Rollo
10th September 2013, 06:58
Way back when I was just a little bitty boy living in a box under the stairs in the corner of the basement of the house half a block down the street from Jerry's Bait shop. You know the place
well anyway, back then life was going swell and everything was just peachy. Except, of course, for the undeniable fact that every single morning. My mother would make me a big ol' bowl of sauerkraut for breakfast...
Awww - Big bowl of sauerkraut, every single morning. It was driving me crazy.
I said to my mom, I said "Hey, mom, what's up with all the sauerkraut?"
And my dear, sweet mother, she just looked at me like a cow looks at an oncoming train and she leaned right down next to me and she said,
"IT'S GOOD FOR YOU!!!"
And then she tied me to the wall and stuck a funnel in my mouth and force fed me nothing but sauerkraut until I was twenty six and a half years old.
That's when I swore that someday, someday I would get outta that basement and travel to a magical, far away place, where the sun is always shining and the air smells like warm root beer and the towels are oh so fluffy. Where the Shriners and the lepers play their ukuleles all day long
And anyone on the street will gladly shave your back for a nickel. Wacka wacka doodoo yeah!
Well, let me tell you, people, it wasn't long at all before my dream came true because the very next day, a local radio station had this contest to see who could correctly guess the number of molecules in Leonard Nimoy's butt. I was off by three, but I still won the grand prize. That's right, a first class one-way ticket to Albuquerque.
You know, I'd never been on a real airplane before and I gotta tell ya, it was really great, except that I had to sit between two large Albanian women with excruciatingly severe body odor and the little kid in back of me kept throwin' up the whole time. The flight attendants ran out of Dr. Pepper and salted peanuts and the in-flight movie was Bio-Dome with Pauly Shore and, oh yeah, three of the airplane engines burned out and we went into a tailspin and crashed into a hillside and the plane exploded in a giant fireball and everybody died, except for me.
You know why? Because I had my tray table up and my seat back in the full upright position.
Had my tray table up and my seat back in the full upright position. Had my tray table up and my seat back in the full upright position.
Ah ha ha ha ah ha ha ahhhh
So I crawled from the twisted, burnin' wreckage... I crawled on my hands and knees for three full days. Draggin' along my big leather suitcase and my garment bag and my tenor saxophone and my twelve-pound bowling ball and my lucky, lucky autographed glow-in-the-dark snorkel but finally I arrived at the world famous Albuquerque Holiday Inn where the towels are oh so fluffy!
And you can eat your soup right out of the ashtrays if you wanna; it's OK, they're clean.
Well, I checked into my room and I turned down the A/C and I turned on the Spectravision and I'm just about to eat that little chocolate mint on my pillow that I love so very, very much when suddenly, there's a knock on the door. Well now, who could that be?
I say "Who is it?"
No answer
"Who is it?"
There's no answer
"WHO IS IT?!"
They're not sayin' anything
So, finally I go over and I open the door and just as I suspected it's some big fat hermaphrodite with a Flock-Of-Seagulls haircut and only one nostril. Oh man, I hate it when I'm right. So anyway, he bursts into my room and he grabs my lucky snorkel and I'm like "Hey, you can't have that, that snorkel's been just like a snorkel to me"
And he's like "Tough"
And I'm like "Give it"
And he's like "Make me"
And I'm like "'Kay"
So I grabbed his leg and he grabbed my esophagus and I bit off his ear and he chewed off my eyebrows and I took out his appendix and he gave me a colonic irrigation. Yes, indeed, you'd better believe it. And somehow in the middle of it all, the phone got knocked off the hook and twenty seconds later, I heard a familiar voice and you know what it said? I'll tell you what it said
It said, "If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again"
"If you need help, hang up and then dial your operator"
"If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again"
"If you need help, hang up and then dial your operator In Albuquerque. Albuquerque"
Well, to cut a long story short, he got away with my snorkel but I made a solemn vow right then and there that I would not rest, I would not sleep for an instant until the one-nostrilled man was brought to justice but first, I decided to buy some donuts. So I got in my car and I drove over to the donut shop and I walked on up to the guy behind the counter and he says "Yeah, what do ya want?"
