he realized that he was in unfamiliar surroundings. “Where am I?” he wondered. “Geez, how much did I have to drink last night?”

Slowly turning his head so he could take in the entire room, he saw a dress draped over an overstuffed easy chair. “That looks familiar,” Conrad thought. “I know-that’s the blue dress Frankie wore last night.”

He suddenly sat up straight, his back completely rigid, and put his hands up to cover his face. “Oh crap,” Conrad thought, “did I take advantage of her last night? Or did she take advantage of me?” He then dropped his hands down to his side and eased his body around so he could see the other side of the bed. He saw a figure lying next to him with shorter hair than he remembered Frankie having. “Guess she wears a wig,” Conrad thought. “Oh man, what have I done?”

As if on cue, the other person in the bed began stirring. Conrad, curious to see what Frankie was wearing (and praying she was wearing something), reached over and lifted the covers up to peek underneath. What he saw was another man clad in only boxer shorts.

Conrad leaped out of bed and began screaming, “What the hell is going on here! What the hell is going on here!”

The other man in the bed struggled to sit up. He managed to say, “For God’s sake, Conrad, will you keep the noise down! I’ve got a bear of a hangover.”

Seeing who the man was set Conrad off again. “What are you doing here! Where’s Frankie?”

The man just sat there and gave Conrad one of those “how stupid are you?” looks. Truth be told, Conrad felt very stupid at that moment as he looked back toward the disheveled man.

It wasn’t bad enough that Frankie was apparently a cross-dresser who Conrad mistook for a woman. That was a scene out of a bad sitcom. It was much worse that he knew who the man was. That was a scene out of an “R” rated movie. It was infinitely worse that the man was the Farnsworth football coach Frank “Stump” Williams. Conrad was then struck with terror. He frantically looked around the room for a video camera, wondering if he had starred in a porno movie last night.

“Tell me we didn’t do anything last night!” Conrad demanded.

“What do you think I am, queer?” Frank asked. “No, we didn’t do anything, you moron.”

“Then how did I wind up in bed with only my skivvies on?” Conrad asked.

“Look, just calm down and don’t get your ‘skivvies’ all in a bunch,” Frank began. “We both had a lot to drink and by closing time neither one of us could even think about driving. I was still lucid enough to ask for a cab to be called for us. I had him drop us off here for the night.”

“Okay, but how did I wind up in bed with you?” Conrad pressed.

“I tried setting you up on the couch,” Frank responded, “but you kept rolling off onto the floor. I was pretty shaky myself, so I finally said the hell with it and dragged you in here. I guess I took your clothes off, I don’t really remember because I passed out pretty soon after I got you in bed.”

Conrad was quiet for a few moments. Rolling off the couch several times did help explain this dull ache he noticed in his left shoulder. He had a lot of information to process in a very impaired condition. After most of the facts had adequately sunk in, he asked, “Frank, why did you do this?”

“Do what?” Frank asked.

“Do what!?” Conrad screamed. “Dress up as a woman and act like my friend, that’s what! You knew who I was, damn it! What kind of sick game were you playing?”

The room fell uncomfortably quiet for several minutes. Finally, Frank broke the silence. “I wasn’t playing a game, Conrad. You of all people know what I’m going through right now. The football team is hopelessly bad. We’re a laughing stock in town and on campus. I just needed a little refuge where I wasn’t ‘Stump’. I needed a friend, Conrad, and no one around here would be one to ‘Stump.’ I thought they might be to Frankie, though.”

Conrad felt some of his anger abating and being replaced with sympathy. “So, if you don’t mind me asking,” Conrad began hesitantly, “how long have you been dressing up like a woman?”

Frank fixed a “you just don’t get it” look upon Conrad then replied, “I don’t dress up like a woman, Conrad. I AM a woman.”

Part 1, Episode 12: "An Addition to the Family"

2006-09-19T17:22:00.000-07:00

Conrad began stirring from his impromptu nap and felt two beady little eyes staring at him. When his eyes flickered open, he saw a small furry object perched on his chest, apparently scoping him out. Instinctively thinking this animal was a robust mouse, he jumped off the couch and screamed. The animal, probably terrified at the racket Conrad was making, dug in with his claws and hung onto his shirt.

“Get off, get off!” Conrad shrieked, terrified of being bitten by this potentially disease-ridden vermin. Afraid to touch it, Conrad swung his torso rapidly from side to side, trying to shake the creature off his shirt. When this didn’t work, he began looking for an object to pry it off, perhaps a pancake turner or spatula.

As Conrad began rummaging around the kitchen, the door opened and Freddie walked through. “Hey, Conrad, I’m glad to see you’ve met Junior. Isn’t he adorable?”

Conrad stopped dead in his tracks. Freddie, the guy in the ferret suit, had obtained a pet mouse, he thought. “Is there any way to get Junior off me?” Conrad asked, his tone betraying his agitation.
“Sure. Come here, Junior,” Freddie said, approaching Conrad and extending his left paw, or arm, or whatever it is. Obediently, Junior detached his front claws from Conrad’s now ruined dress shirt and placed them on Freddie’s fur. He quickly followed with the back claws and snuggled Freddie’s arm, paw, whatever.

“WHAT is Junior?” Conrad adamantly asked Freddie.

“Why, he’s a little ferret kit. I just picked him up today. What did you think he was?” Freddie replied.

“I was afraid he was a big mouse. I’d drifted off to sleep on the couch and woke up with him on my chest staring at me. Would it be too much to ask for a heads up when you do something like this?” Conrad asked.

“I’m sorry, pal. I didn’t think it was a big deal. Sorry he startled you.”

“To someone who wears a ferret suit 24/7, it’s not a big deal bringing home a ferret. To ordinary civilians like me, a little warning would be most helpful.”

“Gotcha. Sorry about the shirt.”

“Something tells me that won’t be the only casualty in the weeks ahead. Junior, huh? As in Freddie Junior?”

“What else?” Freddie shrugged.

“Have you got everything set up for him?” Conrad asked. “Meaning, do I have to watch where I walk?
Does he need to be taken out to go potty?”

“Ferrets use a litter box, and I’ve already got that set up in my bathroom. See, I got them to put a little trap door in my bedroom door so Junior can go in and out at night,” Freddie pointed out.

“No cage?” Conrad asked.

“I’m going to try not to resort to that. This place is small enough that I hope he can just have the run of things without a jail cell.” Freddie replied.

“He really is a little thing. How old is he?”

“About 12 weeks. He might grow to about five or six pounds, but probably no bigger. Ferrets, present company excluded, are tiny little animals.”

“He is sort of cute,” Conrad admitted. “Where did you get him?”

“Father Ferret, the original Farnsworth mascot, has a side business where he breeds them. I had asked him a while back to pick one out for me, and he called over the weekend to tell me that this one had been weaned from his mother. I waited until I could get the trap door and all the supplies before I picked him up.”

“What does he eat?”

“There’s special ferret food, but he can also eat most types of cat food. He’ll probably eat healthier than you, Conrad.”

Conrad let out a chuckle. “I think most living organisms do better than daily Galaxy Burger combos. Well, welcome to our home, Junior,” Conrad said and reached out to pet Junior.

Perhaps interpreting it as an aggressive move, Junior chomped down on Conrad’s approaching hand while still clinging securely to Freddie.

“Ow! Damn it, that hurt!” Conrad yelled.

“Hey, do you mind? No swearing in front of the child,” Freddie said.

“Fine. Tell your child I’m not a snack, OK?” Conrad snapped.

“Yeah, we’ll work on that. They tell me sometimes it takes up to a year for a ferret to become attached to someone, so be patient. I’m lucky he’s taken to me so quickly,” Freddie replied.

“He probably thinks you’re his mother. Your fur is even a similar color,” Conrad observed, noticing the similarity in the light brown fur with almost an orange tint that both Freddie and Junior displayed. “In fact,” Conrad added, “I think he has your eyes.”

“Well, I guess that makes you his uncle,” Freddie said.

“Great,” Conrad replied sarcastically. “He’s not going to howl or make any strange noises during the night, is he?”

“No, he won’t make much noise at all. He’ll probably sleep something like 16-18 hours a day, too. If there are any strange noises coming from my room, they’ll be mine.”

As he thought of being able to sleep that much for even one day, Conrad felt a moment of jealously toward his newest roommate. “So why did you get him, Freddie?” he asked.

“I guess I just wanted someone to love,” Freddie softly replied while he petted Junior.

Saturday brought the event Conrad had spent the last week dreading, his debut as analyst on the Ferret Football radio team. There was actually a part of him that was excited about doing a game broadcast for the first time. He had grown up listening to Baltimore broadcasting legend Chuck Thompson, and later Jon Miller, and the thought of dipping a toe into their line of work was somewhat titillating.

That excitement was overwhelmed by two factors. First, the Ferrets’ football team was abysmal. He didn’t want to be too hard on the kids since they were probably doing the best they could, but their best clearly was not suitable for college football at any level. Second was the minor problem that he really could not understand the play-by-play announcer, Troy Flemstone--a small college announcer with an All-American lisp.

Conrad found some solace in the fact that most if not all the listeners shared his problem with Troy and would be unable to tell if his comments were appropriate follow-ups to what Troy had just said. Therefore, he would just talk about what he saw and not worry too much about trying to be in sync with Troy. He would also hope the game was not a massacre.

Mercifully, WFUR did not carry a lengthy pre-game show like major colleges did. Kickoff was scheduled for 1:05, and the broadcast did not begin until 1:00. Promptly at 1:00, Troy opened the broadcast, “Good afternoon, Ferret fanth, and welcome to another exthiting afternoon of Ferret football.” That wasn’t too bad, Conrad thought. If he will just stay away from words with “s” in them, this might not be too painful.
“Yeth, fanth, ith a beautiful thunny afternoon here in Eath Wethgate.” “Never mind,” thought Conrad.

His hopes for a competitive game were also quickly dashed. The Holy Terrors of St. McDonald’s College tore through the Fighting Ferreth’, er Ferrets’ defense like cheap tissue paper. St. McDonald’s marched the length of the field the first four times they touched the ball and held a decisive 28-0 lead early in the second quarter. At this point, as near as Conrad could tell, Troy lost interest in the game and started telling stories. He could occasionally make out a down and distance call from Troy, but otherwise just waited for him to draw a breath before inserting some pertinent information about the game.

The station ran pre-recorded interviews at halftime, giving Conrad a few moments away from Troy where he could try to unwind. When Conrad returned to the broadcast booth just before the second half kickoff, Troy commented on Conrad’s analysis. “You’re doing jutht a thwell job, Conrad. Are you thure you’ve never done thith before?” Troy asked.

“Nope, this is my first time. I guess I picked up enough listening to the pros do this over the years that I’ve got somewhat of a clue.” Conrad responded.

“Well, if you ever dethide to leave thporth adminithrathration, you thould conthider broadcathting,” Troy added.

“Thankth,” Conrad replied.

By the time the clock had mercifully run out on the drubbing, a 48-3 loss for the Ferrets, Conrad had to restrain himself from running out of the booth. Troy seemed to be a genuinely nithe man, but that lithp made Conrad crazy! I can’t thtop lithping! HELP!

Sorry about that, folks. As I was saying, Conrad quickly bolted from the booth toward his car, eager to leave today’s carnage behind and return to Midville. More specifically, he was excited about returning to “The Chaps and Spurs Sports Bar,” hoping to run into Frankie again. It was too early to head there, however, so he returned back to his suite to watch the late afternoon football games, glad that today’s debacle had not totally killed his interest in the sport.

He entered the suite carefully, lest Freddie’s adopted son Junior dart out the open door. After turning on the television and quickly surfing the televised football games, he settled on the Florida State-Notre Dame contest. He fetched a bottle of water from the refrigerator and sat down to enjoy the game. When Florida State jumped out to a 21-0 lead, he became restless and decided to do some work to help him prepare for the next week.

When he wasn’t on the job, Conrad often left his laptop computer out for occasions like this. There had never been any reason not to. Freddie was respectful of Conrad’s property, so there was no issue with it being misused. The dynamics had changed, however, a thought that occurred to Conrad when he tried to turn his computer on. Nothing happened, no noise, no light on the screen, nothing. When Conrad went to hit the enter key, just in case that would help, he felt a sticky substance on the key. Curious, he checked the rest of the keyboard and found that most of the keys on the right half were now sticky.

As he was speculating on what had happened, he saw Junior pop through the trap door from Freddie’s room. He scampered around the living area and headed toward the kitchen. Junior then climbed up a chair and secured himself on the kitchen table, the place that Conrad had left his laptop this morning. He then watched Junior proceed to tinkle on the table. It immediately became obvious to him what the sticky substance on his computer keys was, and that ferret urine had probably seeped into the unit and burned out the motherboard, making it useless.

As he raced to wash his hands, Conrad was relieved that he had backed up his data on Friday. He did wonder how he was going to explain this on a purchase requisition when he ordered a new computer.

Given the options of staying in and watching a lopsided football game, waiting for Junior’s next move, or contemplating his navel, Conrad decided to get cleaned up and head out to the sports bar early. He figured he could occupy himself shooting pool while he waited to see if Frankie showed up.

When he entered “Chaps and Spurs”, he found that Frankie had already arrived. He spotted her at one of the pool tables stuffing some money into her purse. He realized she WAS a hustler and had gone easy on him last week. This will not do, he thought. “I’ve got just enough male ego left that I will not let a woman feel she has to let me win at billiards,” he thought.

“Hey lady, can I take next?” Conrad asked as he approached. There were several men in her general vicinity, and they giggled at what Conrad had said.

“Sure, I’ll take your money,” Frankie replied. She proceeded to do just that. Frankie played free and easy, while Conrad found the harder he tried the worse he played. At five dollars a game, Conrad’s funds were quickly exhausted. He thought she threw a couple of games his way just to extend their playing time, but eventually he was playing so poorly she couldn’t even let him win.

Sensing Conrad’s frustration was close to getting the best of him, Frankie said, “I’m hungry. Winner buys dinner.” Already tapped out for the night, Conrad quickly agreed.

As they sat and ordered their first round of drinks, Frankie noticed Conrad ruefully shaking his head. “What’s bothering you, Conrad? I hope it’s not just the ass kicking I gave you over there,” Frankie said.

“No, it’s just been that kind of day. I had to sit through an awful football game doing a radio broadcast with a guy I can barely understand, then I come home and found the ferret had peed on my computer,” Conrad offered with a sigh.

“Geez, I thought he would have been house broken by now,” Frankie said.

Conrad chuckled, “No, no, not the mascot. He just got a little pet ferret who apparently needs remedial potty training.”

“Ok, that makes more sense, I guess. Sounds like a tough day,” Frankie replied.

“Yeah, and getting emasculated at the pool table was a fitting way to wrap it up,” Conrad said. “Hey, enough about me. Are things going any better for you at work?”

“Can’t say that they are,” Frankie replied.

“You told me you’re a manager, right?” Conrad asked.

“Yeah. I’ve got several assistants working for me, and a team of about seventy people overall, counting interns,” Frankie said.

“Wow, that’s a big group. I know you told me last week you’ve got some serious performance issues to deal with. What seems to be causing them?” Conrad asked.

“Have you heard the phrase ‘You can teach a pig to sing, but in the long run it wastes your time and annoys the pig’? Well, that’s what I’m up against. We just haven’t got enough talent to be very good, and it’s just getting really frustrating,” Frankie said.

“That reminds me of the debacle I watched today. Our football team is just unspeakably bad. At your job, have you ever thought about blowing it up and trying to start from scratch?” Conrad asked.

“All the time, my friend, all the time. It’s too late for that in my situation, though. Pretty soon I imagine I’ll have to get on with the rest of my life,” Frankie said.

“Take it from me, since I’ve very recently experienced that situation. You just never know where fate will lead you.” Conrad said, concluding the serious discussion for the evening.

Part 1-Episode 11: Changing Directions

2006-09-12T19:27:00.000-07:00

“Hi daddy!” the little voice shrieked enthusiastically into the phone.

“Hi Connie. How’s my little sweetheart doing?” Conrad asked.

“I’m real good. I’m having lots of fun out here. It’s really neat!” the little girl responded.

As soon as Conrad had signed the papers for their legal separation, his wife Camilla, as per terms of the agreement, was free to take their precocious four-year old daughter and move back to her home town of San Diego. Conrad had signed them on a Monday, and by Saturday she had rented out their home and swept Connie off to stay with Camilla’s parents.

Being over 3,000 miles away from his beautiful little daughter deeply troubled Conrad, but the truth was that he had not been that great of a father before he and Camilla split. Shortly after Connie was born, Conrad and Camilla’s marriage, never rock solid from the outset, slipped into a slow, painful, death spiral. Camilla gradually built her own life as a mother and a research scientist at Johns Hopkins, a life that included less of Conrad as time passed. Unable to penetrate the wall that Camilla built around herself, Conrad dove into his work, spending more and more time at EAPU and related sporting events. The cost of this escapism was the relationship between him and his daughter.

Conrad loved Connie to pieces; he knew that. At this point in her young life, she had plenty of love for him, too. Connie had always treasured every moment Conrad spent with her, making that time very special to him. Taking a few minutes to play with her, read to her, or just hold her while she sat in his lap, was better than any feel-good drug in existence. He had only seen Connie once since he and Camilla had split, and that was for less than an hour the day before they left for California. Even though he never spent an abundance of quality time with her, knowing that his little princess was so far away left the feeling that there was a hole in his heart

Conrad could have fought for temporary custody, but he decided not to. With the kind of hours he needed to put in at Farnsworth, there would be precious little time to also be a daddy. Despite how cold and withdrawn Camilla had become around him the past few years, he had to admit she was still a good and loving mother. Being with her grandparents, two good people who lived in a very nice section of San Diego, would help provide Connie with a nurturing environment. Conrad’s selfless act of letting Connie go to California may have been the first true parenting decision he had made since she was an infant.

It was obvious during this phone call that Connie was having a blast in San Diego. She loved being around her grandparents, the weather was spectacular and led to plenty of quality playground time, and she had made an abundance of new friends. Conrad listened to her detailed description of these new friends and a virtual play-by-play of her activities since arriving out there. She sounded like a very happy little girl, which made him feel very warm inside.

Then, as her mother was nagging her to end the call, she said “I miss you daddy,” in such a sweet tone that it nearly broke Conrad’s heart.

Fighting to hold back tears, he said in a cracking voice “I miss you too, Connie. Have fun and know that Daddy loves you.”

As he was finishing the sentence, Camilla took the phone and, in a particular icy tone, told Conrad, “Make sure the check’s on time this month.” She then hung up the phone.

Connie was still very much on Conrad’s mind the next morning, as he had been through much of a very restless night. Surprisingly, there was another person who Conrad’s thoughts kept coming back to.

After the Galludet football game, Conrad had wandered around downtown Midville and eventually stepped into the “Chaps and Spurs Sports Bar.” As advertised, the place was all about sports and drinking. With three big-screen televisions and dozens of smaller ones scattered throughout the bar, restaurant, and recreation areas, you couldn’t avoid whatever games were being broadcast even if you wanted to. Conrad was particularly impressed with the monitor that was imbedded in the wall over the urinals in the men’s room.

