*

"Elma Sue, I have had it with your collecting exercise equipment purchased off the TV with my hard earned money. So you know what I am going to do? I am going to build an airplane out of it." Elma Sue looked at Fred Parker with her big blue eyes which suddenly burst into tears. She turned and ran from the living room abandoning her new bow flex rowing machine and ran into her bedroom slamming the door hard. Elma Sue was pudgy... (no that is too kind.) She was fat.

Fred dragged his wife's contraption out to the garage and set to work. Soon his welding torch and hammer were flying in a synchronized ballet. Hammers were swinging, screws were turned, allen wrenches were used backwards. Within a few days he had a workable prototype. He loaded his bowflex, nautilus, Jenny Jones, Trainer onto a flatbed trailer and took it out to a meadow near his home. He strapped himself into the contraption, and secured his feet into leather stirrups. With a remote scavenged from the TV set, he cocked the machine engaging a winch from his 4x4 Toyota pick up. When it had reached it's full tension, he used his other hand to pull the release.

With a great fluttering of metal wings he contraption took off like a giant dragonfly. Fred buzzed above the trees and then soared like an eagle toward town. He made a large looping curl around thumb butte, (a local geological phenomena) then shot up out of sight, toward nothing but blue sky.

At home, Elma Sue had not gotten over her grief over loosing her exercise equipment, so she called her boyfriend on the telephone.

"I don't want to hear about it Elma Sue, I've told you time and again to leave that insensitive man."

"But you know I need him. How am I supposed to support our two kids, three cats, and a dog on my salary? Fred is a good provider even though he is about as sensitive to my needs as a clog in my bathroom drain."

"O.K. Elma Sue, come on over, I've got something to show you anyway."

Elma Sue pulled a shawl over her moo moo and made her way down the street to Jason's house. Jason had a "cool pad" with a vibrating bed, sound system and an automatic foot massage unit that was shaped like a giant squid with metal arms segmented so that it could curl lasciviously around body appendages. It also had little rubber suction cups that could leave welts if the machine was misused.

There was one important safety feature: if the machine was misused a sensor would alert the main frame and a huge arm would shoot out from its head with a toilette plunger and stick on to the misuse's butt and start pumping until that person begged for mercy. This was a fail safe device. Jason liked testing the envelope so he was covered with red welts, and always walked on his tip toes. He rarely sat down and when he did he would yell out "Ouch!"

"Come on in Elma Sue." Jason smiled as he greeted her at his front door. I've got a new toy. It is something I have just invented!"

Elma Sue waddled across the room and seated herself on Jason's couch. Jason picked up a remote with several numbers and buttons on it. Jason pointed the little plastic box at his stereo and pushed a button. Nat King Cole began to sing about those lazy, crazy, days of summer. "Oohh I love that one, Jason!" Elma Sue squealed ecstatically clapping her hands.

Ah, that's nothing Elma Sue, wait till you see this! Jason pointed the makeshift remote at the far corner of his bachelor pad and the octopus like foot massager emerged from a little door. "Whoa!" screamed Elma Sue as she drew her feet up onto the couch. "What's That!!!?"

"It's my latest invention... It's a foot massager." That thing isn't touching my feet!" Elma Sue cried apprehensively.

"Give it a chance, Elma Sue, I have complete control over it."

Elma Sue reached out a tentative hand. The massager wriggled over to her and gently stroked her finger. "Ooh that tickles." Elma Sue giggled as the little suction cups kissed her finger tenderly.

"Now, let it try you feet." Jason urged. Elma Sue slipped off her shoe and poked a toe out toward the massager. The massager masterfully seized Elma Sue's foot and began to massage it with a vibrating clicking sound. Elma Sue fell back on the couch moaning with pleasure. The octopus foot massager as curling around her toes and kissing the bottom of her foot with its persuasive tentacles. Elma Sue instinctively ran her hands down the front of her dress and her head fell back on the armrest of the couch. A tentacle snaked up her leg.

"Jason!" Elma Sue screamed. "Jason, I don't li- li- la- la-... Jason! I, eye, ah, ah, ah, ah, ha, ha,....ha!!!

Elma Sue was screaming loudly and ecstatically when a red light went on and a mechanical arm shot out from the massager and plopped a toilet plunger down on top of Elma Sue's head and began pumping furiously. Elma Sue took it all in stride. It really didn't matter to her that her head was being pulled out of shape. She knew from the very first session with Jason's foot massager that she was losing weight. Eventually she purchased the massager for herself. It was Jason's first commercial sale and he was very happy about it. He made an even stronger more industrial version for himself.

***

It was nearly five months later when Fred Parker flew back home. Fred Parker, it seems, had invented the worlds first flying car that worked on spring loaded kinetic energy. Once wound up, the machine flew for what would seem an indefinite period of time. The metal itself had an unusual property. The Bow flex, Nautilus, Jenny Jones Trainer had come imbued with all the kinesthetic thought of the women that had purchased the machines over the years, with the intention of using them to get fit but did not full-fill their initial resolutions. Fred Parker with the coupling of a welding torch and strange mathematics had tapped into a reservoir of unused kinetic energy. The sky was starting to fill with the first Parker Flying Cars of the twenty first century.

When he finally did come home, Elma Sue was enjoying her morning routine with the foot massager. She looked out the window and muttered to herself, "Oh darn, I knew this couldn't last! I'll just have to make the best of it." She cursed some more and stashed her foot massager behind the couch and walked outside to meet him. When he stepped out of his flying machine which he had landed on the front lawn, Elma Sue's mouth flew open.

"Fred! what happened to you?... You're fat!"

"Yea, I know. The royalties on my invention of the Parker Flying Car have supplied me with unending wealth. I have been flying around world seeing everything there is to see. I land just long enough to buy whatever I please, at convenience stores, then I fly off to see another country or two. It has been very educational. I live a life of total convenience and luxury. The only draw back is that I have gotten fat. But look at you! You look terrific!... Except for those tiny red welts," he looked at her, appraising her sexy new body. His smile dropped when he looked at her face. "What has happened to your head? It appears longer or something. If I didn't know better, I would say something has been pulling on it!"

Elma Sue didn't bother to explain her cranial deformity, she just ran her fingers over her erotic new form. "I've lost one hundred and forty pounds and I am working very hard. I have taken a second job to pay off this wonderful new machine that Jason Johnson invented. You know Jason, don't you sweetheart? He's the guy down the block. Did you know he is an inventor? He has invented a machine that takes off pounds in a way that you will never believe! - I will show you. - It is called a foot massager."

***