A lot of things go through a man's head when he's standin on the wrong side of a barbed wire fence in his skivvies lookin down the barrel of a couple of toy poodles. The first of those things, in my experience at least, I don't wanna pose like I'm speakin for everyone here, is that it's kinda cold outside. I'm standin out there gettin them bumpy things all over my legs so it looks like I got myself a set of chicken legs, only bigger. So maybe it looks like I got a set of ostrich legs, except my knees is the right way round. Right way round for me, that is, not for an ostrich. Though if my legs was the right way round for an ostrich, I might be able to run my way outta this situation faster. The only problem with that is that them dogs got one set of legs the right way round for a man and one set right way round for an ostrich, so they got an advantage over each. I know you're sittin there thinkin, "But Pat, there's no way a toy poodle is gonna out run an ostrich" and I'd tell ya, under normal circumstances, you'd be right. But these ain't normal circumstances. Let me tell you a bit about the dogs I was facin in that compound.
First of all, one of them dogs is named Toby and the other is named Ozymandias. When they was just little puppies, just barely past openin their eyes, their mom saw a wild streak in Toby and drove him out of the litter before he devoured the rest of his brothers and sisters. But little Toby had a soft spot in his heart for his brother Ozymandias for reasons known only to himself. I always thought it was because of the great name, but I got no evidence to back myself up there. So, with their mother's blessing and insistence, Toby and Ozymandias lit out for the territories. They spent some time on the street, lookin cute for money, cleanin windows when they needed, and slowly driftin towards a life of crime. That didn't last long; three, maybe four hours at the outside. In that time, they'd become hardened and jaded by all the horrible things they'd seen and done. Killin a man and eatin him in desperation does funny things to puppies; and not funny ha-ha stuff. They were veterans of the street by early evening when they were picked up by Texas Jake, the ostrich farmer.
Now the name Texas Jake is a bit of a misnomer, bein as he was named Phil and he was actually from Delaware. But you try gettin anywhere in the ostrich farmin business with a name like "Delaware Phil". The ostrich business is all about respect and no self-lovin ostrich respects a man with a state north of the Mason-Dixon line in his name. Phil tried to change his name to Texas Phil, but there was already three Texas Phils in the ostrich farmin business and one lived a block away from Phil, so he really had to change both his names. After a quick trip to the courthouse to officially change his name to Texas Jake, he stumbled upon a couple of toy poodle puppies that was adorable on the outside but had the cold gleam of killers in their eyes. He knew these two pups would be perfect ostrich wranglers, so he scooped 'em up in a burlap bag and went on his way.
Over the next couple of years, the tiny pups grew into two slightly less tiny dogs. Texas Jake used to like to describe them as fifty pounds of danger in a five pound sack. Sometimes he would drink a little much and snatch the dogs up in that same burlap bag so he could tell himself he had fifty pounds of danger in a five pound sack in another five pound sack. He would laugh and laugh at this until Toby and Ozymandias chewed their way out of the sack and set to work on his ankles. The only way he could calm them down was to share his whiskey. The booze got right to the heart of the little dogs, makin' 'em even meaner than they'd been before. That meanness was a boon in the ostrich farmin business because ostriches themselves are right ornery creatures and dumb as a bag of hammers to boot. From what I hear, wranglin ostriches would be like if you took that guy down on the corner, you know that one that did a little too much in the 60s and now just ain't never gonna be right again. Take that guy, hit him in the head a couple of times to dumb him up even more, then shoot him full of steroid so he gets mad at everything all the time and then hand him a couple of sabers. Now replicate that guy about a thousand times and you got a typical day on an ostrich farm. In this kinda situation, them little dogs grew up to be fast, smart and meaner than a fat girl that can't remember where she hid the cookies from herself.
This worked in their favor. The meaner they got, the better they were at wrangling ostriches. Eventually, they just had to glace sideways at one of the big, dumb birds to get it to run wherever they wanted it to go. They even learned how to rope, which is quite a feat when you ain't got no thumbs. I knew this cowboy once that'd lost both thumbs in a bet in some back alley in Bankok who still tried to rope. He could usually get within five feet of the sheep he was ropin in he had a couple buddies holdin it still for him and someone got the rope goin for him. It wasn't practical for him, but it was fun as the dickens to watch. These toy poodles could rope better than any man after some practice. The secret, so I hear, was that they'd pretend they was ropin their mother's heart so she'd let them come home again. It was either that or they just really hated ostriches.
After three years of livin a comfortable life with Texas Jake, the brothers felt it was time for them to hit the ol' dusty trail again, so they hopped a train and rode the rails for a bit. They got hooked up with some nasty people and, after spendin six months in the pen on a smash and grab, they decided to lay low for a bit. They spotted a Russian circus that was in town that'd been advertisin a new bear wrangler after their last one got a little too far into a bottle of vodka one night and mistook the bear for his coat. When Toby and Ozymandias showed up for the job, the owner of the circus just laughed. By the time they got the bear to cry, he'd stopped laughin. After they'd got the bear to play Air on a G string on the piano, even though the bear hated Bach and all things associated with it, Toby and Ozymandias had a job for all the kibble they could eat.
They spent 4 years with the circus, travelling all over the world, seein and doin things most toy poodles only dream of. Toby and the bear got along real well, and forged a great relationship. Ozymandias, on the other hand, didn't want to get too close to an animal they may be forced to put down one day. This put a serious strain on the brothers' relationship, especially during their tour of China. Toby and the bear spent their nights in the famous oriental opium dens, falling deeper under the influence of the poppy. The final split came one night when Toby came bursting out of a den filled with scantily clad Shih-Tzu screaming, "I'm a bear!" It seems a combination of opium addiction and bear head-games had convinced Toby that he wasn't just a bear handler, but a real bear.
From then on, the bear became harder and harder to control. It's a little known fact that all bears are psychologists deep down. They're masters at playin head games with other animals. The most manipulative of all bears is that there Winnie. Look at the facts. He got a nine year old boy to believe he was livin in a magical world where his stuffed animals would come to life. He even got poor Christopher Robin to laugh when he gorged himself on honey and then spent days throwin twigs into a stream. Eventually, Winnie twisted little Christoper Robin's mind to the point that the poor kid worshipped the bear as a god and did anything he was ordered, including killing all the animals of the woods in what the boy believe to be the "cleansing fire of the almighty pooh." Poor kid. He spent the rest of his life in an asylum for the criminally insane, alternatively muttering about the Pooh Paradise and wailing for Tigger. And the Russian circus bear was no different.
The bear had planned to keep Toby under the haze of opium addiction long enough to convince him that the bear was his god and only master. He would test his bounds a little more each show. At first, it was little things, like playing a flat note or two. Then, it became bigger, like refusing to wear the little hat while he rode the unicycle. After months of manipulation, the bear was ready for his final test. He was hopin to kill an audience member while Toby stood and watched. The bear knew full well that, with Toby on his side, he would be an unstoppable force and ruler of the entire circus. He hadn't counted on Ozymandias.
On the night of the show, the bear got Toby to unlock his chains, "Because it's chaffing." Just before he sat down to play his dreaded Bach piece, he broke free and charged the front row, where the local charity to help one-legged orphans who also happen to be burn victims had brought their little charges to be entertained. As he got three feet from the audience, he was tackled by a little white fluffy blur. It was Ozymandias. The little dog took down the bear by the throat, putting it in the dreaded poodle sleeper hold. When the bear had passed out, Ozymandias trussed him up like a thanksgiving turkey, making sure to bind his mouth.
After the panic had subsided, the circus manager called the brothers into his office. He let them know that, while he and the one-legged burn victim orphans appreciated Ozymandias' help with the bear, all the circus folk knew that Toby was really the one who had released the chain. He gave Toby the boot and Ozymandias the option to stay, but he wouldn't. The two little dogs walked out into the cold Iowa morning, not knowing where to go or what to do then, when they were picked up by Sheriff Tom. He convinced the dogs to turn over a new leaf and use their strength and lassoing skills for good. Over the next couple of years, they became a regular addition to the police force, used mostly as impound patrol, which is how I found myself facing them.
