II

SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS

Last time we saw Bob, he was standing in the middle of the road, hoping to rob somebody. He was determined. It took six different cars hitting him before he conceded defeat and crumpled by the side of the road. The next thing he knew, he was waking up in a white room on a white bed with white sheets and a white pillow. His view of the outside was blocked by white curtains. He sat up and found that he was wearing a white gown, and he saw that his skin (which he’d never seen before, because his entire body was covered in hair) was pure white. He felt his head. It was as smooth as an orange (some of you got that).

He screamed. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!” The window behind the white curtain shattered.

A nurse (who was neither male nor female, and neither black nor white) came rushing in. “Oh my expression of surprise!” the nurse said. “The solid-bone-structurally-challenged patient is moving; someone help me hold him/her down!”

A doctor with broken glasses came in and handed Bob a piece of paper. “Please sign here on the dotted line,” he said. Bob made a scribble with the pen offered him, and the doctor stuck a hypodermic needle into Bob’s neck and guided him back to the bed as he went unconscious.

Now, I’m sure this all seems pretty strange to you. Trust me, I was once unenlightened just as you, but through diligent research and just a little educated guessing I discovered the truth. As you’ll recall, Bob was hit by six cars in the eighties while trying to rob them. Eventually an ambulance came and took Bob to the nearest hospital. The doctors there decided that there was no way a body with every other bone broken could possibly continue to live, so they just threw Bob into a 0° K freezer, because with budget cuts at the hospital, they couldn’t afford to bury anybody. Well, it would seem that Bob was doomed. DOOMED. But Bob was not so easily gotten rid of. He was like a cockroach.

Now we will jump ahead seven hundred years to when the freezer was opened and the body of Bob found. Well, as it turns out, seven hundred years from the eighties is enough time for scientists to learn a lot, and they were able to put Bob back together, because somehow he still had a spark of life left in him.

Now (notice how talented I am at starting paragraphs with the word Now) back to the hospital room where Bob had just been anesthetized. The doctor died shortly of a severe chill, because he couldn’t afford medicine, because he was forced to work for free, because no one else had enough money to pay hospital bills, because the government had taken all their money, because the supreme pizza ruler was greedy, because of a psychological problem that was harder to solve than the chicken or the egg question. And with that I conclude this paragraph; please do read the next one.

When Bob woke up again, he was terribly hungry. Not just a little peckish; he was TERRIBLY HUNGRY. This put him in a bad mood… a terrible mood, and he stomped past the body of the doctor out into the hall and yelled for some food. After a while, a nurse came with a silver platter of cafeteria slop and spoon fed it to the gagging Bob. Bob never again yelled for food in a hospital.

Bob knew he was an outlaw, a highwayman. Just because no one else knew didn’t mean he wasn’t one, and so he knew he needed to tread carefreely. He found his way out of the hospital without being seen by too many people or security cameras, and crawled (to avoid attention) to the nearest gun supply store. There he *cough* “borrowed” a handgun and happened to walk out with it unnoticed. Then he walked out of town to a country road and waited for a lone traveler. He waited. And waited. And waited. And died waiting. No one at that time traveled across land. Even those who weren’t rich enough to afford a teleporter could pick up an old spaceship outfitted with a hyper-drive for less than they paid for each breath of breathable air.

And thus ends the tragic story of the Modern Highwayman. Scholars have long pondered what drove Bob to do the things he did, what his motivations were, and what was going through his head. All the debate on the subject seems pointless to me, however, as it is easy to see what drove him: Not a chauffeur, but an irrepressible urge to be a highwayman. What else could it possibly be?

I

THE MODERN HIGHWAYMAN

Modern highwayman have it hard. I use the singular instead of the plural because, as far as I know (and probably a bit further), there is only one person who is still in the profession. His name is…[cue triumphant music]… BOB! He was a secluded hippie in the eighties and he was really into it—oversized clothes, hair down to his toes, etc., but then he read a book. His life was utterly changed and he became aware of a whole other world than his own. He reasoned that, since all his hippie overlords ordered him to never read anything (especially travelogs, math books, or Utopia) that they must be trying to shield him from knowledge of the real world, a glorious world, a world that Bob just knew he had to be a part of. He was especially intrigued by these people called “highwaymen” who robbed rich travelers on the road. Since he hated the rich, he decided to become a highwayman.

