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 	THE STORY OF GERTRUDE THE MOTH (THE CONDENSED VERSION)
		(This is a true story. I swear.)

	Once upon a time, in a small town in Colorado, there lived a
lonely bachelor named Roy.  He lived all alone in a mediochre house, and
worked a mundane job driving a forklift at a local warehouse.  Although
he made a modest living and was basically happy with his life, he
constantly longed for companionship, being lonely as it was out in this
small western town.
	One day, after coming home from another ordinary day at work on a
cold Colorado winter day, he drew a heavy sigh and headed towards his
front hall closet to put his coat away.  He shook the snow off his
clothes, and took his coat off.  While hanging his coat up, however, he
noticed a large hole in another jacket hanging on the hangars.
Disgusted, he checked out the other garments hanging in his closet.  All
his sweaters and coats had large holes in the sleeves; further inspection
showed that there was not a single item of clothing in his closet that
was not either perforated with fine holes or missing incredibly large
sections of cloth.
	"Dammit!" he yelled. "Moths! Just what I need in the middle of winter!"
	After throwing off his jacket and boots, he began to slowly
rummage through the closet in an attempt to find the guilty culprits who
had devoured several hundred dollars worth of his winter clothing.
Quickly yet carefully, he inspected every item of devoured clothing,
looking for some sign of the winged critters.
	"I'll squash those insects to a dusty pulp!" he yelled. "Then I'll
spray this closet with enough insecticide to kill a horse!"
	However, after removing almost every garment from the hall
closet, he had found nothing, until all that remained in the closet was
an old paisley shirt from the seventies (also half-eaten). In a
last-ditch effort to find the guilty party, he grabbed the shirt from the
closet and shook it out.
	Just then, a very small, feeble looking white moth fell on to the
floor, its wings apparently injured by Roy's violent shaking of the
garment. He was about to squash the insignificant insect with his foot,
but when he took a look at the tiny, struggling moth, he just couldn't
get himself to do it.
	"Hmmmm," he thought. "I just can't do it. But I can't let it stay
here, either. It'll eat all my clothes."
	So, Roy gently swept the fluttering moth on to a piece of paper,
carried it to a window, and dumped it outside into the cold. However, the
moth managed somehow to garner enough strength to hang on to the window
sill, where it almost looked as if it shivered in the cold, its
multifaceted eyes gazing right at Roy.
	"I just can't do it," he said, almost in tears. "I've got to help
this little critter. Besides, I could use the companionship."
	Roy then opened the window and scooped up the small, helpless
moth and set it down on his kitchen table. He then took his old paisley
shirt, got a pair of scissors, and cut out a tiny blanket for the cold
little moth. Realizing that its wing was injured, he took part of a match
and made it a tiny splint so its wing could heal. He then went to the
kitchen and poured a tiny amount of hot chocolate into a thimble for the
moth to drink.
	When he got back to the table with the hot chocolate, he realized
that the moth had already eaten the paisley blanket he had made for it.
	"Whoa! You sure do eat a lot for a little moth," said Roy.
	Suddenly, in a tiny, female voice, the moth responded, "I'm sorry."
	Roy couldn't believe his ears. "Am I hallucinating?" he yelled.
	"No. I said I'm sorry," said the moth again.
	"Are you talking?" said Roy, again in disbelief.
	"Yes," said the little moth. "I'm sorry I ate all your clothes.
It was cold out and I was hungry, and I had no place to go."
	"I don't believe this," said Roy. "Do you have a name, little moth?"
	"No, not yet," she said.
	"I'll call you Gertrude," said Roy, who was now excited. "Oh boy!
This could be my ticket out of this deadbeat town! People will come from
hundreds of miles to see a talking moth!"
	Over the next few days, as Roy continued to nurse Gertrude back
to health, he was to unfortunately find that he was the only one who
could hear Gertrude talk. He had a couple of boys over from the
warehouse, who not only thought the sight of a moth with a match taped to
its wing and a thimble of hot chocolate was bizarre, but laughed
themselves silly at Roy, who thought he was just pulling a gag on them.