I thought of all this in a split second, but none of it helped me find a way out of the situation, so I did the first thing I thought of. I kicked them. They are only toy poodles, after all. They're tiny and I'm a big ol' grown man. Plus I was wearin my big steel toed boots that day. I don't care how mean a two and a half pound dog is, it ain't gonna be in one place long when it meets a steel toe. I knew they wasn't gonna be gone for long, even with the good kickin I gave 'em, so I had to get to the van fast.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
Breakin Out
Douggy and I hopped in the tow truck and headed down town to bust Carl out of the impound before the meth zombie could pick it up. On our way, we made a game plan. Game plans are important, and not just for games. You need game plans for all sorts of things. Makin a cake? Need a game plan. Talkin your way out of a ticket? Game plan. Fightin ninjas? You guessed it; game plan. The odd thing is that you don't always need a game plan to play a game. I remember when I was a kid and we'd play cowboys, we never really had a plan. But that was before we grew up, saw High Plains Drifter and found out that cowboys, especially that Clint Eastwood, always have a game plan. That prolly explains why we were never really able to bring our cattle to market. Well, that and we was actually herding cats. Now, some people'll tell ya that something or another is like herdin cats, but, unless those people are trying to get a thousand drunk, egotistical donkeys laden with bricks to move four inches in the same direction while the donkeys are swingin knives, then whatever it is they're talkin about is prolly nothin like herdin cats; and you can tell 'em I said so. So, havin learned, at the tender age of 21, the lessons from herdin cats, Douggy and I have been big on the whole game plan idea for most of our adult lives.
Makin this plan turned out trickier than I had anticipated. The impound was surrounded by a ten foot hurricane fence topped with a whole mess of barbed wire. Inside the compound are two of the meanest dogs you ever seen. They're toy poodles, sure, but they're toy poodles with some serious psychological issues. One of them thinks he's a bear and the other thinks he's a bear's sidekick, which is almost as good as bein a bear and you don't have to get in as many fights. The only two entrances to the impound are a) through the police station and 2) through the rolling gate, which is secured by four miles of heavy chain and butts up to a guard house. Sure, the guard house is never really occupied, but it was was there and had to be accounted for in a good game plan. We knew we couldn't get through that much chain without a grinder, which we did have in the truck, but we didn't have no where to plug it in except the police station, and Sheriff Tom prolly wasn't gonna let us run a bunch of extension cord through his station without askin a bunch of questions like, "Why do you need to run an extension cord?" or "What're ya doin with that bench grinder next to my chain?" We didn't have a lot of time to bother with those kind of questions and we didn't have any answers that didn't involve felonies. We also wasn't gonna be able to go through the police station without all sortsa excuses either. Even if we did, we'd prolly have to be escorted into the yard of the impound, ruining our secrecy anyway. We were gonna think up some alternative, but we were already at the impound and we didn't want to put it off any longer. It turns out our plan was that Douggy'd give me a boost over the fence, I'd open the van up and then I'd fly out of there on Carl's back. Barrin that, we'd lower the chain of the tow truck over the fence and we'd climb to freedom. How hard could it be?
Everything was going swimmingly for the first bit, you know, the part where Douggy boosts me over the fence. Then, we hit a little snag. It wasn't a problem in our plannin or nothin like that. We hit a real, actual, honest-to-goodness snag. Well, I hit the snag, and that snag was called barbed wire. I'd commited myself to the drop when my pants got all caught up in the barbed wire. Everything went spinny for a second and the next thing I know, I'm hangin upside down from a fence with a swatch of concrete starin me in the face from 8 feet away. I coulda prolly figured my out of that mess if the waist on my jeans hadn't given out so I started slippin. I was worried about my face meetin the aforementioned concrete when my boots got caught up in my jeans, leavin me in the same predicament, only 2 feet lower. Even that wouldn't have been the end of the world if I'd been given time to think about it. Sadly, it was not to be.
There I am hangin upside down in my skivvies, tryin to break into the car impound in total secrecy when who should walk up but my sister Frank. She didn't look none to happy to see me, either, I tell you what. She stood right on the other side of the fence, hands on her hips and arms akimbo, and asked me, "Pat, just what in the heck do you think you're doin?"
"Oh, well, I, um..." I stammered a little. You know what I needed right then? You got it, a game plan. It came on suddenly. "Oh, hey, Frank. What am I doin here?"
"Yes, Pat," she fumed, "What on Earth are you doin hangin from a fence by your pants?"
"Oh, it's not what you think," It wasn't really a lie because, whatever it was she thought it was, it wasn't that, unless she thought it was what it was, but it prolly wasn't, you see? "I been lookin for some extra income, see, and I was on the internet and they had this postin for a secret shopper. You know, they go around to restaurants and stores and stuff and talk about how clean they are and how friendly the people are and things like that. Well, I signed up for it and they sent me a couple of assignments. I did pretty well on 'em, so they promoted me to workin on state project, but they kept me with the private projects, too. So, anyway, they sent me to test these jeans for durability and the sheriff's office asked for someone to come over and test their security. So, I figured I'd just kill two birds with one stone, here. And so, I am in the situation you see me in." I wiggled my feet a little. "Boy, these jeans sure are stur..." Just then, they finished ripping. Thankfully, I managed to break my fall a bit with my hands and my face, so my vital chest part was uninjured.
"Oh! Are you all right?" shouted Frank.
"Yeah, sure, I'm fine," I managed to squeak out, "but those jeans just lost a couple points."
She watched as I cleaned myself up a bit and managed to stem most of the bleeding. Then she asked me the hard question. "How were you plannin to get outta there?"
"Oh," I stopped and looked around, "I...uh..."
She stopped me. "I'll go around and tell Sheriff Tom you're back here and ask him to let you out."
"NO!" I said a bit too loudly. "It's fine, I'll figure it out on my own!"
"Don't be silly, Pat. You're trapped back there and OH MY GOD, LOOK OUT!"
I turned just in time to see the poodles come up on me. Don't worry none about it, I got away from 'em. I'll fill you in on that next time.
Makin this plan turned out trickier than I had anticipated. The impound was surrounded by a ten foot hurricane fence topped with a whole mess of barbed wire. Inside the compound are two of the meanest dogs you ever seen. They're toy poodles, sure, but they're toy poodles with some serious psychological issues. One of them thinks he's a bear and the other thinks he's a bear's sidekick, which is almost as good as bein a bear and you don't have to get in as many fights. The only two entrances to the impound are a) through the police station and 2) through the rolling gate, which is secured by four miles of heavy chain and butts up to a guard house. Sure, the guard house is never really occupied, but it was was there and had to be accounted for in a good game plan. We knew we couldn't get through that much chain without a grinder, which we did have in the truck, but we didn't have no where to plug it in except the police station, and Sheriff Tom prolly wasn't gonna let us run a bunch of extension cord through his station without askin a bunch of questions like, "Why do you need to run an extension cord?" or "What're ya doin with that bench grinder next to my chain?" We didn't have a lot of time to bother with those kind of questions and we didn't have any answers that didn't involve felonies. We also wasn't gonna be able to go through the police station without all sortsa excuses either. Even if we did, we'd prolly have to be escorted into the yard of the impound, ruining our secrecy anyway. We were gonna think up some alternative, but we were already at the impound and we didn't want to put it off any longer. It turns out our plan was that Douggy'd give me a boost over the fence, I'd open the van up and then I'd fly out of there on Carl's back. Barrin that, we'd lower the chain of the tow truck over the fence and we'd climb to freedom. How hard could it be?
Everything was going swimmingly for the first bit, you know, the part where Douggy boosts me over the fence. Then, we hit a little snag. It wasn't a problem in our plannin or nothin like that. We hit a real, actual, honest-to-goodness snag. Well, I hit the snag, and that snag was called barbed wire. I'd commited myself to the drop when my pants got all caught up in the barbed wire. Everything went spinny for a second and the next thing I know, I'm hangin upside down from a fence with a swatch of concrete starin me in the face from 8 feet away. I coulda prolly figured my out of that mess if the waist on my jeans hadn't given out so I started slippin. I was worried about my face meetin the aforementioned concrete when my boots got caught up in my jeans, leavin me in the same predicament, only 2 feet lower. Even that wouldn't have been the end of the world if I'd been given time to think about it. Sadly, it was not to be.
There I am hangin upside down in my skivvies, tryin to break into the car impound in total secrecy when who should walk up but my sister Frank. She didn't look none to happy to see me, either, I tell you what. She stood right on the other side of the fence, hands on her hips and arms akimbo, and asked me, "Pat, just what in the heck do you think you're doin?"
"Oh, well, I, um..." I stammered a little. You know what I needed right then? You got it, a game plan. It came on suddenly. "Oh, hey, Frank. What am I doin here?"
"Yes, Pat," she fumed, "What on Earth are you doin hangin from a fence by your pants?"
