A day of mounting dread.  First I learned that the U.S. government has agreed to pay over $15 million for the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination even though I just found the same footage on Amazon.com for $16.99.  Then I learned that while the Supreme Court of Mongolia is online, the U.S. Supreme Court is not - quite possibility because the justices blew all their money on Zapruder's footage of Kris Kristofferson's career being blown all to hell by "Heaven's Gate."   
     The main source of my unease today, however, springs from the fact that it's the 5th anniversary of the disappearance of my kid sister, Blair.  Even after all this time, I still can't believe she hasn't made it back, that she probably isn't coming back, that she's almost certainly not even ever gonna drop me a lousy postcard....

    It was a day like any other.  While I stayed at home declaring my office a nuclear-free zone and pondering the possibilities of premarital divorce, Blair set off into the world with all the passion and idealism of youth.  For some weeks she'd been intrigued by rumors of an old bitch working in a sporting goods store in the Black Hills Mall some miles away in Sixteen Millimeter, Ohio (one of the smallest cities in the state).  She made plans with two of her friends to go see for herself if such an ornery old bitch actually existed.  I didn't pay much attention at the time.  I was a modern man who believed that while there may indeed be a few understandably irritable women in need of a little tender loving care, only primitive peoples still believed in bitches.
     Blair and her friends, their minds twisted by a recent Rush Limbaugh broadcast highlighting the latest alleged spotting of an actual Femi-Nazi in the Pacific Northwest, set off on their quest despite my vehement pooh-poohing.  I don't make it a practice to pooh-pooh in front of others very often, but there was something about her exaggerated urgency which egged me on.  Indeed, her gullible belief in the existence of female clerks who victimized innocent customers with nasty looks and curses got me so riled up that I went right on pooh-poohing long after she and her friends had disappeared over the darkening hills to my west.
     Little did I know that that would be the last time I ever saw her....

     It was a year later that I first noticed she was missing.  I'd just come in from watching the ants on the patio drag away an earthworm which had made the mistake of crawling into their path.  For some reason I remembered to check my answering machine for messages for the first time in many, many months.  I think it may have been the flashing red light next to the tape compartment which did it.  Anyway, I pushed a button and listened.
     "Dan?  Hi, this is Blair.  We made it to the Black Hills Mall ok but we're having a bit of trouble finding the sporting goods store.  It's not listed on the map directory in the main concourse but the security guard we stopped says he remembers hearing stories about a place like it that was here before the mall was built.  He went to check for us with some old janitor.  More soon.  Bye!"
     "2:37 p.m. - Thursday - August 4, 1994" the mechanical voice of the machine informed me.
     Huh, I thought.  They had Thursdays back in the mid-'90s, too.  I didn't recall civilization being that advanced back then.  Then I remembered having insisted that Blair take a cell phone and keep me posted.  Amazing - I really hadn't expected the then-new item to work.  Suddenly I was wondering if it had given Blair a fast-growing brain tumor that had killed her in a single day.
     "Dan?  Hi, it's me again.  We found the shop!  Turns out it pre-dates the mall!!  The old janitor says that the bitch who runs it - the 'bitch' was the very term he used - refused to sell out so the mall people just built their thing around her.  He thinks you can still get into her shop, but it's out of the way and not exactly an easy hike past Disney stores, over a Starbucks, and under an abandoned Foot Locker.  Since we're young and energetic, though, he thinks we can make it.  I'll let you know when we do.  Bye!"
     "3:16 p.m. ...." 
     That's when it hit me.  I'd been there once, looking for a flip-up sun lens for my monocle.  I'd gotten distracted by a barrel of golf tees by the front door.  I don't play golf, but I like to finger brightly colored golf tees - they give my love beads a break.  The ones in the barrel that day, however, were were just dull, raw witch hazel wood - and weirdly twisted.  I wanted to scream at Blair "Beware of the over-priced golf tees!"  In fact, I think I did yell.  Alas, I was a year late....
    "Dan?  Hi.  Blair.  We're in!  It's dark, and it's hard to make our way through the virtual forest of ancient fisherman's waders, but I think we're on the verge of success.  We haven't actually seen a clerk but we've heard what we think is faint cursing in the back.  Oh, gotta go!  Jinx says he's found something!"
     "5:44 p.m. ...."
     Ahh, Jinx.  Jinx was one of Blair's friends.  There was always something I didn't like about him - not sure what.  I shivered, hoping against hope that he hadn't found that barrel of golf tees.
     "Hey!  Jinx has injured his foot on some weird sticks.  Called for the old bitch to come help me carry him back to the door but she still refused to make an appearance.  Hope she has liability insurance!  Hard to believe anyone would sell her any, though - this place is a death trap.  Too crowded.  Too poorly lit.  Sudden appearances of slime.  We're getting out - just as soon as we find Muck."
     "7:09 p.m. ...."
     Ahh, Muck - her other friend.  Kid always smelled funny.  I was starting to get very uneasy.
     "Help!  You there?!  Pick up, damn it!  HELP!  We found Muck crucified in the corner on a canoe paddle!  Fish hooks through his wrists - fishing line all 'round his body.  At first we thought he was joking, but then we saw the symbolic little Gumby hanging from a light fixture and we knew!  Plus Jinx heard her cackling!  Please call 911!  Please - "
     "8:35 p.m. ...."
     Thank goodness she found Muck, I sighed with relief.  So many kids disappear and are never found!
     "The store's closed.  The doors are locked!  The cheap old bitch has shut the lights all off!  Jinx has disappeared.  I was helping him to the door when we stopped to rest by some goose calls priced $6.66.  I turned and he was gone.  GONE!  Where are you??  Where - ohmygod OHMYGOD -"
     "9:16 p.m. .... "
     Blair's found the golf tees, I thought.  Right by the door, just like before.  Damn, maybe the owner/clerk was a bitch - someone so disrespectful of her customers, she couldn't even rearrange things once in a while to maintain their interest.
     Just one more message remained on the machine.  I listened to it once, twice, three times.  I really had to strain to make it out.
     "No returns," I think it said.  Hard to tell, since Jinx or Gumby apparently was cackling as she spoke.... 

     Since then I've played the tape many times, but I still don't know what to make of it.  Was it possible that Blair had merely been joking?  Was it possible that she might yet return and shower me with first-rate golf tees filched from a finer store?  And most of all, was it really possible that in over a year of not checking my machine, these were the only messages I'd received?
     All I can do is sit and shake my head on this, the 5th anniversary of the last time I saw sweet, innocent Blair.
     And wonder how different Cecil B. DeMille's "The Greatest Story Ever Told" would have been had a limited budget forced him to use a paddle and fishing line.
     Sorry - can't go on.  Gotta go shudder....