He got a big trenchcoat and a hat just like what he saw in the pictures in the book, then he got a small club and headed out into the real world ready for adventure. Now, he had studied carefully the methods of the highwaymen in the book he’d read, and he was confident when he came to a road and lay in ambush for the first person to travel by. He saw the dust of an approaching carriage, and he leapt up when it was near.

“Stop there!” he cried. “Your money or your life!”
The carriage went right past him at 70mph without even pausing.

“Halt! Come back I say, or you’ll regret it. Your money! Your money or… your life…” Bob tapered off and stomped on the ground in frustration. “What did I do wrong?” He decided to accept the situation stoically, which is surprising only because he had never come into contact with any sort of philosophy, much less one with a real name and all. But I digress.

Now, getting on with my incredibly clever and revealing work of a masterpiece. Bob decided that he would build a barrier so that his prey could not pass by without stopping. He started with several threads taken from his socks and tied to trees, but he soon discovered that old and battered yarn could not stop one of the automatic carriages that used this particular road. He thought about using all his clothes to make a stronger rope. However, his brain decided to release a rare bit of intelligence and he didn’t. Instead, he, himself, Bob, him, the-man-who-tried-to-be-a-highwayman-in-the-twentieth-century, stood in the middle of the road and brandished his cudgel.

The first car just curved around Bob and went on its way. The driver of the second thought he was looking at Sasquatch and swerved off the road, through a fence, over several small trees of the town mayor’s apple orchard, and finally crashed into the newspaper building, where he tried to get them to dispatch an investigative reporter to that area where he’d seen Sasquatch, but no one believed him. They said something about a faint smell of alcohol in his breath. Ridiculous!

]]> http://chickenscratchings.wordpress.com/2009/09/20/the-life-of-bob-part-one/feed/ 0 The Bard http://chickenscratchings.wordpress.com/2009/09/18/whats-this-whats-this/ http://chickenscratchings.wordpress.com/2009/09/18/whats-this-whats-this/#comments Sat, 19 Sep 2009 02:43:35 +0000 Chickenfoot http://chickenscratchings.wordpress.com/?p=13 ]]>

CHECK IT OUT

YouTube???

After lying dormant for many years, Chickenfoot is reemerging with a new creative medium!!!

Ok, yeah, I haven’t used this blog in ages… So what?… What’s my excuse? Uuuuhhhhhhhhh…. Idk…. the point is we should look ahead, not behind!

(Arranged in order of rank.)

Superstition No. 1: Two things are certain in life, death and taxes.

Preposterous, I’ve never heard such a crazy thing. It is impossible to die while living your life, don’t you agree? So death can’t be a certain thing in life.

And taxes, plenty of people don’t pay taxes, I just haven’t figured out how they do it. Okay, so you say that most people who avoid taxes get caught, like most the people in Hollywood, but there was once a person who didn’t pay a cent of taxes. The funny bunny who ate honey and liked money. The little bunny never paid taxes even though he had lots of money. It could be because he ruled the world, but that’s just speculation.

Superstition No. 2: Chickenfoot doesn’t know anything about writing serious nonfiction.

If you’ve read any of my work, I’m sure you can see why this one is bogus.

Superstition No. 3: Black cats, walking under ladders, and breaking mirrors are bad luck.

None of those things are bad luck. Why, I saw eight black cats, walked under at least a dozen ladders, and broke as many mirrors just the other day and—just a minute, my secretary just walked in……Okay, I think I changed my mind about this bad luck stuff. I’ll try to finish writing this thing before the hit men arrive…

Superstition No. 4: Witches are eviiiiiiiiiiiiil, na, ha, ha, ha, ha.

First, which witch are you talking about? Second, is it a broom-flying witch or just one of those cheap excuses for witches that you find on the street? And besides, witches don’t exist. Honestly, I’m looking out a window now and I—…………. I really need to stop drinking beer, especially the root brand. I thought I just saw someone fly past my window on a broom.

Superstition No. 5: Legends and myths have their roots in fact.

Honestly, since when do legends have roots? They’re stories, not plants!

Superstition No. 6: Elvis was a space alien.

I’ll admit that on first appearance it looks that way, but not even space aliens could possibly have such a bad voice. Clearly, he was just an apparition that many people saw (probably due to some weird fever that nobody knows about).

Superstition No. 7: People who don’t own a some sort of Play Station are uncool.

