Chapter 5

Author's note: delineate mind-to-mind dialogue.

The call to "resign" from the Secret Service went to that special number in Washington. I made some trivial comments about the weapons just in case somebody heard my conversation. At the end, I said, "Thanks for releasing the guns to me. I may need them in my new job."

[Excellent, John. This puts you permanently where you need to be without having to generate some specious excuses. Thank you, and keep up the good work.]

The next day, I was only momentarily surprised when Hal wanted me to attend the Board of Directors meeting. Since I was now his personal assistant, I put on a fresh shirt and tie and joined him. All of my suit jackets were now tailored to fit around my shoulder holster, so I wondered if that was why he wanted me to go with him.

I was introduced to all of the directors as his new administrative assistant, and Hal had the look of a man who would not be questioned on this decision. As the meeting started, I was seated in a comfortable chair just behind Hal and to his right. That gave me an easy view of all of the men attending the meeting and let me get a feel for the character of each. Frankly, three of the 12 were the type that I would not have trusted as far as I could throw Wrigley Field.

All three, Geoffrey Higgins, Edward Johnson, and William Suffrin, had the look of selfish bastards that would cut your throat for a dime if they could get away with it. Otherwise, they would hire someone to do it. Later, I asked Hal how they got on the Board. His answer was, "They came on about five years ago under pressure from the group of banks I needed a huge loan from. They were supposed to keep an eye on me for the banks. The loan has been paid off, and I don't know why I still keep them around."

This time, the meeting was routine and only convened to rubber stamp some new government regulations. The meeting only lasted an hour, and we were free to return to the "summer home" at any time. We were all bored with Chicago by that time, so Selma arranged for the private car to be put into service the next morning. Right after breakfast, we trooped to the station and were loaded onto the private car in plenty of time to make connection with the train leaving that morning.

Our return trip was pretty much a repeat of our trip to Chicago. The only difference was that Hal asked me about my impressions of the Board of Directors. I told him what I thought of the three men, Geoffrey Higgins, Edward Johnson, and William Suffrin, and Hal agreed with me. That was when he told me how they had come to be on the board. "I'm looking for a decent excuse to get rid of those three, and I would appreciate hearing any ideas that you might have."

"I can't think of anything at the moment, but I will let you know if I do come up with something."

Well, something did occur to me, and I discussed it with Arlene that evening after our usual sexercise. "Honey, you father has asked me to come up with a good excuse to get rid of three men currently on the Board of Directors of WDI. I have an idea, but I want your opinion before I mention it to Hal. You may find the discussion embarrassing, but I do need your input."

"Sure, go ahead. I can't imagine something so embarrassing that I could not discuss it with you."

"Okay, here goes. It involves your monthly bleeding cycle. I need to know what you use during those times."

"That is an odd question, but I will answer it. There are several brands of pads on the market for that purpose, but I happen to prefer the Kotex brand. I'm not exactly sure why, it may just be from habit. Do you need to know any more?"

"Not in any detail, but I do have a few more questions. I have an idea for a product that I think would be a whole lot more convenient, and I wonder if you would use it if you could. The navy uses a device to plug cannon barrels to keep salt water from getting inside and causing corrosion. This device is called a tampon.

"Extending from that, what do you think of a wad of absorbent cotton or similar stuff to be inserted in the vagina to catch the blood before it can escape. A piece of string could be fastened to the cotton plug to extend out of the vagina. You could remove the tampon by pulling on the string and never touch the soiled cotton plug. Furthermore, the cotton plug could be flushed down the toilet so that you never had to worry about disposing of it after it was removed. Does that sound attractive?"

"Oh, my God, John. That is a brilliant idea! Yes, I would switch immediately. I use 10-14 pads each time my blood flows, so I guess that I would need the same number of tampons each month. That sounds like an instant money maker!"

"Okay, I will mention it to Hal tomorrow. If those three creeps object to the idea of the tampon, he could use that as an excuse to get rid of them right away. Furthermore, he could use the people he has on make-work jobs to do the manufacturing of the tampons. The only thing I wonder is how long it would take to get such a product into production."

The next morning after breakfast, I asked Hal for a few minutes of his time. "I may have come up with a solution to your problem."

