Here's a Prime Example of Men Are From Mars Women Are From Venus Offered by an English Professor From the University of Phoenix the Professor Told His Class One Day Today We Will Ex- Periment With a New Form Called the Tandem Story the Process Is Simple Each Person Will Pair Off With the Person Sitting to His or Her Immediate Right as Home- Work Tonight One of You Will Write the First Paragraph of a Short Story You Will E-Mail Your Partner That Para- Graph and Send Another Copy to Me the Partner Will Read the First Paragraph and Then Add Another Para- Graph to the Story and Send It Back Also Sending An- Other Copy to Me the First Person Will Then Add a Third Paragraph and So on Back-And-Forth Remember to Re-Read What Has Been Written Each Time in Order to Keep the Story Coherent There Is to Be Ab- Solutely NO Talking Outside of the E-Mails and Any- Thing You Wish to Say Must Be Written in the E-Mail the Story Is Over When Both Agree a Con- Clusion Has Been Reached the Following Was Actually Turned in by Two of His English Students Rebecca and Gary THE STORY First Paragraph by Rebecca at First Laurie Couldn't Decide Which Kind of Tea She Wanted the Chamomile Which Used to Be Her Favorite for Lazy Evenings at Home Now Reminded Her Too Much of Carl Who Once Said in Happier Times That He Liked Chamomile but She Felt She Must Now at All Costs Keep Her Mind Off Carl His Possessiveness Was Suffocating and if She Thought About Him Too Much Her Asthma Started Acting Up Again So Chamomile Was Out of the Second Paragraph by Gary Meanwhile Advance Sergeant Carl Harris Leader of the Attack Squadron Now in Orbit Over Skylon 4 Had More Important Things to Think About Than the Neuroses of an Air-Headed Asthmatic Bimbo Named Laurie With Whom He Had Spent One Sweaty Night Over a Year Ago AS Harris to Geostation 17 He Said Into His Transgalactic Communicator Polar Orbit Established No Sign of Resistance So Far but Before He Could Sign Off a Bluish Particle Beam Flashed Out of Nowhere and Blasted a Hole Through His Ship's Cargo Bay the Jolt From the Direct Hit Sent Him Flying Out of His Seat and Across the ####Pit Rebecca He Bumped His Head and Died Almost Immediately but Not Before He Felt One Last Pang of Regret for Psychically Brutalizing the One Woman Who Had Ever Had Feelings for Him Soon Afterwards Earth Stopped Its Pointless Hostilities Towards the Peace Ful Farmers of Skylon 4 Congress Passes Law Per- Manently Abolishing War and Space Travel Laurie Read in Her Newspaper One Morning the News Si- Multaneously Excited Her and Bored Her She Stared Out the Window Dreaming of Her Youth When the Days Had Passed Unhurriedly and Care- Free With No Newspaper to Read No Television to Distract Her From Her Sense of Innocent Wonder at All the Beautiful Things Around Her Why Must One Lose One's Innocence to Become a Woman? She Pondered Wistfully Gary Little Did She Know but She Had Less Than 10 Sec- Onds to Live Thousands of Miles Above the City the Anu'udrian Mothership Launched the First of Its Lithium Fusion Missiles the Dimwitted Wimpy Peaceniks Who Pushed the Unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty Through the Congress Had Left Earth a Defenseless Target for the Hostile Alien Em- Pires Who Were Determined to Destroy the Human Race Within Two Hours After the Passage of the Treaty the Anu'udrian Ships Were on Course for Earth Carrying Enough Firepower to Pulverize the With No One to Stop Them They Swiftly Initiated Their Diabolical Plan the Lithium Fusion Missile En- Tered the Atmosphere Unimpeded the President in His Top-Secret Mobile Submarine Headquarters on the Ocean Floor Off the Coast of Guam Felt the Inconceivably Massive Explosion Which Vaporized Poor Stupid Laurie Rebecca This Is Absurd I Refuse to Continue This Mockery of Literature My Writing Partner Is a Violent Chauvin- Istic Semi-Literate Adolescent Gary Yeah? Well My Writing Partner Is a Self-Centered Tedious Neurotic Whose Attempts at Writing Are the Literary Equivalent of Valium Oh Shall I Have Chamomile Tea? Or Shall I Have Some Other Sort of F-King TEA??? Oh No What Am I to Do? I'm Such an Air Headed Bimbo Who Reads Too Many Danielle Steele Novels! Gary B*tch Rebecca F K YOU-YOU NEANDERTHALI in Your Dreams Ho Go Drink Some Tea A+ Ireally Liked This One Epicjohndoe a Very Good Example of ‘Men Are From Mars Women Are From Venus’