There were Farnsworth pennants, football schedules (Conrad gave a fleeting thought to tearing those down) and photos of Ferrets’ sports blended in with those of the area’s pros and big schools throughout the building. Conrad saw at least three pictures of Freddie in action prominently displayed in the restaurant area. Unlike most sports bars, however, this place was more than just a collection of memorabilia and beer signs. It was nicely decorated with attractive window treatments, featured a bright mix of pastel colors, and was also spotlessly clean, all unique compared to other sports bars Conrad had visited.

After grabbing a bite to eat that evening, Conrad made his way over to the billiards room, where he could sit by the railing and keep his eye on several college football games at the same time. Always having been a University of Maryland fan, most of his attention was focused on their game with West Virginia.

After sitting for a while, he started to feel restless. Surmising that he needed to do something to burn off the frustration of the day, he went to get a rack of balls to shoot at the pool table that had just opened up. When he got to the desk, he found that someone had beaten him to it. As he considered whether or not to leave and head back home, he heard a husky female voice say, “Hey, you wanna share a table?”

Conrad turned and saw a short, squaty woman who appeared to be at least in her late 40’s holding a rack of billiard balls and what appeared to be her own custom made pool stick. “I don’t know. I’ve had a tough day, and I really don’t feel like getting hustled by a woman. No offense.”

“None taken,” she replied. “Don’t freak out because I’ve got my own stick. I’m not really that good, and I’m not all that sober either. You won’t get hustled.”

After considering her offer for a moment, Conrad decided to grab a stick and join her. She had not lied to him. This lady, who he discovered was named Frankie, wasn’t a very good pool player. It didn’t matter, though, because he was finally able to start putting the miserable experience at the Galludet game behind him and focus on shooting pool. As the evening progressed, he found himself paying less attention to making shots or the football games still in progress overhead. He and Frankie had started talking and kept it up until they both tired of billiards and grabbed a table in the bar.

Conrad was not attracted to Frankie in anything resembling a sexual way, but he was smitten with her nonetheless. It had been years since he had been able to have a lengthy conversation about himself, his dreams, his problems with Camilla. Now he was with a woman who immediately seemed to understand him better than she ever had.

The conversation was hardly one sided. Frankie apparently felt as comfortable with Conrad as he did with her. She told him about how she was struggling with her career, worried that she had chosen the wrong path. Frankie was afraid she would lose her job by the end of the year and was unsure of what the future held. She also talked about how her marriage ended, and the two swapped “war stories” regarding their spouses.

As the clock approached midnight, Conrad prepared to leave and impulsively took her hand, “Thanks for a great evening. I really enjoyed being with you, Frankie. Good luck with your work situation.”

“My pleasure, Conrad,” Frankie responded. “Maybe I’ll see you around again sometime.”

“I hope so,” Conrad replied as he made his way toward the exit. Boy, he thought, I don’t recall ever meeting a woman with such a strong grip. “Frankie could have broken my knuckles if she had wanted to,” he determined as he called for a cab home.

That afternoon, it was time for Conrad to get his mind clear of personal issues and focus on the upcoming field hockey game. Coach Cage, with surprising confidence, had assured him earlier that morning there would not be a repeat of the carnage that had occurred in the Ferrets’ first two games. Conrad had taken Cage at his word and begged his counterpart at St. Josephine’s College to send his team down to play their scheduled game at Farnsworth. Reluctantly, he had agreed and the team showed up as planned.

Much to Conrad’s relief, there was little sign of the anger the field hockey Ferret’s had vented in their earlier games. The Farnsworth team was much more physical than their opponents from St. Josephine’s, but kept their aggressiveness within the rules. The Ferrets were holding a commanding 2-0 lead late in the first half when one of the Farnsworth players missed a defensive assignment and gave a Gopher attacker a wide-open shot at the goal. She scored, cutting the Ferrets’ lead to 2-1. Conrad, along with the entire St. Josephine’s squad, held his breath, since opponents’ goals had precipitated much of the Ferrets’ violence in previous games. A disturbing amount of profanity was spewed by the Farnsworth players as they moved back to their positions, but, to Conrad’s relief, there was no fighting, pushing, biting, hair pulling, or stick swinging. It looked like coach Cage may have figured things out after all, Conrad thought.

The Fighting Ferrets continued to play aggressively but stayed under control and coasted to a 4-1 win over the St. Josephine Plumbers. Their coach seemed more relieved to escape Farnsworth without needing an ambulance than he was upset about losing. Conrad caught up with Coach Cage on his way to the locker room and said, “Coach, this looked like an entirely different team. What did you come up with?”

“I promised the team that as long as they did their part, I wouldn’t tell anyone about out team goals,” Cage responded.

Worried, Conrad asked, “You’re not doing anything like giving them money are you?”

“No, no, nothing at all like that,” Cage responded, chuckling as he did so. “You have absolutely nothing to worry about. What we’re doing is completely within the rules.”

“OK,” a relieved Conrad said. “Keep it up!”

It was a lovely Thursday afternoon, and Conrad had decided to take full advantage of it by walking from his office to the field hockey venue, about ¾ of a mile away. As he began his return trip following the game, Jimmy Harris of the Star-Bulletin jogged up beside him.

“I’m surprised to see you at a field hockey game, Jimmy,” Conrad said, fully knowing why the reporter had covered the game.

“Given the way these girls started the season, I thought there was a decent chance something newsworthy would happen today,” Jimmy replied, clearly disappointed that the game was uneventful.

“Well, you’re in luck, then,” Conrad said. “You caught our first win of the season.”

“Yeah, that’ll make the front page,” Jimmy huffed.

“I’ve read your sport section every day,” Conrad responded. “This game story might actually make page one, although probably below the fold.”

“Oh, I know that,” Jimmy replied. “I meant the front page of the newspaper.”

“Geez, Jimmy, I don’t know if Bob Woodward started out covering college field hockey games,” Conrad playfully tweaked his companion.

Ignoring that remark, Jimmy said, “I hear the ferret was offered a position of the ballot for City Alderman and turned it down.”

“Yep, that’s right.”

“Did they think a guy in a ferret suit could actually win an election?”

“Well, the guy that traded Sammy Sosa for Harold Baines wound up getting elected President of the United States,” Conrad said, referring to George W. Bush, who was managing partner of the Texas Rangers at the time.

“I guess you’ve got a point there,” Jimmy agreed. “So what made him decide not to run?”

“I don’t know,” Conrad lied, “maybe he thought with his school schedule and mascot duties he wouldn’t have time to do a good job as an Alderman.”

“Maybe,” Jimmy said, “or maybe he just didn’t want people like me nosing around in his past or asking the question ‘why do you wear a ferret suit all the time.”

“Jimmy, I doubt very many of us want people trying to dig stuff up on us.”

“That’s a fair point, but we aren’t wearing a ferret suit 24/7 either. I bet there’s a fascinating story behind that. Boy, would I love to be the one to break it.”

“So ratting out the ferret is going to be your Watergate story?”

“Maybe. You know, I’ve got bigger plans than doing this stuff all my life. I don’t want to become like that loser editor of mine and get stuck in this Podunk town writing about nothing. I’m better than that. I’m going to be a real reporter, not just some schlub sportswriter.”

“Jimmy, before you started doing this for a living, were you a sports fan?”

“Sure. I collected autographs and sports cards just like any other boy.”

“Well maybe you can take the next step before you totally dismiss sportswriting as a worthless career path.”

“What do you mean the next step?”

“Here’s the deal. When you grow into adulthood, you can approach sports three different ways. First, you can go in other directions and think of sports as an occasional recreational diversion. Second, you can live and die with a particular team or teams. You can be happy when they win, you can be sad when they lose. Then there’s the third approach.”

“What’s that?”

“You can grow to understand what sports are really about. If all you follow are the numbers, you know, the wins and losses and player stats, you’re still only scratching the surface of what sports can offer. It’s really all about the people. There are good people and there are bad people. There are ones who heroically rise above seemingly insurmountable obstacles to succeed, and there are others who piss away an abundance of God-given talent. There are people who put their teammates first and make them better players, there are others who care only about themselves and the adulation they feel they deserve.”

“Okay, so what’s your point?”

“My point is this. A sportswriter has plenty of stories to tell, some good, some bad, and some very important. You can go in the direction of writing hard news and wind up spending your time sitting in endless government hearings or maybe hanging out in the city morgue every night. Or, you can get beyond the numbers in sports and write about the people. But you can do it in a way that doesn’t compromise them. There are enough people with stories to tell right here on campus that you don’t have to dig up one that won’t serve any good purpose.”

“In other words, stay clear of the ferret.”

“Now we’re communicating. You don’t have to sacrifice him to avoid turning into another Buddy Wright. People don’t have to be hurt for there to be a good story to tell.”

They had reached the entrance to Farnsworth Forum, and Conrad placed his hand on the door. He hesitated for a moment and turned back toward Jimmy “Think about it, Jimmy.”

Part 1, Episode 10: "Leading the Followers"

2006-09-04T14:55:00.000-07:00

“Wow, Conrad! What do you think I should do?” Freddie asked.

Conrad, sitting across the table from him, smiled and shook his head. The wonder that is Freddie Ferret continued to amaze him. Freddie had received a phone call earlier that evening from Dirk Smithson, the leader of the Democratic Party in Midville. Dirk informed Freddie that one of his party’s candidates for Midville City Alderman had fallen ill and would have to drop out of the primary election, which was only eight days away. Without this candidate, one of the seats would go uncontested to the Republicans. Smithson had asked Freddie to fill that slot.

“Is this something you would want to do?” Conrad asked.

“Sure. My second degree is in political science. I’m working on one now in psychology. If anything, I’m probably overqualified for a local position like this,” Freddie replied.

“If his current degree program was in abnormal psychology, that would make Freddie more qualified to be athletic director here than me,” Conrad thought. “Well, you sure do know Midville, and the town just loves you,” Conrad said, rubbing his goatee as he pondered this unlikely situation.

“Yeah, if an actor could be elected President of the United States, why couldn’t a ferret win a city alderman’s seat?” Freddie chimed in.

Freddie had a good point, Conrad thought, but there was a factor he had apparently not addressed. “Even as popular as you are, though, it would not be easy to win this election.”

“Why not?” Freddie asked, surprised at the skepticism implied in Conrad’s tone.

“You need to remember,” Conrad continued, “that this is a staunchly Republican area. They have most of the political muscle in this town and quite likely won’t look very kindly upon an interloper in a ferret suit. They’ll pull out all the stops to make sure you don’t win.”

“Yeah, but what can they really do to me, Conrad?” Freddie asked. “My public persona is comparable to a Boy Scout.”

“What about the ladies?” Conrad asked.

“That wouldn’t be a problem. I joke with you about being a furry gigolo, but I am not a ‘love ‘em and leave ‘em’ or one-night stand ferret. I’m very nurturing and sensitive,” Freddie said defensively.

“Ok, then what about your past. I’m assuming you weren’t born in the ferret suit. Are you up to someone digging around in you pre-Farnsworth days and making public anything that might embarrass you and cost you votes?” Conrad countered.

Freddie fell silent and stared at the floor. After a few moments, he broke the silence. “I guess I should really think about this before I jump in,” he said softly.

Earlier that day, Conrad had met with his intern, John Smith, to go over the Fighting Ferret results so far in the fall season. Conrad had tasked John to attend as many games for as many sports as possible, serving as his eyes while Conrad was still trying to pull things together in the office. None of the teams were faring very well in the early going, but there were two in particular that required special attention.
“What’s going on with the field hockey team?” Conrad asked John.

“They’ve lost their first two games, 7-1 to Central Maryland College and 6-1 to Southern Penn,” John replied.

“Geez, those are some bad whippings for field hockey. I thought we had some pretty good players, or at least that’s what Coach Cage told me,” Conrad said. “Why do we have a male field hockey coach, anyway?”

“Four F hired Gene Cage after your predecessor quit. His philosophy, if you can call it that, is that women aren’t good leaders, and therefore not qualified to be coaches,” John told Conrad. “It didn’t go over very well with the players, and they’re taking their anger out on anything around them.”

“How so, I’m afraid to ask,” Conrad said.

“They’re getting penalty calls out the wazoo,” John replied. “If the other team has the nerve to score a goal, the player that scores is getting pummeled with fists and sticks. That usually gets at least one of our players ejected, and just like in soccer, when a player is ejected in field hockey, the team plays short-handed the rest of the game.”

“That’s not good,” Conrad said, stating the obvious.

“It gets worse,” John continued. “With our team playing shorthanded, we’re more likely to give up another goal, which starts another fight and gets another player ejected. It’s like the proverbial snowball rolling down the mountain.”

“Yeah, a really pissed off snowball with a weapon,” Conrad added.

“Take our last game against Southern Penn,” John added. “We were up 1-0 with less than ten minutes left in the game. They scored, we started a fight, they scored again, we started another fight, and by the end of the game we only had five players left on the field. They probably could have scored ten goals but they were afraid of suffering more casualties. The players have also taken to carrying their sticks around everywhere they go.”

“So girls are getting hurt in these fights?” Conrad asked.

“Oh yeah, the report from the Southern Penn game was two concussions and a broken arm. We’re supposed to play St. Josephine’s on Thursday and they’re threatening not to show up.”

“I’ll talk to Coach Cage and let him know he’s got to get control of his team. Now you told me we were also having problems with the water polo team.”

“Yeah. Believe it or not, several of the guys still can’t swim very well.”

“I remember Coach Fishwell being concerned about that the first week of school. He asked for a lifeguard at practice, for God’s sake.”

“I think you’d better make sure one is there sir, or else we might lose one of players.”

“Wow, we’re that bad? That does explain how we could lose the opener 14-0.”

“Sir, it was so bad one of our attack men received a pass and refused to take one arm out of the water to catch it. He stopped it with his head and pushed it forward with his nose like a freakin’ seal! He was afraid he wouldn’t stay afloat if he didn’t do it that way. I also think I saw a couple of our defenders doing the dog paddle trying to stay afloat.”

“Wow, that’s pathetic! I’d better get Coach Fishwell in here and how he plans to improve on this.” Conrad stopped and shook his head, “Whose bright idea was it to have a water polo team anyway, for crying out loud?”

“Four F’s sir,” John replied. “Coach Fishwell met with him last year and sold him on the idea.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me,” Conrad said, then let out a deep sigh.

Later that week, Conrad met with his beleaguered field hockey and water polo coaches, amazed that such low profile programs were quickly reaching the point of becoming a major disaster for the athletic department and Farnsworth U as a whole.

First, he talked with Gene Cage, the alleged leader of the field hockey Ferrets. “Gene, you know we’ve got
a serious problem with your team, don’t you?”

“I know, we’re not playing very good defense,” Cage responded.

“No, not that. I’m talking about your girls’ propensity toward creating anarchy.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Your players need to stop beating the crap out of the other team’s players, is that clear enough? That is one angry group you’ve got there Gene, and you’ve got to get it under control.”

“Well, I know they can get a bit overly aggressive at times…”

“Overly aggressive?! They’re putting people in the hospital, for God’s sake! I’ve heard they’re even carrying their sticks around to class, practically daring anyone to mess with them. Fortunately, nothing has happened yet, probably because they’ve scared the crap out of everyone. You’ve got to get this thing ratcheted down in a hurry or else no one will play us, and we could be facing lawsuits from your team’s victims.”

“Lawsuits? On what basis?”

“Coaching negligence would be my best guess.”

Cage looked down at the floor and, after a moment, began to cry. “I don’t know what to do, Conrad. The girls hate me! I’m afraid if I try to correct them, they’ll turn on me. You’ve heard what they can do. If they go after me, you might need dental records to identify the body!”

Conrad sat stunned for a moment. He wasn’t sure what to expect from Coach Cage, but he knew this wasn’t it. Conrad spent a few moments fighting the urge to get Cage to pull himself together by slapping him. Finally, he came up with a non-violent approach.

“Gene, if discipline and fear won’t work on these girls, try motivating them,” Conrad began. “Give them some goal they can reach that will mean something to them. That way they can gain more of a sense of accomplishment by putting the ball in the goal and focus less on putting their opponents in the hospital. If they can channel this anger into some positive energy, you just might have a really good team. Better yet, we won’t get sued.”

Cage thought for a moment then asked, “How would I do that?”
“I don’t know,” Conrad replied. “You’re the one that spends time with these girls so you need to figure out what would motivate them. You’ve got until Thursday afternoon. St. Josephine’s is threatening not to come here for the next game, but I’ll call the school and assure them you will have the problem under control.”

“What if I haven’t figured it out by then?” Cage asked.

“We’ll forfeit the game and bring in someone who can motivate these girls and get them to quit hurting people and putting the school at risk,” Conrad replied firmly with his eyes fixed on Cage’s. The coach then stood up without saying anything further and shuffled out of Conrad’s office with Gretchen’s meowing in the background.

The next day, Conrad met with Biff Fishwell, the water polo coach. Fishwell had grown up in the Midville area and became a collegiate water polo star at Western California, helping lead them to the 1997 national championship. After moving back to Maryland to take a federal government job, he found he still had the itch for water polo. He had approached Four F last spring about getting Farnsworth U to field a team, and Four F quickly agreed.

It appeared to Conrad that Fishwell might have been an outstanding player but had no particular aptitude toward coaching water polo. After speaking with him for a while and realizing just how clueless Fishwell was, Conrad called the Farnsworth swimming coach, Sam Schwimmer, and offered him a bonus if he would spend some time with the water polo players and teach them how to swim. Coach Schwimmer had watched the 14-0 loss to Ike and Mike College and had already been considering volunteering his services. A bonus made him even more willing, although he was understandably puzzled how a collegiate team in a water sport could need swimming lessons.

Shortly after Conrad hung up with Coach Schwimmer, Gretchen announced that Freddie was holding on the phone for him. “Hey Freddie, what’s up buddy?” Conrad said as he took the call.

“Conrad, I’m still having trouble deciding about running for Alderman, and the party is pushing me for an answer. You and Mr. Farnsworth are the only people I can really talk to about something like this. If I can get in with him this afternoon, are you available to sit with us and help me figure this out?”
“Sure, Freddie,” Conrad replied. “I’m pretty open this afternoon, so just have Kate call Gretchen and let her know when I should come over.”

“Thanks a lot, man. I’ll see you later,” Freddie replied.

After they finished talking, Conrad sat back and pondered what was going on inside the head of his furry friend. It was very obvious that Freddie wanted to run for the Alderman seat, but what was he afraid of? Was there something so bad in his past that he would give this up just so he would not risk its disclosure? Would this secret explain why he was so happy living in a ferret suit, an issue that he had not yet taken up with Freddie? “I bet the Old Man knows,” Conrad thought, “he seems to have a very paternal relationship with Freddie. I wonder if I can get him to tell me?”

Conrad arrived at Mr. Farnsworth’s office a few minutes before the scheduled 3:00 PM meeting and found Freddie chatting up Kate. Watching them interact, Conrad was surprised to find that, when she was not wearing her “Satan’s Mistress” scowl, Kate had an alluring spark in her eye and was not unattractive. Maybe she didn’t actually fly in to work on her broom every morning, he thought.

