“Fine. We’ve actually transcended necessitating your imagination to sustain our existence. We are now one with the cosmos, and intellectually, your superior.”

Pfff, as if I care, Creepy Borg Key. I’m still the ruler of the only cosmos that matters. The {Insert pun utilizing cosmos in most hilarious way} COSMOS! TRIPLE DOG BURN! Damn, that was a good one even by my standards.

“So what have you been doing besides NOT writing jokes with your time?”

That was snide, Snide Key. I have been flying around the country pretty much every always. Man, are my arms tired!

“Seriously? I refuse to believe that was ever actually used as whimsical pose, and if it was, I will dedicate my transcendent existence to murdering he who first plagued mankind with its utterance.”

What’s more upsetting? Me uttering a joke that was stale circa court jesters, or you going all Inygo Montoya on said joke’s inventor?

“I…”

That was rhetorical, Evil Bill S. Preston Key. Enough wasting my time. I needed to get this prelude post out about some of the adventures I’ll be telling. You see, as is often the case with an extended walkabout, I’ve encountered stuff I want to explore in greater detail with my make-believe readership.

Like I said back in the day, I’m a consultant now. The first stage of explaining to you how messed up my life is requires breaking down the etymology of the word “consultant”.

Consultant was a word first coined in ancient Rome. One of Rome’s wisest rulers, Nero, was practicing his fiddle one day when a great fire erupted. Nero was quick to call IX I I, but nobody answered because, as we all know, Rome was still utilizing WiMAX. So Nero jumped into the flames and bravely fought them by beating them with slaves. Suddenly, Nero saw the source of the great fire. In the center of town, there he stood… THE DEVIL!

You see the Devil crossed the Black Sea from Georgia, looking for a soul to steal. And he bet a fiddle of gold against Nero’s Rome because he liked to make that kind of deal. Nero knew to save the day he’d have to play and play real hot, but someone had to stay and fight the flames, so Keys let me tell you what!

Our great lord N, he turned to a friend and said, “I need your help to fight the blaze.” Friend said, “N, this fire I’ll mend just so long as I get paid.”

Nero rison up your bow and play the best you ever did, ‘Cos the Devil’s dropped by from Georgia, and remixed his song again. And as you play some dude you hired will contract out your work, but if he fails you’ll look like the jerk…

So Nero whooped the devil because that dude sucks pretty bad, and turned to his hired help to see that he’d been had. His friend said, “Nero you never sell out the work you want done right. We’ll make 100 PowerPoints and escape into the night!”

And Nero was all, “FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU…”

The term “consultant” was formed shortly thereafter. Its meaning can be derived by dissecting the word into its three base words.

Con – Persuade (someone) to do or believe something, typically by use of a deception.
Salt – a mineral known to shorten the life expectancy of small insects considerably
Ant – a small insect.

Clearly, by dissecting the origin of the word, we discover the true meaning for the word consultant. He is one who fools insects into buying something that will kill them. Consultants are hired for the same reason they were in Nero’s day: to do the work you’re too lazy or cheap to do. The only problem is said consulting firm is probably lazier and cheaper than you’ll ever aspire to be, and by the time they’re done burning your Rome, you’ll be the one history remembers as a monster.

Poor Nero.

“I am 85% certain you are misinformed on the history of this matter.”

Alright No Fun Key, I need to break you out of this lame state, and I think the only proper way to do that is with a series of posts clearly explaining to you how I am correct.

“Your track record is lacking in empirical evidence that would lead me to believe you’ll follow through with such a task.”

Perhaps, but I have to try. So, without further adieu, I must away to my writing desk.

Only I forgot black socks. I mean, for cripes sakes. How many different cloths does a guy have to remember?

1) Am I nude? Yes. Put on pants.
2) Does the term “No shirt, no shoes, no service” apply? Yes. Put on shoes and shirt.
3) Are your dress socks white? …drat.

