You've been out of work for a while now (it's your own fault, really; too much of a party boy, not enough of a worker bee). Since you had some time off, you went to your late grandparents' place last week so that you could check the place for family heirlooms or just cool old stuff, before the final auction that had been scheduled.
When you got there, you discovered that your mom had been her usual thorough self; there wasn't anything left there that would do any better on eBay than it would among the farm folks who remembered your grandparents and still lived this kind of boring bucolic life. But when you were going through the attic, you suddenly noticed the door at the back end. "Oh, yeah: The Boarder!" you thought. Your mom had occasionally intrigued you with stories of the reclusive self-taught "scholar" who had rented an attic room from her parents for eleven years, before abruptly moving out with a declared intent of "heading for Hollywood"! What had that all been about, you'd always puzzled; the guy was obviously no Cary Grant, from your mom's description.
The room seemed as near-empty as the rest of the house, although the stained and scorched condition of several benches seemed to betray a history of spilled chemicals and botched experimentation; it's a wonder the old folks' house hadn't burnt down. Still, The Boarder (as you always think of him) seems to have thought he was on to something. You almost wished he'd left his library behind. As you pace the empty space, you suddenly begin to wonder about hiding places. Maybe it's a leftover from those early D&D sessions, but surely a mad scientist ought to have had a secret cache or something. Feeling almost embarassed, you began to check the walls and floors.
You were excited and relieved to find that maybe you had been onto something: there was a loose floorboard in a back corner that had been wedged in place with a splinter. Inside, you found an old-fashioned cologne bottle labelled "Old Spice"; but a quick sniff convinced you that this was something much more cool: it had a wild citrus smell to it, a little like Axe or something modern. The Boarder must have been ahead of his time as a cosmetician, if nothing else!
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All that was last week. Today was Monday, you've woken up at a "grown-up" time for a change, and you have decided to try The Boarder's secret recipe. He must have left that one bottle as a gift for the first person ingenious enough to find it. |