Chapter 1: Powdered Donuts

In order to understand what happened, a little background on each of the primary players in this little drama is necessary. It will place into context why each person behaved in the manner they did and how events unfolded as they did.

Andrew King had three major passions in his life.

The first passion of his was watching sci-fi television programs and movies. He not only watched a dozen shows every week, he recorded them and watched them multiple times. He memorized arcane details and some of the wittier exchanges of dialog. He researched episodes on the web to get information about who appeared in each particular episode or if anything interesting happened during its filming. He wasn't the kind of guy who would show up at a sci-fi convention dressed up like a character out of a show, but he was about as close to it as one could be.

The second passion of Andrew was playing computer games. It didn't even matter to him what kind of game it was. Whenever a game caught his eye, he bought it and played it until he won. He played them for hours at a single sitting. Weekends were devoted to playing games. He would become obsessed about any game that was challenging enough to keep him from winning immediately.

The third great passion of Andrew's life was, as one might easily guess, pornography. If there was a naked picture of a woman doing anything even remotely sexual, Andrew would study it. He found a dozen sites that provided free movies portraying every sexual act known to mankind and a few that were probably impossible. There were enough videos on the web that he could play them twenty-four hours a day, every day, and never see them all. That didn't stop him from trying to watch them all.

As suggested by his passions, Andrew was a NERD (capitalization required to convey just how big of a nerd he was).

He looked like a nerd. He had short black hair, glasses with thick black frames, and ears that stuck out like those on a Mr. Potato Head. He had an Adam's Apple that was rather prominent and hard to ignore. He was tall and skinny, with almost no musculature.

He acted like a nerd. He could, and would, if given the least opportunity, spout details about every episode of nearly every cult sci-fi program ever broadcast. He would get excited about something and talk about it until his audience was bored to death. He couldn't walk past a new gadget without stopping to check it out to save his life. His laugh had been compared to the braying of a donkey.

He dressed like a nerd. He wore white shirts, ill-fitting black pants, black leather shoes, and white socks. His shirt pocket was always filled with pens and a pad of paper. The only pants he could find long enough for his legs would bunch up around his waist and pants that fit around his waist would stop several inches short of his ankles. He wore his cell phone on his hip like it was some kind of six shooter. If there had been a GQ for nerds, he would have been man of the year.

He thought like a nerd. He had a clever mind, loved puzzles of every kind, and found humor in things that just confused others. When fascinated by something, he could focus on it with an intensity that would make the most dysfunctional Obsessive Compulsive proud.

He was obsessed with sex, like every other nerd on the planet. And like other nerds, Andrew had never been a great success with women. All though high school he had suffered the jibes and jeers of attractive young women who had felt that they were well outside his reach. That didn't prevent him from sitting on the sidelines at football games dreaming of having one of the cheerleaders, driven to a state of pure lust as a result of his rugged good looks, fall to her knees in front of him, where upon she would have continuous orgasms just from sucking his throbbing piece of manhood. It was a fantasy with about as much chance of happening as world peace.

In college he hadn't fared any better with women. He was laughed at upon asking them out on dates. He was humiliated at parties when trying to chat up women so drunk they could barely stand. He was totally ignored in the classroom. He kept lowering his sights thinking that he would eventually find a girl to say yes, but he graduated without it ever happening.

Upon getting employed at ABC Software Company, Andrew tried the bar scene. Much to his consternation, the bouncers at the front door wouldn't even let him in the place. Large men with bulging muscles, small minds, and limited humor prevented him from convincing young attractive women that he was the man of their dreams. Even money didn't seem to sway those men from blocking his every attempt to get laid.

Like more than one young desperate virgin with absolutely no sex appeal to members of the opposite gender, Andrew ended up hiring a call girl. His first time was disappointing. He felt that it was over too quickly and she felt it had lasted too long. His subsequent times to visit women of that profession weren't much better.

In short, Andrew was a horny nerd.

In order to understand what happened, it is also necessary to know a bit about Sue Ellen, the woman who was to become Andrew's secretary.

Sue Ellen was curious about people. She wanted to understand people down to all of the nitty-gritty details that most folks weren't willing to disclose or discuss. She was the kind of person who would snoop through the medicine cabinet in someone's home when she visited their bathroom. Her job in personnel at ABC Software Company helped fulfill her curiosity since they often had to deal with employee situations that made it to the rumor mill, but without all of the half-truths.