So I’m in Raleigh at 4:30 in the AM without black socks for my first day of work at a prestigious consulting firm, and I think to myself, “You truly are retarded.” I seriously don’t know how I made it through puberty sometimes. I figure for most of my adolescence I simply wasn’t dressed up. That probably aided in my survival.

Well, no time to panic thought I. So I headed off for the airport in my finest yellow tie and white socks. You’ve got to wear a tie to your first day of work after all; it makes a good impression. I contemplated stopping at a Wal-Mart on my way to the airport, only I don’t know Raleigh at all.

You see, Monkey Keys, I actually just moved to Raleigh the very NIGHT I was to sleep for four hours and fly to my new job.

“Wait Dylan, are you seriously telling me you moved to a city and then flew out four hours later to start your first day of work?”

Yeah, that’s about the size of it, Sum Up Key.

“Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you?”

It’s probably a vitamin C deficiency, but who knows for sure. If you’ve never packed for your life before packing for a trip in the same night, I strongly suggest you do it. It is the kind of exhilaration you can normally only imagine someone with extreme vitamin C deficiency doing. The only real side effect is you may forget one of the three articles of cloths you need on your first day of work across the country.

Back to the morning. I was lost in Raleigh trying to find socks and an airport. I also conveniently forgot the “departure” time and the “boarding” time for airplanes differs. In Dylan time logic, a time of 6:40 am on an airline ticket means getting to the airport at 6:35 am leaves more than enough time to eat a sandwich, bask in some solar rays, buy new socks and make the flight. Apparently real people often try to get to the airport HOURS before departure. I know, they’re nuts right?

I’ll save you the angst of wondering if I made the flight or not and let you know I might have. I considered the clock at 5:50 am, and decided locating a store to buy socks would probably take 12 minutes. Frankly, I was too tired to devote 12 minutes to this task, so I let it be.

This is literally the only reason I didn’t go shopping at the time.

At any rate, I suppose my sleepytired brain is the smart one, because I walked up to my terminal during final boarding. Hey, any landing you can walk away from right?

The next thing I learned that day is everyone wants tips in big cities. I don’t understand this entirely, but apparently people in big cities don’t do ANYTHING themselves and instead feel it prudent to pay others small sums of money for things they didn’t want done.

A prime example of this is the shuttle bus used to get us fine North Carolinians to the car rental place. You see, the car rental places are a fortnight from the airport, so a bus comes to take you there, simple enough. Only when the bus arrives, the driver veritably leaps from the bus and makes a mad dash toward your luggage. No, he’s not trying to steal it. That’s for the best since he won’t find any socks to go with the pretty pants inside anyway. He just wants to lift the stuff into the bus. The reason being, if he helps you with the luggage, he expects a tip.

Call me old fashioned, or cheap, or poorly dressed, but I have this notion of tips being a reward for a job done better than expected. Big city jobs like bellboys, elevator operators and bathroom attendances don’t do a freaking thing. Jobs that expect tips on the basis of their existence annoy me.

I think back to my days as a sales person on the floors of Toys R Us. I was offered tips if I personally stuffed a Power Wheels Silverado in the back of a Pinto, or scoured the stockroom for a Barbie dress we didn’t have out front. You know, busting my ass because I was in a good mood. I was then instructed by corporate policy to refuse said tips. Poor Dylan. In contrast, some supreme douche that squirts soap on my hands simply because he beat me to the dispenser deserves nothing but a kick to the crotch. I suppose that’s the vitamin C deficiency talking though. Drink your OJ, Kid Keys!

Anyway, needless to say I stiffed the bus guy. I suppose karma ghost will give me a heart attack at 32 in retaliation. All is fair in socks and war. I managed to get my rental car which was a Kia Soul. This was not my picking. It was literally the last one left.

If you are currently contemplating the purchase of a Kia Soul, I would suggest you rather buy a pair of black socks. They will be infinitely handier than the Kia.

I made it to my new place of work and only got lost on campus for ten minutes or so. It was time for the moment of meeting. First impressions are everything according to the Bene Gesserit, and far be it from me to disagree. Luckily I was a #1 Stun’a in my sweet digs. My new boss found it instantly purposeful to promote me to a level in-between CEO of the company and crash test dummy. I was honored.