"Oh, it's not what you think," It wasn't really a lie because, whatever it was she thought it was, it wasn't that, unless she thought it was what it was, but it prolly wasn't, you see? "I been lookin for some extra income, see, and I was on the internet and they had this postin for a secret shopper. You know, they go around to restaurants and stores and stuff and talk about how clean they are and how friendly the people are and things like that. Well, I signed up for it and they sent me a couple of assignments. I did pretty well on 'em, so they promoted me to workin on state project, but they kept me with the private projects, too. So, anyway, they sent me to test these jeans for durability and the sheriff's office asked for someone to come over and test their security. So, I figured I'd just kill two birds with one stone, here. And so, I am in the situation you see me in." I wiggled my feet a little. "Boy, these jeans sure are stur..." Just then, they finished ripping. Thankfully, I managed to break my fall a bit with my hands and my face, so my vital chest part was uninjured.
"Oh! Are you all right?" shouted Frank.
"Yeah, sure, I'm fine," I managed to squeak out, "but those jeans just lost a couple points."
She watched as I cleaned myself up a bit and managed to stem most of the bleeding. Then she asked me the hard question. "How were you plannin to get outta there?"
"Oh," I stopped and looked around, "I...uh..."
She stopped me. "I'll go around and tell Sheriff Tom you're back here and ask him to let you out."
"NO!" I said a bit too loudly. "It's fine, I'll figure it out on my own!"
"Don't be silly, Pat. You're trapped back there and OH MY GOD, LOOK OUT!"
I turned just in time to see the poodles come up on me. Don't worry none about it, I got away from 'em. I'll fill you in on that next time.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Toast Trees
We had a late night gettin all the solderin done and the satellites in orbit and the squimonk explainin somethin about how, in an infinite universe, everything that could possibly happen is always happening which I didn't get, so I won't go into detail on all that. We was tryin to work fast because we didn't know when McClawenstein would send someone on down to the impound to pick up the van. We worked until one, one thirty Friday night. I was thinkin I'd sleep right in, maybe get up around 9, laze around the house drinkin coffee and doin that new soo-doe-koo thingamajig they got in the paper now. Instead, as soon as that sun came over the horizon and the birds started singin, I was layin in bed thinkin that there was no way one earth I was gonna get up at seven o'clock on a Saturday mornin after workin hard all night. But nature is a harsh mistress and when she calls, you gotta get up, wander to the big white phone and answer by fillin up a tiled room with the sound of a waterfall. Then, since you're up already, you might as well go to another tiled room and get some other water runnin over some ground up beans so you can start fillin up the ol' bladder again.
I stood at my sink and looked out my window for an hour or so while I drank two or three cups of coffee and ate some toast. I know some people think I eat over the sink because there ain't no one to tell me to use a plate, but that ain't the case. The sink is the perfect place to eat toast or a sandwich or whatever. If you drop any crumbs, they're goin right into the disposal. Some of em get to the disposal by way of the beard. Of course, there are those that just stay with the beard until they decide they've had enough and make their escape in the car or a bowl of soup I may be havin for lunch or, for some of the lucky ones, they fling themselves out of the beard as I'm drivin down the road on a sunny day with the window open and they get to stumble down the highway in the sun like a man lightin out for the territories. I like to think that maybe someday, one of them crumbs that fly out of my beard will settle on some pieve of fertile ground next to a cornfield or maybe the fishin hole and through some kind of magic or crazy science, that crumb will turn into a little seed and start sendin out shoots, reachin for the nutrients below and the sun above, strainin, strainin for life. Then, if the soil is good enough and the sun's not out too long and we get enough rain; not enough to flood, mind you, just enough to water some; if all these things come together, that little beard seed will grow into a giant, magnificent toast tree. I'd sit under that tree in the summer, layin with my head on its trunk, a jar of peanut butter in my hand, and I'd think about life and how funny it is that toast can grow into a tree. Sometimes, I think I'd build a house up in the toast tree and stock it with coffee and jam. I'd put a sink in that tree house with a window over it so I could reach out, grab some ripe toast and munch it over my sink, thinkin about the other toast trees that will spread through my beard. I gotta say, this is prolly why it takes me an hour or two to eat my toast and drink my coffee over the sink, goin off on all these wild flights of fancy.
Followin my toast tree revery, I was ready to get into the donut shop and see what was shakin with the van. By the time I got to the shop, there was a flurrly of tiny, fuzzy activity. I asked the nearest squimonk, "What's the haps?"
Hurrying past, he barely looked at me when he said, "There's a problem."
Before I could ask what it was, I heard Alistair call me from behind. "Pat, we've got a problem and we're gonna need your help."
How could I say no? "Sure, what is it?"
"We've had a team installing trackers on the van, but the installation took longer than we anticipated and now the sun's up and they're stuck in the van. To make things worse, the meth dealer guy is in the police station now filling out the paperwork to get the van released. If we don't get those squimonk out of the van, they'll be in big trouble."
"Why don't they just leave the van?" I asked. "After all, you guys pass for squirrels all the time. Isn't that what you were made for?"
"Ok, look," he began again, "when I said we had a team in there, I meant we had Carl in there. And Carl can't leave the van because, being part whale, he's 6'2". If you want to explain to the good citizens of this town why there's a 6'2" squirrel monkey lumbering down the road shootin mucas and whatever other foulness out of a hole in his head, then be my guest."
"Well, why didn't you say so in the first place?"
"I don't know, Pat."
"Well, what do you need me to do?"
"We need you to go one down to the impound and pick up Carl. Sneak him out so no one sees him. Then, all you gotta do is drive him back here."
And doin that simple task turned into more of an adventure than I thought it would be. I'll tell ya all about it tomorrow.
I stood at my sink and looked out my window for an hour or so while I drank two or three cups of coffee and ate some toast. I know some people think I eat over the sink because there ain't no one to tell me to use a plate, but that ain't the case. The sink is the perfect place to eat toast or a sandwich or whatever. If you drop any crumbs, they're goin right into the disposal. Some of em get to the disposal by way of the beard. Of course, there are those that just stay with the beard until they decide they've had enough and make their escape in the car or a bowl of soup I may be havin for lunch or, for some of the lucky ones, they fling themselves out of the beard as I'm drivin down the road on a sunny day with the window open and they get to stumble down the highway in the sun like a man lightin out for the territories. I like to think that maybe someday, one of them crumbs that fly out of my beard will settle on some pieve of fertile ground next to a cornfield or maybe the fishin hole and through some kind of magic or crazy science, that crumb will turn into a little seed and start sendin out shoots, reachin for the nutrients below and the sun above, strainin, strainin for life. Then, if the soil is good enough and the sun's not out too long and we get enough rain; not enough to flood, mind you, just enough to water some; if all these things come together, that little beard seed will grow into a giant, magnificent toast tree. I'd sit under that tree in the summer, layin with my head on its trunk, a jar of peanut butter in my hand, and I'd think about life and how funny it is that toast can grow into a tree. Sometimes, I think I'd build a house up in the toast tree and stock it with coffee and jam. I'd put a sink in that tree house with a window over it so I could reach out, grab some ripe toast and munch it over my sink, thinkin about the other toast trees that will spread through my beard. I gotta say, this is prolly why it takes me an hour or two to eat my toast and drink my coffee over the sink, goin off on all these wild flights of fancy.
Followin my toast tree revery, I was ready to get into the donut shop and see what was shakin with the van. By the time I got to the shop, there was a flurrly of tiny, fuzzy activity. I asked the nearest squimonk, "What's the haps?"
Hurrying past, he barely looked at me when he said, "There's a problem."
Before I could ask what it was, I heard Alistair call me from behind. "Pat, we've got a problem and we're gonna need your help."
How could I say no? "Sure, what is it?"
"We've had a team installing trackers on the van, but the installation took longer than we anticipated and now the sun's up and they're stuck in the van. To make things worse, the meth dealer guy is in the police station now filling out the paperwork to get the van released. If we don't get those squimonk out of the van, they'll be in big trouble."
"Why don't they just leave the van?" I asked. "After all, you guys pass for squirrels all the time. Isn't that what you were made for?"
"Ok, look," he began again, "when I said we had a team in there, I meant we had Carl in there. And Carl can't leave the van because, being part whale, he's 6'2". If you want to explain to the good citizens of this town why there's a 6'2" squirrel monkey lumbering down the road shootin mucas and whatever other foulness out of a hole in his head, then be my guest."
"Well, why didn't you say so in the first place?"
"I don't know, Pat."
"Well, what do you need me to do?"
"We need you to go one down to the impound and pick up Carl. Sneak him out so no one sees him. Then, all you gotta do is drive him back here."