Shortly after 3:00, Kate ushered them into the Old Man’s office while, it appeared to Conrad, still displaying that spark when she made eye contact with him. The meeting was a short one, with Mr. Farnsworth and Conrad both expressing concern about the background search the media and the Republican Party would perform once Freddie announced he was a political candidate. Ultimately, it was important enough to Freddie to keep his past a mystery to the public that he decided to turn down Dick Smithson’s offer.

Freddie, dejected over having to pass on his opportunity to run for office, left quickly after the conversation was over. Conrad hung back for a moment, hoping for a private word with the Old Man.

“Mr. Farnsworth,” Conrad asked when they were alone, “what could be so bad in Freddie’s past that the fear of disclosing it would make him pass up the chance for something he very clearly wanted to do?”

The Old Man flashed a very stern look in Conrad’s direction and said coldly, “Don’t go there. Just don’t go there.”

Taken aback by the firmness of Mr. Farnsworth’s response, Conrad quickly excused himself and left the office. As he blew by Kate’s desk, he could feel her gaze upon him. It was not the glare that he had grown accustomed to receiving the first few times he came in contact with her, either. It felt more like the brief glimpse he caught just before entering the Old Man’s office. By the time he stopped to turn around and meet her eyes with his, Kate had turned away and become engrossed in whatever was on her computer screen.

As he walked back to his office, Conrad wondered if he would ever figure out the strange cast of characters he now worked with.

Part 1, Episode 9: "Defeat Sounds Like This"

2006-08-28T16:52:00.000-07:00

Sitting in Old Man Farnsworth’s office, Conrad felt a mixture of emotions. The fact that Mr. Farnsworth told him his job would depend on dealing with Richard Dick meant that he still had a job. That was good. With the pressure of avoiding any further hits from EAPU, however, he would be working with a gun to his head. That was bad.

The Old Man gave Conrad a few moments to process this information, and then continued the meeting. “Connie, we also have to discuss your incident with the vermin from the Star-Bulletin yesterday.”

“Yes sir,” Conrad replied, slumping back in his seat.

“Obviously, we can’t have this kind of behavior from the senior staff of the university, no matter how much that rodent may have deserved it,” Mr. Farnsworth went on.

“I understand, sir. I lost it. I realize I was completely out of line.”

“Good. I know you’ve been here only a short time, my boy, but you’re off to an awfully rough start. Between the foul-up with the Moran kid and threatening the sports editor of the only local newspaper, you’ve already given me grounds for firing you.”

Conrad squirmed, wondering if the Old Man was going to contradict himself and give him the ax after all. Farnsworth continued, “I might very well have done so if not for one thing.”

“What was that, sir?” Conrad asked.

“You’ve already developed one very staunch ally. Someone who has shown great disdain for your predecessors but would be ready to go to war with you.”

“Who is that, sir?” Conrad wondered.

“Why, Gretchen, of course!” the Old Man replied, puzzled that Conrad could not figure that out on his own.

“Gretchen came to see you about me, sir?” Conrad asked, taken aback that she would stick her neck out for him.

“In a manner of speaking, I suppose. We talked about you last night after we had sex,” Farnsworth nonchalantly answered.

If Conrad had been sitting in a normal chair, he surely would have fallen out of it. Having come to expect the unexpected at good ‘ol FU, he still did not expect that.

“You have a relationship with Gretchen?” Conrad asked, trying to dampen the astonishment he was feeling.

“My dear Connie, why else would any sane man keep a receptionist with Tourette’s Syndrome employed for nearly ten years? Sure, she has skills that you have been sharp enough to uncover, but she also has other skills that I have enjoyed for quite some time now. My fifth wife didn’t appreciate it very much, but I resolved that issue some time back.”

Conrad braced himself to hear a recital of Gretchen’s “other” skills, but was relieved that the Old Man showed a rare moment of restraint.

“Of course,” Farnsworth added, “this relationship is not public knowledge. I would appreciate it if you would not tell Gretchen that I shared it with you.”

“It’s none of my business, sir,” Conrad replied. “I assure you the subject will never come up.”

“Excellent, I knew I could count on you for that. Now then, we still have the matter of pacifying Buddy Wright at the Star-Bulletin. I asked Gretchen to whip up a statement where you offer an apology. I want you to look it over and, if it is agreeable with you, sign it and fax it over to the paper this afternoon.”

Conrad had a vision of Gretchen sitting at a computer in Mr. Farnsworth’s home typing, still naked, with the Old Man giving her a backrub. He moved past that quickly, scanned the release, and signed it.
“It looks fine to me, sir. I’ll get this on the fax machine when I get back to my office and follow up with a phone call to make sure it gets into the right hands.”

“Very good Connie. Oh, by the way, I’ll be at the football game Saturday. I’d like you to sit up in my box and tell me what you think of our gridiron warriors.”

Conrad had planned on blending into the background at the game, but he thought this would work also. “Sure,” he replied, “I’ll be up there before kickoff.”

“I’ll look forward to your expert analysis. Let’s wrap this up then, my boy, and get back to business.”

“Yes sir. I’ll see you Saturday,” Conrad said as he exited Mr. Farnsworth’s office.

On his way out, Conrad saw Kate motioning for him to come over toward her desk. When he was within earshot of her, Kate said in a loud whisper, “Go get the bastard!”

Conrad looked puzzled, so Kate spelled it out, “Dick! Take him down!”

“I’ll do my best,” Conrad replied, receiving an affirmative nod from Kate. “What is the story behind that?” he wondered. He was pretty sure Kate had never worked in the athletic department at EAPU, but maybe she had held another position there and come across Dick. Maybe they were former lovers. Maybe there would come a time where he experienced a day at Farnsworth U that could be more appropriately reported in Sports Illustrated rather than Soap Opera Digest.

Saturday morning began with Freddie nearly bouncing off the walls. Despite going into his eighth year as the face of Farnsworth sports and the likelihood of another dismal season, football Saturdays still got Freddie as excited as a little boy on Christmas morning. As Conrad watched his furry friend count down the minutes until it was time to leave for the stadium, it was obvious how much Freddie loved what he did. “Boy, talk about a main ingredient for a happy life,” Conrad thought. Maybe happiness was living in a ferret suit.

Farnsworth Field could hold about 10,000 people in the seats and another thousand or so in a grassy cove beyond the west end zone. The facility was essentially a large high school stadium with more comfortable seats and better concessions. A few years ago, the stands would occasionally be full for games against top rivals like nearby Central Maryland College.

More recently, however, Farnsworth football struggled to fill even half of the stands. Four consecutive 1-10 seasons does have a way of eroding fan support. Conrad suspected a large portion of those brave souls who did show up at Farnsworth Field were there to see Freddie perform.

This game was particularly critical for the Fighting Ferrets. The opponent was Galludet University, the one team the Fighting Ferrets had defeated each of the last four seasons. Conrad had spoken to coach Frank “Stump” Williams during the week to get a feel for how prepared the Ferrets would be for this game. Conrad had decided not to get too close to Williams because there was a strong likelihood he would have to make a coaching change next year, if Conrad was even there to do so. Williams, a man with a firm handshake but unusually smooth hands, expressed confidence that the Ferrets would keep their winning streak over Galludet alive.

A beautiful sun-drenched Saturday afternoon and the promise of the Ferrets’ annual win brought a crowd of over 5,000 to Farnsworth Field. Freddie did his usual magic getting the fans fired up, performing with more energy than the Energizer Bunny. He bounced, jumped, did cartwheels, mingled with fans, performed with the cheerleaders, did routines worthy of the gymnastics team while jumping on a trampoline, and led the marching band onto the field.

Once the actual game kicked off, the energy slowly drained out of the stadium. As Conrad sat with Mr. Farnsworth, it was obvious to him that neither team was very good. Conrad, used to watching Division I football, had constantly reminded himself leading up to this game that he needed to lower his expectations. He couldn’t possibly have lowered them enough to avoid being disappointed with what was transpiring on the field. What made things even worse was the fact that the radio play-by-play was being piped into the Old Man’s box. Troy Flemstone, the voice of the Fighting Ferrets, began the broadcast, “Hello, football fanth, and welcome to the exthitement of Fighting Ferreth football.” This is going to be a long, long season, Conrad thought as he slumped into his seat.

Late in the second quarter, with the Ferrets leading 6-3, Mr. Farnsworth asked Conrad, “What do you think about our offense’s execution.”

Instinctively, he replied with an old line from former USC football coach John McKay, “Sir, I think it would be a good idea.”

The Old Man thought that was one of the funniest things he had ever heard. “Good one, my boy! Good one!” he roared.

A Ferret fumble late in the first half deep in their own territory set the Bisons up for the tying field goal. When the Galludet kicker connected, Troy Flemstone announced, “the kick ith good, and that tieth the thcore at halftime. Ith the Fighting Ferreth thix and the Galludet Bithonth thix.”

Mr. Farnsworth was furious. “How can we be tied with a bunch of kids that can’t even hear! This is embarrassing! Conrad, I want you to go down to the locker room and tell Stump Williams that he had better figure out a way to win this game!”

“Mr. Farnsworth, I think he knows that already,” Conrad replied calmly, trying to keep his boss from having a stroke. “Let’s just give him time to make adjustments during the break. I’m sure he’ll come up with something that will give us the advantage in the second half.” Conrad hated lying to his boss, but he saw nothing to gain by bursting into the locker room and threatening the coach at halftime. That was something that was done in bad movies or, worse, bad novels. In reality, he was not at all certain that the Ferrets would win this game, but he didn’t dare let the Old Man know that.

Conrad’s fears were realized in the second half. It was Galludet that had made effective adjustments at halftime. A team sharp enough to run the snap counts on offense from the vibrations of beating a huge drum was well equipped to make changes in their game plan on the fly. The Bison defense crowded the line of scrimmage, effectively stuffing the Fighting Ferrets running game and forcing them to rely on the arm of erratic quarterback Seymour Singletary. This kid brought inconsistency to a new level. He was ambidextrous and couldn’t seem to make up his mind which arm he would throw with. Not surprisingly, his passes were scattered all over the field. As the Galludet defense tightened up, Singletary’s throws began finding enemy players as often as his own.

The reason for this was a mystery to Troy Flemstone. “I justh don’t underthdand why Themore Thingletary ith thrugling tho muth here in the thecond half,” he announced early in the fourth quarter.

Conrad said to no one in particular but within earshot of Mr. Farnsworth, “Come on, it’s obvious Galludet is crowding the line and playing the receivers with tight man-to-man coverage. They’re daring Thingletary, I mean Singletary, to throw long, and he’s not very good at it with either hand.”

“That’s very insightful, Connie,” the Old Man said. “I’m sure the fans listening on radio would appreciate that analysis.”

Yeah, both of them, Conrad thought.

Singletary threw four interceptions in the second half. One was returned for a touchdown and another set up a Galludet field goal. The Ferrets countered with only a single field goal and left the field on the short end of a 16-9 score.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Farnsworth became more agitated as the game wore on. By the time the final gun went off, he let the anger out in a loud outburst punctuated by his arms flailing wildly. “Conrad, I want you to go down and fire that idiot who claims to be coaching this team. How, how, how can we lose to the deaf school! Maybe we could find a school with blind kids and play them. No wait a minute, they’d probably beat us too! AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!”

Conrad allowed a few moments to pass so the Old Man could recover from channeling the Tasmanian Devil. Then, in as soothing a tone as he could muster, Conrad addressed him, “Mr. Farnsworth, as bad as this is, and there’s no question it’s very bad, firing Coach Williams right now would make it even worse.”

“How can it get worse than losing to a deaf team!” the Old Man shrieked.

“Here’s how. Not even Division I schools fire coaches after their opening game. For a D3 school, where athletic success is still supposed to be secondary to the kids getting an education, to do so would give us some very bad press.”

“Worse than having such a sorry excuse for a football team?”

“Amazingly enough, yes it would, because then the priorities of the entire school would be called into question. Unless Williams has committed some kind of horrendous rule violation, and losing to a deaf school is not technically a violation, then we’ve got to ride him out. Besides, firing him at this point would only succeed in making it that much harder to hire a new coach. Any good candidate is going to wonder how much rope he has and, let’s be realistic, they’re going to need a lot of rope to rebuild this football program.”

Mr. Farnsworth pondered what Conrad had said for a moment, then replied, “I suppose you’re right, my boy. This is your area, and you know better than I do. I’m just so frustrated! There’s no reason why we should be so pathetic on the football field.”

“I agree, sir, but we really need to wait until the season is over to make a move unless he does something that really embarrasses the school.”

“You mean even worse than today’s debacle?”

“Yes, even worse than that. As long as he doesn’t do anything to put the school’s integrity into question, he needs to finish out the year.”

“It’s going to be a very long season, my boy.”

“It seems like it already has been, sir.”

“Well, there is one thing I can do to improve the situation.”

“What’s that, sir?”

“I liked your comments during the game. I thought you had a lot of insight into what was happening down on the field. I know Troy Flemstone can be a bit hard to understand at times, so I’d like you to sit in the booth with him and be his analyst.”

So Troy’s a bit hard to understand, Conrad thought. Yeah, just like Bobby Knight’s got a bit of a temper problem. “You mean on the air, sir?” he replied.

“Of course, my boy. I think you’ll make a fine team. Let’s start that next week at the McWorthy College game.”

“Okay, I guess, sir.”

Conrad stood and watched the Old Man head toward the exit of his box. He let out a sigh and thought it thertainly wath going to be a very long thethun.

Part 1, Episode 8: "The Plot Thickens (no, really, it does)"

2006-08-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

I just don’t understand it!” Coach Knight ranted as Conrad drove them both back to the Farnsworth campus.

“I know Ron. I don’t get it either,” Conrad replied.

“Moran is just not a D1 player, especially not in a major conference. He’s going to be nailed to their bench for four years. Why would he want to do that instead of going somewhere he could play, maybe even be the star of the team?”

Coach Knight was referring to the stunning development that ended their meeting at Agnew High School. Less then 24 hours after obtaining a commitment from Mark Moran, Midville’s best high school basketball player ever, Knight and Conrad had watched in horror as he was extended a full scholarship offer by Edgar Allen Poe University.

The word had come from Mark’s high school coach, who had been contacted by EAPU’s athletic director Richard Dick. Mark appeared to be too stunned to react, but his father acted like he had just found a winning lottery ticket. His mother, predictably, cried.

“Why did the athletic director call and not their basketball coach? That doesn’t make any sense,” Knight said, continuing his rant.

“No it didn’t,” Conrad thought. The only idea that had come to him was that Dick, who he and most staffers in the EAPU athletic department had referred to as “Double Dick,” was hell-bent on doing further damage to Conrad’s already seriously wounded career by stealing Farnsworth’s prized recruit. “Why would he go to this much trouble to keep me down,” Conrad thought, “hasn’t he already won?” “By framing me and getting me fired, hadn’t he already delivered the knockout punch? Was he just doing this for spite? Didn’t he have better things to do? Or was there some other secret, diabolical reason? What was this, ‘As the Ferret Turns,’ Conrad wondered.

The two defeated men returned to campus, Conrad thought, just in time to avoid Coach Knight having a stroke. Now into the early evening, Conrad returned to his office not quite ready to ingest his nightly Super Star Burger combo (no cheese, only ketchup). Expecting to find an empty office, he was surprised to find the reporting duo from the Frederick Star-Bulletin, editor Buddy Wright and Farnsworth beat writer Jimmy Harris, seated in front of his desk.

“Well, look what slithered in,” Conrad began. “We’ve got to tighten up security around here.”

“Oh, so now you’ve got a comedy routine,” Wright responded. “I hope that works out better for you than this gig.”

“Gee, I didn’t think you cared,” Conrad replied as he plopped into his chair. “What can I do for you ink-stained wretches?”

“We wanted to follow up on the Moran story, Conrad,” Harris said.

“What’s to follow up?”

“Cut the crap, Conrad,” Wright blurted. “We got a tip a little while ago that Moran got a full ride at EAPU. Do you want to confirm that?”

“Don’t you mean Moron,” Conrad tersely replied.

“Cute. Well, what do you have to say about it?” Wright pressed.

It had been a long day for Conrad by this time, and in his fatigued state he felt the frustration of this day and most others since he had first stepped foot on the Farnsworth campus welling up inside of him. His chest was tightening and he could feel the warm sensation of his face and ears reddening. He knew he should walk away and take a moment to pull himself together, but he chose, instead, to let the emotion out in a tsunami of anger directed at Wright.

“Look, you piss poor Perry White wannabe, this never would have happened if your paper had spelled the kid’s freakin’ name right! He was a done deal, he wanted to play here, he wanted to graduate from here. But nooooo, your birdcage liner of a paper couldn’t be bothered to spell his freakin’ name right! That opened the door for his parents to try and get him away from here and into the big time. You know what, that kid is not a D1 player, yet thanks to your fishwrap he’s going to EAPU and sit on the freakin’ bench for four years. Why? Because you couldn’t spell his freakin’ name right, that’s why?”

Conrad stopped to draw a breath, and Wright interjected. “Are you finished or do you wanna stay on your little soapbox for a while?”

Conrad glared at his adversary for a moment, then slowly said, “Get out of my office. Get out now before I THROW YOU THROUGH THE FREAKIN’ WINDOW!”

Conrad would have chased down those words and stuffed them back in his mouth if he could have. The idea of him actually carrying out his threat was laughable, since Wright had as least 50 pounds on Conrad, but no one was laughing. He had crossed a line here and undoubtedly made things even worse for himself. If he had not realized that on his own, the gleam in Wright’s eyes as he stood to leave and the look of dread in Harris’s would have clued him in.

Back in his suite and desperate to hear a friendly voice, Conrad called his best friend Nick Petrocini. They had not kept in touch very well since Conrad had started at Farnsworth, but Nick could be counted on for an encouraging word whenever he needed it.

“Hello,” Nick, picking up on the fourth ring, answered.

“Hey Nick, it’s Conrad. How’s it going?”

“Hey buddy, it’s going ok,” Nick replied hesitantly. “How are you?”

“I’m hanging on by my fingernails, man. It’s been tough here,” Conrad said, preparing to unburden himself as he had done so many times over the years. Before he could, however, Nick cut in.

“Hey pal, we’ve got come company over here tonight. Can I catch up with you a little bit later?”

Conrad, taken aback, said, “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Great,” Nick hurriedly replied. “Talk to you later.” Nick hung up.

Conrad sat holding the phone for a moment. He had left messages for Nick recently that had not been returned, and now he had been blown off when he really needed a friend to talk to. Then Freddie arrived home.

“Hey Conrad, did everything work out with the basketball kid?” Freddie asked.

“They worked out so well you just might have the place all to yourself this time tomorrow,” Conrad told Freddie later that evening.

“Oh yeah,” Freddie responded. “Are you getting your own place?”

“I’ll have to if the Old Man fires me.”

“Fire you! Why would he do that? This whole mess wasn’t your fault.”

“I know, but I threatened that idiot sports editor at the Star-Bulletin earlier.”

“I assume you were going to do more than cancel your subscription.”

“You could say that. I told him if he didn’t leave, I was going to throw him out the window.”