	However, this laughter hurt little Gertrude's feelings, and after
Roy's friends left, he sat down to console her.
	"I'm sorry," she said. "There has to be some way I can make you
famous."
	"It's okay, Gertrude," said Roy. "You can stay here as long as
you like."
	Roy sat down to read the newspaper, when he noticed an advertisment
that caught his eye. It read:
	"Do you have a problem with large moths eating your clothes? Well
don't just kill them! Bring them to the 1st Annual Moth Race for Charity!
All proceeds go to local orphanage. Must enter by Saturday."
	Roy continued to read the details of the advertisement.
Apparently, each entrant was to bring their moth, each of which would be
set loose in a cage with little aisles. Each moth would race to the end
of the aisle, eat a large square of cloth, then turn around and race back.
	"Gertrude! I have an idea!" yelled Roy. He showed Gertrude the
ad.
	"I don't know," she said. "I'm such a small moth. I couldn't
compete with those big moths. And my wing is hurt."
	"We can take that splint off any time now," said Roy. "And
besides, even though those big moths might fly faster than you, you can
eat cloth like a champ! You've been going through paisley blankets faster
than I can cut them out!"
	"Well, okay," she said.
	Later that week, Roy took the splint off of Gertrude, and she was
able to fly again. That Saturday, Roy put Gertrude in a little warm cage and
drove to the moth races.
	When Roy and Gertrude arrived at the site of the races, they saw
dozens of other moth owners with colossal moths, some up to eight inches
in wingspread. The other owners were experienced moth trainers who
regularly bred and raced moths.
	Although Roy was confident in his companion's ability, Gertrude
had butterflies in her stomach, and she shook nervously as she was
lowered into her little wooden aisle between two big moths. The other
moths laughed at little Gertrude, but she remained brave and kept her
composure.
 	Then, the guns went off. The other moths flew right past
Gertrude, and within seconds were gnawing away at the pieces of cloth
that awaited them. Little Gertrude chugged along slowly, but when she
finally made it to her cloth, she ate ravenously and devoured it within
seconds. She was then able to turn around and flutter back to the finish
line, crossing before some of the other moths were even finished.
	"You won!" yelled Roy, amongst a roaring crowd of moth coaches.
"You did it, Gertrude!"
	Gertrude, who was panting, was ecstatic at her victory, and left
the races with a new burst of self-confidence.
	Over the next several weeks, Roy looked long and hard for more
moth races for his Gertrude to attend. Hunting through papers and
magazines, he found moth races all across the country for Gertrude to
participate in. Meanwhile, Gertrude trained long and hard, going on long
endurance-building flights, lifting little weights, and eating little
pieces of cloth.
	Although Gertrude's competition got tougher, she was still
unbeatable by any other moth in the country, and she continued to improve
as she learned new racing strategies. For example, she learned that if
she turned around AND ate the cloth at the same time, she could finish
the race faster.
	Eventually, Gertrude's little winged body made the front page of
every paper across the country as the craze of moth racing began to sweep
across the nation. Different coaches used new scientific training
techniques, and huge mutations of moths were developed in an effort to
make the perfect moth racer, but still no one could beat little Gertrude.
Roy's dream of fame came true, and Gertrude was the happiest moth in the
world.
	However Gertrude herself could not imagine the fame she was about to
achieve when one day, Roy went to pick up the morning paper and looked at
the front page. A huge banner read:

	"CONTACT MADE WITH ALIEN CIVILIZATIONS!!!!"

	Apparently, scientists working at a NASA radar site had managed
to make communication with alien races on other planets, and had
exchanged conversation with each other.  These aliens were spread
throughout the galaxy, on local stars, and even in our own solar system;
the planets Mars and Neptune apparently being home to mysterious
underground alien races. This was all shocking to Roy, but he noticed
something else about the article that caught his eye. Apparently, the
NASA scientists had found that moth racing was a sport practiced among
all the different races of the universe, and that the Intergalactic Moth
Racing Olympics were to take place in less than a month on the planet
Mars, and Earth was invited to attend.
