Excerpt: The Golden Fleece Demi-Jacket

The real story starts here. Ava Meadows, tanned and blonde, long-legged and green-eyed, pink-cheeked and smooth-skinned. On a dare from his best friend, Edgar Rumbley, Hidetoshi Tuo asked her to dinner – two years later, he asked her to marry him and, in each case, her affirmative answer left him speechless and stuttering The first time, her reply caused him to spill a freshly purchased 32 ounce Coke all over himself and his laptop bag, shorting out his computer and resulting in another life-changing moment fro him – the switch from PC to Mac, though that's another story for another time. Determined not to repeat the same performance a second time, when Hide went to propose to Ava, he went thirsty and left his laptop at home – not that this made any difference.

Hide proposed to her in the local park – the site of a number afternoon picnics and as many failed attempts by Hide to acertain the color of Ava's undergarments. This time he thought he had the perfect in – well over a karat of squished and glittering carbon – though he had no idea what exactly girls saw in that kind of thing. Either way, Ava had left enough dog-eared ladies' magazines laying around his apartment and in his car for him to get the hint – get the rock or someone else will. Hide's friends and family weren't huge proponents of his choice of bride, but Ava was always quick to remind him that they were doubtless just jealous of his good fortune, all the while sliding his hand further out from under her skirt in what Hide considered a frustratingly charing manner.

The trouble started not three months into the wedding planning – an epic task Ava assured him would take “no long than 16 to 18 months, my love.” Flipping through a magazine one day – she never left the house without at least three bridal magazines and Hide swore he never saw the same issue twice – Ava found something that made her squeal with delight. This squeal scared the beejesus out of Hide, who was sitting next to her in the drivers seat of his car and intently counting the miles to the exit with the next Cracker Barrel. In his terror that something had befallen his beloved, Hide slammed on the brakes and yanked hard on the wheel, sliding the car across two lanes of highway and neatly into a ditch. The initial squeal was followed by a shriek – hearing the difference between the two sounds, Hide realized his mistake. As the car slid to a stop and the dust settled, Hide considered to himself the difference between a squeal and a shriek and sighed at the complications of dealing with women. The Shrieking continued after the dust had settled – the whole thing only took about 24 seconds, but the sound seemed to last an eternity. Hide turned towards his gape-mouthed bride and clutched her hand, “it's fine – we're fine. Shhhhhhhh.” He cooed to her in what he considered a calming manner but the noise continued.

It was at this moment when Hide noticed Ava was looking in horror at her lap and she screamed. Looking down, he saw the problem – her bridal magazines, purse, and yappy little dog were all covered in ice and Mountain Dew – when he slammed on the breaks, his Big Gulp apparently jumped the cup-holder and shed it's lid in the process. From Ava's expression, most people would have assumed someone stole her purse and drop-kicked her chihuahua, but Hide knew better than to try and confront her with reason – last time he tried that, it took three of her friends screaming through the front door to convince Ava to let him back in his own apartment.