“Oooo, that’s bad, Conrad.”

“I know it is. I just snapped. This was just the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.”

“Will you be relieved if he does fire you since you’re so unhappy here?”
“That’s a good question, and surprisingly enough I think the answer is no. Sure, it’s been really frustrating here but I think this program has a lot of potential. The way the town responds to you, all we have to do is give them some teams worth rooting for and they’ll fill the stands. With that spirit and the resources the Old Man is willing to commit, this really could be something special.”

“Well then, I don’t believe that great ferret in the sky brought you here just to get kicked in the ass. I’m sure everything will work out. Hey, since there’s nothing on TV tonight, would you like to go and catch a movie?”

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t be very good company, Freddie.”

“I know, but that’s OK. I can be charming and witty enough for the both of us. What do you say?”

Conrad, smiling for the first time today, replied, “You are one charming ferret. Just don’t take advantage of me, OK.”

Freddie laughed and responded, “I’ll try, but after all I AM just a dumb animal, albeit with opposable thumbs.”

Conrad’s smile widened as they headed out the door. “You’re much more than that, my friend.”

As Conrad expected, Buddy Wright wrote a withering editorial in the next morning’s Star-Bulletin calling for the Old Man to fire Conrad. Wright called him “the embodiment of The Peter Principle. After a long career in a support role for EAPU’s athletic department, Kondratowitz had yet to demonstrate any vision for Farnsworth’s athletic program or the ability to lead people in any direction whatsoever.” “That termite probably misspelled my last name on purpose,” Conrad thought.

Wright also pointed out, “Kondratowitz clearly has no people skills. He resorts to intimidation, screaming, and threatening people to get his way.” Wright did not mention the previous day’s incident directly, but he would surely use that if pressed to support this allegation.

The editorial ended with a call for the Old Man to “cut his losses and remove this cancer from the otherwise beautiful Farnsworth campus. Like any malignant growth, Kondratowitz needs to be neutralized immediately to insure the health of everything around it.” It was the first time that Conrad could remember being compared to a tumor.

Conrad read the piece over several times, then neatly refolded the paper and headed to Galaxy Burger. While at the student union, he could tell who had read Wright’s column. Those were the people who averted their eyes when he came into their line of vision. After coming there two or three times every day, the people at Galaxy Burger had become like an extended family, but even they kept their distance this morning.

When he arrived at his office, Gretchen met him with a sympathetic “keep your chin up” smile. Once he was settled behind his desk, she walked in and said, “Mr. Farnsworth wants to see you in his office at noon.” Conrad thanked her for the message, then she turned around and said “I’m sure everything will be all right.”

“Thanks,” Conrad said, “I hope so.” He then looked up at the clock, which read 9:05. Well, three hours until I see if I get the pardon from the governor, Conrad thought.

Arriving at the Old Man’s office at 11:45, Conrad first faced the unpleasant task of speaking to Kate. Conrad had heard her referred to as a watchdog for the old man, the only debate focusing on whether she more closely resembled a rotwiller or a pit bull. When Kate saw him, she said cordially, “Mr. Farnsworth is expecting you. Go on in.” “So she can be civil,” Conrad thought. “She’s probably just trying to get me to let my guard down before the Old Man whacks me,” he concluded.

“Connie, my boy. Have a seat,” the Old Man warmly greeted him. Conrad, distracted by fear for his job, mistakenly sat in the plush leather chair directly in front of the Old Man’s desk. He felt the man-eating piece of furniture engulf him too late to gracefully extricate himself from it’s grip.

“Yesterday was a tough one, wasn’t it my boy,” the Old Man began.

“That, sir, is an understatement,” Conrad replied.
“I bet you’re wondering why EAPU would bother swooping in and grabbing a recruit from a Division III school like ours, aren’t you?”

“I sure am, sir.”

“So was I, my boy. I got a call last night from the editor at the Star-Bulletin, Sam Grant, telling me about the column Buddy Wright had written for this morning’s edition. He also seemed puzzled that EAPU would target Moran. It just didn’t make sense to him.”

The Old Man stopped for a moment, obviously relishing whatever story he was about to tell Conrad and. It was also apparent he was going to take his sweet time before entering into a discussion of Conrad’s job status.

After the dramatic pause, the Old Man continued. “People in management positions don’t, as a rule, make decisions arbitrarily. In order to understand why someone takes a specific action, one must obtain enough information to determine his reasoning. That’s what I spent last night and this morning doing. I have plenty of connections in every walk of life, my boy. After all, I’m rich.”

The Old Man paused again, then resumed his tale. “It was obvious that Mr. Dick at EAPU had an axe to grind against our school, and your presence here would logically seem to be the only reason for that, wouldn’t you agree, my boy?”

“Yes sir, that’s the only thing that makes any sense,” Conrad replied, preparing to be thrown overboard to save the school from the wrath of the Ravens.

“Of course it is. Now the greater question is, why would he still target you? In fact, why was he so worried about you that he hatched his scheme to drug you and take photos of you with the dean’s wife, with whom Mr. Dick is having an affair, by the way.”

The thought of ‘ol Double Dick having sex added to the queasy feeling in Conrad’s stomach. Why would the dean’s wife fool with scum like him, anyway,” he wondered? “No time to worry about that now,” Conrad thought, “I’ve got my own problems right here.”
“I’m sure you remember, Connie, that your demise was the second shocking story to come out of EAPU in recent months. The first one was…” the Old Man paused waiting for Conrad to finish the thought.

“…..EAPU gaining admission to the Enormous East Conference. Nobody thought we had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting in, especially since we would be the 13th team. All the experts thought the EEC was locked in at 12 schools.”

“Exactly. Do you remember who made the big push for them to gain acceptance, even threatening to pull his own school out and join the Mid-Atlantic Conference?” the Old Man asked.

“Sure. It was the president at Liberty Bell University in Philadelphia. They’re one of EPAU’s biggest rivals. Their support for EAPU came completely out of left field.

“That’s right, my boy. Just like your dismissal,” the Old Man paused again, waiting to see if Conrad could fit the pieces of the puzzle together.

After pondering things for a few moments, Conrad, who had been staring down at his shoes, looked directly at the Old Man and with a sense of astonishment, asked, “You don’t mean?”

“I do indeed, my boy. Your former employer had used the same tactic to gain MWU’s support that he used to remove you. As the colloquial phrase goes, he had pictures. You are still a target because he lives in fear that you will find out and blow the whistle.”

“Wow!” Conrad exclaimed. “How can I do that without any hard evidence?”

“That, my boy, is for you to figure out. I’ve given you the ammunition, now you need to strategize how you will use it. And be sure of this, you must use it, and promptly. We cannot afford to have this fool make Farnsworth University his personal punching bag. Richard Dick must be neutralized.”

The Old Man paused, then concluded the thought, “Connie, your continued employment here depends on it.”

Part 1, Episode 7: "Who's The Moron"

2006-08-14T20:24:00.000-07:00

“Have you seen this morning’s paper, Conrad?” Old Man Farnsworth bellowed into the phone.

“No sir, I haven’t,” Conrad replied, still groggy after being jarred awake by the phone ringing at 6:00 AM. He forced himself to sit on the side of his bed in an effort to clear the cobwebs out of his head.

“Well, you need to, my boy. And then, you need to FIX IT!” the Old Man screamed.

“What are you so upset about, sir?” Conrad asked.

“You’ll see. Keep me posted throughout the day on how this happened and what you are doing to fix it!”

“Yes sir.” Conrad heard the phone go dead. “Now what?” Conrad said out loud as he shuffled toward the front door to grab the paper and find the offensive story.

While Conrad waited for his first pot of coffee to brew, he opened the Midville Star-Bulletin and, as he normally did, went directly to the sports section. He began reviewing the headlines. “Orioles Lose Third in a Row.” “Nothing I can do about that,” Conrad thought. “Redskins Offensive Line Decimated by Injuries.” Not my fault, Conrad mused. Then he found the source of the problem.

“Moron Commits to Farnsworth.”

“OH MY GOD!” Conrad shrieked. “OH MY GOD!”

Freddie, startled by his friend’s screaming, bolted out of his room. “Conrad, what’s wrong?” he asked.

“Take a look at this,” Conrad replied, pointing to the front page of the sports section.

“Hmmm, Orioles lost third in a row,” Freddie said, studying the newspaper. “What, did you have money on the game?”

“No, not that. This!” Conrad said, pointing to the offensive headline.

“Geez, that kid has a funny name. I bet he catches grief at school,” Freddie pointed out.

“I guess he would, if that was actually his name!” Conrad replied, his voice rising with every syllable. “The kid’s name is Mor-AN, not Mor-ON. We actually land a stud recruit and his name can’t even get spelled right!”

“Yes, that would be a problem, wouldn’t it,” Freddie astutely observed. “Is that what the phone call was about?”

“Yeah. It was the Old Man.”

“Oh crap. If he’s calling directly and not having Kate do it, that means he’s royally pissed.”

“He clearly conveyed that during our little chat. I’ve got to report back to him on how this happened and what damage control we’re going to do.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

“No, I can’t think of anything. I might need you later to help pull my foot out of somebody’s ass, though.”

Conrad quickly showered, dressed, consumed most of the pot of coffee, and hustled to his office. The situation was urgent enough that he even skipped his early morning visit to Galaxy Burger. Conrad wondered if they would send a search party for him.

As he walked to his office, he saw Ron Knight waiting for him. Fortunately Gretchen was not there so he would not have to deal with animal noises in the background. Conrad motioned Ron into his office and toward his small outer table, then closed the door.

“I assume you saw the Star-Bulletin’s sports page this morning?” Conrad began. “Real shame about the ‘Skins offensive line, isn’t it?” His attempt to lighten the mood failed miserably. Knight didn’t even blink while he was staring down Conrad.

“I’ve already heard from Mark,” Knight began. “His parents are beside themselves. His mother won’t stop crying and his father already broke two lamps. This kid has been taunted all his life, being called ‘Moron’ rather than ‘Moran.’ Today’s announcement was supposed to be the crowning achievement of his athletic career, and to see that particular mistake ruin it has sent the whole family into a tizzy.”

“How does the kid feel about it?” Conrad asked.

“He doesn’t think it’s that big a deal,” Knight responded. “He’s used to catching crap about the name and just shakes it off. His parents don’t seem to be that enlightened though, and that could be a problem.”

“Do you think there’s a chance he might not come here?” Conrad asked, concern prevalent in his voice.

“I’m afraid there’s a VERY good chance we’ll never see him!” Knight replied, the frustration evident in his tone and his body language, not to mention the veins bulging from his forehead.

“All right, we need to get into full damage control mode,” Conrad said in as decisive and energetic a tone as he could muster. “I’ll work on finding out how this got in the paper and who is to blame. You contact Mark’s coach at Agnew High and try to set up a meeting this afternoon with him, Mark, both of his parents, you, and me. By then we should know what corrective action to take, and that along with the right amount of groveling might save the day.”

Knight still seemed skeptical but also appeared energized by having a plan of action. “Ok, I’ll set it up. I’ll call Gretchen and let her know when and where.”

“Good. I’ve got to get to work on my end now. Hang in there, Ron. I’ll talk to you later.” Conrad gave Knight a slap on the back as he stood to leave. Conrad then rummaged through his wallet to fish out the business card that Jimmy Harris had given him yesterday.

“Hello,” Harris answered, apparently not fully awake at this early hour.

“Jimmy, this in Conrad over at Farnsworth. I’m sorry to bother you this early, but do you know how I can get in touch with your charming sports editor.”

“Why? What’s going on?” Jimmy replied more alertly.

“Have you checked out your paper this morning?” Conrad asked.

“Kind of hard to do when I’m asleep, so no, I haven’t,” Jimmy said.

“Can you put your hands on it while I’ve got you on the phone?” Conrad asked.

“Yeah, I guess so,” a puzzled Jimmy replied. “What happened, didn’t the release about Moran not get in?”

“Oh, it got in all right. Take a minute and check it out.”

“OK, sure. Hold on.”

Conrad could hear Jimmy shuffling through his apartment, opening the door, ruffling through the paper, then crying out, “Holy Crap!”

“Conrad, this is terrible. That kid’s parents are really uptight about the name thing. How in the world did this happen?” Jimmy asked.

“That’s what I’m trying to find out. How can I get in touch with Wright?” Conrad asked.

Jimmy quickly gave Conrad his editor’s cell phone number.

“Hello?” a groggy Buddy Wright said into his phone.

“Hello jackass. This is Conrad from Farnsworth. Is editor just a ceremonial title or do you actually look over what gets printed in your sports section?”

“Look, don’t get so snippy with me,” Wright replied, quickly gathering his forces for battle. “We got a press release saying you signed Mark MORON, so we printed Mark MORON. Seems to me he wouldn’t be the only moron in the athletic department.”

Conrad was momentarily stunned. Could this be a self-inflicted wound from inside his own organization, he wondered. “You’re telling me that there was a typo in the press release and you just ran with it. Everyone in Midville knows who this kid is, how could you print a story with his name spelled wrong, especially THAT way?”

“Hey, someone on your end screwed up. Get things fixed in your own house before you worry about how I run my sports section.” Conrad heard a click, indicating Wright had hung up on him.

Conrad took a few moments to stew, then chose his next course of action. He grabbed his phone and pushed the button for Gretchen’s desk. She answered first with whimpering, then by asking Conrad what she could do.

“Tell Gabe Sullivan to get his ass in here IMMEDIATELY and bring the press release he sent out last night regarding Mark Moran.” Conrad barked into the phone.”

“Yes sir. Is everything going to be alright with that?” a concerned Gretchen asked.

“I don’t know yet.” Conrad replied.

After about fifteen minutes had passed, Gabe Sullivan sauntered into Conrad’s office, hearing a loud snarling from Gretchen’s cubicle as he did so.

“Hey, I hear you’ve got a bit of a problem with the new basketball recruit.” Gabe said in his typical breezy manner.

“Oh, you’ve heard about that, have you?” Conrad asked. “Let me see the press release.”

“Here you go,” Gabe said, handing over the document.

Conrad took a few moments to review it. He then looked up at Gabe and said, “Gabe, how do you spell Moran?”

“M-o-r-a-n I guess. Why?”

“Why,” Conrad asked, struggling to contain his temper. “Because you spelled it m-o-r-o-n on the release, that’s why!” Conrad bellowed. “Because the Star-Bulletin ran it that way, that’s why! Because his parents are so pissed he might not come here after all, that’s why!”

Gabe was unsuccessfully trying to suppress a chuckle. “Gee, missed it by thaaat much. I guess they need to hire better copy editors, there, don’t they?” he asked.

“Maybe, but WE need an SID than can spell our star recruit’s name right.” Conrad said. “Gabe, you’re fired.”

“What are you trying to say, Conrad?”

Conrad sat and stared at Gabe for a moment thinking he could have a more intelligent conversation with his office door. “What I’m telling you is to clean out your desk and be out of this building in one hour. Don’t touch a computer or anything else that can transmit information.”

“So I’m fired?” Gabe asked, stunned by this turn of events.

“Yes, Gabe, you’re fired. Vacate the premises!”

“OK. Hey, can I use you as a reference for my next job?”

“Please do,” Conrad responded fighting to contain an evil laugh. He then called Old Man Farnsworth’s office to give his first report of the day.

Coach Knight had succeeded in setting up a meeting with all of the parties involved with Mark Moran’s recruitment. When they entered the office of Agnew High coach Monty Mandell, they found Mark was already there with his mother Agnes and his father Morely.

Conrad and Coach Knight introduced themselves to Coach Mandell, who in turn introduced them to Mark’s parents. Agnes, a petite 50-ish lady wearing a plain pastel blouse and equally plain slacks, started crying. Morely, wearing a navy blue suit with wide lapels and an equally out-of-style wide red tie, sat with his arms folded, refusing to accept the offered handshakes.

Conrad began the meeting with the first in what he anticipated would be a series of apologies. “First, Mr. And Mrs. Moran let me profusely apologize for the mistake in the press release. My now ex-sports information director did a very sloppy job with it, and the Star-Bulletin decided to run it as is for reasons that are not clear to me.”

Morely Moran interrupted Conrad. “I’m not interested in your apologies! I’m tired of my son being humiliated by having his name twisted like that! It’s bad enough he has to deal with it from opposing players and fans, but to see it in the newspaper on what should have been the greatest day of his life was too much to bear!” Agnes Moran moved from weeping into full-fledged bawling.

“Don’t you mean what should have been the greatest day of YOUR life dad,” Mark Moran interjected. Mark was hardly an imposing figure, standing barely six feet and barren of any clear muscle definition. “Don’t you mean you’re tired of YOUR name being twisted? I’ve told you a thousand times I don’t give a crap about name-calling. That’s part of being a ball player, being able to take abuse and respond by playing even better. I love knocking down a jumper over someone who’s just called me a moron, and I give crap right back to them.”

The room fell silent for a moment. Morely Moran’s nostrils flared in anger, and he prepared to address his son, but Mark continued. “You can’t do that, though, can you dad? You’ve got to sit there and take it. You’re the one who had to catch grief at the office today because of the newspaper article, and you couldn’t do anything about it. It pissed you off, and now you’re going to use me as a tool to finally get payback from somebody, aren’t you?”

Agnes chirped, “Don’t address your father like that, Mark. I’ve taught you better than that.”

Morely gathered himself and, ignoring what Mark had said, addressed Conrad and Coach Knight. “If your so-called institution of higher learning can’t even spell my kid’s name right, why in the world should I entrust his college education and basketball career to you?” he said in a cold, sarcastic tone.

Coach Knight responded, “Mr. Moran, everyone makes mistakes. People ultimately succeed not by being perfect, but by how well they overcome those mistakes. Sure, this was a very unfortunate and regrettable error that has embarrassed your family. That doesn’t change the basic reasons why your son wanted to attend Farnsworth.”

Conrad then stepped in, following the rhythm in which he and Coach Knight had rehearsed this pitch on the trip over from Farnsworth. “Coach Knight is known as one of the best teachers of fundamental basketball in this region. Mark has indicated he wants to go into coaching, and learning from Coach Knight would be very beneficial. Farnsworth also has one of the best sports management curriculums on the east coast. All of that is still there for him, including a fully comprehensive financial aid package.”

“Financial aid. Humph!” snorted Monty Moran. “My kid deserves a full ride, not some charity handout. He’s a great ballplayer, the best basketball player to ever come out of this town. He should be treated as such.”

“Don’t you mean you’re embarrassed that I qualify for financial aid, dad?” Mark chimed in.

The tension in the room grew even thicker as once again there was silence. It was broken by a student frantically knocking at Coach Mandell’s office door.

Coach Mandell stood, opened the door, and barked at the student, “What do you want? Can’t you see I’m in a very important meeting here?”

“But coach, there’s a phone call waiting for you. He said he had to talk to you right away! It was urgent!” the student blurted out.

“What could be so urgent that I need to interrupt this meeting?” Coach Mandell bellowed.

“I don’t know, but the man said his name is Richard Dick, and he’s the athletic director at Edgar Allen Poe University in Baltimore,” the student replied, practically begging Coach Mandell to follow him.

