BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

Everybody at the beauty shop is talking about The Menu Code, Mike Droning's new book which is soaring to the top of the best seller list.

"It's amazing," said Dewitt Powell, Axel's hometown psychic and the first one in Axel to buy the book which retails for $30. "I thought I had ESP but Droning's book predicts everything from Farrah Fawcett posing in Playboy to Mayor Bean driving his golf cart into the pond."

"This is no mere fortune telling," Droning said."It's based on quantum physics. It's so scientific it's scary."

Droning, a former reporter for the Axel Rattler, heard about the code from Rollo Pounds, a world famous mathematician from Mineral Wells who discovered the code last September in a 1956 Dairy Barn menu.

"I nearly fainted," said Pounds, bookkeeper for Al's Dry Cleaners. "I was doodling on this old menu and suddenly there it was in black and white--ELVIS DEAD."

Pounds used a skip code, a device employed by foreign spies and U.S. Army cryptographers, to decode secret messages hidden in the menu. He showed me the menu items which revealed the first amazing prediction.

FRENCH FRIES SHAKES MALTS YOU'LL LOVE #1 STEAK FINGER BASKET 1 CORNY DOG HAMBURGER YUMMY FLOATS FRIED FISH FILLET

"Have you spotted it?" said Droning. "By means of a letter sequence--in this case every tenth letter--Rollo Pounds discovered the message ELVIS DEAD, which would have been impossible to predict in 1956."

"But aren't the S and one of the Ds the seventh letters?" I asked, struggling to keep up with the lightning fast brain of the author.

"Seventh--shmenventh. Why do you think they call it a skip code?" said Droning.

"This is way over my head," I said, gaping at the ancient menu. 'This looks like one of those mind-boggling word games."

Droning nodded solemnly. "That's why Rollo Pounds used his computer." Suddenly the author perked up. "Look, here's Tonya Harding. And over here it says Tiger Woods. Clearly a super-human intelligence way back in 1956 wanted us to know these things."

"But why?" I asked.

"Maybe as a warning to mankind," Droning said.

"But can we change fate?" I said. "For example, the code predicts the rift between Kathie Lee and Frank--could it have been prevented? And if it never happened, then wouldn't the menu be wrong?"

"Don't worry your pretty little head. Even though everything is predestined, man still has free will," said Droning.

"That's a relief," I said. "Then shouldn't it say ELVIS MAYBE DEAD--so he would have had the option of becoming some kind of health nut?" What good are secret messages from the past if they don't help you lose unwanted pounds and inches?

In fact, what good are any of these predictions? I wracked my brain. Could the menu tell your love match? Could it give you the name of the winning horse or warn you about bad oysters? Then it hit me. Maybe it could help humans colonize space.

I was excited. "Does the code mention the first moon walk?"

Droning smiled smugly. "It mentions Michael Jackson 39 times. That's not all. It's got Chia Pets, break dancing, Hanson. You name it."

So much for technology.

What about wisdom? I for one was going to need wisdom to cope with a world where free will and predestination are slugging it out.

"Are there references to Jesus or Buddha or any of the great religious teachers?" I said.

"No, I didn't look for those guys," said Droning. "But hey--do you want to know whether Michael Irvin will show up at Cowboy training camp?"

"Sure. Who doesn't?" I said, relieved the book had some relevance to my life.

Droning winked. "It'll cost you thirty bucks to find out."