Shortly thereafter he laughed at my socks.

So what is the moral of this whole story? Probably nothing, but if you found some deeper meaning then more power to you. Be sure to write an English or Psychology report on it for extra credit. Now I didn’t even have time to get to how much I hate the new versions of old Windows software on my new work laptop, but I’ll let my art speak for itself. Goodnight my Monkey Keys.

I think our pampered little adult brains take elementary school for granted. How many times have you heard parents utter phrases like, “Oh, they don’t know how easy they have it now,” and “Wait until they have to handle the real world” to their little tykes in training after they have a hard day of math? Well I’ve got news for the so called “professionals” of this country; you’d handle it much worse.

Imagine having to be in your seat when a bell rings. Screw your baby fed meanderings about the coffee pot. There’s a bell, and your butt is sat down when it rings. Your Pavlovian response sure as hell better be set to learn when it goes off. The boss will immediately order the removal of one of the 30 books you were forced to carry home the night before. All the IcyHot patches in the world wouldn’t stop your arthritic back from spasming against the cold plastic chair after that one.

Yes, PLASTIC! No, you can not complain to maintenance your thousand dollar, ergonomically correct, cheek-cushion polymer laced butt hammock is slightly too low. You’re getting a one size fits every fat kid plastic hand me down that is likely CONNECTED to your desk. Oh, and if the earsplitting sound of those desks scraping on the ground gets to be unbearable for you, you can defile some tennis balls and stick them on the ends of the chair in your free time.

Look, it’s time for math. The boss just told you to flip to some page in the book, but you, for some mythical reason, are the ONLY person in the class that didn’t even glean a single number from the page you’re now suppose to be reading over. Boss is going to ask questions about it in 30 seconds. You’re panicking already aren’t you?

It would have been perfectly acceptable to ask what the page number was had you only done it before the deafening silence of 30 heads reading set in. Admitting you were lost now would only serve to admit your guilt of not listening and wasting the last 20 seconds. The most logical choice is to look frantically at every one of your neighbor’s books and try to see what page they’re on. You’ll probably only be able to see some big picture of a pie chart though, so during the remainder of your reading time you’ll just hopelessly flip through the 500 page behemoth praying to find it.

Then you don’t, time’s up and the boss calls on you in front of 30 of your closest colleagues. I have a knot in my belly just thinking about it! When is the last time you had to stand up in a meeting of 30 people at work and admit to them and your boss you didn’t have the slightest clue what was going on? If the above happened in a freakishly easy grownup work meeting, you wouldn’t run the risk of getting called on, and you could go right back to playing minesweeper and daydreaming about being an action movie star wielding twin golden-plated Berettas.

I won’t even finish the story about getting called upon in class because I know most of you already wet your grownup pajamas in terror of it. I don’t blame you. Elementary school was probably the greatest challenge you’ve ever overcome. It’s natural to have blocked it all out. Have you blocked out gym class too?

Oh yes you sadly overweight American. There was a time you HAD to exercise. “Oh, maybe I’ll run a mile on my treadmill while watching Oprah tomorrow.” WRONG! You’ll move that sad sack of a gut this second because it’s gym class time. Not only that, you’re going to have to be picked last for the kickball team by the two guys in the class you despise the most. The one that ultimately does will do so with a great flourish of moans and discontented sighs just to let your colleagues know how deeply he disapproves of having your pointless butter feet on his finely honed team. Everyone else will laugh at you because of this.

Just try, for a second, to imagine anything close to this happening in your current cubical kingdom. Every single human around you there is so deathly afraid of being sued for sending you even a glance that isn’t warm and fuzzy that the worst you’ll get from a disapproving coworker is no invite to lunch at Dominos. Granted, if you COMPLETELY suck you’ll get fired after a few years, but this is only gym class. No one is fired in gym class.