And doin that simple task turned into more of an adventure than I thought it would be. I'll tell ya all about it tomorrow.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Infinite Pie
These squimonk is gettin way too smart for an old guy like me. They been workin round the clock on gettin this van we towed rigged up with some bloopy-bleepy thing that's gonna let us follow it around from space. And it's not like they even own a satellite or anything, they're using a weather satellite that NASA or whoever turned off ten years ago. They figured some way to turn that sucker back on and then have it cruise around to other decomissioned satellites to take parts from them that it will need to track a van. To top it all off, they've got to disguise the tracking device so that when McClawenstein or his people sweep the van for bugs, it won't show up as anything more than a blown fuse. Their plan is to release the van, track it on its deliveries, then blow the fuse goin to the radio. This last part's gonna send the driver back to base for repair because meth addicts can't do nothin without music of some sort. They're thinkin the driver'll get right to headquarters, replace the fuse, throw the burnt out one in the trash and go about his merry, or at least very hyper and itchy, way, leavin the tracker there. Then, they're gonna send out some sorta microwave signal or somethin to get a 3-d layout of the base and then figure out how to strike. Me, I'd just follow the guy around or maybe tie some string to the bumper of the car, but they gotta get all fancy.
To put this plan to work, they was sittin around solderin circuit boards and stuff in the back all day yesterday. I'm an old hand at solderin stuff together, even though it's usually wobbly metal table legs or old toys my nephew broke that I wanna fix up before they go to the Goodwill. I don't figure that, even if a kid is poor, they're gonna want a singin doll that don't sing. I mean, they probably get enough sadness in their life when they have to eat all that creamed corn and pumpkin pie fillin that everyone donates during thanksgiving. They're lookin at the tv or the ads or somethin and they see all this turkey and potatos and stuff and what do they get in the middle of the table? Can of creamed corn. So, I try to bring a little extra happiness into those poor kids' lives by givin 'em old toys that, while they are a little dirty and threadbare, actually work the way they're supposed to. I like to imagine those kids thinkin that the toy is magic or somethin when it starts singin or dancin or whatever it is.
So, there I am, sittin in the donut shop, soldering a couple of wires onto a board when I overhear a couple squimonks havin this conversation.
"Just because we can't see the end doesn't prove that the universe is infinite! That's a ridiculous proposition."
"I tell you, it has nothing to do with whether we can see the end or not."
"Then how can you stand there and say that you know definitively that the universe is infinite?"
"It's easy. Think about containment."
"I'm thinking about containment, but it's not helping."
"Do you agree that something infinite cannot be contained by something finite?"
"I do."
"So, then, a finite universe cannot contain infinite things?"
"True."
"Then, were we to find even one infinite thing, we could say that the universe would logically be infinite?"
"That is true."
"Then I have you!"
"Have you?"
"I do."
"Explain."
"Pie."
"Pie?"
I drifted off at this point. I've never seen an infinite pie myself, but I imagine it would be delicious; infinitely delicious. I was ponderin this to myself, this infinite pie of deliciousness, and I came up with some ideas. First, the pie would obviously have to be mixed berry of some kind. I at first thought it'd be strawberry rhubarb, because it covered fruits and stalks in the ground. But then I realized it covered only an odd berry, the strawberry, which has its seed outside. Then, I thought it may be something whacky, like banana cream or lemon meringue. Then, I stopped, took a deep breath, and asked myself, "Pat,"
"What?" I responded.
"You're talkin to yourself again."
"Oh, am I?" I was surprised by this.
"You sure are, and you're wandering off topic."
"Yeah," I admitted, "I do that once in awhile."
"I second that," I affirmed.
"And I'll third it," I piped in.
"Quiet, you!" I threatened.
I was cowed, "sorry."
I returned to my previous self. "So, what was it you were gonna ask me?"
I was shaken out of my woolgathering, "Oh, I'm sorry, I was lost in a weird world of existentialism."
"What's that?" I asked.
"Nevermind, we don't have time for that now. I need to ask you a question."
"Shoot!" I was feeling gracious.
"What kind of pie would God eat?"
"Huh?"
"You heard me. If God were eating pie, what kind would it be?"
I was taken aback by the question. "Are you a durned fool? Anyone knows it'd be mixed berry. He's gonna eat as much of everything as he can."
I had my answer and went back to soldering, humming to myself. The squimonk in the earlier conversation wrinkled their brows, looked at each other and slowly backed away. I think they're workin on the satellite stuff now.
Boy howdy, now I want some pie.
To put this plan to work, they was sittin around solderin circuit boards and stuff in the back all day yesterday. I'm an old hand at solderin stuff together, even though it's usually wobbly metal table legs or old toys my nephew broke that I wanna fix up before they go to the Goodwill. I don't figure that, even if a kid is poor, they're gonna want a singin doll that don't sing. I mean, they probably get enough sadness in their life when they have to eat all that creamed corn and pumpkin pie fillin that everyone donates during thanksgiving. They're lookin at the tv or the ads or somethin and they see all this turkey and potatos and stuff and what do they get in the middle of the table? Can of creamed corn. So, I try to bring a little extra happiness into those poor kids' lives by givin 'em old toys that, while they are a little dirty and threadbare, actually work the way they're supposed to. I like to imagine those kids thinkin that the toy is magic or somethin when it starts singin or dancin or whatever it is.
So, there I am, sittin in the donut shop, soldering a couple of wires onto a board when I overhear a couple squimonks havin this conversation.
"Just because we can't see the end doesn't prove that the universe is infinite! That's a ridiculous proposition."
"I tell you, it has nothing to do with whether we can see the end or not."
"Then how can you stand there and say that you know definitively that the universe is infinite?"
"It's easy. Think about containment."
"I'm thinking about containment, but it's not helping."
"Do you agree that something infinite cannot be contained by something finite?"
"I do."
"So, then, a finite universe cannot contain infinite things?"
"True."
"Then, were we to find even one infinite thing, we could say that the universe would logically be infinite?"
"That is true."
"Then I have you!"
"Have you?"
"I do."
"Explain."
"Pie."
"Pie?"
I drifted off at this point. I've never seen an infinite pie myself, but I imagine it would be delicious; infinitely delicious. I was ponderin this to myself, this infinite pie of deliciousness, and I came up with some ideas. First, the pie would obviously have to be mixed berry of some kind. I at first thought it'd be strawberry rhubarb, because it covered fruits and stalks in the ground. But then I realized it covered only an odd berry, the strawberry, which has its seed outside. Then, I thought it may be something whacky, like banana cream or lemon meringue. Then, I stopped, took a deep breath, and asked myself, "Pat,"
"What?" I responded.
"You're talkin to yourself again."
"Oh, am I?" I was surprised by this.
"You sure are, and you're wandering off topic."
"Yeah," I admitted, "I do that once in awhile."
"I second that," I affirmed.
"And I'll third it," I piped in.
"Quiet, you!" I threatened.
I was cowed, "sorry."
I returned to my previous self. "So, what was it you were gonna ask me?"
I was shaken out of my woolgathering, "Oh, I'm sorry, I was lost in a weird world of existentialism."
"What's that?" I asked.
"Nevermind, we don't have time for that now. I need to ask you a question."
"Shoot!" I was feeling gracious.
"What kind of pie would God eat?"
"Huh?"
"You heard me. If God were eating pie, what kind would it be?"
I was taken aback by the question. "Are you a durned fool? Anyone knows it'd be mixed berry. He's gonna eat as much of everything as he can."
I had my answer and went back to soldering, humming to myself. The squimonk in the earlier conversation wrinkled their brows, looked at each other and slowly backed away. I think they're workin on the satellite stuff now.
Boy howdy, now I want some pie.
Monday, February 23, 2009
A Lucky Find
When I got in about 5:30 this mornin, there was a message waitin on the machine for me. It was sheriff Tom, who's the sheriff around these parts, that's why we call him Sheriff Tom. We used to call him officer Tom, before that, he was cadet Tom and, before that, Tom. He always seemed to us like a man who needed a title. Even when we was kids, we would refer to him as ...Tom. There was just somethin about that guy that made you leave space for the title. I remember when we was in high school, and he was two years ahead of me, a lot of kids, and even a couple of the teachers, called him The Tom, sensing that he would take a big title some day, but satisfying themselves in the meantime with a definite article, which is almost as good as a title. Anyway, sheriff Tom left a message sayin that there was a delivery van down on van Buren street that'd been parked for a full day in a two hour zone and asked if me and Douggy would come down and tow it. He passes the tow jobs around to all the trucks in town. He's got a right straight sense of fairness, that sheriff Tom.