What’s a Play Station?

I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us.
Pigs treat us as equals.

—Sir Winston Churchill

(How cars and airplanes are tested for safety.)

I’m sure you don’t know anything about how cars are tested for safety, so I shall enlighten you.

What’s that? You do? Tell me then, if you”re so smart.

Plastic dummies? Well, I agree about the dummy part, but not plastic. Maybe a bit rubbery around the kneecaps, though.

What else do you know?

Contained testing areas? What’s this stuff about contained testing areas? That’s crazy! Where did you hear that?

TV? TV who? Look, I don’t know this TV person, but he obviously doesn’t know anything about cars. Let me explain things so they’ll make more sense.

***

First, the car is made in a factory. I bet you didn’t even know that. You probably just though that cars grew on trees.

Anyway, secondly, the manufacturers of the car try to find some gullible teenager to drive the car around for a while. If they do, and the car and the teenager both survive, then the factory doesn’t have to make anymore tests. And if the teenager or car doesn’t survive, well, nobody is going to worry about it, since almost no car can survive a teenager’s driving.

If, however, the manufacturers can’t find a teenager to test-drive the car, then the people in the factory have to draw straws.

“Sorry, Fred,” one of the factory foremen says to the man with the short straw. “I’ll phone your wife and tell her there’s no point in waiting dinner on you. And don’t worry, things might come out all right. You’re insured!”

“I might be insured, but I’m not assured,” says the other man (the engineer who designed the car), throwing down the short straw and stamping on it.

“Hey, don’t do that! Do you know how much those things coast nowadays?”

***

The unlucky man is strapped into the car, handed the keys, and assured by a priest that if he repents, then his sins will be forgiven. The runway is cleared, children pulled indoors, and little old ladies are left stranded in the street (which is probably the safest spot).

Vrooooooooom, vroooooooooooooom, v-v-vroom. The car speeds up, swerving wildly from left to right and missing every old lady. The car heads towards a turn, the tires screech, a couple of fence posts take a lifelong vacation by flying several miles away.

The car has survived so far, but the test is pointless until the car crashes. The driver of the car decides to test the foam-covered fenders by hitting the man that held the straws.

“Uff!”

Now the driver has worked up enough courage to crash the car. He aims his car at the only other vehicle in sight—an unlucky limousine. He’s picking up speed! He’s heading straight for the target! Suddenly—BOOM!

How was the driver supposed to know that the car he was aiming at was the President’s?

Sadly, the car didn’t pass the safety test, which now requires that the car be able to stand against nuclear attacks. If it can’t even survive a armor-piercing-high-explosive-presidential-defense missile, then it doesn’t stand a chance.

***

Airplanes testing is in a completely different ballpark entirely. It’s in a football field. The newly-created airplanes are carried out by a team of football players. (That’s how the major league players really get their muscles.) Then the lucky person is dragged out, barely concealing his excitement and joy beneath an anguished grimace.

“Honest,” he says. “I didn’t mean nothin’ when I asked for a raise.”

“But, Bob, don’t you want a big rise in stature? You’re really gonna soar high today!”

Planes are tested less for their durability in a crash, but more for the simplistic design of the controls that allow even a bumbling idiot to land the plane.

I’ve got another pop question for you, surprise! Now, do you know what those big things at either end of the football field are for?

Goals? What do you mean “goals”? That just goes to show that you know nothing about football. Those things are giant slingshots! I thought everybody knew that. You see, the football teams would launch footballs at each other until one team was reduced to zero players. The players stood on each others’ shoulders to get high enough to launch the footballs. (One well-aimed football to the bottom of the tower of players could bring about an instant victory.)

Anyway, the airplane testers use a similar method of launching their planes. When the test plane is high in the air, they say: “Okay, Bob. Now just glide the plane down to the ground and land it.”

“How do I land it?”

“Push the stick gently forward to lower the nose. That’s all there is to it.”

Bob brings the plane in close to the ground, the testers hold their breath (probably because Bob is right above them), the plane glides several yards, and all looks well. Then the plane points straight down and crashes.

“I think the main problem was in the controls,” said one tester later.

“Yeah,” said another. “But look at it this way: the plane stood up to the crash just fine, hardly a scratch on it. Too bad about Bob, though.”

(If you can pronounce the title, then I’m impressed!)