The initial humiliation of being picked last is just that. Next you have to deal with losing the game for half of your colleagues. The enemy team captain will be pitching the rubber ball of death toward you because the hugest jackass is always the pitcher. Most likely he’ll say something snide before he does so too, like “Everyone move it! Bad kicker afoot!”

“Afoot? You really think a 4th grade vocab would go with that?”

Hey, it’s MY story, Factual Error Key. So the pitcher rolls the ball your way and you summon every ounce of courage to charge it and kick. It’s amazing how good that stupid team captain is though, and somehow he knew exactly where it was going. He catches the ball for out one, and then pegs two teammates for a triple. His whole team cheers, your whole team boos, and your team captain pegs you in the face with the kickball so hard you fall over. The gym teacher doesn’t notice though because he’s been flirting with your boss the whole time.

Don’t cry though soldier. You still have so much of the day left. Lunch is coming up, and you have the awesome choice between a warm sandwich that’s been fermenting in your desk for four hours and cafeteria surprise that’s been fermenting in the high school basement for four years. I’d pick the former because you’ll probably get a CapriSun or a Jellooze to quaff. That is, as long as the school board doesn’t crack the whip down on this ONE vestige of freedom you get all freaking day!

Did I mention the lunch room/gym always smells like rotting eggs? I have no clue why. Well, I could go on but all this talk about food is making me peckish.

“Wow, Dylan. Your childhood must have been horrific with such stories of survival. How did you ever make it through?”

Oh, you misunderstand me, Reporter Key. I was going over YOUR childhood. Mine was fine. I was the jackass team captain. Ahh, the good old days…

One of the most amusing things about being on the open road is making fun of native city names. I happened to be updating my Google latitude location yesterday as I passed the wee village of Fancy Gap, VA. At first I laughed and laughed. I decided it reminded me of a plumber in a tuxedo.

“Some gaps will never be fancy…”

Right you are, Disgusted Key. I started to internally wax poetic about the place though. I started to realize how large this world really is. On my brief 13 hour drive, I was going to pass thousands of Fancy Gaps. they would be of all shapes and sizes, and some would be fancier than others. I’d go through entire states populated by millions of idiots, and here I was, my own idiot, driving a little piece of metal by Fancy Gap.

What kind of person lives in Fancy Gap? According to the 2000 census*, the town is heavily populated with 260 individuals. Out of that 260, their racial makeup was 99.23% White, 0.38% Native American, 0.38% from other races. That means 258 white people, and an Indian/octopus couple. Suddenly the story of Fancy Gap is starting to make more sense.

I was originally under the misconception “Fancy Gap” was so named because the settlers found a mountain pass, or gap, that was highly decorated or of a particularly fine quality. This is not so. Those who named the village were actually making reference to imagining a break in continuity.

You see, back in the late 1700s the area was little more than a collection of trails. The settlement was known as Foggy Camp by the Indians. This was so named because of the foggy outcome for the settlement as seen by the chief Indian soothsayer, Swims with Fishes. Swims with Fishes could only predict that an ancestor of his would have to overcome a great evil in order to save the holy spirit animal of the mountain.

Years later in the 1800s, Ira Blair Coltrane, the illegitimate child of his single mother, was helping push wagons up the mountainside Sisyphus style. He was 15 at the time and did this because 15-year-olds were cheaper than oxen as accurately depicted in The Oregon Trail (an ox costs $20, extra kids are free). One day years later, he happened to notice Foggy Camp and went to investigate. The Indians had long since left, but he did find a struggling octopus. Legend has it he said, “Fancy that…” Coltrane picked up a large rock to crush the mollusk with, but was stopped at the last second by a frantic scream from his mother.

“Don’t hurt him, Ira!” she begged. “He’s your father!” Coltrane became so dumbfounded and disgusted by the realization he was half octopus, he ran screaming down the mountainside. Once at the base of the mountain, he gathered all the able bodied men he could find in order to hunt down the beast and his mother and kill them both.