I gave him a call back and told him that we had to wait until Douggy got in, but we'd be pleased as passionfruit in punch to go down and tow that sucker outta there. Them tow jobs pay fifty buck each, and Douggy and I were runnin low on beer money. We was playin this new drinkin game last night, it's called "drinkin beer". Douggy explained the rules to me and they was pretty easy; step 1 drink a beer; step 2 you win. I won that game a half dozen times in the last couple of days. It's a lot easier of a game than 'chase the greased pig' or 'Mr. Widget goes to Washington and comes back embittered and wearing a stocking hat oh by the way that's not Washington DC but Washington state'. I can't remember most of the rules for either of those games, but there's something about drawing a king that makes you drink. I usually just drew trees and the like when I was playin. Where am I? Oh, right, Douggy and I wanted to win that game a couple dozen more times, so I agreed to go on down to van Buren and tow that delivery van.
By the time Douggy got in, he was pretty excitable. He said he had a little bit of a hangover this mornin combined with a lot of yellin wife, which is usually a bad combination. I would think she'd be happy about all the times he was able to win, but she wasn't. She just asked him why we had to go to a conference in California last week, which is what we told her when we went to the Antarctic volcano base. She's no dummy, though, and saw that a convention of donut baking mechanics wouldn't be a big meeting. I told her there were people all over the world that had those particular talents that they'd combined but she didn't buy it. Ever since then, she's been asking for proof that he attended the conference and he's had the squimonk working on forging passes and laminated cards and t-shirts and stuff. They're pretty busy goin over Amelia Earhart's information, so they've done a really half baked job of it. By that I mean that, instead of laminating the convention pass, they covered it in plastic wrap and put it in the over for a couple of minutes. Douggy tried to play it off like he'd left his badge in the sun the day we went to Disneyland, but she wasn't havin none of it. So now, she thinks he and I went fishin and left her behind and she's angry about it because she loves to fish. I tell ya, Douggy got a good one.
After his fightin and yellin at home, Douggy came in on the wrong side of bitter with a touch of business end of a headache he was dealin with. He seemed to get a little better when I told him about the tow job. I think that's mostly because Douggy likes drivin around in that tow truck a lot more since we threw that ninja into the black hole. He feels like he knows how the truck handles and how to get the most out of it. Now when we get in the tow truck, it's like drivin around with a 16 year old, except he's got a big ol' rough grey beard, he's wearin Carharts and smokin a cigar that smells like used gym socks soaked in week old milk and then wrapped up in soft used records.
We tear out of the parking lot, throwin gravel all over the front of my shed, and by the time we make it to the main road, we've got to be going somewhere near the speed of sound. I don't remember sayin nothin on the drive over there, but I'm pretty sure we were singin along to the radio. Ever since Douggy got that truck, there's been a Jim Croce tape stuck in the tape player and the volume knob's broken off. Neither of us really likes Jim Croce that much, but we sure as heck seem to know all the words to "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" who is, if you didn't know, the baddest man in the whole damn town. He is also badder than old king kong along with being meaner than a junkyard dog. We was on "Time in a Bottle" by the time we got to the van, and it seemed like Douggy might have been over his bein yelled at, but he was still a little jumpy.
We got out of the truck and started chainin up the van. Just before we lift it up, this guy comes runnin out of the building yellin "No, wait!" This guy was thin and pale, with pimples all over and no teeth. It looked like someone had built a human skeleton out of leftover wood and was plannin on coverin it all over with burlap, but just didn't have enough to go around so they tried to pull it real tight and staple it in the back, then they left that out in the sun for a few weeks while their kid shot it with red paintballs and then, when all that was done, they slapped a ripped up Skynard t-shirt onto it and threw in a ratty mullet to boot. I swear, if that guy had turned to the side, he woulda disappeared. He made up for his thinness with energy, I tell you.
He runs out, barefoot in the snow, wearin nothin but a t-shirt and some ripped up shorts yellin, "Hey, hey hey hey hey! Hey, man! Hey! Hey! Man! Hey! I mean, man, hey, I mean, what're ya doin man! Huh? Hey! Huh? Woah." Then he stood there shiverin, or was it twitchin, in the snow waitin for a response like he'd said somethin we could follow.
"Well, sir," I told him, "we're towin this here van."
He looked quickly back and forth between me and Douggy. "We? We man? I ain't towin this van! There's no 'we' here! Man, the van, man! Why you towin the van? You can't just, you know, fascists do that, man, you know, towin vans. Are you a fascist, man? Van man! Man! The van! Wait! No! You can't tow that van, man!"
I looked over at Douggy, but he just shrugged. "Listen, sir," I tried bein calm, "this van has been in a two hour parking zone for over a day now, and we're under orders from the sheriff to tow it."
"Wait! What?! A day? You're crazy, man, you're crazy! I just went in to deliver...um..you know, like, art supplies and stuff to this guy in here and we got to...um...you know, like, painting! I swear it was just five minutes, there man! You can't take that van! Man! Not the van! I need that van!"
"Art supplies, huh?" I ask, looking at the building he came out of. It didn't look like a place art was made unless your idea of art is standin around burnin drums and peein on the wall. "Well, sir, if you need the van, you can come down to the impound and get it out for $100."
He exploded. "A hundred dollars!? What?! Man! What?! A Hundred?! What?! You can't do this man! This is, like, woah, man, like, no, man, like...woah man, no man...woah! WOAH! I need this van man! It's, like, not even my van, man! It's...um...my bosses van! I just deliver and he pays me later!"
"Well then," I explained, "your boss can come down and pick it up from the impound. Either way, we're towin this van."
"Oh, man, man! He can't, you know, go, man! He's, like, disabled man! He's, like, not able! You know? Like, man!"
Douggy cut in. "He's disabled, huh? Is he in a wheelchair or something?"
"Nah!" The guy was jumping around by now. "He's like, I dunno man! Like, I can tell you, man, but, like, it's between us and the van. He's, like, a lobster, man! A LOBSTERMAN! Don't let lobsterman get me, man! Without the van, I'm, like, without a head, man! MAN!"
He tried clawing at Douggy and me, but, despite being as energetic as a small kitten, he had the strength of a small kitten. Douggy finished hoistin the van and we got in the cab while the guy was still yellin at us. As we drove away, I looked in the rearview mirror to see him chasin us for a block or so before he just fell to his knees in the snow and let loose a primal scream.
I turned to Douggy, "What was that all about?"
He kept his eyes on the road. "Meth," he said, "that guy was seriously messed up on meth. I'd guess he's a delivery guy for McClawenstein and this here's a delivery van. Pretty lucky find."
"Yeah," I said settling back into the seat, "lucky until the lobster man has to come get it out of impound. What are we gonna do then?"
"Well be ready, Pat. We'll be ready."
I gave him a call back and told him that we had to wait until Douggy got in, but we'd be pleased as passionfruit in punch to go down and tow that sucker outta there. Them tow jobs pay fifty buck each, and Douggy and I were runnin low on beer money. We was playin this new drinkin game last night, it's called "drinkin beer". Douggy explained the rules to me and they was pretty easy; step 1 drink a beer; step 2 you win. I won that game a half dozen times in the last couple of days. It's a lot easier of a game than 'chase the greased pig' or 'Mr. Widget goes to Washington and comes back embittered and wearing a stocking hat oh by the way that's not Washington DC but Washington state'. I can't remember most of the rules for either of those games, but there's something about drawing a king that makes you drink. I usually just drew trees and the like when I was playin. Where am I? Oh, right, Douggy and I wanted to win that game a couple dozen more times, so I agreed to go on down to van Buren and tow that delivery van.
By the time Douggy got in, he was pretty excitable. He said he had a little bit of a hangover this mornin combined with a lot of yellin wife, which is usually a bad combination. I would think she'd be happy about all the times he was able to win, but she wasn't. She just asked him why we had to go to a conference in California last week, which is what we told her when we went to the Antarctic volcano base. She's no dummy, though, and saw that a convention of donut baking mechanics wouldn't be a big meeting. I told her there were people all over the world that had those particular talents that they'd combined but she didn't buy it. Ever since then, she's been asking for proof that he attended the conference and he's had the squimonk working on forging passes and laminated cards and t-shirts and stuff. They're pretty busy goin over Amelia Earhart's information, so they've done a really half baked job of it. By that I mean that, instead of laminating the convention pass, they covered it in plastic wrap and put it in the over for a couple of minutes. Douggy tried to play it off like he'd left his badge in the sun the day we went to Disneyland, but she wasn't havin none of it. So now, she thinks he and I went fishin and left her behind and she's angry about it because she loves to fish. I tell ya, Douggy got a good one.