You’ve probably heard that crazy story about a dude called Rumpelstiltskin who helps a girl spin straw into gold. Well, as is so often the case, the common retelling is wrong. First of all, the king didn’t want his precious straw turned into useless gold. NO! The king wanted all the gold that was just lying about his castle to be turned into something useful: straw for his horses to eat.

One day, the king heard a man boasting about how his daughter could spin straw into gold.

“Well now,” the king said to himself, “if she can spin straw into gold, then she ought to be able to spin gold into straw!”

The king sent a letter to the man requesting that the man’s daughter visit the castle. The man agreed, and the daughter was whisked away to the castle and locked in a room filled with gold.

“What am I supposed to do here?” she asked one of the servants who had just at that moment come from backstage.

“Can’t you do anything?” the servant said. “You’re not supposed to have to ask or be told what to do. You’re supposed to just read the king’s mind.”

“Well I can’t!” the girl said. So the servant had to tell her what to do.

“But I can’t do that!” the girl said.

The servant sent a telepathic message to the king explaining that the girl couldn’t turn gold into straw, though she could do the opposite.

The king came up with an absolutely brilliant idea. He searched his entire kingdom until he found a person who could turn gold to straw, took that person to the castle, and started a process that would give his horses an unlimited supply of food (or so he thought). He had the girl spin straw into gold, the gold was given to the other person who turned it into straw that was then given to the girl to turn into gold. And so each person had an constant supply of stuff to work on. (Obviously, the king wasn’t made king because of his brain power).

***

One day, the girl was sitting in her room, grumbling as she worked on straw that she had seen a dozen times before. Suddenly, the people backstage produced a puff of smoke, and a little man appeared as if from… backstage.

“Who are you,” the girl said, sneaking a look at her script.

“I am—cough, cough—Rumpel—cough—stilt—cough—something- or-another… uh, skin,” the little man said somewhat less dramatically than the director wanted; but that’s the price for having puffs of smoke.

“Whatever,” the girl said. Then the smoke cleared revealing the rest of her script. “Uh…uh…Whatever could you want with me, smelly sir?”

Rumpelstiltskin sniffed under his armpit. Clunk. He fell backwards. The stagehands quickly pulled him away, and the backup Rumpelstiltskin ran on stage. “I am here to help you with your troubles that I don’t know exist, according to the director!”

The director made an ominous note on his clipboard, whispering something to his hit man.

“Tell me,” said Rumpelstiltskin. “What are your troubles?”

“Oh, the stupid k—” she lowered her voice. “The stupid king has me in this stupid infinite loop. His stupid servants keep taking this stupid straw that I make to the stupid person down the hall, and that person turns it back into straw. Then the stupid servants take the straw back here and have me turn it into more stupid gold that the other stupid person will turn into straw, and so on.”

“Well, that’s just stupid!” Rumpelstiltskin said. “I’ll tell you what; I’ll end this circle if you’ll do something for me. If you take my child away from me and raise it, then I’ll knock some sense into the king’s head gently guide the king down the correct path of action.”

“What’s the catch?” the girl asked.

“Well, I won’t lie to you. My child is the loudest, most annoying kid that ever saw the light of a light bulb.”

The girl thought about it for a moment. “Can’t I just guess your name?”

“Fine,” Rumpelstiltskin sighed. “If you can guess my name, then you don’t have to adopt my child. But otherwise, you’ve got to take the little twerp darling.”

“OK,” said the girl. “Is your name Stiltrumpelskin? No, huh? Is it Skinstiltrumpel? Rumpelskinstilt? Bob?” The girl finally gave up.

***

Rumpelstiltskin went to the king that night and turned off the tape player that was saying: “You can do anyyyyything. You are a genius. Your peasants looooooooooooove you.”

Then Rumpelstiltskin started whispering in the king’s ear…

The next day, the king jumped out of bed and did his usual morning exercise, walking to the bathroom. Then the king summoned all of his advisors and told them: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created evil.”

“Uh, your majesty, do you know what you’re saying?” one of the advisors asked.

“Oops!” the king said. He flipped through his book of impromptu speeches.

“I am here to tell you,” he said, “that you buffoons have been going around in circles with this straw-to-gold-to-straw thing.” He went on to tell them a piece of his mind, which was about all he could grasp at one time.

So, later that day, the circle was ended, and the girl was dismissed as a useless person who could only make gold, which, as everyone knows, ruins many people’s lives.

