Originally published for a nineteenth-century British literature course. Ignore the madness.

Back in the day, when my face was without wrinkles, and when Kelly Rowland still had a steady paycheck and a real manager, I had a friend who dated a very obnoxious guy. He was nice to look at—which we did—we, meaning I—I, meaning, well, I—and could tell a killer date story—somehow that sounds like he’s a date raper. He wasn’t, at least, I don’t think he was. Maybe that was how they met! Though, I think she would have told me that she met him on a date-rape if that was the case, because it’s a way too awesome detail to leave out of an otherwise boring story.

Where was I? Oh, right. He was good-looking and could tell a nice evening story. Unfortunately, the list of positive characteristics ended there. On his negative list, he had: rudeness, homophobe, jock, and dumb-as-W. But, she liked him, and she wanted to make it work. Being a good and loyal friend, I told her to end it and made his daily life a living hell—being a fool, I encouraged her rehabilitation program.

So, through mind games and subtle hints we impregnated him with good-boy qualities—all within two months, of course. I mean, summer was coming up and who stays with their boyfriends over the summer? Exactly. Lindsay Lohan taught us well. Anyway, to get back to the story, after those cool two months, he was a changed man. He was still nice to look at—though the longer hair made him look just a tad like a very chiselled Jesus, not the look you want to go for—and an evening-story-telling star; but, he was also, all of a sudden, a gentleman, an eager shopper, someone who could talk with and to you about emotions, and, strangely enough, a very clingy friend.

All was well, until the summer finally presented itself. I had a dressage competition in Emmeloord, home base, and he just happened to be there. Well, happened’s a loose term, because when I gave him a tour of the equestrian facilities (to be honest, I have no idea why; it might’ve been home base, but it’s not like I knew the place), he suddenly turned to me—which was very awkward, as I had to interrupt a very classic monological discussion on whether hay or wood fibre was a better bedding for the stables; totally lost my point because of it—not that I had one—and told me he had come to like me. Well, great. That was the whole point of the rehab, wasn’t it? But, well, then he told me he liked men. Which was a bit odd, but I just thought he misspoke. So, I said, “Great,” and went on with my monologue. Truth be told, I didn’t care much for his daytime stories, so I often just blocked out his conversation. But, this time he made it impossible. Anyway, skipping the long story: Yup. We had made him gay.

Well, it’s not a surprise things went downhill from there. She blamed me for turning him gay; I blamed her for steering him towards my incredibly-gay friend Lloyd, with whom he had a relationship for a week and a half, after which I had to listen to Lloyd going on and on about how heartbroken he was for months; and the new gay-recruit stopped being our friend because he thought we were “a little bit too conservative” for his newly acquired taste.

How does all this relate to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein? People, creating upright human beings out of nondescript corpses never works, and, on top of that, is morally speaking a bad thing to do. So please refrain from doing it.

Also, never try to soften someone who already appears to trim his eyebrows and who can detect when you’re humming a Judy song. Sigh. We should have seen the signs.