After his fightin and yellin at home, Douggy came in on the wrong side of bitter with a touch of business end of a headache he was dealin with. He seemed to get a little better when I told him about the tow job. I think that's mostly because Douggy likes drivin around in that tow truck a lot more since we threw that ninja into the black hole. He feels like he knows how the truck handles and how to get the most out of it. Now when we get in the tow truck, it's like drivin around with a 16 year old, except he's got a big ol' rough grey beard, he's wearin Carharts and smokin a cigar that smells like used gym socks soaked in week old milk and then wrapped up in soft used records.
We tear out of the parking lot, throwin gravel all over the front of my shed, and by the time we make it to the main road, we've got to be going somewhere near the speed of sound. I don't remember sayin nothin on the drive over there, but I'm pretty sure we were singin along to the radio. Ever since Douggy got that truck, there's been a Jim Croce tape stuck in the tape player and the volume knob's broken off. Neither of us really likes Jim Croce that much, but we sure as heck seem to know all the words to "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" who is, if you didn't know, the baddest man in the whole damn town. He is also badder than old king kong along with being meaner than a junkyard dog. We was on "Time in a Bottle" by the time we got to the van, and it seemed like Douggy might have been over his bein yelled at, but he was still a little jumpy.
We got out of the truck and started chainin up the van. Just before we lift it up, this guy comes runnin out of the building yellin "No, wait!" This guy was thin and pale, with pimples all over and no teeth. It looked like someone had built a human skeleton out of leftover wood and was plannin on coverin it all over with burlap, but just didn't have enough to go around so they tried to pull it real tight and staple it in the back, then they left that out in the sun for a few weeks while their kid shot it with red paintballs and then, when all that was done, they slapped a ripped up Skynard t-shirt onto it and threw in a ratty mullet to boot. I swear, if that guy had turned to the side, he woulda disappeared. He made up for his thinness with energy, I tell you.
He runs out, barefoot in the snow, wearin nothin but a t-shirt and some ripped up shorts yellin, "Hey, hey hey hey hey! Hey, man! Hey! Hey! Man! Hey! I mean, man, hey, I mean, what're ya doin man! Huh? Hey! Huh? Woah." Then he stood there shiverin, or was it twitchin, in the snow waitin for a response like he'd said somethin we could follow.
"Well, sir," I told him, "we're towin this here van."
He looked quickly back and forth between me and Douggy. "We? We man? I ain't towin this van! There's no 'we' here! Man, the van, man! Why you towin the van? You can't just, you know, fascists do that, man, you know, towin vans. Are you a fascist, man? Van man! Man! The van! Wait! No! You can't tow that van, man!"
I looked over at Douggy, but he just shrugged. "Listen, sir," I tried bein calm, "this van has been in a two hour parking zone for over a day now, and we're under orders from the sheriff to tow it."
"Wait! What?! A day? You're crazy, man, you're crazy! I just went in to deliver...um..you know, like, art supplies and stuff to this guy in here and we got to...um...you know, like, painting! I swear it was just five minutes, there man! You can't take that van! Man! Not the van! I need that van!"
"Art supplies, huh?" I ask, looking at the building he came out of. It didn't look like a place art was made unless your idea of art is standin around burnin drums and peein on the wall. "Well, sir, if you need the van, you can come down to the impound and get it out for $100."
He exploded. "A hundred dollars!? What?! Man! What?! A Hundred?! What?! You can't do this man! This is, like, woah, man, like, no, man, like...woah man, no man...woah! WOAH! I need this van man! It's, like, not even my van, man! It's...um...my bosses van! I just deliver and he pays me later!"
"Well then," I explained, "your boss can come down and pick it up from the impound. Either way, we're towin this van."
"Oh, man, man! He can't, you know, go, man! He's, like, disabled man! He's, like, not able! You know? Like, man!"
Douggy cut in. "He's disabled, huh? Is he in a wheelchair or something?"
"Nah!" The guy was jumping around by now. "He's like, I dunno man! Like, I can tell you, man, but, like, it's between us and the van. He's, like, a lobster, man! A LOBSTERMAN! Don't let lobsterman get me, man! Without the van, I'm, like, without a head, man! MAN!"
He tried clawing at Douggy and me, but, despite being as energetic as a small kitten, he had the strength of a small kitten. Douggy finished hoistin the van and we got in the cab while the guy was still yellin at us. As we drove away, I looked in the rearview mirror to see him chasin us for a block or so before he just fell to his knees in the snow and let loose a primal scream.
I turned to Douggy, "What was that all about?"
He kept his eyes on the road. "Meth," he said, "that guy was seriously messed up on meth. I'd guess he's a delivery guy for McClawenstein and this here's a delivery van. Pretty lucky find."
"Yeah," I said settling back into the seat, "lucky until the lobster man has to come get it out of impound. What are we gonna do then?"
"Well be ready, Pat. We'll be ready."
Saturday, February 21, 2009
The History of McClawenstein
Three squimonk came into the shop yesterday carryin a folder fatter than a former linebacker with a knee injury who eats burger king once a day. They'd been diggin through Amelia Earhart's records and were compilin doss-ee-ays, whatever that is, on the higher ups in clan platypus. Now, I ain't sure what a doss-ee-ay is, but this thing didn't look like nothin fancy like that, it just looked like a big pile of information. They told me they'd collected all the information they could find about the regional leader, McClawenstein. I ain't gonna tell you all the sordid details, but this guy's got an interestin history, even if he is evil beyond all imagining. So, I'm just gonna try to hit the good bits. I may fill in details the way I think they may have happened because that's missing out of the folder. I promise you, though, at least half of what I'm about to tell you comes straight out of that reading.
There ain't much about McClawenstein before September 5 of 1982. I'm gonna say that he grew up fairly normally, liked playin with cap guns and GI Joe, but there was somethin wrong with him. He wouldn't play those games like normal kids would, but he would take his GI Joe and put its wee little head inside the cap gun, hoping to deafen the doll. He would always play alone because of this and also because he was known as the stinky kid in class. This wasn't his fault, his parents were German and Scottish immigrants who could only agree on one type of food; boiled cabbage. In McClawenstein's house, there was always cabbage boiling; sometimes it was boiled in water and sometimes in vinegar. At school, the kids couldn't get within 10 feet of McClawenstein before they fell down chokin with waterin eyes, overcome by the vinegar and cabbage smell. Even his teachers had to wear special protective suits to grade his homework, which always smelt like cabbage and sadness. This turned McClawenstein into an isolated kid who never got to go to the swimmin hole with the other kids or watch Thundercats at his friends house or have a sleepover or any of the other things normal kids do.
With their cabbage cloud of depression hangin around them, McClawenstein's family had a limited number of things they could really do on the weekends. They spent a lot of time hiking far away and downwind of any other people, at the request of the city and under penalty of exile. Once a month, the local charity for stinky kids, Helping Hand With the Other One Plugging the Nostril (the HHWOOPN, or hwhoopin', for short) would meet and take those poor stinky kids on events. They'd arrange for places to be empty of people and for the area to be cleaned after the stinky kids left. They were kind of like the boy scouts, except for stinky kids. They also didn't have uniforms. They didn't need them because, when you're around a stinky kid, you are well aware of it. During these weekends, McClawenstein and his family felt like they belonged somewhere. HHWOOPN always started the meeting with a chant, called the HHWOOPN Cough, and then let the children run free in pairs. McClawenstein usually teamed up with his best friend Chuck, who smelled like old cheese and socks because his parents were dairy farmers and overactive footal sweat glands ran in his family, and they'd go do whatever exciting thing there was to do; ride the roller coaster, pillage the dump or even work together to corner the goats in the petting zoo so they could pet them before the goats passed out.
Then, on September 3, 1982, the unthinkable happened. HHWOOOPN was taking a tour of the aquarium, which was scheduled to be closed for six months for remodeling and a thorough cleaning anyways. McClawenstein and Chuck were playing their usual games when, due to an error in paperwork or possibly a vengeance complex against stinky kids, the cleaning and remodeling contractors showed up a day early and began unloading supplies. What neither of them knew was that they had leaky supplies. The cleaning agents slowly crept out of their buckets and mixed with the grout and tiling supplies the remodeler had brought, causing a tragic chemical reaction. The entire aquarium exploded, killing all but one survivor; McClawenstein. He was standing in just the right position behind a pillar and leaning close to the crustaceans exhibit. He didn't take the full force of the explosion, but the glass he was looking through exploded and cut his face up real bad. It didn't help any that the lobsters he was looking at got out and started cutting the rest of him up. It helped even less that he was covered in a previously unknown mixture of grout, bleach, tile cleaner, anti-algae powder and nacho cheese, because the contractor had stopped on the way to the job to pick up some nachos and was going to enjoy them before he got down to work, as contractors have the right to do. The mixture performed some sorta weird reaction on him and he began to absorb the lobsters that were crawling all over him. With each lobster he absorbed, he grew stronger and harder. He waded his way out of the aquarium, no longer man or lobster, but some combination of each. And not in the way that you become a part person/part lobster when you eat lobster, or if lobster eats you. This was somethin different. He was surrounded with a red carapace, his eyes were up on stalks and he now had claws for hands. The real sad part, despite the mutation, is that he still smelled like cabbage, but now he smelled like fish, too.