Mandell froze in his tracks. What could the athletic director at EAPU, one of the most powerful athletic administrators in the state of Maryland, want with him? He decided that he was sure going to find out, especially since this situation appeared to be at a stalemate.

“Tell him I’ll be right there,” Mandell told the student messenger. “Excuse me folks, I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Conrad sitting silently, felt like he was watching the clock ticking down to :00. He was on the short end of the score, and there didn’t seem to be anything he could do about it.

Part 1, Episode 6: "Media Daze"

2006-08-07T18:52:00.000-07:00

“Is anyone else here?” Conrad asked Gretchen.

“No sir,” she replied, “just these two gentlemen from the Midville Star-Bulletin.”

Conrad didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed. After Old Man Farnsworth’s unfortunate appearance on the previous day’s “Ferret Forum,” Conrad had braced himself to face a hoard of media vultures this morning. Seeing only two reporters from the local newspaper allayed that fear, but also made him wonder what WOULD have to happen to garner much attention from the press at Farnsworth. Maybe the Old Man would have to actually have a threesome on the air. “Good lord, don’t let the Old Man hear that,” Conrad thought, “he just might try it.”

Conrad then turned his attention to the two reporters. “Hi, I’m Conrad Kondratowicz. Come on in.” Conrad motioned the reporters to his office, where he plopped in his chair, now upright, behind his desk.

The oldest reporter, a 50-ish man with a burly figure and only faint remnants of a hairline, introduced himself. “I’m Buddy Wright, the sports editor at the Star-Bulletin. This is Jimmy Harris, our Farnsworth beat writer. I’m sure you’ll be seeing a lot of him.” Harris, a handsome young man who Conrad surmised was probably a recent college graduate, had tightly cropped sandy blonde hair and a serious, intense face. He nodded at Conrad when his boss introduced him.

Conrad, attempting to keep the mood light, asked Wright, “Does that mean I won’t have the pleasure of your company very often?”

Wright looked in Conrad’s general direction and replied, “Not if I can help it.”

“Boy, this guy is a real ball of fire,” Conrad thought. He then seized the initiative and began a dialogue with the reporters. “I suppose you want some comments on Mr. Farnsworth’s appearance on ‘Ferret Forum’ yesterday. Let me just say that while Mr. Farnsworth may lead a lifestyle that makes some people uncomfortable, it does not spill over into the philosophy of this school. Farnsworth University strives to attract the highest caliber of students, both academically and socially, and those principles are adhered to in the athletic department.”

The room fell silent for a moment, and then Wright spoke. “Nice speech, Conrad,” Wright said, “but that’s not what we’re here to talk about. Nobody around here thought much about what the Old Man said yesterday. We all know he’s a bit of a squirrel, but nobody gives a rat’s ass. He can do whatever he wants as long as he keeps sinking money into this school. As long as the kids and your little ferret friend keep their noses clean, there’s no story.”

Conrad sat back in his chair, stunned at what Wright told him. He thought this served as confirmation that he WAS in the Twilight Zone. Conrad just knew that Rod Serling himself would walk through the door any minute now. He gathered himself and asked, “OK then, why are you here?”

“Two things,” Write replied. “First, are you considering replacing Stump Williams? Second, how do you feel about the ferret being in a reality show?”

Stump Williams was the embattled football coach, or at least he’d be embattled if anybody really cared about football at Farnsworth except the Old Man. His four-year record of 4-36 (all wins over Galludet, the school for hearing impaired students) made this a valid question even if the new season hadn’t yet begun. “What is this about Freddie,” Conrad wondered to himself?

“Well, regarding Coach Williams,” Conrad responded, “I’m going to be looking closely at the progress of the football team this season. Mr. Farnsworth has big plans for the football program here, and that means we have to beat somebody other than Galludet. I’ll need to see the season play out before we make a move.”

“That means another crappy football season to suffer through, then,” Wright said. “What about the ferret?”

“What about him?” Conrad stalled.

“You know he’s going to be on television tonight. Fox signed him up for another one of those stupid reality shows. What comment do you have about that?”

“I don’t think it’s fair to make any comment about it until I’ve seen it,” trying not to tip off that he had no idea what Wright was talking about. “Like everything else he’s done, I’m sure Freddie represents himself and the school very well.”

“Well, this has been a waste of time.” Wright said. “Come on Harris, let’s roll.” Wright stood up and headed out the door without looking back to Conrad.

“Nice meeting you,” Conrad called out to the exiting Wright.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Wright responded as he schlepped out the door.

“Conrad, I don’t know if you remember me,” Harris said, hanging back for a moment, “but I graduated from EAPU and covered the Ravens for the school paper.”

“Yeah,” Conrad replied, “I thought the name sounded familiar. I liked to keep up with ‘As the Raven Flies,’ it gave me a good handle on the pulse of the student body. Congratulations. I look forward to working with you.” Conrad then extended his hand to Harris.

Harris met Conrad’s hand with a firm handshake. “Same here, Conrad. Hey, I hear you might be getting a commitment from Johnny Moran. Good luck with that.”

Moran was possibly the best basketball player to ever come from the Midville area, and it looked like he might be playing at Farnsworth next year. As long as something didn’t happen to mess it up, Conrad thought.

Following his nightly pilgrimage to Galaxy Burger, Conrad arrived home to see Freddie running in his wheel with more gusto than usual. “What’s got you so excited?” Conrad asked.

“Big night, buddy,” Freddie puffed, apparently having been on the wheel for a while. “Tonight’s my network television debut!”

“So I hear,” Conrad replied. “Wanna tell me about it?”

“Sure, just let me finish up here and grab a quick shower. If a couple of young ladies knock at the door, let them in and be charming until I come out. Then I’ll take over. I invited them over to watch the show tonight.”

“You are a furry gigolo. You don’t have any male friends, do you?”

“Just you, Conrad. There’s only so much of me to go around, so I’ve had to chose who I wanted to spend my time with, a bunch of guys hanging around a bar getting drunk or young ladies that want to crawl inside my fur. What do you think?”

“I think you made the right call, Freddie,” a bemused Conrad replied as he sat down to devour his Super Star combo (no cheese, only ketchup).

While Freddie was still primping himself for the evening, Conrad heard a knock at the door. He shoved down the last bite of his Super Star Burger as he walked toward the door. Opening it, he found two lovely co-eds who were overdressed for a night of watching television. “Sharp looking ladies,” Conrad thought as he prepared to welcome them.

“Hi ladies. I’m Conrad, Freddie’s roommate. Come on in and make yourselves comfortable. He’ll be out shortly.”

“Hi! I’m Lola!” the blonde bubbled.

“I’m Lorna! We’re sisters! Nice to meet you sir,” the brunette added.

Conrad winced involuntarily, still not fully adjusted to the fact that he was twice as old as most college students, thereby making a salutation of “sir” appropriate, although still depressing.

“It’s my pleasure. Freddie asked me to be charming while you ladies were waiting, but I’m afraid that would be a poor opening act for the evening’s festivities. Why don’t I just make like a host and offer you something to drink?”

The girls looked at each other for a moment when Lorna shyly asked “How ‘bout a beer?”

Conrad estimated their ages at between 18-20 years old, and he quickly decided he did not need a charge of serving alcohol to minors added to his recent transgressions, real or perceived.

“How about some iced tea instead?” Conrad politely replied, trying not to sound like an administrator or parent.

Lola and Lorna exhaled and told him that would be fine. They sat with Conrad while he watched Sports Center until Freddie made his entrance.

“Who wants to rub up against some fur?” Freddie asked, spreading his arms open to their full wing span upon entering the living area. Conrad shot his hand into the air until Freddie’s glare suggested he return it to the armrest of his chair. Lola and Lorna jumped up and bounced over to embrace Freddie.

The mask of his outfit was shaped in such a way that his lips could be seen, and therefore kissed. The girls took turns swapping spit with Freddie until he said, “That’s enough for now, girls. We’ve got to get ready for my network debut!” The sisters squealed and sat to either side of Freddie on the couch. Conrad, off to one side sitting in his recliner, put his hand over his mouth to muffle his laughter.

Freddie explained to Conrad and his guests the premise of the show. Once they heard the title, “My Big Furry Fiancée,” it wasn’t hard to figure out. This was another reality show where a beautiful young girl brought home an unconventional man and tried to convince her family that she truly wanted to marry him. They weren’t really getting married-they only had to fool her family into thinking that to win a million dollars. Tonight was the first of three episodes, which had been filmed over the summer.

Conrad had prided himself over the years in avoiding the trend toward getting hooked on stupid reality shows. It helped that he did not have much time to budget for television, and most of that was taken up with sports. He had to admit, though, that he probably would have at least sampled this show even if he did not know Freddie. Watching a girl bring home a guy in a ferret suit as her fiancé did seem to have plenty of potential for entertainment.

Freddie’s partner in this attempted deception was a college student named Julie. She was a southern California native and attended UCLA. Her family was quite well off financially. Her father was an attorney and her mother was a professor at Loyola Marymount University. She had two older brothers, one attending law school, the other a computer software salesman.

The first half of the opening episode provided the expected conflict. Julie’s family was polite to Freddie’s face, even though they were clearly off-balance upon meeting him. Later, when Julie and Freddie had retired to their rooms, the venom toward what they perceived as their confused or rebellious daughter and the clown in a ferret suit provided some humorous scenes.

Shortly after the midway point of the program, the cameras found Freddie and Julie alone in their separate rooms. Freddie spoke about how beautiful and sweet Julie was and how he hoped they could still be friends after this game was over. Julie, however, was anything but sweet in her comments about Freddie.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to convince my family that I want to marry some loser in a ferret suit! They know I have more sense than that! I’ll just have to make them think I’m rebelling against them, and maybe throw in how sorry I feel for him,” Julie told the camera and, as a result, America at large.

“I just hope he doesn’t get some crazy idea like there is actually something between us. Eeewww! He really creeps me out! My skin wants to crawl when he touches me with that stupid suit. I just don’t get what would make someone wear a ferret suit all the time. He can’t be right in the head, can he?”

The program cut to a commercial after those comments, and the room fell silent. Lorna perked up, “What a BITCH! If she had made any effort to know you, Freddie, she would have found out how wonderful you are!”

Lola added, “How DARE that bleach blonde bitch dump on you like that! I want to scratch her face off! You deserve a lot better than that, Freddie!”

“She’s right, Freddie, “Conrad added in a calm, soothing tone. “You deserve a lot better than that.” He watched his ferret friend sit erect with his arms folded for several minutes before gradually unwinding and holding the girls close to him again.

The rest of the episode focused on setting up Julie’s “impossible mission” in trying to convince her family that she had taken leave of her senses. Freddie shared with Conrad and the girls how the producers had tried to push him into acting more “ferret-like.” Instructions he had refused to follow included trying to dig a hold in Julie’s parent’s garden and chasing their family poodle as if he was stalking it for food, which ferrets didn’t do anyway.

As the program ended, Freddie stood up, motioned toward his room, and said, “Ladies, why don’t you go in and make yourself at home. I’ll be with you in just a minute. The sisters stood up, gave Freddie a quick hug, then bounced toward his room.

Freddie stood looking at Conrad, who was already in full channel surfing mode. When Conrad finally noticed his friend, he asked “Something on your mind, Freddie?”

“Yeah. Can I ask you something and get a straight answer from you?”

“Sure. Fire away.”

“Do you think I embarrassed the school by doing that show? Do you think I embarrassed myself?”

Conrad pondered his answer for a moment, then responded. “I don’t think you embarrassed anyone, Freddie. Now this might not have been the best career move you could have made, but I assure you that you don’t owe an apology to anyone.”

Freddie stood for a moment, looking down at his feet. “What Julie said about me really hurt. Is that how people think of me-that I must be crazy or impaired?”

“You’ve gotta admit that a guy wearing a ferret suit 24/7 is waaay off the beaten path,” Conrad replied. “The mistake Julie made, and I’m sure other people make, is judging you by the suit and not getting to know the man inside of it. The students here at Farnsworth, the people in Midville, many of them HAVE made the effort, and they LOVE you. I’ve only known you for a short time and I’ve already figured out that what Julie spewed out was a load of crap.”

“You really think that?” Freddie sheepishly asked.

“I know it. Now go unwind with your lady friends and do try to keep it down to a dull roar tonight, OK?”

“You got it. Thanks.” Freddie then walked over to Conrad, who was also standing by now, and shook his hand. He then moved a couple of steps away, then surprised Conrad by returning for a quick hug.

“Hey Freddie,” Conrad asked as Freddie was reaching for the door knob to his room, “did you win the money?”

“Sure did!”

“I’m not surprised. You are one smooth Ferret. So what did you do, invest it?”

“A little bit, but I gave most of it back to the school.”

“What!”

“Yeah, without good ‘ol FU there wouldn’t be Freddie Ferret, so I thought the school should get the biggest chunk of my half.”

Conrad could see that his furry friend did not want to make a big deal out of his generosity so he did not ask any more questions. As Freddie slipped into his room, Conrad pondered what a fascinating ferret, er, person, his roommate was.

Within moments, Conrad heard giggling coming from inside Freddie’s room and the phone ringing. He had been waiting all evening for a call from men’s basketball coach Ron Knight confirming they had received the commitment from Jimmy Moran. After answering the phone, Conrad heard three magic words, “We got him!” Knight had just finished talking to Moran and quickly passed along the good news.

“Great work coach,” Conrad said while pumping his fist with his spare hand. “Congratulations! Just call Gabe and have him put out a press release. We should still have enough time to make the morning papers,” Conrad responded.

“Will do, Conrad!” replied the exuberant Knight. “I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

“OK Ron. Good job,” Conrad responded. He then shut off the television and proceeded to his room, wondering if he remembered the last time he ended a day with such a warm fuzzy feeling.

Part 1, Episode 5: "The Voices of Farnsworth"

2006-07-31T16:50:00.000-07:00

Hearing a knock at his door, Conrad looked up and saw John Smith, an intern in the athletic department. “It’s almost time, sir!” the excited young man announced.

John was a student in his senior year at Farnsworth and had worked in the department since his first day on campus. He had drawn special attention from Conrad because he seemed to be the only person in the building besides Gretchen who he could count on to complete a task without turning it into an adventure. To his knowledge, John was the only person around with both a normal name and the ability to correctly pronounce Conrad’s last name.

The day had been a trying one. Conrad had already been required to put out several fires and hoped John was not coming to alert him of a new one. Conrad had advised several football players that they were indeed required to attend class and perform the course work. These future captains of industry had thought all they needed to do was show up on time for football practice and play the games. They had no clue why an academic adviser had given them a class schedule and showed little interest in following it. He doubted they would survive the first semester at Farnsworth. “How could our coach get knuckleheads like this admitted to school and STILL stink so badly?” Conrad wondered.

He had also fielded a request from the water polo coach to hire a lifeguard for the pool during practice. Apparently some of the members of this fledgling squad, preparing for their first game ever, weren’t particularly good swimmers, and the coach was afraid of casualties. If the coach was concerned about his players drowning, it did not bode well for their chances of actually winning a game, Conrad thought.

The lowlight of Conrad’s day had come when he had to break up a fight while on his way for a Super Star Burger combo (no cheese, only ketchup). A pack of field hockey players and a separate group of women’s soccer players had tried to stake out the same area of the food court in the student union as “their turf” and the dispute quickly turned into a large scale cat fight.

Conrad had to admit he liked the spirit of the field hockey team, which quickly had the soccer players in full retreat. He was thankful the field hockey “ladies” did not have their sticks handy or else there would have been serious injuries. The combatants sobered up quickly when Conrad got caught in the crossfire of the food fight that had broken out between the teams. Apparently the sight of the school’s athletic director with spaghetti noodles and sauce dripping off his face onto his suit refocused their priorities away from where they sat during lunch and turned them more toward hoping to avoid suspension.

As Conrad made the trip back to his room for a change of clothes, he had decided to let the coaches handle the disciplinary action, although he considered recommending some anger management counseling for the field hockey players. He then returned to Galaxy Burger, resisted the urge to choke someone when they put cheese and mustard on his Super Star burger despite his explicit instructions to the contrary, and took his re-done combo back to the office before another fight could break out.

The events of the day had distracted Conrad from what John had come to remind him about. It was approaching 5:00, which meant it was almost time for the debut of “Ferret Forum.” Last year, Old Man Farnsworth had purchased a local radio station that broadcasted on the AM 1000 frequency. He had significantly upgraded its transmitter, and changed the letters to WFUR, standing for Farnsworth University Radio. The Old Man had grown weary of being rebuffed by other local stations in his attempts to convince one of them to carry Fighting Ferrets’ games, so he decided to buy one and broadcast them himself.

This was the initial day of the call letter change, and the first new program would be the premiere edition of “Ferret Forum.” It would be a daily show focused on Farnsworth athletics and broadcast during afternoon drive time between 5:00-6:00 PM. The host was the new voice of the Ferrets, Troy Flemstone, and today’s guest would be Old Man Farnsworth himself. Conrad was eager to hear Flemstone, who the Old Man had hired to host Ferret-related shows and do the play-by-play on game broadcasts.

Flemstone was a veteran broadcaster who had been out of the business for a while, and Farnsworth was giving him a chance to revive his career. Conrad felt good about this, happy to have an experienced pro behind the microphone rather than a youngster just learning the ropes. He felt it would help the athletic program gain some much needed credibility and respect.

Then Conrad turned on the radio and quickly felt all the color drain from his face.

“Hello, everyone, thith ith Troy Flemthstone and I’m proud to be the voith of the Fighting Ferreth on the new WFUR. Welcome to Ferreth Forum, where you will hear from the key people in Ferreth athleticth. Ferreth fanth will get a chanth to have their thay when we open the phone lineth later in the program. We’ll be back with our very spethial getht, the prethident of Farnthworth Univerthity, Frederick Farnthworth, in jutht a moment.”

Conrad sat in stunned silenth, er, silence for a moment, then jumped to his feet. “WHAT IN GOD’S NAME IS THIS?” he screamed in the direction of John Smith, who doubtlessly was wondering the same thing. “No wonder he was out of broadcasting. You can’t underthand, I mean understand him! God almighty! ‘The voith of the Ferreth? Had Farnsworth ever heard this guy talk before he hired him?” Conrad ranted.

“I don’t know what to thay,” John Smith sheepishly replied, then cringed when he heard himself. “My god, it’s contagiouth,” John said in amazement.

“If the wrong person hears one of his broadcasts, it could completely blow up. It could go national. We could be the butt of jokes every night on Sports Center. My god, can you imagine if Leno and Letterman got a tape of this guy? The possibilities are endleth!” Conrad lamented.

“Let’s listen for a while,” John offered, clutching to the hope that Conrad was overreacting. “Maybe after he gets warmed up it’s not as bad,” John offered with a shrug.

“Yeah, might as well,” Conrad said as he slumped in his chair and reached for his latest bottle of antacid tablets. He then motioned John to take a seat. “I’m not going to suffer through this by myself,” Conrad told the youngster.