I said "You got any glazed donuts?"
He said "Nah, we're outta glazed donuts"
I said "Well, you got any jelly donuts?"
He said "Nah, we're outta jelly donuts"
I said "You got any Bavarian cream-filled donuts?"
He said "Nah, we're outta Bavarian cream-filled donuts"
I said "You got any cinnamon rolls?"
He said "Nah, we're outta cinnamon rolls"
I said "You got any apple fritters?"
He said "Nah, we're outta apple fritters"
I said "You got any bear claws?"
He said "Wait a minute, I'll go check"
"NAH, we're outta bear claws"
I said "Well, in that case - in that case, what do you have?"
He says "All I got right now is this box of one dozen starving, crazed weasels"
I said "OK, I'll take that"
So he hands me the box and I open up the lid and the weasels jump out and they immediately latch onto my face and start bitin' me all over. Oh man, they were just going nuts. They were tearin' me apart. You know, I think it was just about that time that a little ditty started goin' through my head"
I believe it went a little something like this . . .
ahhhh
Get 'em off me
Get 'em off me
Ohhhh
No, get 'em off, get 'em off
Ooooh my God, oh my God
Oh, get 'em off me
Ooooh my God
Ahhhhhhhh!
I ran out into the street with these flesh-eating weasels all over my face; wavin' my arms all around and just runnin', runnin', runnin' like a constipated wiener dog and as luck would have it, that's exactly when I ran into the girl of my dreams. Her name was Zelda.
She was a calligraphy enthusiast with a slight overbite and hair the color of strained peaches.
I'll never forget the very first thing she said to me.
She said "Hey, you've got weasels on your face"
That's when I knew it was true love. We were inseparable after that. Aw, we ate together, we bathed together; we even shared the same piece of mint-flavored dental floss - the world was our burrito. So we got married and we bought us a house and had two beautiful children - Nathaniel and Superfly. Oh, we were so very very very happy, aw yeah.
But then one fateful night, Zelda said to me, she said "Sweetie pumpkin? Do you wanna join the Columbia Record Club?"
I said "Whoa, hold on now, baby, I'm just not ready for that kind of a commitment"
So we broke up and I never saw her again but that's just the way things go in Albuquerque.
Anyway, things really started lookin' up for me because about a week later, I finally achieved my lifelong dream, that's right, I got me a part-time job at the Sizzler. I even made employee of the month after I put out that grease fire with my face. Aw yeah, everybody was pretty jealous of me after that. I was gettin' a lot of attitude.
OK, like one time, I was out in the parking lot; tryin' to remove my excess earwax with a golf pencil
When I see this guy Marty tryin' to carry a big ol' sofa up the stairs all by himself; so I, I say to him, I say "Hey, you want me to help you with that?"
And Marty, he just rolls his eyes and goes "Noooo, I want you to cut off my arms and legs with a chainsaw"; So I did and then he gets all indignant on me
He's like "Hey man, I was just being sarcastic"
Well, that's just great, how was I supposed to know that? I'm not a mind reader for cryin' out loud
Besides, now he's got a really cute nickname - Torso-Boy; So what's he complaining about?
Say, that reminds me of another amusing anecdote. This guy comes up to me on the street and he tells me he hasn't had a bite in three days. Well, I knew what he meant but just to be funny, I took a big bite out of his jugular vein and he's yellin' and screamin' and bleeding all over and I'm like "Hey, come on, don'tcha get it?" but he just kept rolling around on the sidewalk, bleeding, and screaming.
You know, just completely missing the irony of the whole situation. Man, some people just can't take a joke, you know?
Anyway, um, um, where was I? Kinda lost my train of thought. Uh, well, uh, OK. Anyway I, I know it's kind of a roundabout way of saying it but I guess the whole point I'm tryin' to make here is
I
HATE
SAUERKRAUT!