And as for Rumpelstiltskin’s child, well, let’s just say that the girl did eventually recover and was released from the insane asylum.

(Why we celebrate the 4th of July.)

Last week, I was talking to a couple of people about the Fourth of July celebrations. One of them, a young kid, asked why we celebrate July 4th. The other man said something about a signing of a Declaration of Independence (whatever that is) and our country’s freedom. Well, I stopped him right then and there and prevented the eight-year-old from getting confused for the rest of his life.

“What on earth are you talking about?” I asked.

The man looked at me in surprise and started to stammer something.

“Kid, don’t listen to a word he says,” I said. “Come over here with me and I’ll tell you the real reason we celebrate the fourth.” The kid came willingly. He knew he could trust me to get the story right, because I had also told him all about Robin Hood and Sir Launcelot.

***

It all started with the Lewis E. Anne Purchase, which, as I’m sure you know, was President Lincoln’s purchase of all the territory east of the Mississippi from the Eskimos. Lincoln had the person who had managed the purchase, Lewis, and another man, Clark Gable, head an expedition that would explore the new territory and see if it was the big, beautiful lagoon the President had wanted, or just more useless land.

Now, Lewis knew absolutely nothing about exploring, so he decided to hire people that did. He drove his rusty Ford into town and parked in front of the local Boy Scout barracks. (In those days, kids were a lot more serious about Boy Scouting.)

Lewis found the lieutenant and asked if he could hire a Boy Scout troop to help him explore the new territory. “Are you attempting to bribe a military officer?” the lieutenant said, glaring.

“No, no, no,” Lewis said quickly. “I just need someone who can help me explore the new territory that the President bought from the Eskimos.”

“Oh, is that all? Well, I think I can give you a troop of scouts.” The lieutenant blew on a whistle and forty Boy Scouts piled out of the barracks. Each of them was clad in a tan uniform and had a huge pack on his back. They, of course, were not armed with rifles (honestly, they were just kids); instead they carried big bazookas.

The lieutenant told them that they had to help Lewis and Clark explore the new territory, and all of them piled into Lewis’s ford. They drove east along the highway until they crossed the Mississippi, then they split up. Half of the troop went with Lewis to explore the peninsula to the south, while the other half went with Clark to the north.

***

Lewis and his men (er, boys, actually) traveled by railroad to the peninsula and started exploring. One day, they found a huge cave with a sign over it that read: “Disney World.” They walked in and looked around. A man was sitting at a desk puzzling over some papers. They walked over.

“Hi,” said Lewis. “Who are you?”

The man looked up. “Who am I, who am I, WHO AM I?!”

“Oh,” said Lewis, “well if you don’t know either, then we’ll just leave.” He turned to go.

“Hey, wait,” the man said. Lewis turned back. “I’m Mr. Disney. I’m trying to figure out how to convert all the great stories into cheesy reproductions that are pathetic compared to the originals, so I can make a lot of money.”

Lewis scratched his head. “How would writing cheesy reproductions get you a lot of money?”

“Beats me, but they sell like crazy. Almost every little child likes my story of the little mermaid that has a happy ending.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! You’re telling me that you wrote a story of the little mermaid with a happy ending? Sorry, fellah, but I’m going to have to arrest you. The President doesn’t want people like you populating his new land.”

“What? Us Eskimos don’t have a president.”

Lewis was shocked (probably because of the electric wire that was lying on the ground). “OW! You mean to tell me that your government didn’t tell you that they sold all this land to us Americans?”

“Is that what they were trying to say?” said Mr. Disney. “I couldn’t understand a word of that crazy Eskimonian dialect.”

“I thought you were an Eskimo.”

“So what? Just because I’m an Eskimo doesn’t mean I should understand the language. Take the English for example. They claim to use English as their language, but none of them can speak it.”

Well, after this, Lewis decided that he should return to the President and convince him to resell the land he had just purchased. He was certain that Lincoln wouldn’t want a land populated by people who couldn’t even speak their own language. (He apparently didn’t notice that Mr. Disney could speak his language, which would be better than him just being able to speak in Eskimo).

***

The kid looked at me with a strange expression. “Are you sure that’s what really happened?” he said.

