A Christmas Gift for Steven Spielberg

Ronald Pepperwinkle sipped the cup of coffee and sat nervously in the outer offices of Amblin Entertainment. His goal today was to secure a sit down meeting with his hero and surely his future business partner, Steven Spielberg.

Ronald was confident that he’d stumbled across the most amazing underground video ever produced and had used his entire life savings to purchase it and all intellectual rights.

He’d lost his job, marriage and most of his friends over the obsession with this short film, but in the end he knew he’d be vindicated.

It was shortly after ten a.m. when he was escorted into a conference room to meet with Mr. Spielberg’s assistant, Tony Crowley.

“Will Steven be attending?” Ronald asked as he took a seat.

“Ah, Mr. Spielberg is on location,” the assistant said. “Besides, he doesn’t sit in on these low level meetings.”

Low level?

“So, Mr. Pepperwinkle, you’ve been very persistent in securing a meeting, I hope you’re not wasting our time.”

“Hardly,” Ronald said with a slight laugh. “I’ve got something that will change the canvas of the film industry as we know it.”

“OK. Well, let’s get to it then.” Mr. Crowley took the DVD that Ronald offered him and fed it into the player on the bookshelf while a large plasma monitor dropped from above.

Mr. Crowley clicked ‘play’ on his remote and Ronald whispered, “Show-time.”

Ninety seconds later Mr. Crowley sat stone faced, seemingly unable or unwilling to speak.

“I told you,” Ronald said with a grin.

“And you own all the rights to this?”

“I own it lock stock and barrel,” Ronald replied as he leaned back in his chair.

“Hmmmmm,” the assistant sighed. He rubbed his hands together and appeared to be in deep thought.

“Mr. Crowley, I….”

“Tony,” the assistant said absent mindedly, “please call me Tony.”

“What type of ideas do you have for this Mr. Pepperwinkle?” Ronald considered telling him that ‘Ronald’ was fine but decided against it. He liked the swap in power and thought he’d enjoy it for a little while longer.

“Are you ready for this?” Ronald asked melodramatically. “Superheroes. ‘The Milk Maidens’.”

Tony gasped, his jaw hanging slack as he pondered the potential moniker of their new creation.

“That’s one of the working titles I’ve been toying with,” Ronald said.

“What are their super powers?” Tony asked.

“Well, by day they clean homes,” Ronald said, “and by night they fight crime.”

“But their strength comes from their milk moustaches!”

“That’s right,” Ronald grinned.

A look of total understanding dawned on the assistants’ face. It was as if a thousand watt light bulb had been turned on and Tony Crowley was truly seeing for the first time in his career.

“We’re going to have to bring Mr. Spielberg on this ASAP.” Tony said. “He’ll want to have his fingers in this one from the get go.

“Harriet?” Mr. Crowley said into the intercom. “Get Steven on the line.”

"Tell him, Merry Christmas from me." Ronald said.