That's all I'm really tryin' to say and, by the way, if one day you happen to wake up and find yourself in an existential quandary; full of loathing and self-doubt and wracked with the pain and isolation of your pitiful meaningless existence, at least you can take a small bit of comfort in knowing that somewhere out there in this crazy old mixed-up universe of ours there's still a little place called
Albuquerque.
well anyway, back then life was going swell and everything was just peachy. Except, of course, for the undeniable fact that every single morning. My mother would make me a big ol' bowl of sauerkraut for breakfast...
Awww - Big bowl of sauerkraut, every single morning. It was driving me crazy.
I said to my mom, I said "Hey, mom, what's up with all the sauerkraut?"
And my dear, sweet mother, she just looked at me like a cow looks at an oncoming train and she leaned right down next to me and she said,
"IT'S GOOD FOR YOU!!!"
And then she tied me to the wall and stuck a funnel in my mouth and force fed me nothing but sauerkraut until I was twenty six and a half years old.
That's when I swore that someday, someday I would get outta that basement and travel to a magical, far away place, where the sun is always shining and the air smells like warm root beer and the towels are oh so fluffy. Where the Shriners and the lepers play their ukuleles all day long
And anyone on the street will gladly shave your back for a nickel. Wacka wacka doodoo yeah!
Well, let me tell you, people, it wasn't long at all before my dream came true because the very next day, a local radio station had this contest to see who could correctly guess the number of molecules in Leonard Nimoy's butt. I was off by three, but I still won the grand prize. That's right, a first class one-way ticket to Albuquerque.
You know, I'd never been on a real airplane before and I gotta tell ya, it was really great, except that I had to sit between two large Albanian women with excruciatingly severe body odor and the little kid in back of me kept throwin' up the whole time. The flight attendants ran out of Dr. Pepper and salted peanuts and the in-flight movie was Bio-Dome with Pauly Shore and, oh yeah, three of the airplane engines burned out and we went into a tailspin and crashed into a hillside and the plane exploded in a giant fireball and everybody died, except for me.
You know why? Because I had my tray table up and my seat back in the full upright position.
Had my tray table up and my seat back in the full upright position. Had my tray table up and my seat back in the full upright position.
Ah ha ha ha ah ha ha ahhhh
So I crawled from the twisted, burnin' wreckage... I crawled on my hands and knees for three full days. Draggin' along my big leather suitcase and my garment bag and my tenor saxophone and my twelve-pound bowling ball and my lucky, lucky autographed glow-in-the-dark snorkel but finally I arrived at the world famous Albuquerque Holiday Inn where the towels are oh so fluffy!
And you can eat your soup right out of the ashtrays if you wanna; it's OK, they're clean.
Well, I checked into my room and I turned down the A/C and I turned on the Spectravision and I'm just about to eat that little chocolate mint on my pillow that I love so very, very much when suddenly, there's a knock on the door. Well now, who could that be?
I say "Who is it?"
No answer
"Who is it?"
There's no answer
"WHO IS IT?!"
They're not sayin' anything
So, finally I go over and I open the door and just as I suspected it's some big fat hermaphrodite with a Flock-Of-Seagulls haircut and only one nostril. Oh man, I hate it when I'm right. So anyway, he bursts into my room and he grabs my lucky snorkel and I'm like "Hey, you can't have that, that snorkel's been just like a snorkel to me"
And he's like "Tough"
And I'm like "Give it"
And he's like "Make me"
And I'm like "'Kay"
So I grabbed his leg and he grabbed my esophagus and I bit off his ear and he chewed off my eyebrows and I took out his appendix and he gave me a colonic irrigation. Yes, indeed, you'd better believe it. And somehow in the middle of it all, the phone got knocked off the hook and twenty seconds later, I heard a familiar voice and you know what it said? I'll tell you what it said
It said, "If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again"
"If you need help, hang up and then dial your operator"
"If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again"
"If you need help, hang up and then dial your operator In Albuquerque. Albuquerque"
Well, to cut a long story short, he got away with my snorkel but I made a solemn vow right then and there that I would not rest, I would not sleep for an instant until the one-nostrilled man was brought to justice but first, I decided to buy some donuts. So I got in my car and I drove over to the donut shop and I walked on up to the guy behind the counter and he says "Yeah, what do ya want?"
I said "You got any glazed donuts?"