And suffer he did through the first two segments, devoted to a one-on-one interview with Old Man Farnsworth. The Old Man seemed oblivious to Troy’s lisp from hell and chatted with great enthusiasm about the continued growth of FU (Conrad made a mental note to ask him to try and refrain from referring to the school by its initials) and the wonderful things in store for the athletic program.

Farnsworth announced that he had commissioned plans for a 65,000 seat football stadium to be built on the corner of campus that backed up to the interstate. The current attendance for an entire season of Ferret football would fit comfortably on one side of a stadium that large. John Smith literally fell out of his chair when he heard this pledge since the best thing he could say about the football team was that they looked sharp in their blue and gold uniforms.

Farnsworth also told the listeners that he had hired a new athletic director who would quickly move them from Division III competition into Division I, perhaps even becoming the 14th member of the Enormous East Conference, joining recently admitted Edgar Allen Poe University. This caused Conrad to slump into his chair so much he slid out and cracked his head on what he learned was a very solid desk. John rushed over to him and, after a moment, Conrad began to pull himself upright. “I guess I’m not unconscious, am I?” Conrad asked his young assistant.

“No sir,” John dutifully replied.

“Too bad,” Conrad said, unsteadily repositioning himself in his chair. He then reached over and turned the radio off. “I can’t take anymore tonight. When is this program on again?” he asked John.

“Tomorrow, sir. It’s on every weekday from 5-6 PM.”

“Oh joy,” Conrad said wearily.

Conrad sat motionless after John’s departure trying to come up with some type of action plan to deal with an announcer that couldn’t be understood and a president who thought a struggling Division III program (by NCAA rules not allowed to offer athletic scholarships) could magically turn into a Division I school competing in one of the toughest conferences in the nation. He thought things had hit bottom.

Then the phone rang. It was John Smith, calling from his car via cell phone. He was bordering on hysteria. “Sir, you need to turn Ferrets’ Forum back on right away!”

“What could possibly make me want to do that?” Conrad asked.

“Well sir, they started taking calls, and it’s gotten sorta weird.”

“It’s GOTTEN weird? I already thought we’d been in the Twilight Zone, for crying out loud. How could it have gotten worse?”

“Well, sir, the calls are pretty strange. It’s like they don’t know it’s supposed to be a sports show or something. And Old Man Farnsworth is saying stuff that he probably shouldn’t be saying, at least in public.”

“Worse than that insanity about joining the Enormous East?”

“I’m afraid it’s a lot worse sir.”

Conrad’s blood ran cold. “Alright, against my better judgment I’ll turn the thing back on,” he told John as he again reached for the radio dial.

The show was just coming back from a commercial break when Troy, sounding a bit shaky, said “OK folkth, leth take another call. Jane from Brunthwood, whath your quethtion?”

Jane began, “Well, my husband says he’s bored with our sex life and needs to mix it up a bit. He suggested a threesome. Do you think I should let him do that? Would that be condoning him being unfaithful?”

“An excellent question,” Old Man Farnsworth replied enthusiastically. “Personally, I’ve always enjoyed three-way encounters. The trick is you need to have two different types of girls. My preference is always to have one who’s quite petite and flexible, probably a younger girl, and a more full-figured woman, older and more experienced, with a nice rack. I generally start out with the older one, because the young ones have more energy and can carry more of the action in round two.”

Conrad, who had been leaning back in his chair, felt it tip over backwards. He landed with a thud, still in the chair, with his legs sticking up in the air. He made no effort to get up or make any movement whatsoever.

“Of course,” Farnsworth continued, “from your perspective, just make sure you are one of the girls in the threesome. That could be problematic if you’re not. It was just that type of misunderstanding that led to the end of my third marriage.”

“I’ll make sure to clarify that with my husband. Are you sure this will be a good thing for our marriage?” Jane asked.

“Oh yes, my dear, “Farnsworth responded, “it will give things a nice boost. With the right partner, this will satisfy the wanderlust you husband is experiencing without having to go behind your back. This really perked up my fourth marriage. It’s like he can have his cake and eat it to.”

At that point, Conrad managed to reach far enough from his prone position to unplug the cord to his radio and spare himself from further horror, not to mention mental images he would spend the rest of the night getting out of his mind. Still lying on the floor with his legs now draped over the seat of his chair, he heard a knock at his door.

“Hey Connie, you here?” bellowed Four F, making one of his infrequent visits to the office.

“Yeah, I’m down here Fred,” Conrad morbidly replied. “What do you want?”

“I just wanted to make sure you were listening to Grandpa on the radio?” Four F asked. “Something else wasn’t it?”

“It sure was something else,” Conrad replied, seizing the rare opportunity to agree with the nitwit.

“Yeah, Grandpa was freakin’ awesome!” Four F gushed. “Pretty cool, wasn’t it. There used to be a therapist on during this time slot, and I guess the callers didn’t pick up on the new format.”

At least that explained the questions they were asking. “Maybe the Old Man forgot he was supposed to be on a sports show,“ Conrad thought.

“He was so cool! Grandpa rocks!” Four F announced with obvious pride. “Well, gotta go, just wanted to make sure you heard it.”

“I heard it alright. Thanks for dropping by.” Conrad sarcastically replied.

“No prob Connie. Later!” Conrad could hear Four F saying “Grandpa ROCKS!” as he headed toward the exit or wherever he was wandering off to.

Gretchen, who had been down at the copier for the past hour, returned and glanced into her boss’ office. She thought it was odd that his desk chair was missing and, when she stepped through the doorway, noticed Conrad still on the floor in his tipped-over chair. Startled, Gretchen said “Oh my God! Woof! Woof! Conrad, are you all right? Woof! Do you need some help? Woof!”

“No,” he responded, “I’m just fine down here for a while.”

“What Woof! Happened?”

“I was listening to Old Man Farnsworth talking on the radio about his favorite way to set up a threesome.”

“A threesome?”

“Yeah, you know, a guy and two girls having sex.”

“He was on the radio?”

“Yeah, on his new station.”

“Talking about having sex with two girls?”

“Yep.”

Gretchen was frozen, stunned into complete silence. Even the animal menagerie in her head could not muster a sound. Finally, she said, “I should just go home now, shouldn’t I.”

“Yeah,” Conrad replied, “that’s probably a good idea.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

“I have no idea. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Conrad laid their for a while, pondering what damage control he would need to do and desperately trying to erase the image of Old Man Farnsworth getting his freak on with two babes.

Shortly after Gretchen left, Conrad heard another knock at the door. “Is Mr. Kon-rad-o-vich here?” the visitor asked.

“Close enough,” Conrad replied, still on the floor. “I’m down here.”

The visitor peered around the desk, saw Conrad, and handed him an envelope. “Mr. Konradovich, you’ve been served.”

The server left and Conrad opened the envelope to find what he expected-a petition for divorce drafted by his wife’s attorney. Just like her to go the dramatic route and have a process server deliver it. She’ll probably be disappointed when she finds out no one was here to witness it. “Yep,” Conrad thought, “the perfect end to a perfect day.”

Finally, Conrad awkwardly pulled himself up and righted the chair behind the desk. After stopping at Galaxy Burger, he would head home and hang out with his new buddy in the ferret suit and watch him work out on his giant wheel.

“Welcome to the new normal,” Conrad ruefully thought.

Coming next week, "Media Daze"

Part 1, Episode 4: "WWFD-What Would Freddie Do?"

2006-07-23T18:12:00.000-07:00

On his way to work Tuesday, Conrad stopped at the student union and bought a bottle of antacid tablets, figuring he would need them as he met with various staff members and began the uphill climb to reshape the Farnsworth athletic department.

On Thursday morning, he returned to purchase a king sized bottle, having already emptied the one he had picked up Tuesday.

Conrad spent much of his first week on the job evaluating the merits of cleaning house and dropping down to a skeleton crew while he hired more competent people versus those of keeping the current staff in place with the realization that there would be considerable damage control and resistance to culture change.

Remembering the furor in Washington when little Danny Snyder purchased the Redskins from the estate of Jack Kent Cooke and did his best impersonation of Cape Canaveral (by firing everything in sight), Conrad reluctantly chose the latter course of action. He decided he had enough problems without coming off as a hatchet man, particularly in an environment where someone previously had to practically commit a felony to get fired. He also wondered if he could buy antacids in bulk.

Conrad’s Friday activities began with a meeting regarding the football team’s new media guide. It had gone to the printer before Conrad was hired, and Thursday had been his first opportunity to review the content. His first action upon completing his review was to schedule a meeting with the Farnsworth sports information director, Gabe “Gabby” Sullivan.

Promptly at 9:00, Gabe arrived at Conrad’s office, announced by Gretchen whimpering like a dog who just had a paw run over by a car. Conrad had learned just how reliable her “early warning” system was and braced himself for trouble.

Conrad stood behind his desk and welcomed Gabe. “No small table for this meeting,” Conrad thought, “this clown needs to know that I’m in charge.” Conrad began, “Thanks for coming by, Gabe. It’s good to meet you.”

Gabe, spitting out words in double time, replied, “It’s good to meet you Mr. Cone-ro-do-witz. I’ve heard you did a lot of good things at EAPU, including the dean’s wife. I hear she was a real hottie. Boy, I hope she was worth getting kicked down here to the bush leagues. My wife’s not very attractive, so she’s probably safe from your libido. I hope so anyway, because I’m not that much of a catch either and I’d hate to put myself back on the market. How are you today?”

There it is, Conrad thought, the first person to broach the subject. The mention of the circumstances leading to the sudden end of his career at Edgar Allen Poe University filled Conrad with the rage every seemingly helpless victim must feel. Quickly gathering himself, he considered his options. He didn’t know which to do first; jump over his desk and strangle this idiot (fun but messy), fire him on the spot (desirable but probably subject to being overturned by human resources), or calmly slice him to ribbons, point by point. As was his custom when confronted, Conrad selected the third option.

“First off Gabe,” Conrad began deliberately but forcefully, “the issue of my termination from EAPU is absolutely none of your concern. Second, any and every married woman is safe from my libido. Third, you work for me, at least for the moment, and I WILL be treated with respect. This point is non-negotiable. Fourth, I called you in here to explain this football media guide you produced. Start explaining.”

Conrad sat back, having successfully knocked this blowhard off stride, and watched him squirm. Gabe mustered a burst of righteous indignation and huffed, “What do you mean, EXPLAIN it? This is a fine publication!”

Conrad evenly replied, “Yeah, for a third grader. If all you want to do is look at pretty pictures, this guide is full of them. If you want to read about Old Man Farnsworth and how he founded this school, that’s in there too. Without a word being changed in the last six years, I noticed. What I don’t see, Gabe, is much about THE FREAKIN’ FOOTBALL TEAM!”

Gabe, trying in vain to keep himself together, shakily responded, “Mr. Farnsworth tells me that I should put out information that reflects well on the school. That’s what I did with the media guide.”

“If this were targeted toward prospective students with no interest in sports, it would be pretty good. The two main purposes of this publication, however, are to make Farnsworth an attractive destination for high school football players, and to also serve as an information resource for the media. This, Gabe, does neither.”

“Have you SEEN our football team play?”

“No, I haven’t. And I didn’t learn a whole lot about them by reading this glorified post card either! This is a 96-page publication, and there are only 28 pages that even mention the word football. Half of those are nothing but pictures. What IS this!?”

“Have you SEEN our team play? The only school we beat regularly is Galludet, you know, the deaf kids. We haven’t beaten a team than can hear in five years! How am I supposed to make that look good?” Gabe responded, flailing his arms about wildly.

“You’ve still got to put out basic information,” Conrad said, refusing to waver. “With all our kids, there should be the essentials, you know, how they did in high school, what accomplishments (if any) they’ve had since they’ve been here, maybe a pronunciation guide, which I noticed is not your area of expertise. That’s what other schools do, even the ones that suck.”

Gabe stared back, arms folded, and offered no reply.

Conrad broke the silence. “When are the basketball guides due at the printer?”

“I don’t know,” Gabe snapped.

“Find out. I expect to see the draft BEFORE it goes to the printer, and I expect it with enough time to edit it before it goes out.”

“I don’t think I can do that,” Gabe replied, now in a full snit.

“If you want to keep your job, you’ll figure it out. We’re done here. Have a nice day.”

Gabe stood and tried to have the last word, but Conrad had abruptly turned to face the window, leaving only the back of his chair for Gabe to rail against. Declining that option, Gabe huffed off as Gretchen hissed at him.

Conrad sat for a few moments and then left his office for a walk to clear his head. Gretchen stood up and they locked eyes for the moment. No words were exchanged, but they didn’t need to be. The encouraging, respectful look in Gretchen’s eyes gave Conrad a much needed morale boost.

It was approaching noon on Saturday when Freddie strolled out of his room and found Conrad poring over yet another stack of papers he had brought from the office. This scene had been repeated every night for the past week. Even after staying late in his office, Conrad has usually brought a SuperStar Burger combo (no cheese, only ketchup) and a stack of work home with him, devouring the food while he attacked the mound of paper. Freddie decided enough was enough. Tonight he would liberate Conrad and show him a good time, by force if necessary.

“Hey Conrad, am I safe in assuming you don’t have any plans for tonight?” Freddie asked.

“No, nothing big. I thought I might catch a movie on the satellite. Is there a channel you don’t get?” Conrad replied.

“I don’t think so. The funny thing is I don’t watch much TV. I’m a participant not a spectator pal. Anyway, I’ve made some plans for the both of us tonight. I’m going to treat you to a night on the town, Ferret style,” Freddie said enthusiastically.

“Here in Farnsworth? How long will that take, about five minutes?” Conrad snorted.

“No silly,” said Freddie, undeterred. “There’s a town just up the Interstate called Midville. It’s where the land for the school was annexed from. I know it’s not as glamorous as big-city Baltimore, but there’s more there than a few cornfields and a general store. We do have nightlife around here and I know just where to find it. I’m Central Maryland’s Official Hospitality Ferret.”

“Official Hospitality Ferret?” Conrad asked with a tone of disbelief.

“That’s right,” Freddie insisted. “Central Maryland Magazine gave me this plaque right here two years ago. When they were doing photo shoots for their ‘Best of Central Maryland’ issue, the editor noticed I kept showing up everywhere. This area loves me, and I love this area.”

Conrad saw that there actually was an engraved plaque from Central Maryland Magazine proclaiming Freddie Ferret as “Central Maryland’s Official Hospitality Ferret.” He stood and thought about Freddie’s proposal. He could stand to blow off some steam, and apparently trailing Freddie around would not be a freak show—“Hey, mommy, look at the six-foot tall ferret. He scares me!” Instead, he was a celebrity.

Freddie Ferret was a figure not only accepted, but also perhaps even revered locally. Conrad wondered what kind of town would make a ferret mascot its hero. Well, this night seemed as good a time as any to find out. “Let’s do it,” Conrad said to his approving friend.

Downtown Midville is a mix of antique shops, quirky specialty stores, restaurants covering the full spectrum of pricing, row houses, and boarded up buildings waiting for someone to bring them back to life. This night was a beautiful early September evening, lacking the stifling humidity common in the mid-Atlantic region this time of year. A light breeze made the night downright comfortable as Freddie and Conrad reached their first destination.

Conrad had been nervous when Freddie insisted on driving (when is the last time YOU got in a car with a ferret behind the wheel?), but Freddie was able to navigate his Hummer down the narrow streets flawlessly. Conrad noticed that Freddie had skin-tight covering on his hands with the furry paws laying over them, allowing him to take advantage of the opposable thumbs he received at birth. It was the first time Conrad had ever been in a Hummer, a Farnsworth owned vehicle provided to insure Freddie was never restricted by bad weather.

There was a line waiting to enter “A Taste of Rome,” but the greeter saw Freddie and ushered him and his friend to the one empty table at their sidewalk café. Conrad expected to hear someone voice an objection, but none was forthcoming. The cute little waitress assigned to their table absolutely gushed over Freddie, and Conrad enjoyed some overflow.

Between bites of his linguini, a few fans came up and asked Freddie for his autograph, requests he gladly responded to, signing with a wild flair to his F’s, making it look like “FF” with scribbles next to them. Two girls walked up with t-shits displaying “W.W.F.D” and asked Freddie to sign them.

“What does WWFD stand for?” Conrad asked.

“What Would Freddie Do?” Freddie replied.

“You’re putting me on,” Conrad said, dumbfounded.

“No, really. A t-shirt shop in town started selling these a couple of years ago. Mr. Farnsworth asked me if I minded and I told him of course not! Pretty cool, huh?”

“Amazing,” Conrad responded, shaking his head.

The night was all about Freddie, and Conrad was content to kick back and watch him soak up the attention. Freddie did not come across as needy, having to thrust himself out amongst the masses to receive adulation and, therefore, validation. Instead, Conrad observed that he approached his accessibility as more of a responsibility. If he was going to be Freddie Ferret, this came with the territory, and he embraced it graciously. As Conrad would see during the course of their outing, it was good to be Freddie Ferret in Midville.

After a pleasant meal, Freddie headed off to their next stop for the evening. Conrad was still thinking about how amazing it was that Freddie could eat a bowl of linguini in a ferret suit and not get a drop of marinara sauce on it. After all, Conrad had to dab off spots of lasagna from his shirt, making him happy he had worn a navy blue polo instead of white or a pastel. Freddie apparently felt like some dancing, because their next stop was “Inhale,” the most popular dance club in the area.

Again, Freddie was able to ignore a long line outside the building and gain immediate entrance for himself and Conrad. Once inside, Freddie was mobbed by more fans, most of them females. There were a couple of instances where fist fights nearly broke out when women were jockeying for position on Freddie’s dance card. Conrad was impressed watching his furry friend glide around the dance floor. Freddie had all the moves--he was one agile ferret.

Freddie was also considerate, sitting out dances to share a drink with Conrad. Conrad thought back to his younger days, when his best friend Nick had bailed on him more than once during outings like this when a cutie gave him a “come hither” look. Freddie, however, was making sure Conrad was enjoying himself, and it was working. Although he did not venture onto the dance floor, Conrad was enjoying the music (an eclectic mix of ‘80’s and 90’s songs) and the energy from the crowd. When Freddie wasn’t sitting and shouting to him over the music, Conrad got a big kick out of seeing a six-foot ferret doing what frequently crossed over into dirty dancing. Yep, he had ALL the moves.

The dynamic duo’s final destination for the night was “Country Corner.” There was no crowd hanging outside the door with the hour now well past midnight, but it was a packed house inside. Once Freddie was spotted, a loud cheer went up and Freddie waved to the adoring masses. He then gave the keys to his Hummer to the manager, indicating it was time to seriously kick back and throw down some cold ones.

There was no dancing here, just mingling with others, swapping stories, and lots and lots of laughter. Later on, Conrad found himself caught up in the revelry and, joined by Freddie, leading everyone in song.
“You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille. With four hungry children and a crop in the field. I’ve had some bad times, lived through some sad times, this time the hurtin’ won’t heal. You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille.”

After several rounds of that classic (or is it infamous) Kenny Rogers bar song, Freddie had a young lady on each arm and motioned the crowd to a drawn out climax and a finish punctuated with loud cheers. He then bid them and the ladies adieu for the night (by then morning) and asked for a cab to be called to shuttle Conrad and himself back to campus.