He ran from the scene of the accident and went into hiding on the bottom of the sea for some time. McClawenstein wasn't seen for another 5 years, when he was working for a traveling carnival. He started there in the sideshow, but worked his was up to management through a combination of brown nosing, good ideas and the ruthless murder of anyone who said anything bad about him. Sometime while he was managing the carnival, he made contact with Clan Platypus. They knew he was traveling into rural areas and could help them spread the meth around. They wanted him to make contact, hand out samples to likely customers and then refer them to the Clan for orders. It worked for a couple of years. McClawenstein got meth addiction to thousands of farmers and workers at gas stations in the middle of nowhere that you only ever get gas at because it's one in the mornin and you need a cup of coffee to make it to Tuscaloosa before six and you figure while you're there, you might as well fill up so you don't have to stop for gas again until you have to pee and grab breakfast.
But the early '90s was a bad time for carnivals. The economy was booming after the long, hard '80s and a new president from Arkansas was trying to bring a new era of prosperity, just like the president before him and the president before him and the president before him said they would do, but this time, they meant it. The middle class was more prosperous because everyone started to get into the stock market, which they thought would always go up, and they were happy because of a whole new class of pills that makes people happy that was bein pushed by doctors. That didn't leave much room for the carnival. Who needs to go ride a 50 year old tilt-a-whirl when you can stay at home, take a Xanax and watch Seinfeld? The carnival slowly crumbled underneath McClawenstein's many feet and eventually went bankrupt.
The German/Scottish lobster man was ready to live the rest of his life in the sea when he was recruited by the Clan. They told him that he'd done such a fine job as a salesman that they wanted him in middle management in their organization. He had another offer for middle management at the time, but that was just with Radio Shack and he'd have to wear a tie, work in a cubicle and not make ridiculous amounts of money doing evil. It was an easy choice for him. Sure, Clan Platypus still made him wear a tie, but he got to do the whole money and evil thing, so it was a compromise he could live with. Since the mid-90s, he's been overseeing the production and distribution of meth in this area.
Also in the folder were some satellite pictures of his base and his distribution network. The squimonk are working on a way to get to and defeat McClawenstein. We'll just have to wait and see what they come up with.
There ain't much about McClawenstein before September 5 of 1982. I'm gonna say that he grew up fairly normally, liked playin with cap guns and GI Joe, but there was somethin wrong with him. He wouldn't play those games like normal kids would, but he would take his GI Joe and put its wee little head inside the cap gun, hoping to deafen the doll. He would always play alone because of this and also because he was known as the stinky kid in class. This wasn't his fault, his parents were German and Scottish immigrants who could only agree on one type of food; boiled cabbage. In McClawenstein's house, there was always cabbage boiling; sometimes it was boiled in water and sometimes in vinegar. At school, the kids couldn't get within 10 feet of McClawenstein before they fell down chokin with waterin eyes, overcome by the vinegar and cabbage smell. Even his teachers had to wear special protective suits to grade his homework, which always smelt like cabbage and sadness. This turned McClawenstein into an isolated kid who never got to go to the swimmin hole with the other kids or watch Thundercats at his friends house or have a sleepover or any of the other things normal kids do.
With their cabbage cloud of depression hangin around them, McClawenstein's family had a limited number of things they could really do on the weekends. They spent a lot of time hiking far away and downwind of any other people, at the request of the city and under penalty of exile. Once a month, the local charity for stinky kids, Helping Hand With the Other One Plugging the Nostril (the HHWOOPN, or hwhoopin', for short) would meet and take those poor stinky kids on events. They'd arrange for places to be empty of people and for the area to be cleaned after the stinky kids left. They were kind of like the boy scouts, except for stinky kids. They also didn't have uniforms. They didn't need them because, when you're around a stinky kid, you are well aware of it. During these weekends, McClawenstein and his family felt like they belonged somewhere. HHWOOPN always started the meeting with a chant, called the HHWOOPN Cough, and then let the children run free in pairs. McClawenstein usually teamed up with his best friend Chuck, who smelled like old cheese and socks because his parents were dairy farmers and overactive footal sweat glands ran in his family, and they'd go do whatever exciting thing there was to do; ride the roller coaster, pillage the dump or even work together to corner the goats in the petting zoo so they could pet them before the goats passed out.
Then, on September 3, 1982, the unthinkable happened. HHWOOOPN was taking a tour of the aquarium, which was scheduled to be closed for six months for remodeling and a thorough cleaning anyways. McClawenstein and Chuck were playing their usual games when, due to an error in paperwork or possibly a vengeance complex against stinky kids, the cleaning and remodeling contractors showed up a day early and began unloading supplies. What neither of them knew was that they had leaky supplies. The cleaning agents slowly crept out of their buckets and mixed with the grout and tiling supplies the remodeler had brought, causing a tragic chemical reaction. The entire aquarium exploded, killing all but one survivor; McClawenstein. He was standing in just the right position behind a pillar and leaning close to the crustaceans exhibit. He didn't take the full force of the explosion, but the glass he was looking through exploded and cut his face up real bad. It didn't help any that the lobsters he was looking at got out and started cutting the rest of him up. It helped even less that he was covered in a previously unknown mixture of grout, bleach, tile cleaner, anti-algae powder and nacho cheese, because the contractor had stopped on the way to the job to pick up some nachos and was going to enjoy them before he got down to work, as contractors have the right to do. The mixture performed some sorta weird reaction on him and he began to absorb the lobsters that were crawling all over him. With each lobster he absorbed, he grew stronger and harder. He waded his way out of the aquarium, no longer man or lobster, but some combination of each. And not in the way that you become a part person/part lobster when you eat lobster, or if lobster eats you. This was somethin different. He was surrounded with a red carapace, his eyes were up on stalks and he now had claws for hands. The real sad part, despite the mutation, is that he still smelled like cabbage, but now he smelled like fish, too.
He ran from the scene of the accident and went into hiding on the bottom of the sea for some time. McClawenstein wasn't seen for another 5 years, when he was working for a traveling carnival. He started there in the sideshow, but worked his was up to management through a combination of brown nosing, good ideas and the ruthless murder of anyone who said anything bad about him. Sometime while he was managing the carnival, he made contact with Clan Platypus. They knew he was traveling into rural areas and could help them spread the meth around. They wanted him to make contact, hand out samples to likely customers and then refer them to the Clan for orders. It worked for a couple of years. McClawenstein got meth addiction to thousands of farmers and workers at gas stations in the middle of nowhere that you only ever get gas at because it's one in the mornin and you need a cup of coffee to make it to Tuscaloosa before six and you figure while you're there, you might as well fill up so you don't have to stop for gas again until you have to pee and grab breakfast.
But the early '90s was a bad time for carnivals. The economy was booming after the long, hard '80s and a new president from Arkansas was trying to bring a new era of prosperity, just like the president before him and the president before him and the president before him said they would do, but this time, they meant it. The middle class was more prosperous because everyone started to get into the stock market, which they thought would always go up, and they were happy because of a whole new class of pills that makes people happy that was bein pushed by doctors. That didn't leave much room for the carnival. Who needs to go ride a 50 year old tilt-a-whirl when you can stay at home, take a Xanax and watch Seinfeld? The carnival slowly crumbled underneath McClawenstein's many feet and eventually went bankrupt.
The German/Scottish lobster man was ready to live the rest of his life in the sea when he was recruited by the Clan. They told him that he'd done such a fine job as a salesman that they wanted him in middle management in their organization. He had another offer for middle management at the time, but that was just with Radio Shack and he'd have to wear a tie, work in a cubicle and not make ridiculous amounts of money doing evil. It was an easy choice for him. Sure, Clan Platypus still made him wear a tie, but he got to do the whole money and evil thing, so it was a compromise he could live with. Since the mid-90s, he's been overseeing the production and distribution of meth in this area.
