The consultant slowly and carefully walked towards the goose, who becoming increasingly aware of the presence of the consultant, rose to her feet, pulled herself up to her full height and began hissing madly. Having had some previous experience with another goose in a similar situation some years before, the consultant kept talking to the goose and retreated into the client's building, but not before noticing that she was sitting on a clutch of five large off-white eggs, each about the size of a elongated baseball.

Later that day, knowing that the Mother Goose (sorry, couldn't resist) wouldn't leave her nest for days while she was sitting on her eggs, the consultant brought the goose some bread and water. Again, slowly approaching the goose, the consultant carefully threw pieces of the bread to the goose and left the dish of water close to the nest. The goose kept hissing as it had done before, only stopping to eat several pieces of the read.

This went on for several days, even over the weekends (the consultant made special trips up to the client's parking lot, just to make sure she was alright). With each visit, the consultant was able to get a little closer and the goose stopped hissing. She would even stand-up when the consultant arrived, proudly displaying her eggs.

Of course a relationship like this couldn't continue without giving her a name, so Mother Goose (sorry, again I couldn't resist) was named ``Gwendolyn". There was no reasoning for this other than Gwendolyn Goose sounded pretty good.

Unfortunately, the story doesn't have a happy ending. One morning the consultant arrived at the client site and while first walking towards the nest, he noticed that Gwendolyn wasn't there. Neither were her eggs or any sign of broken shells. There were just some feathers left where Gwendolyn's nest had been. Being very concerned at this point, the consultant went straight to the company's Security Office to see if anyone there knew what had happened to Gwendolyn.

While it turned out that Gwendolyn was OK, it seems that the Animal Control Agency in Mt.Olive (Morris County, NJ) came early that morning and removed the eggs from the nest. It seems that the Animal Control people thought that having a nesting goose so close to a populated area was an ``unsafe situation". We're not sure who was ``unsafe"; the people in the building, or Gwendolyn. Animal Control couldn't (or wouldn't) give us an answer.

So while the buttheads at Animal Control were happy (please excuse the term, we know it's very unprofessional, but everyone here is still upset - even after all these years), Gwendolyn was looking all over the parking lot for several hours trying to find her lost eggs. It was truly a very sad sight.

We still see Gwendolyn from time to time, and in honor of her and her lost eggs, we at ICSoftware have decided to take her as our mascot. So don't be surprised to see her picture on our
``stuff" from now on.

And that is the story of Gwendolyn Goose, our mascot and friend.