“Well, why shouldn’t it be?” I asked him. “Anyway, that’s not the whole of it. Clark Gable, as I said, was exploring up north…”

***

Clark was going a lot slower than Lewis had, because he was actually making maps. After several years of traveling around without a razor, he attempted to get back to the President and report his findings. Unfortunately, his beard had grown to extreme lengths and was caught up in all sorts of trees and bushes.

“Go on without me,” Clark said to his troop of Boy Scouts.

“No,” one of them said. “We’d never leave you behind.”

“Why not?” said another. “He’s always shouting orders about like a mad man and eating all of the good food.” So, the Boy Scouts left Clark behind and carried the big pile of maps into the President’s office and said that Clark had been attacked by a giant bear that had swallowed him whole.

The President said: “Let me look at those maps. Hmm… That doesn’t look like such a bad place after all. It’s too bad I sold it all back to the Eskimos, and for half the price I paid, too.”

Lewis, you see, had returned before the Boy Scouts and had gotten Lincoln to sell the land. Later, historians discovered that the whole thing had been a ploy by the Eskimos to get a little extra money.

***

The little boy gave me another strange look. (I think he needs a chiropractor). “But then how did the Americans claim the land east of the Mississippi? After all, we’re living on it right now.”

I chuckled at the boys lack of knowledge. “Honestly, don’t you know that we’re not really Americans, since we live in Illinios? We’re Eskimos!”

Just then, the boy’s mother came up. “Hey, guess what, Mom,” the boy said. “Chickenfoot here has been giving me a history lesson. Now history is my favorite topic!” The boy walked away with his mother, explaining everything that I had told him. Strangely, I’ve never seen that boy since. I guess he’s just too busy with school and all. I did meet his mother the other day, but she seemed to just not recognize me. Weird, huh?

(In which Sir Launcelot is supposed to perform some good deeds.)

There is simply no excuse! Have you ever read a book about knights that says they are going to perform good deeds, but then they go out and actually DO the deeds? Well I have, and let me tell you, this makes no sense. I think whatever author writes a book like that should get a new dictionary and stop confusing people. Honestly, you would think that a common dictionary defined perform as 1: to adhere to the terms of: FULFILL, 2: CARRY OUT, DO, and so on.

Well, I think it’s time I set down the proper definition of perform: 1: to act something out, 2: play a role that isn’t you, i.e. if you play a part in a play or movie then you are ~-ing that part.

Wow, I should write a dictionary of my own. It would probably would make a lot of money, since I know the real meaning of just about every word. Take the word pleuropneumonia, for example, why I… uh… well, everyone knows that word, so I guess there’s not really any reason for me to put it in my dictionary. Hmm, well, I guess I’ll cut the people who wrote the other dictionaries some slack and give them another chance to get it right. But if the next edition of Webster’s Dictionary still has the words wrong…

***

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, now that you know that perform means to act or pretend to do something, rather then actually to do it, I can get on with the story of Launcelot.

The last time we saw Launcelot was when he was narrowly missed by a truck while crossing the highway. After his heart stopped ricocheting around his body, he continued to peddle his way towards Camelot, or at least, where he thought Camelot ought to be. Presently, he came to a big building that was shaped like a globe. He found a door and walked in.

“Hello,” he called cautiously. “Is this where I pick up my pizza?”

A man came out of a door and eyed Launclot up and down. He was holding a pile of papers in one hand, and his other hand was shaking a spear wildly. “Really! Is that the best costume you could find? Well, it will have to do. Come on, it’s almost your cue.” The weird man guided Launcelot towards an open area and pushed him out.

Launclot found himself facing a sea of faces. There were several fish in the sea and he could even make out the shape of a whale in the distance. The weird man tossed a skull into Launcelot’s hands and held up a big sign with words on it. At first the sign said “GO CHICAGO BEARS!!!”, but then it was flipped around, and it read “To be, or not to be…”

Launcelot gathered that he was supposed to say the lines, and he said thoughtfully: “To be, or not to be. Now that is a question.”

A bunch of snot-nosed kids sitting in the front row let out a roar of laughter, and Launcelot had to dodge several globs of incoming snot. He tried to run off the stage and out of the building, but as he was just about to the door, the weird man rushed at him, still shaking his spear wildly.

“Hey, you’re not my lead actor,” he shouted. “But those people loved you. How’d you like to join the King’s Men?”

“Well, I was planning to. That’s why I was heading for Camelot.”

“Listen, I’ll pay you 1/9,999,999 of a penny if you’ll do my next play for me.”