	Roy and Gertrude were both excited, and Roy wrote a letter to
NASA begging that Gertrude and himself be given a shuttle flight to Mars
in order that she could participate in the Intergalactic Moth Olympics.
It was well known that Gertrude was the best moth racer on Earth, so NASA
decided to fund the trip, deciding it would be good for interplantary
relations. However, room on the space shuttle was short, and Roy was
unable to come along.
	A couple weeks later on Cape Kennedy in Florida, Gertrude hugged
Roy goodbye as she boarded the space shuttle with her suitcases, whereafter
she would spend three weeks on Mars training hard for the Olympics.
	Luckily, the shuttle trip went well, with no complications, and
Gertrude landed safely on Mars, where Martian escorts took her down into
the underground caverns where their people lived. There, she was
introduced to the other participants in the Olympics - huge, alien moths,
some with two-foot wingspreads. One look at these giant insects and she
knew she would have to train hard.
	While most of these large moths intimidated her, Gertrude noticed
a large, well-built, handsome moth that caught her eye. Although Gertrude
was shy, this handsome moth noticed Gertrude looking at him, and went up
to talk to her.
	"Hello," said the large, Martian moth. "My name's Bruce. You must be
Gertrude, the Earth moth."
	"Hi," she replied shyly.
	"Say there, sweetheart, how would you like to go out to the bar
for a couple beers after your training tonight?"
	Gertrude, giddy with delight, accepted the comely moth's invitation.
In fact, over the next couple weeks, Gertrude came to fall in love with
Bruce, and she spent every night after practicing meeting him at the
local bar for a couple of beers.
	However, this was to prove bad, because, for those of you who
don't realize it, Martian beer is quite stronger than Earth beer; in
fact, it's about 150 proof. While Bruce and other Martian moths were
quite used to this, little Gertrude's training began to suffer. Over the
next few weeks, she kept hanging out with Bruce, drinking beer, waking
up later and later for training each morning; but she cared little, as
she was in love.
	Finally, the big moment came, faster than poor Gertrude realized
it. The first heat of the moth races were about to begin, and both Bruce
and Gertrude were in it. Gertrude stood tensely at the start line,
waiting for the gun, but her mind was preoccupied with Bruce. Television
cameras from across the galaxy waited to capture this moment, and back on
Earth, Roy watch at home on his t.v. nervously.
	The gun went off.
	Gertrude was late on the start, and her training having
deteriorated, she just couldn't keep up with Bruce and the other moths.
	"That's okay," thought Roy. "She'll make up for it on the cloth
eating part."
	However, when Gertrude reached the piece of cloth at the end of
her aisle, she was tired. She tried to eat quickly, but she couldn't.
Before she was done eating, several other moths were already finished and
on their way back to the finish. Gertrude swallowed her last piece of
cloth, but it was too late. By the time she was able to feebly flutter
over the finish line, she had come in dead last.
	However, she had noticed that Bruce won their heat. Disparate as she
was, she went to congratulate Bruce. Instead of greeting Gertrude with a
hug, though, he just snickered, "couldn't handle our beer, eh," and
walked off, never to speak to her again.
	Gertrude solemnly packed her bags for the shuttle ride back to
Earth, where she heard via radio that Bruce had gone on to win the gold
medal in the Moth Olympics. When her shuttle landed on Cape Kennedy,
there was no cheering crowd to greet her, just Roy waiting in his lonely car.
	Gertrude didn't say one word to Roy on their entire trip back to
Colorado. For two and a half days of driving, she just sat solemnly in
her little cage.
	Eventually, the two depressed comrades made it back home.
Gertrude then stepped out of her cage and flew gently over to the window
through which Roy had rescued her from the cold several months before.
She set herself down gently, gazed out the window, and began to cry.
	Roy walked over to her and stroked her back gently with his
fingertip, trying to console her. Then, Gertrude looked up and spoke.
	"What's the matter," she said. "Haven't you ever seen a moth bawl?"