Milestones

1990: Red Bagel's dark vision of the future presented in lecture form at a local college predicts a war in Iraq, though he incorrectly predicts the date as 2002. Unless… well, we'll wait and see, won't we?

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Bartender. Mix all variety of drinks, serve beers with a quick smile and friendly expression. Listening a must, flipping bottles and spinning like in Cocktail a plus. Must know when to cut off Ramrod Hurley—immediately—and when to cut off Red Bagel—never, if you like your job.

It was on his twelfth birthday that Harvey Potluck was visited by Gorgeous Gorge, the sex dumpling. A sex dumpling is a very large and burly woman with reverse genitals and a beard, making people consider it a man when in fact it's an it. "Sex dumpling" is a rather unfortunate term, really, but that's what happens when your race is discovered by a large group of drunken fraternity fellows from Jordasche-Upon-Fathips.

Gorgeous Gorge, the sex dumpling, had come from Hogwash Military Academy and Magic Technical School for Harvey Potluck according to his dead parents' wishes. That is to say, the parents made such a plea on Harvey's behalf before their demise. Harvey knew nothing of his parents; he lived with his evil foster parents who kept him living in a bottle as a conversation piece. Keep in mind this was not modern-day logical Britain where such cruel parents would be charged with abuse and neglect and sent to prison for the remainder of their natural lives, but some mythological Grimm Brothers Britain where nasty foster parents are allowed to raise book heroes to evoke a natural sympathy for them in their efforts.

Let's just skip the annoying details of how Gorgeous Gorge gave the rueful stepparents their come-uppance and took Harvey to Hogwash Tech so we can get to the really good bits of dragon dogs and the enchanted toilet brush.

Harvey was all bewildered and shit by his entrance into Hogwash Tech. There were many strange things and peculiar sights to witness as soon as he stepped through the crusty iron gates. He saw duplication fights, where one young student would start a fight with another, then duplicate himself into dozens of clones and beat the bejesus out of the other student. There were Bodpickle matches, where students whipped out their Bodpickles and extended them as far as they would go—usually the black witches won without challenge. And, of course, all of them played Magic: The Gathering.

So, so odd to Harvey it all was, little did he dream that ugly birthmark on his ass would mark him as the premiere student of Hogwash Tech, and by the end of the year he would have saved the entire school from destruction, and made the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.

One day, when playing Pukutnip Ball, Harvey spied an adorable little loser named Phil Stalley. Phil was quite ineffective in all the ways Harvey was effective, except for Phil did have an incredible talent for playing Monopoly which might seem completely useless, but will be instrumental later in our tale. In this instance of meeting, Stalley was being picked on by the rich magician's son upstart Bathton Bullwark. Bullwark and his Rogering School of Card Tricks buddies were throwing magic mudballs at Phil with their Bodpickle wands. Harvey stepped in like some kind of Hogwash Tech Jesus.

"Hey, you!" he shouted to the Asian one of the group, You Katanka. "Leave him alone. He's not hurting anyone. He's rather dopey." And it was true.

"Just you stay out of our business, orphan!" shouted Bathton. How he knew Harvey was an orphan has not and will never be established, but his face was mean and scrunchy like a pantyhose wedgie, and his slick blonde hair made him look sort of like Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, only shorter. "Don't challenge us, Potluck! You may be hot snot to all the Hogwash Tech faculty, but that means nothing to us!"

"Piss off!" shouted Harvey, who had tried all routes of peaceful negotiation and was now forced to engage in a Bodpickle duel. How exciting!