“We have to create a gap in my lineage,” he said. “We must ensure that no more octo-mates grace God’s great earth!” the bloodthirsty mob scoured the Fancy Gap region, and finally found Coltrane’s mother and father in Devil’s Den (a nearby cave system).

Coltrane took the initiative and charged his own mother with a miner’s pick. Before he could strike her, the great beast of the sea entangled him in its tentacles. He screamed for help, but he was only paying the mob minimum wadge (which was -$14 in the day) so they all ran off to watch cricket instead.

Nobody knows what became of Coletrane or his parents, but members of the mob said they imagined he was able to kill the octopus and live for 40 winters on sweet succulent tako. Thus, when the town was settled nearly one day later, they named it Fancy Gap in honor of the perceived gap he was able to create in his family tree.

What the population didn’t know at the time was the octopus was the spirit guardian of the mountain. He was able to retreat into the bowls of Devil’s Den and hibernate until 1997 when he was discovered by Jessica Fishes. The two instantly fell in love and moved back to her home in Fancy Gap. History, however, has an evil way of repeating itself.

The couple was immediately subject to massive amounts of discrimination by the predominantly white community. Their marriage was viewed as illegal by the government of Virginia. The local media began to lambaste the union saying it was unchristian, and next people would want to marry their cars. The community ostracized the couple, and then turned violent.

Fish frys started popping up on the couple’s lawn in the middle of the night. People spray painted, “fish go home to the sea!” on their home. In late 2003, the couple’s home was set ablaze by a bloodthirsty mob. The two were forced to flee back into Devil’s Den.

“What’s become of them now, Dylan?”

I’m afraid I can’t say, Tyke Key. I didn’t take the time to visit Fancy Gap and find out.

“Why not?”

Are you kidding? I’m not going there. That place is a dump.

*The United States Census Bureau would like to remind all American citizens to FILL OUT YOUR FREAKING 2010 CENSUS! If you don’t, you WILL suffer a fate much worse than that of Fancy Gap, VA. By that, we mean velociraptors. Probably 80-90 of the things WILL be mailed to your door. We at the United States Census Bureau like to provoke our velociraptors prior to shipment by forcing them to watch America’s Next Top Model during playoff games and feeding them rice cakes when there is a strawberry rhubarb pie within noseshot. They never get the pie, but we do tell them you have one… in your belly.

I could start gushing about how awesome it is to have my own domain and whatnot, but who cares.  Instead, I want to focus on my near total inability to do one step in any random activity. This step I have lovingly named the “cinchpin” step.

Most any undertaking has a series of steps to get it done. For instance, making a new LEGO King’s Castle Siege (set 7094) generally involves:

1) Finding a sharp object to cut the invulnerable, Kevlar and titanium laced bags the pieces come in.

2) Dumping everything into an indiscernible pile on the carpet.

3) Finding all the parts to the castle guards and the dragons and building them first.

4) Play “whoops, I sporked the dragon” with the brave knight guy wielding the proportionately improbable, one-handed battle axe for three hours.

5) Give up on building the set and leave the pieces unfortunately close to the bottom of the stairs so your mother can step in them and fully understand the meaning of LEGO’s acronym “Lethal Edged Gouging Object.”

Now, you’re probably thinking the same thing I am.  These are some pretty simple steps.  Why would you go an omit one?

Well, therein lies the glory of the cinchpin step.  This step is generally found very early on in the order of operations, is surprisingly easy to accomplish, and is quite necessary to finish the activity.  However, it also almost always requires moving physically or undoing a step that is already finished. In my above example, the cinchpin is finding the sharp object. Invariably, if given the task to build the LEGO, I would sit down with my box and remove the individual bags of pieces.  At this point I would be sitting down, and thus, my butt is committed. The knives are normally in the kitchen, and that is nearly ten feet away. That’s where my brain thinks the fatal thought, “Do I really need a knife to open these bags?  Isn’t that what teeth, nails and screaming are for?”