He said "Nah, we're outta glazed donuts"
I said "Well, you got any jelly donuts?"
He said "Nah, we're outta jelly donuts"
I said "You got any Bavarian cream-filled donuts?"
He said "Nah, we're outta Bavarian cream-filled donuts"
I said "You got any cinnamon rolls?"
He said "Nah, we're outta cinnamon rolls"
I said "You got any apple fritters?"
He said "Nah, we're outta apple fritters"
I said "You got any bear claws?"
He said "Wait a minute, I'll go check"
"NAH, we're outta bear claws"
I said "Well, in that case - in that case, what do you have?"
He says "All I got right now is this box of one dozen starving, crazed weasels"
I said "OK, I'll take that"
So he hands me the box and I open up the lid and the weasels jump out and they immediately latch onto my face and start bitin' me all over. Oh man, they were just going nuts. They were tearin' me apart. You know, I think it was just about that time that a little ditty started goin' through my head"
I believe it went a little something like this . . .
ahhhh
Get 'em off me
Get 'em off me
Ohhhh
No, get 'em off, get 'em off
Ooooh my God, oh my God
Oh, get 'em off me
Ooooh my God
Ahhhhhhhh!
I ran out into the street with these flesh-eating weasels all over my face; wavin' my arms all around and just runnin', runnin', runnin' like a constipated wiener dog and as luck would have it, that's exactly when I ran into the girl of my dreams. Her name was Zelda.
She was a calligraphy enthusiast with a slight overbite and hair the color of strained peaches.
I'll never forget the very first thing she said to me.
She said "Hey, you've got weasels on your face"
That's when I knew it was true love. We were inseparable after that. Aw, we ate together, we bathed together; we even shared the same piece of mint-flavored dental floss - the world was our burrito. So we got married and we bought us a house and had two beautiful children - Nathaniel and Superfly. Oh, we were so very very very happy, aw yeah.
But then one fateful night, Zelda said to me, she said "Sweetie pumpkin? Do you wanna join the Columbia Record Club?"
I said "Whoa, hold on now, baby, I'm just not ready for that kind of a commitment"
So we broke up and I never saw her again but that's just the way things go in Albuquerque.
Anyway, things really started lookin' up for me because about a week later, I finally achieved my lifelong dream, that's right, I got me a part-time job at the Sizzler. I even made employee of the month after I put out that grease fire with my face. Aw yeah, everybody was pretty jealous of me after that. I was gettin' a lot of attitude.
OK, like one time, I was out in the parking lot; tryin' to remove my excess earwax with a golf pencil
When I see this guy Marty tryin' to carry a big ol' sofa up the stairs all by himself; so I, I say to him, I say "Hey, you want me to help you with that?"
And Marty, he just rolls his eyes and goes "Noooo, I want you to cut off my arms and legs with a chainsaw"; So I did and then he gets all indignant on me
He's like "Hey man, I was just being sarcastic"
Well, that's just great, how was I supposed to know that? I'm not a mind reader for cryin' out loud
Besides, now he's got a really cute nickname - Torso-Boy; So what's he complaining about?
Say, that reminds me of another amusing anecdote. This guy comes up to me on the street and he tells me he hasn't had a bite in three days. Well, I knew what he meant but just to be funny, I took a big bite out of his jugular vein and he's yellin' and screamin' and bleeding all over and I'm like "Hey, come on, don'tcha get it?" but he just kept rolling around on the sidewalk, bleeding, and screaming.
You know, just completely missing the irony of the whole situation. Man, some people just can't take a joke, you know?
Anyway, um, um, where was I? Kinda lost my train of thought. Uh, well, uh, OK. Anyway I, I know it's kind of a roundabout way of saying it but I guess the whole point I'm tryin' to make here is
I
HATE
SAUERKRAUT!
That's all I'm really tryin' to say and, by the way, if one day you happen to wake up and find yourself in an existential quandary; full of loathing and self-doubt and wracked with the pain and isolation of your pitiful meaningless existence, at least you can take a small bit of comfort in knowing that somewhere out there in this crazy old mixed-up universe of ours there's still a little place called
Albuquerque.