THE INTRIGUING HISTORY OF MS GLADYS DONGO
Date: 1999/06/09
Members would have been disappointed at the
news that the appearance of Gladys and Janice at the Annual
Convention had been cancelled due lack of funds. Negotiations are
under way to secure the services of one Irene Malin, who's pretty
gorgeous - I finally clicked on her website and can confirm this.
She will definitely look better on a bicycle made for two than
our Gladys.
But back to Gladys. Sensational news has just broken in Bulawayo.
Apparently Gladys, like the famous Macduff, was "not of
woman born." She was cloned, in a laboratory, from genetic
material, otherwise known as DNA.
Behind the revelations is a story that would do a modern thriller
writer proud. It all began last summer, when Gladys was guiding
her tandem down Christmas Pass, overtaking a truck, while singing
"Sometimes, I feel, like a Motherless Child."
The truckdriver, Mr Phineas "Sugar" Demerara, is a keen
amateur anthropologist, and he was immediately struck by the
interesting features of the rider of the bicycle. "Dat jus
got to be one motherless child," he declared to himself.
"And fatherless too, unless I be much mistaken."
A short while later, he had the opportunity to meet personally
with Gladys, when, on sweeping into the leafy streets of Mutare,
she failed to notice a stop sign, and T-boned an Emergency Taxi
full of early morning commuters on their way to the abbatoir.
"The carnage was frightful," recalled Demerara later.
"Only nine of the passengers escaped serious injury, the
remaining twenty-seven being admitted to Mutare Hospital with
injuries ranging from broken limbs to apoplexy."
Fortunately, Gladys herself was unscathed, although the front
wheel of the tandem was badly damaged. Over drinks at the local
shebeen, Demerara was able to establish that she had no
recollection of childhood at all. She "thought" she was
born in Bulawayo, but appeared to believe that she had just come
into existence one morning, aged twenty-four.
Demerara was intrigued, and determined to follow up. Armed with
only the address of a cheap nightclub in Kumalo, he traced
Gladys' various places of residence back to 1995.
His search brought him finally to the office of the man who had
created her: Professor Isosceles Vilikazi, chief researcher in
the consumer products division of Haddon and Sly, who have a top,
top, secret laboratory, the existence of which is known to
absolutely no one except a handful of authorised personnel, at
Nyamandhlovu on the Vic Falls Road, just past the 36 kay peg, on
the left hand side, behind the third tambuti.
"I wanted to make a perfect human being," he confided.
"So I got hold of some genetic material, and a paperback
called, "How to Clone your own Sheep", authored by the
white racist colonial fascist exploitative doctors who created
Dolly in the UK.
But where did Prof Vilikazi get his genetic material? If Gladys
is a clone, then of WHOM is she supposed to be a clone?
Well, it turned out that Vilikazi believed that the Matabele
blood had been diluted too much over the last century, and he was
determined to find a true Zulu. During a trip to South Africa, he
was able to purloin a comb from Dr Nkosozana Zuma's hairdresser,
which provided the necessary sample.
What he had not expected, however, was that the comb contained
DNA from about a hundred other human specimens as well. Instead
of cloning just the redoubtable Zuma, the experiment incorporated
DNA from a vast cross section of Johannesburg residents,
including some extremely large Mama's, and at least one illegal
alien Shangaan warrior.
"But how did she come to be so short, then?" asked
Demerara.
Vilikazi explained that the hairdresser was not the original
owner of the comb. Apparently it had been pickpocketed from a
well known circus dwarf known as Sixpence the Clown.
The meeting was terminated when Demerara suggested that the
Professor must have been very disappointed with the results.
Vilikazi retired, deeply wounded. Apparently, he had thought that
the whole thing had worked out better than planned, not worse.
It is not known whether or not any more prototypes are planned.
However, it is to be hoped that Professor Vilikazi will
henceforth go for less well-utilised combs.
Demerara is shortly to publish a paper, with the working title of
"Clone or Crone, the saga of Gladys Dongo."