"In that case, I can make time for you, all day if necessary."

"Oh, it won't take that long. Can we go into your office so that we can close the door. It might be embarrassing if the word of my idea got out too soon."

We adjourned to his office and I explained my idea for the tampon. Of course I knew that the idea would work, because it did work in my former time. The problem was that I did not know the details of its manufacture. I did say that Arlene thought that the tampon was a great idea, and she would like to switch immediately.

Hal said, "That sounds like a stupendous idea and a sure business winner. Don't worry about the manufacturing details—that's what we hire engineers for. It's the basic idea that counts. John, I am proud of you! We even have an empty plant near Chicago where we could do the manufacturing and where there are people who want to work. This sounds to me like a winner all around!"

The next thing I knew, Hal had Selma set up a meeting with some lawyers and engineers so that I could describe my idea. The lawyers could start looking for patent protection, and the engineers could start designing the manufacturing equipment. This meant another trip back to Chicago, but this was for a much more pleasant project.

It wasn't what I would call efficient, but the whole entourage went back to Chicago in the same private car that we had used on the first trip. We even stayed in the same suite in the Palmer House that we had previously used. There was little time for fooling around because this was a purely business trip to inaugurate a new product. The first day was spent with the vice presidents of the Legal Dept. and the Research Dept. I carefully explained what the tampon was supposed to do to each man so that they would have enough information to choose the proper people to do the actual work.

I could see the light glisten from the eyes of the VP of Research when he immediately grasped my concept of the new product. However, the VP of Legal acted very dense when I tried to give him enough information about the product. After an hour of essentially repeating myself, he understood enough to know which patent lawyers to assign to the product, but, when the meeting finally broke up at lunch time, he was heard to remark, "The product will never sell. What husband is going to let his wife stick something besides his cock inside her pussy? Not only that, it will not sell to virgins."

That was the end of the meetings for the day in order to give the VPs time to pick the people to work on the project. I was kind of upset over that remark, and I made a point of talking to Hal about it. We were in the executive dining room, so I had to be very proper. "Mr. Worthy, did you hear the comment by the VP of Legal as he left the meeting?"

"Yes, I did, and I want to talk to some women about that idea, but this is not the place to discuss it."

We hurried back to the hotel to talk to the three women who had come to Chicago with us; namely, Arlene, Alice, and Selma. The first pitch was to Arlene. I was along, but it was Hal's meeting. "Arlene, the VP of our Legal Dept. thinks that the tampon will not sell because of resistance from husbands and fathers. How important do you think that will be?"

"Daddy, most women will go along with what their men want if it makes little real difference to them, but I doubt that they will pay much attention to them when it comes to something as miserable as the monthly pads. They may have to sneak them into the house, but I don't see a husband being able to block his wife on this if she really understands the advantage of the tampon over the pad and wants to use it. It seems to me that most men would not want to know how a woman handles her monthly problem, and would just ignore the situation. I can't see any ultimate problem, though a hard sell might be necessary at first."

"Thank you, Dear, for your opinion. Now, I have to ask you to discuss the tampon with Alice and Selma. I would like to know how they would feel about a product like the tampon. They and I both would be too embarrassed to discuss it, but I think that you could get an honest answer from them. Would you please see what you can find out?"

"Sure, Daddy, I should have the answer to that in a few minutes." Arlene went to talk to the other two women, and we waited to hear from her as patiently as possible. She was gone longer than she probably expected, but she was back before we finished our second drink of the afternoon.

"Daddy, both Selma and Alice agree with me. They think that the tampon idea is great, and they are anxiously waiting to try it out. They both want to be among the first in the test market. We even think that men would come to endorse the tampon when they find out how much less grumpy their women are during their period. You men just can't imagine how annoying pads can be, or what a blessing it would be to switch to a tampon.

"We like the idea so much that we even have thought of a name for your product: 'Ex-Pad.'"

Hal said, "That's great news, Dear. However, we might have a little legal problem with Ex-Pad. What do you thing of Ex-Tam as an alternate name?"

"Okay, that is acceptable, though it won't resonate with women like Ex-Pad would. I know you don't want something so silly as legal difficulties over the name, but Ex-Pad is so much better at attracting women customers that I think that you should give it serious consideration."