She watched out the windows at home just to see what people were doing. She noticed what stores people shopped at by checking out the labels on the shopping bags. She listened to gossip, but didn't contribute to it. She listened and learned, but she didn't talk about what she learned until after it was public knowledge. It was a habit that allowed a lot of people to confide in her things that they wouldn't tell anyone else. She treated anything anyone told her in confidence as if it was top secret and people knew that.

Sue Ellen had been around unusual men her entire life. She had a father who was a bit of an absent minded professor type. He was extremely educated, but quite forgetful. He was far more observant than most people gave him credit for being. At parties, he might sit there apparently staring off into space, but then would shock people with some deep insightful comment about whatever was the current topic of conversation.

She had a brother who was just as much of a nerd as Andrew. He spent all of his time in his room playing computer games or cruising the internet searching out the perfect pornographic video. A lot of people thought he was lazy, but all sign of laziness would disappear when he found something that interested him, then it was get out of his way or get run over.

She had a husband, Dave, who she adored. He was handsome, strong, moral, intelligent, funny, and exceptionally giving. She had once heard him described as a real man's man. When he was home, she felt like the luckiest woman alive. When he was away, her heart was filled with a longing to be held in his arms.

At the moment, he was stationed halfway around the world protecting the country from those who meant it ill. Every night before going to bed, she would get down on her knees by the side of her bed and pray to God for his safety. At night, she would dream of being with him. During the day, the hours dragged while she hoped to receive an email from him.

Sue Ellen took her wedding vows seriously. Unlike some wives and girlfriends of servicemen, Sue Ellen was never tempted to cheat on him. She couldn't imagine meeting a man who would temp her in any way and, even if she did meet such a man, she would never risk what she had in her husband over some cheap thrill. Nothing angered her more than learning that some wife or girlfriend had an affair while her husband or boyfriend was facing danger. She felt, in a rather deep way, that such an act was almost the equivalent of attempted murder since men upon learning of it in the field often took unnecessary risks.

Sue Ellen believed that she understood men much better than any other women she had ever met. In a way, it was true. She did understand men pretty well. She was honest in her appraisal of men without the kind of judgment that would make her an 'old biddy.' Understanding that men thought, operated, and emoted in a different way than women, she accepted those differences as a matter of fact rather than as character flaws that had to be corrected or eliminated.

In short, Sue Ellen was a snoop, but not a gossip.

The third player in this story is Dave, Sue Ellen's husband.

Dave had two years of college under his belt. He had been planning on getting a degree in business, but the money ran out. He had gotten a job at a factory in parts management, meaning that he made sure that parts showed up where they were needed when they were needed. It was a good job that paid well for someone with his level of education.

He had married Sue Ellen shortly after getting his job there. Dave loved her more than life itself. She was attractive, smart, kind, and caring. Everyone who knew the two of them agreed that she was his soul mate and he was hers. To him, she was the perfect woman. He knew she had a few flaws, but they weren't the kinds of things that bothered him.

For one, he knew that Sue Ellen was a snoop. When someone did something that Dave thought was unexpected, she would explain why he should have expected it in terms of things she had noticed or heard about that person. Of course, Jim was having to get treated for prescription drug abuse. He had prescriptions from two different doctors for the same drugs. Of course, Sue was getting divorced. She had been going out with the girls to a variety of nightclubs that weren't fit for a married woman and then started coming home later and later each week.

Often Dave would ask her for her opinion about a coworker or neighbor. She gave very thorough assessments of people that were really quite insightful. When a coworker had said that he was going to his mother's funeral and wanted Dave to cover his shift, Sue Ellen had known he was lying. The man's mother had died five years ago. The man was rather embarrassed when his lie was pointed out to him by a very indignant Dave.

For a while, life looked great and he entertained thoughts of returning to school. He and Sue Ellen discussed the matter. They weighed the pros and cons. It was true they might have to postpone having a child for another three years or so. On the other hand, with a college degree he could earn enough so that she would be able to stay home and take care of the children. They had decided he would return to school, but the economy took a turn for the worse, he was laid off, and all of their plans were for naught. After getting laid off from his job, Dave gave up on returning to college.

He looked for six months without finding any kind of employment. After discussing the lack of job opportunities with Sue Ellen, Dave joined the army. It wasn't an easy decision for them to make. The country was at war and serving in the military wasn't exactly a safe occupation. He didn't like the idea of being separated from his wife for extended periods of time. She didn't like the idea of him being in harms way. On the other hand, they both knew that there just weren't any jobs available. He decided that getting paid to serve his country was better than drawing unemployment doing nothing.

