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Gygamino

By Keith O'Brien

Gygamino was a five-headed beast that lived in a small cave in Northern Scotland. That’s all that is necessary to know about the matter if… you’re a shallow bastard and only care about first impressions.

Because, if you bothered to get to know him, you would soon find out that he had more posters of Whitney Houston than any other entity in the known universe. This is equally due to the fact that he was a Whitney Houston fanatic and that he lived in a vast cave – even the most diehard suburban Houston fan could not compete with the possibilities of such square footage.  

Nonetheless, he guarded the knowledge of his collection with the same zeal  that dictates that Trekkies trek to Las Vegas covertly until they are within comfortable territory. Since Houston has been widely cast as an impossible diva, she has certainly taken a tumble down the cool barometer as of late, but, let’s face it, even in her "Bodyguard" heyday she was no Leo. And let us not even start on how far back that movie set Kevin Costner.

In order to garner this information, one would have to either gain his trust in conversation or begin any correspondence by belting out a medley of her greatest hits. Some people made the mistake of singing a few bars of "Greatest Love of All" only to be bewildered when the giant man-beast waved them away from his dwelling.

What they failed to realize was that Whitney, to Gygamino, was a proper Spanish bar and her songs were Tapas to be sampled. No one goes to a Tapas bar to gorge themselves just on salmon croquettes and, following that line of reasoning, no Houston booster dines solely on "My Name is Not Susan."

And while some people may argue that Houston has made some poor choices in the later stage of her life, such as marrying Bobby Brown or continuing to exist, Gygamino cherished her even more dearly because she was human, something he could never become. And while some people may argue that, well, if you accept that as a rational thought, then logic would dictate that Gygamino should feel the same sort of infatuation with every human being. Well, I can only say that he would need a lot more than five heads to accomplish that bucko.

He had other pursuits, but they were all beyond human comprehension. He also did enjoy shuffleboard; he guarded this hobby even more tightly than his Whitney fetish. This was because; let’s face it, where can you get a legitimate game of Shuffleboard in this universe? The truth of the matter was this…

Shuffleboard was only played in three distinct arenas.

1) Amongst the elderly where anyone who avoids injuring themselves is declared a winner.

2) Deep into beer-b-ques when the drunkest of the lot suddenly gets a hankering for shuffleboard as if he’s a pregnant woman craving a yet-to-be-invented form of potato chips. Forty minutes after that revelation, he/she finally gets motivated to look for the necessary equipment and then another forty minutes passes before he/she finds said objects. Then an undetermined time passes while they argue about who gets to play first. Consumed time is washed down with more beer and the final result is far beyond what can be considered a game.

3) Young children who escape their mother’s attention long enough for them to hurtle the disc towards the toes of his/her younger sibling.

Gygamino was highly competitive of his shuffleboard game and refused to play in any conditions below his standards. Therefore, no one knew of his fondness for the game for the sole reason that everyone from the poorest of the poor (who fashion their equipment from brooms and empty cat food cans) to the richest of the rich all love shuffleboard – albeit it in the context of "I’ve been meaning to have a barbecue – bring your shuffleboard and Geordie… Geordie, wake up man, you’re a fucking narcoleptic – bring the beer."