"Okay, I'll check with the advertising people to see what they have to say. I do agree with you over the name, but I was just worried about a detail. It will certainly be weeks before we have to worry about the marketing name. It certainly should be easy to register either name as a trade mark."

That settled it as far as the President and CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of WDI was concerned. The tampon was going to be a viable product, and heaven help anyone who stood in the way!

The next morning, Hal and I met with the lawyers and went over in detail again what I envisioned for the tampon. I did 99% of the talking to the lawyers, but Hal laid it on thick that they were to push hard on the patent applications and were not to let ANYONE throw up any roadblocks to getting them out as soon as possible. If that happened, he was to be informed immediately.

After lunch in the Executive dining room, I met with half a dozen engineers and went through my talk again on what I had in mind for the tampon. All of these guys were enthusiastic supporters of the project if for no other reason than it was something brand new and had never been tried before. That challenge was something that grabbed at the heart of any true engineer.

One of the engineers pointed out, "We are going to have to get some expert guidance on this project. We need a doctor, preferably a woman, to tell us how big the absorbent cotton plug needs to be so that we don't waste a lot of time developing something too small to do a proper job."

Some more comments of that same sort were voiced, and I was glad to hear that these guys were on the ball. I asked, "Are there any women engineers in the department, and would they be willing to work on the project. I know that they would be interested in the finished product, but would they be too embarrassed to work on the product development?"

One man said, "We have three women engineers, and I know of one of them who would be willing to work on the development of the tampon. I'll ask our VP if I can talk to her about joining the project. She's a damned good engineer, and she has the plumbing to appreciate the product in ways that we men could never manage."

All of the other engineers agreed, so we let it lie there until we heard something tomorrow. There was no need for me to meet with the lawyers at this point, so we scheduled another meeting like this for tomorrow morning. Eventually, I would get out of the way and let the engineers do their thing, but I wanted to make sure that the project didn't stall over some minor point. I knew that engineering projects sometimes had that problem.

The next day, a new face was at the meeting. "Good morning, Miss Young, I'm glad that you have the guts to join in this project with a bunch of men."

"Thank you, Mr. Wilson. Please call me Jane. I can see the potential for this product, and I can hardly wait to get started working on it."

From there, we began to talk about the characteristics of the product, and every man deferred to Jane when there was any controversy. By noon, I could see that I had a good team that would work together, so I ate lunch with them and excused myself. I did check in with the lawyers to make sure that they were on the job, then I returned to the hotel. I reported to Hal on my impressions, and he agreed with me that it was now time to get out of the way and let the engineers run with the ball. On the other hand, he was going to prod the lawyers daily to make sure that we had all of the patent protection that they could manage.

While I had been meeting with the engineers, Hal had met with the marketing people, and they could find nothing wrong with the Ex-Pad product name. Once that decision was made, the project was now up to the experts, and we bowed out. We headed home to western Kansas the next morning.

Dammit, we ran into trouble on the way home. A rifle bullet plowed through a window of the private car while we were still moving. The window in question was not where someone was sitting, so we wondered if the shot might have been an accident. Nevertheless, we could not afford to take any chances, and the steel window covers went up on a permanent basis.

We were all shocked by the possible assassination attempt, and no chances were taken for the rest of the trip. It just didn't make sense to me what was going on. Surely, no professional killer would have given us that kind of warning unless there was a deeper plot going on.

Hal, Arlene, and I spent the rest of the trip trying to figure out just what had been the point of that rifle shot, provided that it had not been an accident. Well, it was not my job to assume that it was an accident, so I worked on the idea that it had been a deliberate attempt on Hal's life. At least, after that, I had no trouble making a believer out of Hal and getting him to keep his ACP with him at all times.

Our shotguns were in the car with us on this trip, but Arlene and I vowed to bring along the Tommy Guns for any and all other trips in addition to the shotguns. The other private car that Selma had leased especially for the trip to Washington was dolled up a bit with "bullet proof" glass in the windows where Hal might choose to sit, and one section was partitioned off with 1" thick steel plates to provide added protection against a light machine gun or a fragmentation bomb. Sure, this was expensive, but what else was money good for?