“Wow!” Launcelot was amazed. “With that much money, I can live comfortably for the rest of my life. You’ve got yourself a deal!” To understand this, you must take into account inflation. Money’s not worth what it used to be.

The weird man, who’s name was Willy “Shaky Spear”, explained to Launcelot that the play he was supposed to do was about a wandering knight who ACTUALLY DID good deeds.

“Well, that should be easy for me. I’m already a knight,” Launcelot said.

“Great! Then I guess you won’t have to read the script. You can just act yourself.”

“It won’t go public that I’m doing good deeds in the play will it? I’ve got a reputation to keep, and I want it to stay squeaky clean.”

“Don’t worry,” said Willy. “You’re not actually doing the deeds, just pretending.”

“Oh, well that’s okay. My reputation can survive that, though it’s pushing it.”

***

When everything was ready to go, the play started. One of the stagehands handed Launcelot a prop sword that was actually made of metal. He tossed away his old sword, (which, if you will remember, was made of rubber) and shoved the new sword into his sheath. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a sheath, but from then on he had a permanent sheath in his side.

He walked out onto the stage and glanced back at the sign that Willy held high. It read: “We will win, you will lose. You can’t even tie your shoes.”

Launcelot was glad that Willy hadn’t written any lines for him to say. When the sign flipped, it said: “Go help the fisherman.”

Launcelot saw that at the edge of the stage was an actor dressed up as a fisherman. He had a one of those old style rods (you know, the fiberglass ones), and his bobber could be seen out in the sea near the whale.

Launcelot walked over and squatted down next to the actor. “Anything I can help you with?” he asked.

The actor looked up. “Nope, sonny, not unless you have a bait that will–.” The whale apparently had got hold of the hook, and the actor was jerked from his seat and went whizzing over the sea. “Oooooo,” the sea said.

Launcelot was puzzled for a moment. He turned and saw Willy waving franticly at him and pointing a another man who sat on a prop bridge on the stage. Looking around again, he saw that the entire end of the stage was filled with fishermen who were trying to catch something in the sea of faces. (One was a mother trying to hook her son.)

Launcelot walked over to the prop bridge and sat down next to the man there. But before he could say anything, the man jumped off the bridge with a parachute. He hit the stage floor and made a gargling sound, then threw a bucket of water up at Launcelot. Launcelot glanced over at the sign, “Do what an average knight would do.” He stood up and walked calmly off stage.

“What are you doing!” Willy screamed, shaking his spear even more violently than usual.

“Well,” said Launcelot, “you told me to do what an average knight would do.”

“Yes, exactly. You were supposed to jump in after the man and save him.”

“And get my armor all wet? You must be joking.”

“Well,” Willy said, getting control of his temper, if not his hand, “you could have take your armor off.”

“Oh, please, sir,” said Launcelot, offended. “I would never do something that indecent in front of other people, no matter how much money you pay me. And by the way, where’s my money for doing that play?”

No one knows what happened to Launcelot after that, although it has been noticed that Willy’s spear disappeared at the same time.

(This is a biography.)

Now, I must admit that Howard Pyle got it pretty close when he wrote that Launcelot was raised by the Lady of the Lake. But he left out some important details, which are as follows: Launcelot was raised by the Lady of the Lakeside Resort, and many people did call her the Lady of the Lake. Pyle, however, decided to ignore the historical evidence and wrote a very unrealistic book. (I can assure you that I will never ever write a book that isn’t one hundred percent realistic.)

Anyway, I should now get down to fully explaining the life of Launcelot. In the early years of Arthur, when he was merely a big business tycoon, there was this lesser king called Ban who lived somewhere up north (probably in Canada). Ban had a son named Jack, and Jack loved to play with little toy knights. He would hold tournament after tournament after tournament with all his little friends.

One day, one of these friends said, “I don’t want to play jousting anymore.”

“Why not?” asked Jack. “Look, here’s how things work around here: I say we play something, AND WE PLAY IT. And I say we play jousting.”

“Look ‘Mr. Lance-A-Lot’, we’ve been playing jousting for the past two years straight. Why can’t we play something else?”

I think you’ll like Jack’s method of getting his way. He threatened to kick his friend out the window.

“I’d like to see you try,” the friend said.

