New Hampshire Is for Lovers

Two hours later, Teresa was back in the Kapucinski headquarters, making phone calls. Yvonne was having three volunteers make calls to registered Democrats, to whom the volunteers would tell their "story." Their story was how they became convinced that Thomas Kapucinski was the man who would lead the nation to a better place, or at least back to the less bad place it occupied before J. Junior Inferior was elected.

An hour earlier, Teresa had sat in a small circle, with Yvonne and the two other volunteers, and together they had spilled their stories, had whined and wept and felt inspired. Terry Wintergreen was a college student from Maine who, when he saw Kapucinski's speech to the trapped miners in West Virginia -- when he saw the future leader of the free world take time out of his schedule to speak to a group of bauxite miners trapped 600 feet under the surface -- well, then he knew he'd found the man who would lead him away from the abyss.

"What abyss?" Teresa had asked.

"My girlfriend," Terry said. "She'd almost swallowed me up, but I'm still standing. I know I started it with all the trips to that one barber but that doesn't mean I can't end it. It doesn't mean I don't know who I am and why I'm gonna be a star. Man, she almost got me, like that other lady almost got me, the one who came with the cocoa. But I'm still standing, and now I'm gonna do something about it by getting this guy ... this ..."

Terry looked pained.

"Thomas Kapucinski," Yvonne helped.

"Yes, ma'am, I'm gonna get that guy elected."

Teresa tried to tell her own story, about faking a pregnancy to move from Iowa to New Hampshire to get involved in the Democratic process, but it seemed to bore Yvonne, so she made up a story involving a father whose farm had been repossessed by Republicans who pulled up in a big truck and took it. "Took the whole farm away," she added at the end. Yvonne clapped, pretended to wipe away tears, and told them to call at least 130 registered Democrats each that day, repeat their stories and ask the voters to join them in their quest for justice and redemption and better girlfriends and farms, and left the room.

Leaving Teresa to try to figure out a way she could execute Vidisson's plan, which would require her to:

- get to the supply closet
- wait till no one was watching
- retrieve a box (or boxes) of postage-paid envelopes
- wrap the box(es) in a paper bag or some such disguise
- leave the building with said box(es)
- bring the box(es) of envelopes back to the Rob Jones campaign HQ
- go to the hardware store
- at the hardware store, buy 11 large bags of sand, a small scooping tool, and a funnel
- return to the Rob Jones campaign HQ
- remove the envelopes from box or boxes, knowing that the postage charges for each envelope, when sent, will be electronically calculated and eventually charged back to the Kapucinski campaign
- take said scoop, insert it into one of the bags of sand, remove as much sand as might fit into an envelope, and, using the funnel, deposit this sand within
- seal the envelope with saliva, glue and perhaps duct tape, and insert the envelope, which should, if all steps are performed properly, weigh at least 3 pounds, into the nearest blue mailbox.

According to Vidisson's calculations, a standard large box of 500 postage-paid envelopes would cost the Kapucinski campaign about $6,300 to send, thus causing Yvonne Spreewell, upon receipt of this bill, to lose her mind, thus causing her to fire three or four of the younger staffers and volunteers (whose responsibility or complicity she assumed), thus causing officewide ill will and grumbling among the remaining staffers, thus causing an overall feeling of malaise and dark humor, thus causing general lassitude and minor acts of internal sabotage, thus causing one Julian Min, friend of one of the fired volunteers, to replace, during a major Thomas Kapucinski campaign appearance in Nashua, his theme song, a really catchy number by John Mellencamp -- played for a full 90 seconds before each speech as Jones worked the audience near the stage -- with "Disco Duck," played at really stunning volume, causing much hilarity among the crowd and press corps, causing them to use the event as an example of the unraveling of the Thomas Kapucinski campaign (a story that will be picked up nationwide and worldwide), thus causing a precipitous decline in donations to said campaign, thus causing follow-up stories about that donation decline, thus causing the Stench to attach itself and grow around the campaign, and thus killing the Thomas Kapucinski campaign for president within 11 days.

Emboldened and crestfallen by the power available to her, Teresa sat in her chair, in the Kapucinski regional HQ, and pondered her next move.

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