When Emily and Amy were young, their mother plugged in the kettle one day and she saw a spark coming from the socket. She was afraid to touch it in case she got electrocuted, and she said to the girls, �Don�t touch that plug or you�ll end up like Greta Garbo.� She meant to say �Greta Garden�, a woman who lived down the road who electrocuted herself on a light socket a few years ago and ever since then she�s been able to hear the sound of concrete.

The girls� mother didn�t realise that she said �Greta Garbo�. Her daughters still didn�t touch the plug for years, but then they started to think that it might not be so bad to end up like Greta Garbo, even though they didn�t really know how Greta Garbo �ended up�. They knew she was a film star, and even if her life ended badly, it still might be worth it just to be a film star. The temptation to touch the plug grew all the time.

On one Saturday morning when they were having breakfast, Amy finally gave in to the temptation. They were sitting at the table when she stood up and said, �I can�t stand this any longer. I�m touching the plug.� She went over to the kettle and took a few deep breaths before she slowly reached forward. She touched the plug and then drew her hand away very quickly.

�Did you get a shock?� Emily said.

�No.�

�Do you feel any different?�

�Yeah, I think I do� A little bit.�

Amy joined an acting class and she did very well. Just a few months later she was spotted by a Hollywood talent scout and she was given a minor role in a film starring Jim Carrey and Catherine Zeta-Jones. She�s done another two films since then, and her fame is gradually growing. The people of Mizzenwood follow her career with great interest.

Emily has tried to take the same path in her career, but it�s that first step she�s having trouble with � the plug. When she saw how well Amy was doing at the acting, she touched the plug in the kitchen herself, but she didn�t feel any different at all, and it didn�t give her any greater acting ability. She tried touching other plugs. She touched every plug, socket and light switch in the house, and every house she visited she tried to touch as many plugs as possible, but she never felt anything. One of the plugs did seem to give her greater skill as basketball � she joined a basketball team shortly after touching a plug at her aunt�s house and she became the star player. What some people call �skill�, other people would call �aggression�. She�d be as rich as her sister if she had a euro for every time she�s heard the words �non-contact sport�.

Emily became bitter because of her sister�s success. Amy is always the centre of attention, and everyone loves her just because she�s a star. Emily often spends her evenings alone with her kitten, Molly, who�s the only one who�ll listen to her complaints about how unfair everything is. Joe from next door always listens to her, but it�s depressing talking to him. Joe has asked her out a few times already, and he still hasn�t given up. He�s a bit of an idiot, and normally she wouldn�t have anything against idiots, but her sister is being linked with famous Hollywood actors, and Emily can�t see any reason why she shouldn�t be going out with famous Hollywood actors herself, instead of an idiot like Joe.

One evening Joe calls around to see her when she�s in the back garden with Molly. He tells her all about his day at work, but she�s bored out of her mind, and eventually she says to Molly, �Get him, kitty.�

The kitten just sits in the grass and looks up at her. Joe laughs, but Emily looks at him with a menacing smile, as if she�s waiting for the kitten to pounce.

Joe looks at the kitten, just sitting there, completely still, staring back at him. He starts to think that it might be about to pounce too, so he runs away. He can hear Emily laughing as he runs around the house and down the driveway.

When Joe gets home he feels stupid for running away like that, but there was definitely something menacing in the stare of the kitten. Emily probably won�t see it like that. At best she�ll think he�s stupid, and at worst, someone who�s afraid of a kitten. But maybe if she was frightened by a kitten herself she might have more respect for him.

Joe buys a kitten and he calls it Kitty Kill. He takes little kitty Kitty Kill around to see Emily and her kitten one evening. They�re in the garden again. Since Joe had last been to visit Emily, she had got sponsorship for her kitten from a fake tan company. She doesn�t know how or why, but she did. Joe still sees something menacing in the stare of Little Kitty Fake Tan, but he manages to hold his ground this time. He still feels stupid, because little kitty Kitty Kill isn�t frightening at all. Emily doesn�t seem to be in the least bit bothered by its stare, but Joe is obviously still frightened by Little Kitty Fake Tan. He feels dejected and he leaves.

A man called Matt lives on the same street. He has a few pets, and he tries to �compose� Saturday afternoons in the garden by the arrangement of his pets. He has a rabbit called �Morning is Breaking� and a Labrador puppy called �The Sprinkler�. He has a bulldog called Meatloaf Leitmotif, and the entrance of Meatloaf Leitmotif when The Sprinkler is already in the garden is often used to signify the arrival of undesirable neighbours. Then there�s a kitten called Ticking Kitty Timebomb. She brings a very menacing air when she walks across the lawn. Matt carefully arranges the entrances and exits of his pets to compose a Saturday afternoon.

On one Saturday afternoon, Kitty Kill decides to explore the neighbourhood. She walks across Matt�s lawn right in the middle of an afternoon. It�s a very tense moment. Even Meatloaf Leitmotif is afraid. But Kitty Kill keeps walking, and the moment of suspense passes.

Matt buys Kitty Kill from Joe, but he refuses to allow Little Kitty Fake Tan into his Saturday afternoons because he says he doesn�t want to sell out. Joe wonders why Kitty Kill can�t have that effect on Emily or on her kitten. And he wonders why Little Kitty Fake Tan should have that effect on him. He goes to see them again, and this time he brings Meatloaf Leitmotif with him. He holds the dog�s lead and one hand, and in the other hand he holds a cactus � Matt suggested that he might appear more menacing if he held a cactus.

Emily and Little Kitty Fake Tan don�t seem to be bothered at all by the bulldog or the cactus. Meatloaf Leitmotif isn�t in the least bit bothered by Little Kitty Fake Tan � he just falls asleep. But Joe is clearly still worried about Little Kitty Fake Tan. He�s so desperate to get away that he has to drag Meatloaf Leitmotif along the grass for a while before it wakes up.

He knows that he�s unlikely to ever regain the respect of Emily, and she probably didn�t have much respect for him to begin with. He goes to the pub on a Friday evening and meets his friend, Steve, who says that the only way to forget about Emily is through drink. That�s his solution to most problems, and at least it always provides a temporary solution by making them forget what the problem is.

They go on to a nightclub after their evening at the pub, and the drink has proved to be extremely effective in removing Emily from Joe�s mind. It opens his eyes to so many other women that he never paid enough attention to before. If anything, he�s paying a bit too much attention to some of them right now, or too much attention to some of their bits. He goes up to one woman and asks if she�d like to dance. She says, �I�ll answer that question if you can answer a question for me. Which is heavier: your brain or Mini Mouse?�

Joe couldn�t answer that question at the time, and it�s still on his mind when he wakes up the next morning. He decides that there�s only one way to determine the answer � he�ll have to weigh his brain by weighing himself first, then remove his brain and weigh himself without his brain, and then the difference will be the weight of his brain. He has his breakfast first, and then he�s just about to remove his brain when he thinks of something. �How am I going to find the weight of Mini Mouse?�

There�s no point in removing his brain if he doesn�t know the weight of Mini Mouse, and he might need his brain to determine the weight of Mini Mouse. Then he realises that he could have just removed his brain and weighed it � there�s no need to weigh his body at all. So he�s glad he didn�t make a fool of himself there.