So, Jack grabbed his friend, squashed him up into the general size and shape of a football, and drop-kicked him through the window. After that, Jack’s friends all gladly played jousting with him, and Jack christened himself Launcelot in honor of his lost friend’s nickname for him. (And he did lance a lot with his toy knights.)

***

One day, a sophomore at the South England Villains’ College decided to do something really evil. So he rented a big army and camped out on the west side of King Ban’s castle, intent on taking the castle by siege.

Everyday life in the castle went on as normal, if for no other reason than that the gate was on the east side, and there was a big chasm in between the castle and the villain-wannabe.

After a few hours hours of besieging Ban’s castle, the villain-wannabe went bankrupt. “Why on earth did I agree to pay this stupid army by the hour!” he shouted at his empty wallet, but his wallet merely drifted off through the air, it was so light.

So he dismissed his army and devised an ingenious plan to take the castle. (He probably would have gotten extra credit if it had worked.) Here’s what he did: First, he used an old, rusty time machine to go a few hundred years into the future. Once there, he stole a printing press and returned to his own time.

Second, he arranged the type and splattered it with ink, put a piece of paper in it and pressed it down. When he pulled out the paper, instead of the nice letter he had expected, he found a mishmash of gibberish. The writing was backward.

After several years of learning how to put the type in backwards, he used the printing press to make several nice, clean letters. He sent a “You have won…” letter to each person in the castle inviting them to take a FREE vacation at the Lakeside Resort.

When everyone was gone, the villain-wannabe—who now thought he was a true villain—walked boldly into the castle.

“Why, look there,” he said to himself. “Someone has left a football just lying around.”

He kicked at the football. When his foot was an inch from the ball, a hand popped out and grabbed his shoe. “Help me,” the football cried in a pitiful, tiny voice.

Even if the man failed miserably at being a villain, he did at least set a new high jump record!

***

Meanwhile, at the Lakeside Resort, Launcelot was playing with the Lady of the Lake’s son, and King Ban was talking to the Lady. She was telling him how nice and quiet her son was.

“Yes, he’s always real quiet and you know, he’s never cried, not even when he was a little baby. He doesn’t whine or complain about anything. I’m worried about him.”

“Wow,” said Ban. “I wish my little boy was like that.”

“Yeah, but sometimes I wish I had a more adventuresome son,” said the Lady.

“Hmm,” said Ban, looking around cautiously. “I wonder if, maybe, you’d be willing to trade children. My son is always making lots of noise in my castle and climbing the walls—it’s very embarrassing when guests come.”

The Lady agreed, and Ban walked over to his son. “Hi, son. Say, I wonder if you know where the Lady of the Lake’s son is.”

“Yeah, but he didn’t want to play with me.”

“So where is he?”

Launcelot pointed at a football that was lying on the ground and then ran off to find someone else to play with. From then on, Launcelot lived with the Lady of the Lake as his stepmother.

***

When Launcelot was older, he didn’t have any friends, despite his big football collection that he was willing to share.

One day, he decided to become a knight. He asked his stepmother about becoming a knight, and she told him all about chivalry, nobility, and kindness.

“Maybe, I don’t want to be a knight after all. It sounds BORING,” he said.

“Well,” said his stepmother, “there’s also lots of jousting and feasting, winning prizes like teddy bears at tournaments, and risking your life for your country.”

“Hmm, cut off that last bit, and it don’t sound too bad. But I’ll need a suit of armor. I wonder…” Launcelot went down to the city dump and collected several tin cans. He pulled some green bean cans onto his right leg and chili cans on his left. A few tomato cans fit nicely on his arms, and a shiny trash can with the bottom busted out went around his middle. Finally, he poked some holes in a nacho cheese can and set it on his head.

“Do I look like a knight now?” he asked his stepmother.

“No,” she said, giggling, “but Kroger might hire you as a mascot!”

Launcelot couldn’t afford a horse, so he had to settle for an old bicycle. He got a length of PVC pipe to use as a lance and a trash can lid for a shield. He flat out refused to use a crummy little plastic sword, so he got a rubber one. The rubber sword was very light and worked remarkably well, just so long as it wasn’t used in a fight.

Decked out in his shiny armor (he had torn the paper labels off the cans), Launcelot mounted his, um, “steed” and peddled his way toward Camelot, ready for anything that the world might throw at him (except, maybe, for the semi truck that nearly creamed him on the highway).

(This one is to be continued, so be afraid, be very afraid.)