Sue Ellen had stood by him when he had been laid off and supported him in his decision to join the Army.

As a lowly enlisted man in the US Army, Dave was currently on the front line attempting to eliminate enemies of the country and build a lasting peace in a region of the world that had never known peace. He personally considered where he was a 'shit-hole' and questioned the wisdom of what they were doing there. His personal opinion, and one that was shared among many of his comrades in arms, was that the world would be much better off if they just built a fence around that region of the world and kept the locals in and the outsiders out.

The ideals he had in going into the Army were rapidly being eroded while listening to news from home, particularly when coupled with his experiences on the battlefield. He listened in dismay at the kinds of political decisions that were being made by elected officials, particularly those that directly affected the war effort. After hearing that the military budget was being cut while his friends were dying for the country, he decided that there wasn't a single person in the capital he would trust to watch a turnip grow.

At one time, he considered himself a patriot. He truly believed that the United States of America was the greatest country in the world. After all, it had put a man on the moon and no other country in the world could make that claim even after forty years had passed since that day. Like a lot of Americans, he believed that all of the wars the country had engaged in during the last century were wars to keep the peace and not as a means of economic gain. He felt that democracy was the finest form of government in existence.

Unfortunately, recent events, as reported in the newspapers, had convinced him that everyone was out for themselves. When it appeared that illegal aliens got special treatment over citizens, he fumed. When newspapers blamed people like himself for all of the world's problems, he got angry. He wasn't out risking his life on behalf of the country to be blamed for bankers robbing the country blind, beggars sucking up resources that could used to build an infrastructure, and people working the system so that they wouldn't have to work. He was giving while others were taking.

Dave had a well organized and structured view of the world. First there was God, then Family, then Community, then Country, and, finally, everyone else. He knew there were a lot of folks in the world who thought his priorities were reversed from how they thought it should be. He didn't care. He wasn't about to put the welfare of some asshole who lived in a bumfuck backwater country above his country, community, family, or God. He cared more about his family than a bunch of strangers who believed that he was an infidel and deserved to die.

With God having top spot in his view of the world, one might think that he was a Bible thumper. He wasn't. He was a religious man, but he wasn't radical about it and wasn't out to convert the world to his beliefs. He figured that, in the grand scheme of things, he would spend a lot more time dead than alive. Angering God during that short period of time when he was alive just wasn't a smart thing to do. Atheists might have a different take on the matter, but he wasn't about to risk it.

Although he went to church and tried to keep the ten commandments, he didn't believe that God lived only in a church, but was everywhere. God wasn't the property of an organized religion. He didn't believe that the description of God that appeared in the Bible was all that accurate. The Bible was just one artifact that attempted to convey a small part of the truth about God, just as a sunrise or sunset was a different piece of evidence for the existence of God.

He wasn't a hypocrite about the relationships between men and women. After having witnessed firsthand, how the view of man as master and woman as chattel operated, he wasn't about to fall into that macho trap. He viewed husband and wife as being partners in raising a family. It wasn't about fixed roles within the family, but more a matter of each person doing whatever it took to raise children with good values. If the wife had to work and the husband had to stay home with the kids, then so be it. The family was what was important. He liked to think that he was confident enough in his masculinity to deal with any negative or crude comments that lesser men might make to him.

Sue Ellen had come into the marriage an experienced woman. He hadn't expected or demanded of her that she be a virgin. In high school and college, he had sown lots of wild oats. The times today were different from those of Biblical times. Keeping chaste was easy when a woman was married off at fourteen or fifteen. It was impractical when women didn't get married until they were in their late twenties or early thirties.

He also didn't have a problem with watching and enjoying pornographic videos. He did have a problem with the exploitation experienced by some of the women involved in their production. He knew that there were women in the industry by their own free choice. He knew there were women in the industry who were there just for the money. It was the stories about women who were forced into it by greedy boyfriends hoping to make money off of them that bothered him.

He did believe in monogamy. There was a sacred bond between husband and wife that little lusts of the moment shouldn't jeopardize. Despite being stationed in places where sex was readily available for a small amount of cash, he had always kept his cock in his trousers. He trusted his wife enough to believe that she felt the same way.

