So Tomi wants to look better than me, eh? Just no way I can let that happen. Apil sits down and starts figuring out lines and angles, vectors and forces. Then he jumps up and runs out of the tavern. He's back in about an hour, looking somewhat different. Let's see....the 2 ostrich eggs made pretty good additions up top. They had been glued into two small depressions in a board so that they jutted out from it. It was supported by a piece of twine worn kinda like a long necklace, but wrapped around the board in the middle. They still pointed down too much, so Apil tied some tufts of chest hair around each corner of the board (it being about 1 inch thick, about 3 inches wide, and 14 inches long). If he didn't walk gently enough, there was considerable pain from the chest hairs, but women walk gently anyway. Walking back in, he drew considerable attention. It was unusual attention, not the kind he could become accustomed to. But since it went with the unusual mood of the Kash Bowl, he didn't feel too bad about it.

With an "in-your-face" attitude, he, ehhhh, 'glided' over to where Tomilcar was being worked on. Ahem. There was a lot of hustle and bustle going on so nobody noticed Apil's attempt for attention. Ahem, he said even louder. Still no notice. AHEM! This time he said the words with enough force to not only attract their attention, it was also enough force to shake one of the eggs loose from its Gum Arabic on the wood. With the weight now only on one side of the board, it slid through the twine necklace, breaking free from the chest hairs...OWWWWW! The first egg of course, slid down to the bottom of the tutu, coming to rest at one side of his most sensite neighborhood*. The other egg, still attached to the board, slid down and ended on the other side of this same neighborhood*......Erk! Even more embarassing was the angle at which the top of the board extended out from his belly. Even with the tight tutu, the way the heavy egg came to rest, the top of the board was a couple of inches away from his lower chest.... WOOPS!

As Apil turned his back to the crowd, to remove the foreign contraptions, he heard Lotus call out, It looks to me like fate has just decreed that you will be a male, no matter what we do, Apil.

*Advertising for AW's coming 'Neighborhoods'.