The CMEslinger (A CMEpalooza Serial): Part 4

If you missed previous segments of the CMEslinger saga, you can read them here:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

And now, our latest segment:

Part 4 (Scott)
Meanwhile, far ahead in the distance, the man in black waited in his Vegas hotel room patiently, coolly sipping from his Coors Light. He had been working for weeks to perfect his plan, and he had anticipated the CMEslinger’s every move. After all that time working side by side, there were few secrets between the two. They knew each other’s favorite movie (The Dirty Dozen for the man in black, Yentl for the CMEslinger), drink (Old Fashioned and Pickletini, respectively), and old-time 76er star (Andrew Toney and Charles Shackleford).

But there was a reason that the man in black was Phinneas’ favorite. He was always two steps ahead of the CMEslinger. When a faculty member got snowed in and couldn’t make it to a satellite symposium, the man in black set up a remote link to beam her into the program within the hour. The CMEslinger? He frantically called the airlines to beg and plead for an emergency rebooking that never came. When their enduring program was 100 learners short of the promised reach with a month until its expiration, the man in black dialed up a relevant association partner to get premier promotional placement for that activity in their next member newsletter. The CMEslinger’s best idea was a sandwich board that he forced an intern to wear as he ran around the exhibit hall of a local conference with a scannable URL code pointing learners directly to the activity’s front matter. To the man in black, the CMEslinger wasn’t even competition. He was just a pest.

So then was the man in black worried about this final showdown? No, not in the least. Everything was unfolding perfectly, piece by piece.

That silver-haired woman in the faded jeans who oh-by-the-way-just-happened-to-be-working-on-a-CME-grant-proposal? It was the man in black’s dear Aunt Betty, who didn’t know a needs assessment from a needlepoint assignment. The man in black had rented that dilapidated cottage on VRBO and ensconced his aunt on the porch along with detailed instructions of what she should tell the CMEslinger when he steered his palomino in her direction. The best part of it all was that the flawed grant proposal the CMEslinger helped out with was one that the man in black had written (and had fully funded, thank you very much) just a year ago.

And that rusty old Wrangler? The man in black bought it last week at the junkyard for $50 and a carton of Marlboro Reds. He was barely able to coax it the 20 miles to the rental homestead. So of course he told Aunt Betty to trade the Wrangler for some “professional advice” from the CMEslayer. Good luck getting it another 300 miles through the desert to the Vegas convention hotel.

Figuring he had hours to kill before the final showdown commenced, the man in black laid down and ordered room service. One cheeseburger, rare, with a side of fries, burnt and crispy. He flicked through the TV until he found one of those old Westerns starring Alan Ladd that he loved so much.

The man in black was just starting to dose off when his phone rang. He figured it was probably just Aunt Betty calling to talk his ear off over how perfectly she had played her role. So imagine the man in black’s surprise when, as he dug the crusties out of the corner of his right eye, he heard the wheezing rasp of his old friend on the line.

“I’m in the lobby,” the CMEslinger said. “Let’s do this.”