As they were downing their last beverage of the evening, Conrad looked at Freddie and said, “Thanks, man. This was freakin’ GREAT!”

“My pleasure,” Freddie responded. “It was good to see you unwind.”

“It felt really good to relax for a change. It was amazing to see you in action. You are a furry gigolo,” Conrad said, clanking bottles with his friend.

“True ‘dat!” Freddie exclaimed.

Coming Tuesday, August 1: "The Voices of Farnsworth"

Part 1, Episode 3: "First Day Of School"

2006-07-23T18:09:00.000-07:00

After a fitful night’s sleep, Conrad awoke Monday morning as ready as he could be to begin the arduous chore of transforming the Farnsworth University athletics department into a big time operation. His shower didn’t quite wake him up, but the jarring sight of Freddie’s larger-than-life wheel prior to ingesting the magic elixir known as the day’s first cup of coffee did the trick (and necessitated an extra trip to the little athletic director’s room).

As Conrad prepared to head into the office for the first time, he looked toward Freddie’s room. Freddie had told him last night that he was a late riser and a sound sleeper so don’t look for him early in the morning or worry about tiptoeing around the room. Apparently ferrets are nocturnal animals, Conrad thought.

A question had popped into his mind as he was preparing for the day; does Freddie sleep in the ferret suit? It was hardly a vital fact to know but a very interesting one nonetheless. Fighting pangs of guilt for wanting to invade his new friend’s privacy, Conrad moved toward the door to Freddie’s sleep chamber and attempted to crack it open. Alas, it was locked tight. “A private little animal, isn’t he”, Conrad thought as he hastily grabbed his briefcase and began his career (or was it a sentence) as the Athletic Director of the Farnsworth Fighting Ferrets.

The school’s athletic department was housed in offices adjacent to Farnsworth Forum, the school’s glamorous basketball arena. The offices were not luxurious compared to the administrative building, but it was quickly clear to Conrad that no expense had been spared furnishing this facility either. The main reception area featured a large half-oval desk, apparently done in mahogany wood, surrounded by several plush leather chairs and couches on the perimeter. “Stay out of those man-eating chairs,” Conrad thought to himself.

The receptionist was a lady he guessed to be in her mid 30’s with a petite build and bright red hair that was somewhat askew. She was hyperactively trying to handle several tasks at once as Conrad approached. He noticed the nameplate on the front railing-“Gretchen Applebuns.” Does anything around here have a normal name, he wondered to himself. Stepping forward, he made eye contact with Gretchen and said, “Hello, Gretchen, I’m Conrad Kondratowicz, the new athletic director.” She responded by standing up and going “Mooooooo! Moooooooo!”

Conrad had tried to prepare for anything this morning, but being greeted with bovine noises from the receptionist was not a contingency he had considered. He was frozen in his tracks, not having the first clue what to say, when a young man who had been sitting in one of the chairs stood up and rescued him. “I’m Fred Farnsworth, Connie, welcome! Good to meet you.” Conrad, still processing his welcome from Gretchen, stuck his had out weakly and said, “Hi.”

“Let me show you to your office so you can start getting settled in,” Fred said to Conrad, already steering him in that direction. “OK,” Conrad replied, fearing what could be behind closed doors in this loony bin if the person out front mooed at guests.

As Fred led the way to his new office, Conrad made note of the expensive décor, furniture, and equipment in the department’s main work area. At least he wouldn’t be embarrassed bringing people into this first-rate office setting. He wondered if there was a back door so they could avoid being greeted by strange noises out front. Fred stopped in front of an office that was large enough for the football team to practice in. The furniture and shelving reminded him more of how a CEO’s office would be appointed. It sure beat the old metal desk and file cabinets that wouldn’t quite close which he was used to working with, he thought.
“Here’s your office,” Fred announced. “Sweet, huh?”

“It sure is,” Conrad replied while he tried to avoid the appearance of gawking. “Everything I’ve seen here is first class.”

“That’s what my granddad is all about. First class all the way! Pretty good for a guy that started out shoveling horse poop.”

“Really? Wow, he sure has come a long way.”

“You bet. That was the inspiration that led to his fortune.”

“Do you mean the hard work and humility he learned working in a horse stall?”

“No, I mean that instead of shoveling it, he was going to use it so he never had to do menial work again. That’s how he made his fortune.”

“On what, horses? Is he a breeder?”

“No, he hasn’t liked horses since one pooped on him while he was cleaning a stall. I mean the poop! He started Farnsworth Fertilizer and built it into the world’s largest producer of odorless fertilizer. It made him a billionaire!”

“So his fortune is based on…”

“Poop. Crap. Dung. Feces. Excrement. Yep, that’s my granddad.”

“That explains the ‘sweet smell of success’ he referred to in my interview. I THOUGHT it smelled like poop. Please tell me everything around here doesn’t smell like that.”

“No silly. He has that in his office because he never wants to loose touch with his roots. He says it keeps him grounded, whatever that means. By the way, don’t ever use the S-word around him. He finds it very demeaning.”

“Demeaning?”

“Yeah. He’s always felt that fertilizer doesn’t get enough respect. He won’t even watch HBO because they use the S-word so often.”

“Well, I sure wouldn’t want to disrespect fertilizer.”

Conrad moved around his desk and lowered himself into the chair gingerly. “Ah, this one is nice and firm,” he thought when he did not feel himself being swallowed up. He relaxed, leaned back in the chair, and reengaged Fred. “So, what do you do around here, Fred?”

“I’m the assistant athletic director. I’m really glad granddad hired someone with your background. I sure could use the help around here,” Fred somewhat exasperated, told Conrad.

Feeling his eyebrows raise yet again, Conrad thought maybe he should have them stapled that way and save the effort. “YOU need help around here?” he slowly spit out at Fred. “What exactly do you do?”
“Well, you know, lead, motivate, and assign tasks, that kind of thing.”

“In other words, none of what you do has any kind of measurable performance objective?”

“I’ve been told that before, so I guess not. I don’t fool with a lot of details or handle paper, that’s what the underlings are here for.”

“I see. Where’s your office?”

“Oh, I don’t really need one. I’m out in the field most of the time.”

“Doing what? Oh, I know, leading, motivating, and delegating, right?”

“See, that’s why you’re going to do so well here. You pick up on stuff real quick!”

“Yes, I do, my friend, I certainly do,” Conrad replied ruefully. “Can you have someone get me the staff personnel files so I can begin reviewing them and meeting with the people?”

“I’ll have one of my underlings get those for you. Anything else I can help you out with?”

“Just a couple of quick things. First, it’s Conrad, not Connie. Second, please don’t let me hear you use the word “underlings” again. Employees or staff would work much better.”

“Whatever floats your boat ConRAD,” Fred emphasized. “I’ll have those files sent to you ASAP.”

“Twit,” Conrad thought as his alleged assistant sauntered out the door.

After Fred departed, Conrad turned around in his chair and faced toward his office window, which gave him a panoramic view of this beautiful campus. His hopes of having a few moments to unwind were quickly dashed when he heard a frantic knocking at his door. Turning around, he saw a distraught Gretchen. She blurted out, “Sir, may I take a few moments of your time and try to convince you not to fire me? Mooooo! Mooooo!”

“Sure,” Conrad replied, “close the door and have a seat.”

Gretchen, obviously terrified, inched toward Conrad’s desk. Seeing her hesitation, he stood and moved to a small circular table closer to the door with only two chairs around it. If he was going to find out what was up with this chick, Conrad needed to put her at ease as much as possible. “Please, let’s sit over here,” Conrad said, motioning to the small table. Gretchen followed his lead and sat, moving her chair away from the outer edge of the table. She sat motionless and speechless. Just entering the office had apparently taken all the courage she could muster; she had none left to speak.

Conrad decided to break the silence, “Well, Gretchen, let’s start with the obvious. What’s with the mooing?”

“It’s not just mooing, sir. Sometimes it’s barking, other times it’s howling, growling, hissing, sounds like that.” Gretchen said as she slumped in her seat.

“That’s good to know, but you didn’t answer my question”

“I have a condition, sir.”

“I already figured that much out Gretchen. What type of condition?”

“It’s called Tourrete’s Syndrome, sir. It usually kicks in when I’m really stressed. Woof! Woof!”

“Like now, I assume. I think I’ve heard of that, but I thought people mainly shouted obscenities instead of making animal noises.”

“That’s usually what they show on television, sir. I do that sometimes when I’m really, really upset, but it’s mostly animal noises. The doctors tell me it’s involuntary. I’m on medication that keeps it from being worse, but there’s no cure. I’m so sorry, sir.” Gretchen then began to cry and howl.

Trying to stop the crying and, more importantly, cease the god-awful howling, Conrad reached over and touched her gently on the arm. “Gretchen, one thing I’ve learned how to do in my career is to look at someone’s talents and put them in positions where they can be successful. I’m hopeful I can find a spot for you that will minimize the stress and help you keep these outbursts to a minimum. I am sure, however, that it won’t be as the receptionist. What rocket scientist came up with that idea?”

“Four F, sir.” Gretchen replied, still looking down at the floor.

“Four F? Who’s that?”

“Fred Farnsworth, sir, the assistant athletic director. We call him that because his full name is Frederick F. Farnsworth the Fourth. It also seems somewhat descriptive.” Gretchen, now making eye contact with Conrad, told him.

“Four F was the classification of an Army reject, wasn’t it?”

“Yes sir.”

“I get it,” Conrad replied, feeling a slight grin appearing on his face. “Can you get coverage for the rest of the day at the reception desk?”

“I think I can, sir.”

“Good. I’ll need some help going through the personnel roster and files. Why don’t you work with me today on that and maybe during the process we can figure out a better role for you to play on our team.”

Gretchen, now sitting fully upright, began to crack a smile, “I would be honored to work with you, sir.”

Conrad shook his head and smiled himself. “Gretchen, let’s find a middle ground between mooing and treating me like a General. Why don’t you just call me Conrad?”

Gretchen replied, “Yes sir, Conrad sir!”

As the afternoon wore on, Conrad spent most of his time reviewing the personnel files (which Gretchen had obtained after Four F had wandered off). He also took time to ask Gretchen, who had worked for the athletic department since the school first fielded athletic teams nine years ago, what she knew about some of the key people. It was quickly evident who she did not like, since those names were met with loud barking. “At least,” thought Conrad, “I won’t have to spend a lot of time reading between the lines with her. I’ll have a pretty good inkling when she’s upset about something.”

When the workday was coming to a close, Conrad put down the files and asked Gretchen to sit with him for a moment. “I think I know a good spot for you in the department,” Conrad said.

“That would be wonderful, sir. Where would that be?“

“Right outside my office. There’s enough open space out there to set up a desk and the necessary equipment. You’ve really impressed me this afternoon, Gretchen, and I’d like you to be my administrative assistant.”

“That would be wonderful, sir. What would my duties consist of?”

“Primarily helping me sort through this mess of a department and trying to make sense out of it. You have a lot of institutional knowledge I desperately need, plus you seem to have a good knack for organization. I think you could be a tremendous help to me. What do you say?”

“That would be wonderful, sir. Are you sure my condition won’t be too much of a hindrance?”

“I’ll admit it will take some getting used to, but I think it will be worth the effort. I’ll try to treat it like an ‘early-warning system.’ If I hear noises, I’ll assume there is some problem and try to make myself available to deal with it.”

“That would be wonderful, sir. I won’t let you down.”

“I’m sure you won’t. I’m sure it will be wonderful.” Conrad smiled.

Gretchen, embarrassed at realizing how many times she had repeated herself, started whining like a hurt puppy. Conrad said, “I’m just having some fun with you, Gretchen. Don’t take me too seriously. I try not to take myself too seriously either. Let’s try to have some fun amidst this chaos, OK?”

“That would be wonderful, sir,” Gretchen replied, then hustled out of Conrad’s office, her whining noise gradually fading as she walked.

Conrad ended the day more pessimistic about his chances for success at Farnsworth that he was at the beginning. Not only did he have a pompous blowhard rich kid for his assistant AD, the rest of his staff review had left him with a feeling of isolation. The files read more like a rogues’ gallery than a staff roster. Was he going to have to try and turn this department around by himself?

No, he had Gretchen, a competent professional who he suspected was much more talented than she realized. Oh yeah, and who also made various animal noises when stressed. Well, at least it was a start. Since the fall season was about to get underway, he needed to move along at a brisk pace.

Or maybe he could just find a good place to hide.

Part 1, Episode 2: "Introducing Freddie Ferret"

2006-07-23T18:04:00.000-07:00

“Well, what do you think?” Conrad asked. The question was directed at his childhood pal, Nick Petrocini. Both Baltimore natives, they had known each other since sharing classes at Our Lady of the Eternal Virgin school in the sixth grade, and their mutual love of sports led them to develop a fast friendship. They quickly became inseparable and stayed that way through Our Lady of Perpetual Desperation high school and graduated together from Edgar Allen Poe University.

Conrad stayed at EAPU to begin his career in the athletic department while working on his masters in sports management. Nick went to law school at nearby Loyola College. Since then, Nick has often served as a de-facto agent for Conrad, who reciprocated with free passes to any EAPU games Nick desired. That pipeline was now sealed off, but Nick was still willing to look over the contract that Conrad dropped off at his house Friday night. Now, on Sunday afternoon at their favorite watering hole, “The Ravens Nest,” Conrad was asking for Nick’s feedback.

“Aside from this six-month salary holdback, everything is pretty straightforward,” Nick replied, “no tricks, no strange clauses. It does clearly state that you will be terminated if you don’t have at least one of the teams on track for Division I within six months from date of employment. How are you going to pull off that trick? Bribe someone? Sleep with someone? Sleep with several people?” Nick saw Conrad tense up and look away. “Hey, I’m sorry I struck a nerve. I know YOU don’t play that way. All I was trying to say is I just can’t imagine how you are going to meet that ridiculous time frame.”

Conrad reestablished eye contact with Nick and said, “I understand what you’re saying. If I told you I had a plan in mind of how to do that, I’d be lying. I’m just hoping I can pull a rabbit out of my hat before the deadline.”

“Well, what do you know, I sittin’ across from freakin’ David Copperfield! So tell me, Dave, why DID you breakup with Claudia Schiffer?” Nick asked.

“She was too needy. Plus, she always wanted me to eat salads and vegetables. She crossed the line and I had no choice but to show her the door,” Conrad replied.

“Are you crazy? I would have eaten bugs and dog poop to get a shot at her.”

“I’m sure your wife would just love to hear that.”

The laughter following that exchange momentarily broke the tension. It had become standard operating procedure over the years for one of them to make a wise-ass remark when the two friends were dealing with serious issues.

“Really, Conrad, what are you gonna do? The Fighting Ferrets?! Aren’t they like little weasels? Have you ever actually seen a ferret?” Nick asked with genuine concern.

Conrad responded, “I figure, worst case scenario is I keep the job for six months, hope things have somewhat blown over and that I made enough headway there to land a semi-decent job afterwards and start over. At least I’m still in my field and I know what I’m doing.”

“I know you’ve got you’re act together, I just wonder if anyone else there does. I don’t care how good you are or how hard you work, you can’t do it all by yourself,” Nick added.

“I did for a while at EAPU,” Conrad contradicted.

“Yeah, and look where that got you!” Nick blurted out. Conrad said nothing and became immersed in the Orioles game being shown on the big screen. Nick thought this would be a good time to shut up, watch the ball game, and sip on his beer.

Before meeting Nick, Conrad had checked out of the “Beltway Express” motel which had been his “home” since his wife had evicted him from their house a few days ago. After leaving the Ravens Nest, Conrad made his way back down I-70 toward his new digs. As he returned to the Farnsworth campus, he was relieved that this time he knew how to find his destination. A map showing where to find his accommodations had been included in the package with his contract.

“Farnsworth sure hadn’t thought there was much of a chance he would turn down the job offer,” Conrad thought as he traveled through the beautiful campus. Part of him felt like Superman in the old 1950’s TV show when the bad guys had kidnapped Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen for the umpteenth time; he knew it was a trap but what choice did he have but to go rescue them? Conrad could not shake the feeling of being set up for failure, but what other options did he have?

In his moment of despair, Conrad looked to the heavens for a sign. He quickly found one, the familiar golden star of his favorite eating establishment in the world. There had been many times in his life that the sight of a Shooting Star fast-food joint had turned Conrad’s frown upside down, but this one was totally unexpected.

The sign was outside the school’s student union, where upon entering he was astonished to find not just the home of the Star Burger but a full-blown mini-mall. There was a grocery store, a drug store, a newsstand, several apparel and accessory shops, a bank, and several chain restaurants and fast food joints.

Farnsworth had told him there were unlimited resources, and this facility was a clue that this philosophy applied to the students as well.

As he sat and devoured his double SuperStar Burger (two quarter-pound patties) combo with no cheese, only ketchup and worked on his second diet cola refill, he sat back and observed the activity around him.

He had traveled to numerous big-time campuses during his years at EAPU and saw students in countless settings. The level of activity, the attitude and look of the students, none of it even remotely resembled the Podunk school he had been expecting. In this small snapshot of campus life at Farnsworth, he saw scenes that could have been at any large school where students were returning for the new semester. The atmosphere seemed charged with a confidence, even an excitement, of people who truly wanted to be there, not ones who had chosen Farnsworth University as a last resort. Hopefully, Conrad thought as he departed the student union, you can tell a book by its cover, at least this book.

Content with the familiar feeling of a SuperStar Burger rumbling through his digestive system, Conrad headed toward his new room. He wasn’t going to call it home, since he still felt his was back at the house he was chased from in Owings Mills, but it would hopefully be an upgrade over the motel. Conrad found the building where he would be staying and became confused. The map had led him back to the administrative building where he had met Farnsworth two days ago. He walked around the back and found the door he was looking for, the one with the distinctive “FF” symbol the map said would mark his room.

After fumbling with the key, Conrad opened the door to the suite and flailed around to find a light switch. Once he found one and flipped it on, he let out a blood-curling scream. “Oh my God, what is that?!!!” he shrieked. His eyes were focused on what looked like a giant hamster wheel near the far wall of what he supposed was the living room. The wheel appeared to be large enough to accommodate a six-foot tall man. Then he thought it would also work for a six-foot tall hamster and felt his blood run cold.

He stood transfixed by the wheel and felt a tap on his shoulder. He jumped and turned around to find himself face-to-face with what looked like a six-foot tall weasel. “Oh my god,” Conrad screamed, “what are you?!” Overcome with confusion and no small amount of fear, he dropped to his knees and held his head in his hands. He wondered if he had walked into a gigantic weasel cage! Or perhaps the wheel and weasel were their normal size and he had been zapped with a shrinking ray, like Superman’s enemy Braniac used to capture the Kryptonian city of Kandor and keep it in a bottle.

Conrad closed his eyes, still on his knees, and shouted, “God, I know I’ve been drinking a bit extra since I lost my job, but I really didn’t think I had drank THAT much! I’m sorry God, I’ll go back on the wagon, just make this stuff go away!” After a moment, Conrad struggled to his feet, opened his eyes, and found that both the wheel and the weasel were exactly where he had last seen them. “Oh God, you’re killing me here. My mind was the only thing I had left! Jooop! Jooop!”