Dave's father had been a real man in the old style. He believed that a man raised his sons knowing how to fix things, put meat on the table, and tackle adversity. Dave's first car was a 1960's era pickup truck that he had restored. He had rebuilt the engine, transmission, brakes, and fixed up the body. His father said that a man had to know how to do those kinds of things. He learned how to hunt from his father and killed his first deer at the age of fourteen. He had field dressed it, butchered it, and cooked it under his father's watchful supervision.

His father had drilled into him a work ethic based on the idea that a man who worked hardest on the job and did the best work got paid the most. Getting laid off because he was the newest man on the job had taken a little of the shine out of that statement. In some places, time on the job meant more than quality of work. Listening to what his wife said went on in modern companies, he knew that getting rewarded for hard work wasn't true any more. It seemed that striving for mediocrity and ducking responsibility in the workplace was valued more than excellence. He might be wrong, but it sure seemed that way. He wasn't sure that he was looking forward to returning home and getting a regular job.

When Dave had been in high school, he had been active in sports. He had played football and baseball. He had held the position of tight end on the football team and had scored several touchdowns during his high school career. He had played center fielder for the baseball team and had been one of the best men at bat.

Dave was fast on his feet, an A student, and well muscled compared to his high school peers who were often slow, average students, and pudgy from a life spent in front of computers. He was popular, but didn't let it go to his head.

Unlike a lot of athletes who looked down on non-athletes or others who were socially inept, he accepted that people fit different niches in society and that all had a role to play. He was smart enough to know that the nerd who was stuffed into a trashcan in high school might well become the boss of the person who did the stuffing. His father had drilled into him that the power dynamics of life often shifted so that those who were on top today could very well end up at the bottom tomorrow. As a result, Dave had friends in about every social class in high school.

Dealing with individuals at a personal level rather than as a member of a social group was a habit that he kept to this day. Even in the Army, men liked and respected him. He tried to deal honestly with everyone. He was quick with a joke or a ready smile when someone was down. He was the first with praise when someone did something right.

In short, Dave was a good honest hardworking family man.

It all started with a large box of small powdered donuts. Unable to figure out how to properly open the box so that it could be resealed, Andrew ended up spilling half of the donuts all over his desk. White powder covered his keyboard like some CIS team had dusted it for fingerprints. His pants looked like a coke whore who, rather than snorting her payment, had sneezed and covered his crotch with the illicit substance.

After suffering through an afternoon of vicious teasing by coworkers, Andrew headed home after stopping at a grocery store and purchasing five more boxes of small powdered donuts. A similar result to what had happened in the office occurred with the first box he opened. Powdered donuts flew everywhere and his pants were now covered with a second layer of white powder. He looked like a coke addict with a serious inability to properly snort his cocaine.

Andrew then spent the next three hours carefully taking apart the remaining four boxes, using a razor blade to cut them apart. He studied the boxes and came to the conclusion that there was no way to open them with less than an explosion of white powder short of the surgical strategy he had just employed. He knew there had to be a better way to package items of that nature.

After taking three days off from work to tackle the problem of exploding doughnut boxes, Andrew managed to design a box that was easy to open, would keep the donuts fresh until opened, and was resealable once it had been opened. After searching the patent office website to see if there were any others who had patented his packaging design, he downloaded a patent application on the web and proceeded to write up his design. He sent it off with the filling fee wondering if he'd ever hear back on it.

Months passed before a letter showed up in his mailbox informing him that his patent application was now in a state of pending. He read the letter with some degree of interest and pondered what his next step should be. He decided to make a couple boxes, fill them with powdered donuts, paste a fake label on the box, and ship them to the president of the company that made the donuts. The label would have the name of the company that made the donuts and a note explaining that his packaging concept was how the company should be delivering powdered donuts to its customers. With the thought came the action, and it was only a couple of hours later that he was in line at the post office.

It was with some amusement when, during his late morning commute to his office, he heard on the radio that the corporate headquarters of a large company had been evacuated as a result of anthrax scare. It seemed that boxes of what appeared to be powdered donuts had been delivered to the president of the company after he had received hundreds of threatening letters complaining about exploding doughnut boxes.

His amusement was short-lived. It came to a quick end when police showed up at the workplace with instructions to take him to the station where they would detain him while the suspicious packages of powdered donuts were being analyzed. Andrew found the entire experience less than pleasant and regretted the approach he had taken in introducing his packaging design to a company that clearly needed it.

After his release from jail, Andrew returned to work less than happy with his experience while in the custody of the police. It wasn't that he had been abused or anything, it was just that being locked up with a bunch drunks wasn't his idea of a proper way to spend a day.

