MEN'S HEALTH MAGAZINE IDENTIFIES WORLD'S PERFECT MAN
"It's good to be me," perfect man says

by Jamie B. Hannah, TheShortStraw gossip editor and film director extraordinaire

JOHANNESBURG, SA (TheShortStraw.com)-Olivier Terra, an export manager at a South African pulp and paper company, has been identified by Men's Health magazine as the world's perfect man.

Completely unsurprised by the news, Terra said, "My only question was: what took them so long? I'd been waiting for them to knock on my door for some time. I think they just got sidetracked. It's an understandable mistake. I guess. Although, it's like searching for the next basketball star among the Lilliputians. They were simply barking up the wrong trees, trying Hollywood bozos like Cruise, Pitt and Brosnan. What a joke. I mean, let me ask you a completely superfluous question: what do those guys have that I don't?" Terra paused for effect. "See what I mean? It's just good to be me."

Men's Health Editor-in-Chief Dave Zinczenko admitted his folly.

"The thing is, he's right," Zinczenko said. "We took the wrong approach entirely. But locating Terra wasn't easy. You expect a guy like that to be more high profile, I guess, but the thing is, he's just absolutely happy being him, and that's one of the reasons for his success. He doesn't need the publicity, the notoriety. He's not the most handsome guy in the world--how can he be, when I am--but he thinks he is, and that makes him incredibly attractive. He simply thinks he's perfect in every way, he's really convinced of it, not in any sort of arrogant way, just a natural feeling you get about him."

Zinczenko added: "He visited our home, and my wife, my twin daughters and even my parrot, they all wanted to sleep with him. Hell, I may as well admit it, I too was tempted, that's the sort of magnetism the guy exudes. He's Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, James Bond, Austin Powers-even Mini Me--all the suave, natural characters rolled into one. Frankly, I'd love to be him."

Terra said it's difficult to define his perfection. "Either you have it or you don't," he said.

Zinczenko said the more he learned of Terra, the more smitten he became.

"At first, I thought it was in the scarf he always wears," Zinczenko said, "but then I realized it goes much deeper than that. Although Terra did confide to me once that since he can't flip his hair, he can flip his scarf. But then I looked deeper and saw it was in the nuances of his character. Look at his children, for example--he has two that he knows of, a son and a daughter. The daughter he named Luana when he saw a beautiful moon; the son Leo when admiring himself in the mirror. That's the sort of guy he is."

Perfect now, life hasn't always been easy for Terra.

"I say you either have it or you don't, but the truth is, perfection isn't something you're born with," he said. "You sort of grow into it. I was born in Madagascar, where I fell into a cauldron of rum as a baby. That's where I get my superhuman strength. As a teenager, naturally, I was quite naughty." Terra says this with the sort of grin that can only mean one thing: his naughtiness has in no way abated.

He continued: "To punish me, my parents sent me to live with an Amish family in Pennsylvania, where instead of milking the cows I joined a rock band called the Rum Riders-in addition to having fallen into rum as a baby, I also make my own rum, it's an island sort of thing-and fell into a routine life of a rocker: group sex, drugs-but no aspirin, I'm allergic--bit of beastiality, the usual-all while living under the roof of my devout foster family-God love 'em. Abe, if you're reading this, I told you I'd come out alright, unlike you, you fifteenth century mongrel-plowing the fields every Saturday morning with oxen, what a bunch of wieners, I mean--hello?--ever hear of the combustion engine!? -but, uh, sorry I digress…where was I? Oh, yes, so anyway, Abe--that was the head of the family-kicked me out one day after I'd been drinking heavily and drove his ox into a telephone pole. Needless to say, it's been getting better ever since."

Terra's wife, Christelle, says it's not always easy living with perfection.

"There's perfection in imperfection, and imperfection in perfection," she said enigmatically. "And rum only blurs the divide."

Speaking by telephone from Paris where he resides, Tana, Olivier Terra's brother, had a slightly different version to tell.

Tana said that perfection does, indeed, exist in the family, but that, "Men's Health located the wrong brother. Imagine that, all that searching, so, so close, and then, when they are so near, when the choice is so apparent, so glaring, so obvious-- they still stuff it up."

Terra's brother-in-law, Eric, who presently resides with the Terras, echoes Tana, saying Men's Health did find the wrong guy, although, according to him, they "at least found the right house."

Sibling rivalry aside, asked whether he would now conquer Hollywood or perhaps Wall Street, Terra said he is utterly uninterested, in his words, in such "superficial pastimes."

"What? Work like a dog for a million bucks or a silly gold statuette? You nuts? I don't need it. I'm more into sports, soccer specifically. If I were named the French national coach, and it's only a matter of time before I am, I suppose I'd have to accept the position. For my country."

Terra concedes the only time he loses his sense of humor is when the French lose. That's when the beret he wears for such occasions comes off and becomes a deadly weapon.

Finally, Terra ponders the thought and adds, shaking his head and chuckling: "As for the rest, if they want me--and, let's face it, they all do--let them come and conquer me."

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