A Fool Forever

He who asks is a fool for a few minutes, he who does not is a fool forever -- Chinese Proverb.

So, I hear folks don't believe the tale of how Slimer came to live with us. Or that Ray's uncle believed Ray didn't have a sense of humour. Or that there's got to be more to why ghosts zero in on me like I'm ghost candy. Well, you're right. There is more to those stories than you've been told.

You see, Ray had this habit of getting his Aunt Lois Valentine cards every year. Sweet? Don't make laugh. Widdle Petey Venkman gonna throw up now.

Anyway, the year we started Ghostbusting, he stopped by his uncle's shop to play nice with the relatives - you know Ray. His uncle was raving about the latest joke - a fake cologne called Charm. By some guy called 'Earl King' and Ray got one of his genius ideas that it would be great to pull a practical joke on Yours Truly.

The first problem was that he bought the damn thing. The second was that he didn't recognise the name of the maker. Ray. Occultist extraordinaire. Photographic memory for Weirdness Central, my Aunt Floozy! Earl King. Say it. Say it out loud. Yeah, sounds like... I don't know, ERL KING, maybe? Yeah, you got it - Germanic goblin, steals people away from the land of the living. Nasty fellow. Knows a lot about ghosts.

But you know Ray. He's a genius until he actually has to think about consequences.

And me? I was conned good. Got all excited about my secret valentine. The cologne even smelled pretty damn macho, if I do say so myself. I have to actually, because I couldn't ask the guys and we didn't know our secretary back then. Not that I would have asked her - I don't care what Egon says, I'm not convinced Janine's really human. Let alone a girl.

Anyway, first time I tried it out was on that cute blonde I was testing in the labs. And she seemed pretty impressed. Until Ray dragged me out to that damn library to check on Spengs. Yeah, the one where the ectoplasmic librarian chased us out the building. Our first ever ghost.

We thought she was pissed we weren't being quiet. Boy, were we ever wrong.

The next time I wore it, I was trying to sweeten up that ogress I hired as a secretary. That's the day we ended up at the Sedgewick Hotel. Yep. You know what happened next. I became a mucus sandwich.

I'm sure by now you can see the trend. Well, isn't that just peachy? We didn't have the benefit of a handsome and dashing storyteller putting all the important facts together, so you think about that before you accuse me of being slow to add two-and-two together.

The next time I wore it, guess what happened? No, I didn't get to kiss Marilyn Monroe. I got propositioned by a dog. A dog that looked like my would-be girlfriend - who unfortunately wasn't Marilyn. But, hey, I can dig brunettes.

Anyway, by now I was getting pissed. And suspicious. The only times I had close encounters of the gross kind, I was wearing my present. My dad's a lot of things I'm not but one thing we share is knowing when someone's doing the number on a Venkman. So my little gift ended up as Egon's latest lab toy while I investigated the writing in the Valentine card. What? You never heard of a scientist using writing to analyse a person's state of mind? You've never heard of me doing that? Well, I do have two PhDs, you know. How do you think I got them? Wait, don't answer that.

And that's when I discovered something amazing about Winston. He doesn't talk about his 'Nam days much, too many bad memories I think. But when he realised what I was doing, he offered to help. Turns out he ran code breaking down on the front lines. Had to deal with lots of this shit. He can even forge signatures, he's that good. Surprised? Sure as hell surprised me. It's always the quiet ones!

It didn't take us long to figure out who the culprit was and that's when Egon added his good news to the shitometer. The damn cologne was a ghost attractor. A powerful one. Charm! I'll give Ray charm! A bucket-load over his head!

At least that was my plan.

Of course, this was the time when Ray was keeping more than one secret. He'd been playing with his latest pet. Yep, the Sedgewick Hotel ghost which he'd called Slimer just to annoy me. He had no idea how annoyed I was gonna get! That little spud wouldn't even have slimed me in the first place if not for Ray!

Egon wasn't done explaining things but I waved him off. I'd heard enough and Ray's ass was mine. Or at least the Netherworld's - I was gonna fight fire with fire. I poured out the cologne into a bowl. A big bowl. One I could toss over Ray. Let him have a taste of his own medicine. Well, Egon didn't like that plan but that didn't surprise me. It was messy and emotional - although I think he was probably just afraid that Janine would find Ray as irresistible as she found me when I was wearing it. Okay! So the woman tried to kick my butt! Didn't I already say she was an ogre?!

There I am, marching down the firehall to give Ray a dunking he'll never forget when I wind-up in a doozy of a pile-up. Me, Ray, Slimer. It was a mess. The cologne went flying, of course. Straight up. Straight down. All over me. Isaac Newton would have been proud. Did Ray get hit? No such luck.

Man, I wish I knew what Ray's secret is. He must have Karma panting for him like a...

Anyway, I was all for making Ray go back and buy more of the stuff to soak himself in the cologne for penance. I couldn't get Slimer off me and everyone seemed to find this hilarious. Shows I pay them too much for too little work, if you ask me. Egon was all for purchasing more of the stuff, which surprised the heck out of me since he'd been so dead against me drowning Ray the first time.

Turns out, Egon had other reasons for wanting the stuff and this is where I realised that when Egon has something to say, folks need to listen.

Yeah, yeah, you could have told me that already. Remember that hindsight speech of mine? Good. I don't like repeating myself. So yeah. Egon. Turns out, Egon had done more than just figure out this was corpsely catnip. Turns out, this stuff, while harmless in really small doses, was a little less harmless in really big doses. Yeah, that's right. Dose up on the bottle and ghosts'll love you forever.

That's why Egon didn't want me to take Ray for a swim. Ray never heard the end of that one, I can tell you. And his uncle never heard the end of it from him.

Unfortunately, neither did I.

So, that's the story of why I'm a sucka for love-beyond-the-grave. That's the real reason Ray's uncle thought his nephew didn't have a sense of humour. And that's the real reason why Slimer lives in the firehouse. Bet you never thought they were all connected, did ya? Well they are. And as sure as my name's Venkman, I made Ray feel guilty for this one.

Yeah, yeah, I know what you're gonna say. It's not Ray's fault I decided to play with an entire bottle of fetchly fumes...

That's what I get for using it all.

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Challenge:

(1) Theme: write about an embarrassing moment for a key player in the RGBverse (not necessarily the RGBs themselves...whoever you want).

(2) Write for five minutes, no more, no less (gotta do a scouts honour thing here, folks). Although you should not add or delete plot after five minutes, you can formulate your plan before you start writing, and you can go back and fix spelling and grammar errors after the five minutes are up.

(3) Your fic's last line has to be the following: "That's what I get for using it all."

Author's Note: Unfortunately, this took me 15 minutes to write, so I failed Part 2 of the Challenge. But I decided, what the heck. It's the reason I wrote it, so I'm going to post it for people to read anyway and I couldn't think of a shorter one.