The Ghost Apple (13 page)
Authors: Aaron Thier
1955
:
Big Anna® Coconut Wine™ is introduced throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. The new beverage is a sweeter, carbonated version of Whiteman’s Wine Coca, itself a reformulation of John Pemberton’s French Wine Coca, which was in turn an imitation of Vin Mariani. The popular drink isn’t made with coconuts, however. It gets its name from Coconut Key, the tiny island in the Eastern Caribbean where Gerald Whiteman spent his last years.
1961
:
Intrigued by the continuing success of Banana Bran Muffins®, Big Anna® science associates begin to experiment with other ways of processing unsold bananas, research that bears fruit, as it were, in the form of Banana Baby Pap™, Banana Bran Flakes™, leather polish, ointment, teeth whitener, and several varieties of banana wine.
1973
:
Radical communist Marville Guajiro, newly elected president of St. Renard, announces that he’s going to expel Big Anna® from the island and nationalize the banana farms and sugarcane fields. Fortunately, Big Anna® Democracy Technicians™ expose electoral fraud and help reinstate former president Torrington McKay. Big Anna® Shock Troops™ remain on the island to keep the peace.
1975
:
In response to continuing challenges within the banana industry, and in order to ensure reliable sources of top-quality bananas for its Banana Bran Muffins® and other products, Big Anna® decides to stop producing bananas for export to the United States and instead to reserve that fruit for its own use. In a revolutionary move, the company transfers the majority of its snack production business directly to the Latin American and West Indian plantations that produce the necessary raw ingredients, thus maintaining an efficient and environmentally friendly vertical-integration production model. Big Anna®’s facilities and plantations on St. Renard remain the cornerstone of its Caribbean business to this day.
1978
:
Big Anna® acquires Whig Vegipaste, a New Zealand–based sandwich spread company; Top Hole, a Canadian nautical equipment manufacturer; and Paramount Food and Drug, a used-medicament reprocessing company.
1982
:
Big Anna® acquires the Polynesian island of Moahu.
1990
:
Big Anna® acquires Genutrex® Nutrition, a vitamin and supplement manufacturer.
1991
:
Working closely with technicians from Paramount Food and Drug, Big Anna® Science Associates™ develop Moisture Seal™ technology, which enables Big Anna® products to retain their glisten and freshness for months and months, even when they’re removed from the package.
1992
:
Expanding quickly into newly opened Central and Eastern European markets, Big Anna® Brands purchases the Croatian arms manufacturer Obradovic, plus three Kazakh television stations.
1999
:
Big Anna® demonstrates its continuing sensitivity to the struggles of non-optimal-weight Americans by introducing new Waistshaper® snacks like Bottle Brush™ crackers and Cherry Explosion™ snack treats. Both products are
100
percent isotonic. Big Anna® also introduces individual-serving Microwavable Toast Slices™, Diet Fruit Pieces™, and Zero-Calorie Wigglers®, a gelatin-based No Guilt™ snack treat.
2007
:
Big Anna® “goes green” with its LoCarbon™ initiative on St. Renard, which includes the introduction of clean Human Power™ plow technology, arguably the company’s most sustainable innovation to date.
2009
:
Following a decade of significant, business-friendly tax legislation, Big Anna® gives back by increasing its involvement in higher education. The company cosponsors the Caribbean Field Studies Program with Tripoli College.
Now:
Big Anna® remains a company committed to unceasing technological modernization while maintaining an emphasis on traditional heritage brands, dietetic and isotonic foods, “green” business, and vertical integration, with lots of new prospects and opportunities on the horizon.
To: “Chris Bell”
Date: November 18, 2009, at 12:26 PM
Subject: (no subject)
Â
Hi, Chris,
I have some news! I know this is coming out of nowhere and I'm sorry I didn't talk to you about it, but it was practically just an impulse. I applied to study abroad on St. Renard next semester. I think it'll be really good. It'll be good just to do and see something different. It's not like a desperate plan to make Kabaka my husband. It's just that I'm really in a rut here. I'm lonely and angry and worked up all the time about all kinds of stuff. I applied yesterday after I had lunch with Becca and Francoise. We went to get Thai food and we just sat there for an hour. It was terrible. We didn't have anything to say! Freshman and sophomore year it was like everybody was in it together, but now I think we're all growing into our differences, you know? I felt this high moral righteousness too. I wanted to say, Hey, Becca, you don't know how easy you've got it! Stop complaining! (Not like you and I have had it so bad, but still.)
Dad will pay for it, I guess. He didn't give me a hard time about it and that's nice. The only thing is I'm not entirely comfortable going down there under the umbrella of Big Anna, but if I do some good I do some good, right? I don't really understand in what way Big Anna is involved. There's botany and oceanography but there's also this program of service for locals. We help with some kind of agricultural work, I think. It will all be explained.
I've been hanging out a little more with Dean Brees. Not a ton, you know, not so it's weird, or weirder than it already is . . . Anyway he's just a really sweet guy and it's made a difference for me this semester to have him to talk to. It's a pretty unlikely friendship I guess. The other day I had lunch with him and he shot milk through his nose! It was totally spontaneous. We were eating in silence, reading our papers or books or whatever, and then suddenly he took a drink of milk and bam! Both barrels. Now I'm pretty sure he has feelings for me, but part of the reason I like spending time with him is that he's a real adult and he can keep those feelings in check. He treats me like a human being.