Gygamino was very dedicated to his own personal hygiene, which took a considerable amount of time considering his multiple sets of teeth, hair and other facial features that needed grooming. Every day he would wake up earlier than the next to ensure he had proper time to get himself presentable for his day of work as a bank manager in Inverness. Even on days when he awoke at the crack of dawn and rushed through his pre-job routine, he never failed to miss the bus. We, with the benefit of reading this on a computer screen, realize what Gygamino went to his grave unaware of – the fact that the bus route never came close to his cave and that he was not employed at a bank in Inverness. This was all the result of a particularly convincing dream where such things did exist remained ingrained in Gygamino’s mind and, with his inability to discern between the two already a problem, you can see how such a mistake occurred. Rather, Gygamino was self-employed as an envelope stuffer and his stash of unfinished work was piled up in one of the many recesses in the cave. Many people did not rejoice at the fact that pre-approved credit card junk mail did not reach them for the sole reason that suggesting that someone would somehow know that a piece of mail that was supposed to be delivered to them due their name being on a marketing mailing list because of a five-minute survey they filled out in order to get a free t-shirt with a unmemorable slogan on it that he/she never wore is laughable. The human resources manager of credit card company that he was freelancing for was quite relieved to have survived one encounter with the beast during a pleasant meeting and did not feel it was worth the risk to go see why he had terminated completing his duties. The manager, instead of outsourcing the envelopes to the cave, did the work himself. He did it with such fastidiousness and speed that Gygamino was offered a modest sum as a bonus for HR director’s brilliant work. The bonus came in the form of a check from the Bank of Scotland. The memo even spelled out the reason for check – "Bonus for magnificent work in the field of freelance envelope stuffing for the Visa Credit Card Company." This is interesting for two reasons. One, the regional manager was one of those people who ordered his food at a restaurant by regurgitating what is written on the menu and, as evidence shows, writes sentences in the memo section of a check to make sure the receiver does not assume the check is sent as a goodwill gesture instead of it’s legitimate business purpose. In other words, the regional manager was a pompous man who thought the worst of the people who surrounded him. The second interesting tidbit to this transaction was that Gygamino did not believe in the reading the memo section of checks because it had been long preached among his tribe that the memo section steals the soul (oh, and, "the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground (Genesis, Chap 2 v. 7)" makes perfect sense). Also worth mentioning is that Gygamino never really understood the concept of checks, so he thought the piece of paper with the word bank on it were directions to his workplace. So, everyday he sat on a stone outside of his cave waiting for the bus with the check in his hands – turning in at sunset when it was even apparent to him that the bus was not coming again that day. The constant absences from work began to depress Gygamino and he found comfort in his friends. Most of his friends had names and identities that cannot be expressed by the human language, but he had a minor acquaintance named Sally whose job could best be described as "rock prostitute." While she was amicable towards the beast, she had problems of her own to deal with.

She awoke every morning at around the same time as Gygamino for a different reason. While the penta-headed creature was brushing his six sets of teeth (oh, one of the heads has two sets of teeth), she was going through the routine of getting herself psyched up to have sex with rocks. Most of the rocks in that particular area were very gentle and she almost had an affinity towards them. The things that troubled her and the reasons for her early morning motivational session was that a) the rocks did not pay her any money and b) she was not attracted to them or any other non-paying geological structure. She had a casual  attitude towards sex and that attitude allowed her to become a prostitute without any qualms. Her only belief, however, was that sex should be done for some gain – either the satisfaction of being with someone you loved, someone you lusted or someone who would compensate you financially for said transaction of fluids. Since the rocks did neither of these three for her nor had fluids, she could not be happy with herself. The only reason she continued with the profession was that it was her mother’s (also a rock prostitute) dying request. The girl was too young to understand what her mother meant at the time, and it wasn’t until she reached puberty that she realized the nature of the request.

When Sally realized that her mother was not coming back from the afterlife to ensure Sally complied with her dying wish, the young woman changed her resume – opting for the Impact sans serif type. Gygamino agreed with the type choice, though he was more of a Verdana fan. Sally bid her friend good-bye and went off to seek her fortune in the personal shopper industry.

Gygamino enjoyed a short spell of fame after an archeologist (who actually paid attention when his grammar teacher lectured about/ expressed his undying love for Louis Leaky) spotted him while surveying the Scottish highlands for possible dig sites. He toured the U.S. for a bit and fell in love with Nelly Furtado. He died of old age in the spring of 2001, thankfully a full week before GQ published a story about limo drivers and their worst enemies. The number one enemy of chauffeurs? Mrs. "Every Woman" Whitney Houston.

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