Then, just to top things off, the weasel spoke. “Hey pal, it’s OK. You must be Connie. Welcome.” Oh great, Conrad thought, Farnsworth has a giant weasel as his Welcome Wagon representative. The weasel continued, “Mr. F told me to expect you tonight. I’m Freddie Ferret and we’ll be rooming together for a while. Glad to have you buddy.”

Conrad stared at him and his extended paw for a moment and sought to say something intelligent. Instead, he said, “You can talk?”

“Sure pal,” Freddie responded. “Under this fur exterior is a flesh and blood person just like you.” Not quite like me, Conrad thought. “Are you the mascot?” he asked, managing only a slightly more intelligent question.

“I’m more than just a mascot Connie,” Freddie said proudly, “I’m the face of the Farnsworth Fighting Ferrets.”

“Conrad, please call me Conrad,” Conrad said, beginning to pull himself together. “I’m sorry I went all bonkers on you, but I wasn’t expecting anything like this and I’ve had a rough few days.”

“That’s OK pal. I just figured Mr. F would give you the heads up. I guess this was his way of having fun with you. He can be quite the kidder.”

This little stunt made Farnsworth’s Pollock jokes seem like high-brow humor to Conrad. “Could you point out where the men’s room is? I REALLY need to go.”

“It’s over there on the left. Take your time, relax, and then let’s hang out a bit and get to know each other,” Freddie said, his good humor not even slightly dented by Conrad’s psychotic episode.

“Yeah, relax. Sure.” Conrad said, still in somewhat of a state of shock. He staggered into the men’s room and sat down on the toilet. “I don’t know whether I’m being filmed for an episode of The Twilight Zone or Candid Camera. This just ain’t right!” Conrad thought. “I’m working for a total nut job and living with a talking ferret. And what’s the deal with the wheel. He’s not a freakin’ hamster, he’s a ferret. Wait a minute, he’s not a ferret-he just dresses like one. Is that better or worse? If he were a talking ferret, it’s not like he would have a choice in how he looks. But if he is wearing a ferret suit, he must have decided to do that at some point. Where do you buy a ferret suit anyway? I’m sure you don’t just get one off the rack at Wal-Mart. Would Freddie wear a size 2x or 3x?

Conrad, having taken care of his business, stood up and slapped himself hard, once on each cheek (on his face, people, on his face). He then looked into the mirror and made a final attempt to gather himself. Unaware of how much time had passed, he washed his face and went back out to the living area. Freddie had been waiting patiently on the couch and stood up when he saw Conrad finally emerge.

“Freddie, I’m really sorry,” Conrad began. “I’m usually not like that when I meet new people. Of course, they usually aren’t wearing a ferret suit, either, but that’s beside the point. Can we start over?”
“Sure!” Freddie replied. “Have a seat. I’m sure you have a bunch of questions, so fire away.”

“OK,” Conrad began, “why are you wearing the suit now. Did Farnsworth put you up to that to startle me?”
“Oh no,” Freddie shook his head, “I wear this all the time. I don’t just dress up as a ferret. I AM the ferret, the Farnsworth Fighting Ferret.”

“All the time, huh?” Conrad asked as he pondered that fact. “I guess you have trouble getting dates then, don’t you?”

Freddie burst out laughing. “Conrad, I am the BFOC. Nobody can keep up with me.”

“BFOC?”

“Big Ferret On Campus, man. I am a babe magnet. I’m not talking female ferrets either, pal. I’m talking about girls with big luscious lips and nice firm…”

“I get it, I get it!” Conrad interrupted. “BFOC. All right then, what’s with the wheel?”

“Good question. Mr. F got that for the original Farnsworth Ferret. We call him ‘Father Ferret.” Mr. F wasn’t up on his ferret facts then, he got us confused with hamsters and gerbils. But it’s great for exercise, not to mention a real conversation piece when I have guests. Would you like to give it a spin?”

“No thanks, I pretty sure I’m not up for that tonight.”

“Suit yourself. Hey, would you like some background on the folks that work for you.”

“Sure,” Conrad replied. “Anything I can use to get a leg up on things would be very helpful. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. After all, we’re teammates now. I’ve got your back, pal.”

By the time the evening was over and it was time to retire to bed, Conrad had come to believe this strange dude in the ferret suit actually would have his back. They talked for hours, covering much more than the school’s athletic department. Conrad was able to spill his guts to Freddie, telling him all about the events that had led him to this point, things he hadn’t even told Nick.

As they were talking, Conrad realized just how much he had needed someone to open up to. He was still very skeptical about Freddie and the “babes”, but after today he was more open to strange possibilities than at any other time in his life. He also thought he had a handle on the group of knuckleheads, morons, and otherwise impaired people staffing the Farnsworth athletic department.

As he prepared for bed, Conrad would focus on his furry new friend Freddie and drift off to sleep. Tomorrow, however, he feared he would begin to learn how a hamster felt running around in his wheel, expending a lot of energy without getting anywhere.

Part 1, Episode 1: "Welcome to Farnsworth"

2006-07-23T17:53:00.000-07:00

“My name is Frederick Farnsworth, president of Farnsworth University. You need a job, I need your skills. Come to my office at 3:00 PM tomorrow so we can discuss a mutually beneficial endeavor.”

The cryptic voice mail Conrad received on his cell phone the prior evening had intrigued him. Along with wondering how Farnsworth had obtained his cell phone number, he was curious about the nature of this “endeavor.” After several days of indulging in self-pity, Conrad was finally ready to begin at least tentatively moving forward and establishing some direction for this new life he had been thrust into.

Conrad Kondratowicz had given the last twenty years of his life to the athletic program at Edgar Allen Poe University in Baltimore, Maryland. During that time, he had worked his way up from an unpaid intern to the position of assistant athletic director. Conrad had once been considered a rising star in the field of college athletic administration, but the rug had just been snatched out from beneath him, leaving only a seemingly bottomless hole to fall through. At 43 years old, he now felt that he had lost everything that meant anything to him.

To be sure, Conrad’s career was now dead in the water. He had astutely concluded that Saddam Hussein had a better chance of being elected president than he had of landing a decent job in athletic administration. As far as other schools were concerned, he was radioactive. Recent events had also apparently extinguished the last dim spark in Conrad’s eight-year marriage and threatened to widen the distance between himself and his precious four-year old daughter Connie.

When a man feels he has nothing left to lose, he can find himself receptive to opportunities that would have previously held little or no interest for him. That attitude had led him to answer the summons and make the trip from his motel room in suburban Baltimore down I-70 toward Farnsworth, Maryland to meet the mysterious Frederick Farnsworth.

Farnsworth was a very rich man who had founded Farnsworth University nine years ago. The county was so eager to receive the financial benefits of hosting his university that they allowed him to annex the acreage for the campus, incorporate it as a town and name it after himself. Having been so absorbed with his work at Edgar Allen Poe U, Conrad had paid little attention to schools not competing at the same athletic level. EAPU was an emerging Division I power in several sports, while Farnsworth University had a rather non-descript Division III program. He didn’t even know what the school’s mascot was.

Conrad had heard that Mr. Farnsworth was considered a loose screw, a combination of Mark Cuban and George Steinbrenner. As he cruised down the interstate, he wondered what it would be like working for someone like that. After all, Steinbrenner’s employees seldom seemed happy despite dominating major league baseball for nearly a decade. Any man who would name a town after himself was probably not to be trifled with. In Conrad’s present situation, however, self-actualization was not a priority. If all Farnsworth wanted was someone to flip burgers in the school cafeteria, he felt he would have to swallow hard and listen. He needed cash to pay for his motel and his suddenly substantial beverage expense, and his estranged wife Camilla had a stranglehold on most of the assets accumulated during their marriage.

As Conrad wondered for what may have been the thousandth time over the last few days how it was possible he could be in this situation, he exited the highway on the ramp designated for Farnsworth University. Visiting the campus for the first time, he was impressed enough with the spectacular landscaping and immaculately kept grounds to take his mind off his problems for just a moment. It was a magnificent late August afternoon, and the beautiful flora and fauna including a babbling brook meandering through the property more closely resembled an image of Augusta National Golf Course than a college campus. Despite a serious drought in central Maryland that summer, the grounds practically glowed with a plush greenness.

He quickly found the sign marking the location of the school’s administrative offices, where he would begin his quest to find Mr. Farnsworth. The voice message he had left for Conrad was lacking some basic information, such as a phone number and the location of his office. He wondered how difficult it would be to pry information about this “endeavor” out of the old man.

The administration building more closely resembled the home of an old southern plantation owner, and Conrad was taken aback by the exquisite antique furnishing that filled the interior of the facility. He was hardly a furniture expert, but to his untrained eye it appeared that there were a lot of hand-carved features in the furnishings he encountered in the lobby. He thought that Farnsworth must either be a man of style or had hired a decorator that had seen “Gone With the Wind” one too many times.

Conrad was warmly greeted at the information desk at the end of the majestic lobby. He was quickly given directions to Frederick Farnsworth’s suite, noting how odd it was that it was not called an office. The clerk also handed Conrad a glossy color map of the campus and implored him to, “enjoy your visit to Farnsworth!” As he made his way back to Farnsworth’s suite, he noticed that some of the tension he carried around with him had dissipated and given way to a hint of optimism. That feeling lasted until he reached the suite and encountered Farnsworth’s executive assistant, a plain librarian-type 40-ish woman identified only as “Kate” by the simple nameplate on her desk.

Conrad stood at her desk for a few moments not wanting to interrupt Kate, whose fingers were attacking the keyboard on her computer. As he looked around, he felt like he was in a museum. The paintings on the wall were all from the impressionist period, a fact he would never have know if his estranged wife had not dragged him to a few art galleries back when they actually did things together. The furniture was of a similar ostentatious design to that he had seen in the lobby. Finally, Kate looked away from her computer screen, obviously annoyed at having her personal space invaded by an outsider, and asked, “Are you Mr. Kon-RAD-o-witz?”

“Yes,” he replied, “I’m Conrad Kon-drah-TOE-veech.”

Kate’s glare hardened, as she apparently did not care for being corrected. “Mr. Farnsworth will be with you shortly,” she snapped.

“Is there any paperwork you need me to fill out?” Conrad inquired.

Having turned back to her computer, Kate jerked her chair around to face him directly and sternly told him “If there were, I would have given it to you. Sit!”

Ah yes, there’s that familiar tension, Conrad thought while he felt his body tense up as if it were a rubber band being stretched in preparation for launching. He noticed that he was seated in a hunched down position like a young boy who had been scolded by his mother or schoolteacher. “I see Farnsworth has armed himself with the latest version of the attack secretary”, Conrad thought as he squirmed in his seat.

Conrad sat as his fellow victims in the waiting area were granted their audience with Farnsworth. Finally, at precisely 4:32, an hour and forty-five minutes after his arrival, Conrad was ordered in to meet The Man. He could have sworn he heard Kate hissing at him as he passed her desk, but dismissed that thought when Frederick Farnsworth welcomed him with a hearty back slap and a firm handshake. “It’s good to meet you Connie. I’m glad you accepted my invitation.” Conrad fought the instinctive urge to cringe, hating what he considered the effeminate bastardization of his name and responded “Good to meet you too, sir.”

During the handshake, Conrad had a moment to size up this captain of industry (although he did not know which one) and patriarch of higher learning. Farnsworth was a solidly-built man, Conrad observed, probably standing around 6’3” with a full head of hair that clearly was not all originally his. For a man probably well into his 60’s he was quite an imposing figure, much more so than Conrad could ever hope to be with his slight 5’10” (on a good day) build.

After being ushered into a plush black leather chair in front of Farnsworth’s massive desk, Conrad’s mind drifted for a second and pictured a fighter jet landing comfortably on that majestic piece of dark mahogany furniture. It dominated the office that, while large, hardly merited being labeled a “suite.” He could not help but sink down in the chair, putting him below eye level as he faced Farnsworth. He sure knows all the power moves, Conrad thought as he struggled to maintain an erect posture.

Farnsworth, after settling in to what resembled a leather throne behind his desk, then reengaged Conrad. “I’m sure you are wondering what I have in mind, aren’t you Connie?”

“That I am sir,” Connie, er, Conrad, replied.

“Well, I’ll tell you. By the way, your last name, Kon-RAD-o-witz, is that Polish?” Farnsworth inquired.

“Yes sir, it his” he replied, “Kon-drah-TOE-veech comes from Polish ancestry.”

“Really?” Farnsworth asked thoughtfully. “Have you heard about the Polish man who locked his keys in his car?”

Conrad, stunned that he was being told a Pollock joke on what he assumed was a job interview, gathered himself and said, “No sir, I haven’t.”

Farnsworth continued, “He had to use a coat hanger to get his family out!”

Conrad forced himself to chuckle while Farnsworth was roaring with laughter. At least, Conrad thought, he didn’t tell than awful joke about the Pollocks screwing in the light bulb. If he heard that one more time in his life, he thought he would surely scream or barf or both.

After Farnsworth pulled himself together, he asked Conrad, ‘Well surely you’ve heard the one about how many Pollocks it takes to screw in a light bulb?”

“More times than I care to mention sir,” Conrad replied, struggling to keep the tone of his voice level and avoid screaming or barfing.

“Yes, my boy, that’s a classic all right,” Farnsworth said somewhat wistfully.

“Anyway,” Farnsworth abruptly barked as he spun to directly face Conrad, “I need a new athletic director here at Farnsworth U. I’m rich, and we should have the best of everything here, but so far our athletic program hasn’t gotten off the ground. I think you’re the man that can put Farnsworth athletics on the map, and on television.”

Oh my god, Conrad thought, he thinks this twinkie school can get into big-time college sports. This guy IS a squirrel.

After allowing a moment for the job offer to sink in, Farnsworth stood up, moved around his vast desk, and sat on the front edge only inches away from where Conrad was being consumed by the leather chair. “I know you’ve had a bad run of luck recently, Connie. I’ve checked you out quite thoroughly. You have a great work ethic, outstanding problem solving skills, and the leadership qualities that your previous employer did not properly utilize. Besides, don’t you want the chance to pluck the feathers of those dastardly Edgar Allen Poe Ravens?”

Flattery and revenge were two good selling points, and Conrad found himself momentarily captivated with the idea of running his own program, a notion inconceivable when this day began. But this one? How could he get a young Division III program with no winning tradition to the point where it could compete with a powerhouse like EAPU? The next-to-last thing he wanted was to take a beating from the Ravens. Of course, the LAST thing he wanted was prolonged unemployment. Finally, he responded to Farnsworth, “This is certainly an intriguing offer.”

Farnsworth jumped in before Conrad could continue, “I know what you’re thinking, my boy. How can you compete with a major program like EAPU? We don’t even do that well in our current division.”

Wow, Conrad thought, this guy is gooood.

“The answer is simple, my boy,” Farnsworth continued, “I’m rich. Some call it filthy rich. You smell that aroma Connie? That’s the sweet smell of success!” Conrad thought it smelled more like freshly planted farmland. “If you need anything, I will get it for you. You will have unlimited resources, and a good man with that kind of backing can’t help but be successful.”

Conrad pondered the indisputable logic of that last statement. “What would be the terms of employment?”

Farnsworth smiled, knowing he had his man. “We do things a bit differently here at Farnsworth. You’re salary will be $100,000 to start, with 50% deferred the first six months. If your performance is deemed acceptable, and I have no doubt it will be, you will receive the balance in a manner of your choosing at that time and start being paid at your full salary.”

Conrad fought to lower his eyebrows, which had instinctively arched when Farnsworth said $100,000. “What will determine whether or not my performance is acceptable?” Conrad asked. “Two things,” Farnsworth began, “first, I want a thorough review of our fall sports with a detailed action plan that will have our weaker sports, especially football, on a path to short-term success in our current division.”

“Fair enough,” responded Conrad, “what’s the second part?”

“Oh yes,” Farnsworth lit up, “I expect at least one of our teams to be on track to gain acceptance into Division I. I know the process takes a while, but I expect at least one of our teams to be on that path.”

“In six months?!,” Conrad, somewhat exasperated, asked.

“My dear Connie, if the job was easy, I wouldn’t need someone of your abilities to do it, now would I? Do we have a deal, or are you currently entertaining other offers?” Of course, they both knew there would be no other offers for Conrad’s services in the foreseeable future.

Conrad stood up after fighting his way out of the man-eating leather chair and uttered words he was sure he would soon regret, “We have a deal sir.”

Farnsworth took the extended hand and pumped it enthusiastically. “Welcome aboard, my boy! Now go enjoy your weekend and report in Monday morning. Here’s your contract, take a good look over it and I’ll answer any questions you may have then. I know your living situation is somewhat unsettled right now, so I have arranged for a room on campus for you.”

“Thank you for the opportunity sir,” Conrad said, trying his best to sound sincerely grateful. It would be nice, he thought, to move out of the crappy motel he had been staying at. “By the way, what is the school’s mascot?”

“The ferret, my boy, the ferret!” Farnsworth proudly announced, “You are now the leader of the Farnsworth Fighting Ferrets!”

Conrad wondered, not for the last time, if he would have been better off leading Custer’s troops at Little Big Horn.

Introducing "Tales of the Fighting Ferrets"

2006-07-23T17:51:00.000-07:00

My name is Jim Johnson and I’ll be your guide through a story that I hope you feel is funny, interesting, at times moving, but most importantly something you find entertaining.

This is the tale of an average man who finds himself in a very unusual situation. His career as a college athletics administrator appears to be ruined, his family leaves him, and he has only one viable option to try and rebuild his life.

It is at Farnsworth University in rural Maryland that Conrad Kondratowicz finds a group of people he thinks belong on The Island of Misfit Toys. He feels that he is surrounded by knuckleheads and nitwits along with a few people who are just plain strange. Despite this, he is desperate enough to salvage his career and sense of self-worth that he plows forward trying to pull together Farnsworth’s pitiful Division III athletic department.

Along the way, Conrad begins to wonder if his life was actually ruined after all. As he gets to know the eclectic gathering of people he works with, he sees past the dysfunction and quirks some of them have and finds sincere, hard-working, even loving individuals.

It’s a good thing too, because Farnsworth athletics is always in a state of crisis. You’ll see Conrad deal with explosions, sabotage, general incompetence, and a history of failure by the school’s varsity teams. Even the most basic things, like having his hamburgers prepared correctly, become daunting challenges for our hero.

Then there’s Freddie Ferret, the school mascot. Freddie goes beyond that role, acting more as the goodwill ambassador for a school that sorely needs one. He’s got his own issues that Conrad will get to see up close and personal.

I am very happy that out of all the journalists he could have selected to tell this story, Conrad chose me. I will go behind the scenes of his life and the inner-workings of the Farnsworth athletic department. You, the reader, deserve to know what really goes on there.

Then again, perhaps I’ll just make it all up.

Either way, I hope you will enjoy “Tales of the Fighting Ferrets.” Beginning with Chapter 5, there will be a new chapter posted every Tuesday.

Tell your friends, tell your family and let me know what you think of this story by posting a comment or sending e-mail to thecourtmaster@aol.com.

Remember, Fear the Ferret!