The teasing reception by his colleagues quickly reached a level well beyond insulting. After getting asked repeatedly whether he enjoyed being butt buddies with Bubba, Andrew lost his temper. He picked up a small paperweight threw it across the room where it lodged in the wall. That was event that began the end of his job as a programmer at the ABC Software Company.

Of course, no bureaucracy in a company can move with great speed even when it comes to firing an employee who has been accused of acting violently in the workplace. He ended up sitting in a chair next to the secretary to the director of the human resources department while various and assorted bigwigs debated his fate. The lawyers were there to assure that everything was done in a manner that would prevent him from suing the company; his boss and his boss' boss were there to assure that his removal wouldn't created a problem with delivery schedules; and the HR director was there to fill out all of the papers. Of course, the secretary would end up filling out the papers, but that was only after the meetings came to an end.

Andrew watched the secretary, a rather nice and attractive woman by the name of Sue Ellen, fill out the forms that would dismiss him from his employment. She was a sympathetic woman and stated several times that it was completely understandable why he had lost his temper. She assured him that she was convinced that he was being railroaded and that his dismissal was totally unjustified. Of course, she admitted that she was just a secretary and what did she know. Andrew appreciated her sympathy and her candor about how much her opinion was worth.

It was nearly quitting time before Andrew, carrying a small box of his personal belongings, was escorted from the building by two burly guards, both of whom could have used a lesson in the proper use, and application of underarm deodorants. Disheartened, Andrew loaded his box of possessions into the trunk of his eight year old car. After taking one last look at the building that had once been his place of employment, he got into the car and headed home.

He pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex within which he lived. Coming home early, he expected to find the parking lot empty of cars. Much to his disappointment, there were three high priced cars parked in the spaces right in front of his apartment. He parked halfway across the parking lot and trudged towards his apartment.

Just as he was about to reach his apartment door, men boiled out of the fancy cars that were parked in front of his apartment. One of the men asked him for his name. Looking at the suits the men were wearing, Andrew decided that it was the FBI's turn to abuse him. He told them his name and held out his hands as if to receive handcuffs. After a short exchange, he found himself sitting in the back of a black sedan on his way to the headquarters of Junk Food International (JFI). Upon his arrival there, he was joined by the president of the company and taken to the headquarters of Big Box Maker, Incorporated, (BBM, Inc.) which was the primary producer of packaging materials for JFI.

That was the first of several trips to BBM, Inc. headquarters that Andrew was to make. Over a period of three weeks, Andrew was busy with negotiations concerning licensing of his packaging design. When all of the details had been worked out, Andrew had signed a contract that gave BBM, Inc exclusive rights to use his design for a period of three years for a substantial fee along with a penny for every box made to his design.

In terms of the substantial fee, it should be mentioned that Junk Food International had sales of several billion dollars a year with the majority of their products suitable for packaging using Andrew's design. BBM Inc. not only provided boxes for Junk Food International, but several other very large companies as well. For that large company, a thirty million fee was chump change, particularly when Junk Food International contributed a substantial portion of it to assure that none of its competitors would be able to use the design for at least three years.

Thus it was, that at the grand old age of twenty-seven, Andrew was a very wealthy man. Like any young man in his situation would do, he immediately bought a six bedroom McMansion, a luxury car, and an obscene amount of electronics for his house. About the only gadget he didn't have was an automated butt wiper in his toilet.

He began living a life of leisure, waking when the mood suited him, eating out, and going to bed when he was tired. Much to his credit for his dedication to live a life of leisure, it took him almost a month to become bored. By the end of his second month, he was ready to tear his hair out. He decided that there was only one thing to do, and that was to get a job.

He gathered a pad of paper and started writing down the musts, wants, and wishes about his ideal job. After looking at his list, he wrestled with the idea of what kind of place would give him the kind of job he wanted. It didn't take long for him to decide that he didn't want to work for someone. The only alternative was that he should work for himself.

Pleased at having a plan on how to fill his time, he put his mind to the task of identifying what kind of company he wanted to own. As a programmer and gaming enthusiast, there was only one choice that made sense. He was going to write the greatest computer game ever written. At least, that was his goal.

He went out to a local office building, rented a little place (four offices and a reception area), filled it with office furniture and equipment, and put up a sign on the door announcing his business as Computer Games. He went through the process of making it all legal and ended having to change the name of the company to Great Games since someone else already had a business named Computer Games.