ANSIR® Profile: Empath / Visionary / Kinsmen
Boss: Visionary

Judging a Book

Flying down Goshen Road one saturday afternoon, Joe suddenly gave a quick laugh of surprise and amusement.

"What is it?" Nick asked from the driver's seat.

"There's a place back there called 'Tinker's Auto Sales'," Joe replied. "It consists of one trailer and five cars."

Nick chuckled.

"Most used car places at least clean their cars, but not Mr. Tinker. 'These are my five cars, that's how they look, and that's that.' "

Joe and Nick snickered in unison.

* * *

Bradley Augustus Tinker had lived a long and fruitful life. Mrs. Tinker had spent forty years in complete amazement, though. How could Brad's idiot used car lot keep food on the table? But it always had.

The grand old salesman entered his trailer early that fateful morning. He nodded regularly to the fellow behind the desk. "Good morning, you old hound."

"Morning, Fox," the young man replied.

"How was the hunt?"

"We saw a pack of rabbits, but those are out of season."

"I see," replied the Fox. He closed his left eye and placed his right hand on his chin. "Did our quarry notice the hounds?"

"We're not sure, Fox, but I'd say there's an 85 percent chance we'll have some customers this morning."

"That sounds reasonable. Why are we talking in code anyway?"

"I have no idea," the young man replied. "Isn't that what secret agents do?"

"NOT SO LOUD ABOUT THE SECRET AGENTS," Tinker bellowed.

The young man chuckled.

* * *

"In a few moments the magnetic device will be in our hand," said Yevgeny Ivanov, with a heavy Macedonian accent.

"Why are we speaking English anyway? We're Macedonian," Lieutenant Rodion Ogilvy observed.

"Because the audience is primarily English-speaking!"

"Oh, I see."

Captain Ivanov, Lieutenant Ogilvy, and their half-dozen Super Robot Commandos were secret agents of the hallowed Macedonian terrorist group "Atrocity Now." They had been sent to this small midwestern town--in a state whose name I cannot mention--to steal the magnetic device which was under the stewardship of Colonel Bradley Augustus Tinker, the ruthless leader of "The Red Devil Bandits."

"What's so important about this magnetic device, anyway?" Ogilvy asked.

"I do not know," Ivanov answered.

"So why are we going after it?"

"Why are you such a booger-eater?"

They were sitting in a small cafe across the street from Tinker's Auto Sales. It served Mexican food, which disagreed with Captain Ivanov, but he had taken some heartburn medication about an hour beforehand.

"Can I get you Macedonian terrorists any more coffee?" the waitress asked.

"No, thank you," Ivanov replied.

"Any dessert?"

"I'd like some fried ice cream," the Lieutenant answered.

Ivanov sighed. "You had better eat it quick."

* * *

Joe and Nick were driving back down Goshen Road by the time Lieutenant Ogilvy had finished his ice cream.

"I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay," Nick sang tunlessly with his nonexistant radio. "Wastin' tii-ii-ii-ime." The two friends came together in an attempt at whistling that failed miserably.

"We suck," Joe observed.

"Yeah."

A moment later, in a furious burst of lucidity, two men and six Super Robot Commandos burst out of the Mexican restaurant. In their zeal for a straight line to Tinker's concealed headquarters, the robots crumpled Nick's car like a sheet of steel and tossed it aside.

The Fox and The Young Man took their positions in the two front windows of the trailer. They loosed a furious volley of water, which caused the Robot Commandos to sputter and explode.

Beneath the deluge of water, Ivanov and Ogilvy became extremely uncomfortable.

"I am extremely uncomfortable," Ivanov remarked.

"As am I. Shall we retreat?"

"Yes."

"We'll be back, American pig!"

Colonel Tinker glanced over at Nick's car. "That isn't in such bad shape. It looks like we'll have a sixth car for our lot."

They laughed.

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