I don't want you to feel like I'm abandoning you for a semester. I have to get out of my rut, that's all.
Â
I feel like a lawn that needs mowing. See you next week!
Love,
M
November
20
,
2009
More Revelations of Fiscal Mismanagement
Investment officer Tom Haley is facing disciplinary action and possible criminal charges after admitting this week to losing “a large hunk” of Tripoli’s endowment in Las Vegas over the summer.
Haley claims that he was engaged in a form of speculation known as “short selling.” Typically, short selling means borrowing stock, securities, or commodities, selling them, and then buying them back at a lower price and returning them to the lender. In this way, an investor can bet on the devaluation of that financial product.
Haley, who admits that he “didn’t understand it very well,” simply “invested” a large sum of money, perhaps as much as $
1
.
2
million, in chips at Caesars Palace. He then stayed up for
4
8 hours playing roulette, during which time he lost everything.
In a press conference yesterday afternoon, Haley explained, “I was trying to sell myself short, in econ terms. I borrowed a loan, sold it for poker chips, then bought the loan back for less than what it was originally worth. I was engaged in a high-risk venture, i.e., gambling, and I knew it was virtually certain that I’d lose that money, which is why I was betting on the decrease in the value of the sum of money I’d originally borrowed. It’s a classic financial gambit.”
Asked why he thought the strategy didn’t work, Haley was stumped: “That’s where I lose my grip on the whole thing. The idea is you buy one thing, exchange it for another thing at a certain rate, then exchange it for the first thing again when the rate is favorable. That’s the whole principle of finance. I can’t understand where I went wrong.”
It is not clear whether Mr. Haley was acting alone, in which case the lack of oversight in this respect is cause for serious concern, or whether he was acting with the tacit approval of administrators. In any case, the incident could have serious consequences for President Richmond, who has also been criticized for what many feel is an unsatisfactory response to the Pinkman-White slavery scandal.
The president has been slow to defend herself, and her erratic behavior has been cause for comment in recent weeks. She appeared at yesterday’s press conference in sweatpants and a hooded sweatshirt.
“I’m kind of losing faith here,” she said.” Asked to clarify, she explained: “Since very little of this can be construed as my fault, my only role in this situation is that of a scapegoat. It doesn’t matter what I say in my defense. I could say anything.”
This remark did not win the president any friends, and her position is more tenuous than ever. Several members of the faculty, as well as a number of prominent alumni, have already called for her resignation.
Professor Francis Amundsen has been particularly vocal in his condemnation of the president, citing many instances of financial and personal irresponsibility. Professor Amundsen has not been able to substantiate his allegations and he is also an outspoken supporter of Professor William Beckford, who is considered one of President Richmond’s possible successors, but it is a mark of the growing feeling against the president that one so obviously partisan has gained an audience.
The board of trustees will meet next week to discuss the situation.
Investigation of potential areas of legal, behavioral, and/or financial issues associated with President Lillian Richmond have yielded the following allegations, areas of potential vulnerability, and possible grounds for removal:
• She has been moonlighting as a phone-sex dominatrix.
• Each morning, according to reports, an attendant prepares a solution of crushed pearls and absinthe, which the president drinks as an elixir of invulnerability. The expense is borne by the college.
• She drinks palm wine all day out of a giant, heraldically decorated ceremonial mug, which she purchased with college funds.
• She wears tailored underwear made from vampire-bat wool.
• She has a live-in servant whose only duty is to remove one half of the “stuf” in her “Double Stuf” Oreos.
• Each morning, she covers herself in gold dust and takes a ceremonial bath in the Tripoli River. She purchases the gold dust with college funds.
• She attacked Professor Amundsen with a sawfish rostrum as he was walking home from class.
• With college funds, she purchased three pounds of psychoactive Hopewell tobacco, which she smokes out of a hollow jaguar-head sculpture, also purchased with college funds.
• She reportedly commissioned a set of manatee-bone vomiting sticks from an Indian craftsman in Guyana, the cost of which is to be borne by the college.
• She maintains a stable of three horses at college expense. She reportedly said that the stable is her “walking meat locker of horse meat.”
• She allegedly told a student reporter that cannibalism is “an ecologically efficient means of disposing of a corpse.”
• She reportedly told student reporters that she “just can’t start the day” without a hummingbird-egg omelet, which a live-in chef prepares for her each morning. The great expense associated with maintaining the necessary hummingbird aviary is borne by the college.
• She allegedly destroyed her laptop computer, which was college property, when she had difficulty buying a human head on Amazon.com.
• Another indication of cannibalistic tendencies is that she asked Health Center employees to bring her “some of that good hot blood” donated by students during Tripoli’s recent “Blood for Our Heroes” initiative.
• In the basement of the presidential mansion, there is a pool filled with Polaroid pictures of disgraced investment officer Tom Haley.
• According to reports, she spends at least two nights a week snorting hallucinogenic cohoba powder.
• In a secret memo to department chairs and senior administrators, she reportedly demanded the following in tribute: jade figurines, jaguar skins, Jesuit’s bark, and tunics made from hummingbird feathers.
• In her desk, there is a draft of an erotic novel allegedly called
Sentiment and Sensuality
.
