Title: Monastery Madness (1/1) Authors: Cousin Shelley and Arletta Asbury Date: Saturday, July 7th, 2001 Time: Sometime in the Late Morning, Right after "A Cousinly Cure (1/1) Disclaimers: All participants used with permission. Madge is a fictional character created by us. Shelley was circling the monastery for the third time looking for a nearby parking space, "I don't remember ever having this much trouble finding a space before..." "Mmmmm ... it must be the seminar. Madge said there were supposed to be 20 or so people attending," Arletta answered. "So they took up *all* the parking within a mile of the place! ... No wait, there's a space." Shelley deftly maneuvered her van into it quickly and just beat out a small Datsun which was aiming towards it too. She turned off the ignition and they clambered out. The walk to the monastery was going to be rather longish for the pair whose mutual back problems entitled them to handicapped parking. As they approached the one story brick building, Shelley was complaining loudly about the long walk, and Arletta was holding her sore back. Finally they arrived at the front door, and Arletta began hunting for the key. Seeing this, Shelley suggested, "it's probably unlocked." "You're right," Arletta pushed open the door and they entered to ... quietness. "I was expecting a crowd of people or at least *some* activity." "Hummmm. Maybe they're all at a lecture or examining the asymmetric kanting?" Shelley nodded and the pair headed for the library. ----------------- The library was a cozy and comforting room, it's tall shelves filled with books of every description. Every book looked well read and old. Whoever the former monks had been, they had been avid readers. After several minutes of searching the shelves, Shelley turned up a volume entitled 'Patent Remedies of the 19th Century'. "Nooo, I don't *think* that was the title. Ahhh here is it ... 'Vitamins: Their Discovery and Many Uses'. Arletta struggled with the heavy volume but managed to prop it on a shelf and began scanning thru it. "Listen to this," she began to read out loud, "Although Vitamin U was discovered many years ago, it is unclear exactly which function it supports. Anecdotal evidence suggests that a deficiency may cause melancholia or other bizarre behaviors, however, this has not been scientifically documented." "When was the book published?" Arletta flipped to the front of the volume, "doesn't say." "I think that must mean it's *really* old." "Yeah," She returned to section on the vitamin. "OH! It has a formula to test for it in ordinary food. Let me see, we'll need ... uhhhh... Peroxide and ... oh several other things. Nothing exotic." "Great. Let's get back to CERK. We can stop at a drug store on the way to get what we need." Arletta nodded, closed the book, and followed Shelley out of the former monastery's library. She was immediately squashed against the wall by a mob of people surging thru the wide corridor from the general direction of the large dining hall at the far end. "Eeeek!" she exclaimed, "Shelley, where are you?" "Over here," came the muffled answer, followed by an "oooooohhhhff". A loud voice announced, "THE NEXT LECTURE WILL START IN 15 MINUTES." Arletta tried heading for the entrance but she felt like a fish swimming upstream against a strong current. Instead of moving toward her goal she found herself pushed further backwards. Finally she just gave up and allowed herself to be swept along until she found herself in what had been the old dormitory. The room contained a few cots and MANY MANY sleeping bags strewn all about the floor with people sitting or lying on most of them. Some were chatting with others or searching thru rutsacks while still others were standing in line outside the Johns. Shelley reached her thru the crowd and asked, "how many people did Madge say?" Arletta just shook her head and frowned. "This is nuts." Shelley nodded in agreement, "about 100 of them, would be my guess." -----------========***************========------------