Also in the folder were some satellite pictures of his base and his distribution network. The squimonk are working on a way to get to and defeat McClawenstein. We'll just have to wait and see what they come up with.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Cleanin up
We had some cleanup to do once we got back from the antarctic. First, the squimonk had still been makin donuts every day while we were gone. They say they did it because they weren't told not to, but, I tell ya, I worked at a pizza parlor when I was younger and I know we'd sometimes put the wrong stuff on a pizza and tell the manager "What?! They didn't order extra sausage on this pizza? That's weird. I guess we'll just have to throw it out. What's that you say? We can just eat that pizza instead? How generous you are to us peons who make mistakes." That sorta thing is what we around here call "country dumb". I was thinkin that's what they was doin, but then I remembered that they're the whole reason for the donut shop in the first place, so it's not like they was rippin me off or nothin. Plus, squimonk tend to split donuts into four pieces and share them among themselves. They tell me it's a monkey thing and I got no choice but to believe 'em. The long and short of it, though, is that we had about eight thousand donuts with nothin to do with 'em. Douggy suggested we build ourselves a nice donut fort, but I had to shoot that idea down. Donuts are just not good fort buildin materials. First, some are cake and some are raised, meanin that your building material lacking the similar density needed to form good walls. Plus, some of them jelly filled ones would just collapse, ruinin your structural integrity. Not to mention the vermin that it would draw. When I was a kid, my neighbor's kid tried buildin himself a fort made of cake. We was pretty excited about it at first because we thought we could just sneak over and have a bite whenever we wanted, but it turned out all wrong. He got the fort built, allright, but we never got that bite for two reasons. First, he fortified that cake fort like nothin I'd ever seen. He had motion detectors and alarms everywhere. If you got anywhere close, the searchlights would come on, the dogs would be set loose by some sorta automatic sysem we never quite figured out and then the guards in the towers would begin firing at you. They was deadly accurate, too. I saw them behead a squirrel at a thousand yards once. The most amazing thing about it, if you wanna know the truth, is that he made it all, and I mean all including the dogs and guards, out of delicious devil's food cake. While it was bad for us, it was allright for him to have a well guarded cake fort. This kid really liked his cake and wouldn't share it with anyone. That is, until the ants came. You see, ants also really like cake and cake guards don't have a whole lot of stopping power against an enemy that is both tiny and numbered in the millions. They'd swarm over his cake fort day and night, and he made all sortsa ingenious inventions to try and stop them. One night, just before school started, he was worn out from buildin cake aardvarks all day and fell asleep in his little cake workshop. In the night, the ants carried him off and we never saw him again. We do get postcards every once in awhile, telling us all about how he's been made the ant king and he is worshipped like a god in their little underground chambers, but the postcards are always postmarked from Poughkipsie, New York, so we think he really just moved there. After he was carried away, it didn't take long for the cake guards and dogs to run down and stop firin. By then we had lost all interest in the cake fort; partially because it had gotten pretty gross sittin out in the Iowa summer and partly because the maze of cheese had just opened and that was a barrel full of excitement to us small town folk. The point bein that, unless we wanted to be carried off by ants or some other kinda insect, we shouldn't really build a donut fort.
That idea set aside, we were lookin around for another one. I suggested we go outside and have a nice, ol' fashioned donut fight, but after lobbin two or three old donuts at each other and nearly takin out an eye or two, we thought that may be a bad idea. I've learned, though, that if you take a bad idea and add goin really fast to it, you sometimes make a good idea. Not all the time, mind you, but sometimes. In this case, takin a fast bad idea and tinkerin with some rubber bands and springs and stuff we had layin around and a couple of 2x4s and I'm pretty proud of the result; the donut gun. We was testin it, and it's strong enough to send a week old donut hurtlin through a metal shed from a hundred paces, leavin a perfect donut-shaped hole. After some figurin and poundin, we made a nice clip for it that can hold a baker's dozen in a little tube thingy which is actually a pair of pantyhose that we added some extra springiness to. You just keep pullin that trigger and them donuts keep launchin off zing zing! They go right through thin metal, boards, some thin trees and even geese if you happen to be standin around admirin the gun while talkin to your friend about how you should probably put a safety on the thing when it goes off in your hands just as the first geese are returnin from their travels to warmer climes. I felt bad at first, but I tell ya, goose killed by donut is tastier than goose killed in any other way. We got some squimonk workin on buildin us a couple more guns because we figured they may come in handy in fightin ninjas. I'm think we'll pull the gun on ninjas some day and they'll tell us "Don't you know ninjas can dodge bullets" and we'll say, "yeah" and then; HA! Donut! Take that, ninja! Someday, it will happen.
So, that was really the first of our cleanup and the only part Douggy and I were involved in. The other problem we had was that Brenda had been kept sedated in the freezer for the week we were gone. It didn't do her any physical harm, and a couple of squimonk dressed up as her to go to work and everything, which got her a promotion and a raise. I think she may be confused about it, but it's nothin we can't explain away with some amnesia or somethin. The biggest problem for us is that she'd missed a week of her soaps, and we didn't know how to make her believe that she'd been asleep for five minutes when all the characters on her shows had found lost twins or shot somebody or made a new enemy or whatever it is that happens of those shows. The squimonk are for broadcastin that week of missed shows directly into her brain as she sleeps. They can do it to each other, and let me tell you how much them little guys know about I Love Lucy, but they don't know if the technology is compatible to humans. For now, they've just snuck a tivo into her house and are showin the episodes daily, but a week behind. I'm just hopin she doesn't come to me when she finds out. I don't know what I would tell her.
The last bit of cleanup isn't happenin here. There's a posse of squimonk who are back at the Antarctic mall searchin through all of Amelia's records to see what we can find about Clan Platypus' plans and secret bases and whatnot. They tell me they're looking into the local head of meth distribution for this area to see if maybe we can't shut it down for now. The only thing they've found so far is that he's named McClawenstein. As soon as they know, though, they'll tell us.
Other than that, I've pretty much just been sittin around and restin, practicin my donut gun. I'm sure I'll be back on the road here soon enough.
That idea set aside, we were lookin around for another one. I suggested we go outside and have a nice, ol' fashioned donut fight, but after lobbin two or three old donuts at each other and nearly takin out an eye or two, we thought that may be a bad idea. I've learned, though, that if you take a bad idea and add goin really fast to it, you sometimes make a good idea. Not all the time, mind you, but sometimes. In this case, takin a fast bad idea and tinkerin with some rubber bands and springs and stuff we had layin around and a couple of 2x4s and I'm pretty proud of the result; the donut gun. We was testin it, and it's strong enough to send a week old donut hurtlin through a metal shed from a hundred paces, leavin a perfect donut-shaped hole. After some figurin and poundin, we made a nice clip for it that can hold a baker's dozen in a little tube thingy which is actually a pair of pantyhose that we added some extra springiness to. You just keep pullin that trigger and them donuts keep launchin off zing zing! They go right through thin metal, boards, some thin trees and even geese if you happen to be standin around admirin the gun while talkin to your friend about how you should probably put a safety on the thing when it goes off in your hands just as the first geese are returnin from their travels to warmer climes. I felt bad at first, but I tell ya, goose killed by donut is tastier than goose killed in any other way. We got some squimonk workin on buildin us a couple more guns because we figured they may come in handy in fightin ninjas. I'm think we'll pull the gun on ninjas some day and they'll tell us "Don't you know ninjas can dodge bullets" and we'll say, "yeah" and then; HA! Donut! Take that, ninja! Someday, it will happen.
So, that was really the first of our cleanup and the only part Douggy and I were involved in. The other problem we had was that Brenda had been kept sedated in the freezer for the week we were gone. It didn't do her any physical harm, and a couple of squimonk dressed up as her to go to work and everything, which got her a promotion and a raise. I think she may be confused about it, but it's nothin we can't explain away with some amnesia or somethin. The biggest problem for us is that she'd missed a week of her soaps, and we didn't know how to make her believe that she'd been asleep for five minutes when all the characters on her shows had found lost twins or shot somebody or made a new enemy or whatever it is that happens of those shows. The squimonk are for broadcastin that week of missed shows directly into her brain as she sleeps. They can do it to each other, and let me tell you how much them little guys know about I Love Lucy, but they don't know if the technology is compatible to humans. For now, they've just snuck a tivo into her house and are showin the episodes daily, but a week behind. I'm just hopin she doesn't come to me when she finds out. I don't know what I would tell her.
The last bit of cleanup isn't happenin here. There's a posse of squimonk who are back at the Antarctic mall searchin through all of Amelia's records to see what we can find about Clan Platypus' plans and secret bases and whatnot. They tell me they're looking into the local head of meth distribution for this area to see if maybe we can't shut it down for now. The only thing they've found so far is that he's named McClawenstein. As soon as they know, though, they'll tell us.
Other than that, I've pretty much just been sittin around and restin, practicin my donut gun. I'm sure I'll be back on the road here soon enough.
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