So I attempt to open the bags.  I don’t, of course, because those things are absurd.  I think they’re chemically altered to survive the lethal edges of the pieces contained within. After about 20 minutes of tooth decay on the side of the bags, I suddenly feel stupid for not having just gotten the knife.  It would have taken one of those 20 minutes, and then I would be done in a heartbeat.  Generally this realization does nothing but aggravate the problem. In realizing my wasted time, I suddenly have to prove my method can, and will, work. This leads to several chipped teeth, claw-marks in the wall, and a blacklisting for all future LEGO products.

Just yesterday I experienced two such cinchpin situations.  One was just prior to my beddy-bye.  I wanted to put my iPod on sleep mode and listen to some lullabies. However, I had already turned the light off and could not actually see the iPod dock.  Cinchpin step one would have been to drag myself out of bed and shed some light on the situation. Dylan step one ended up being a mad fumble in the dark with the iPod for the little raised docking node. I managed to nearly knock over a lamp and scratch my hand significantly on the bed-stand before getting the thing docked two minutes later.

Then while moving this very blog I had another cinchpin moment. One step required ftp-ing a bunch of wordpress files to my server. Instead of taking the two seconds to install an ftp service and properly configure it with my hosting provider, I decided to upload every file individually. “How many can there possibly be?” thought I.  Apparently a lot.

So why leave the cinchpin out? I think it has something to do with our preconceived notion of what a task requires. At a certain point, we believe all our ducks are in a row and it is time to start. When something requires extra effort that wasn’t counted on, and we think that extra effort isn’t needed, the step is omitted. The longer it is omitted, the more we’re committed to the initial plan.

I’d like to say I plan on doing my cinchpins from now on, but honestly, now that I’ve named them, I’m more annoyed than ever at the things. I mean, who are they to dictate weather or not I can build my freaking LEGO? Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some wasp nests to remove of.

“Wait, you’re unemployed now?”

Yeah, shucks howdy, Out of the Loop Key. I haven’t been writing anything down, so let me give you the short short Mel Brooks version of what has happened since early February.

February 8, 2010: I didn’t post.

February 9, 2010: In an epic dual, I defeated Mothera and saved Tokyo.

February 10, 2010: The boss of Tokyo gave me the key to the universe and I used it to go on adventures.

February 11, 2010: March 12, 2010 – Adventures! And some light cabbage eating.

March 12, 2010: My last day at my old job. I left because the adventures were so much better than working.

March 13, 2010 – March 13, 2054: In an accidental fit of joy, I jumped through the space/time continuum and bash my head on 2054. Luckily they invented a drug that helps your headache in that time, and I only experienced constipation, diarrhea, dizziness, gas, headache, heartburn, nausea and stomach pain as a result.

March 14, 2010 – April 7, 2010: I squandered my winnings from Tokyo Slam 2010 on penny stocks that all went bankrupt within seconds. The boss of Tokyo takes back my key to the universe because he misplaced his.

April 7, 2010: I packed my car with a few absolutely necessary items like my 40 inch TV, and drove to Washington DC.

April 8, 2010: I didn’t post.

April 9, 2010: I got lost on foot in downtown DC, and, fearing for my life, used my $500 Google phone to ask a nice homeless person if he can identify where we are on the map.

April 10, 2010: I made it to North Carolina, didn’t post, and passed out for a week an a half.

April 21, 2010: I am introduced to my new rival blog which infuriates me with its goodness. With renewed vengeance, I vow to update.

April 21, 2010 (11am): I wrote “Holy Carolina, Monkey Keys! I’m posting, and that is no small feat when you’re unemployed, let me tell you what.” Then one of the Monkey Keys said, ““Wait, you’re unemployed now?”” So I have to go into this Mel Brooks short explanation that ends up being quite long…

“Whoa, I think you can skip this part.”

This is where it gets good, Skip Ahead Key! I suppose I see your point though. In an effort to compete with my rival blog, I intend to start getting a few things done around here at ObHaz.

If I don’t, feel free to shank me.

January 26, 2010: Hour 44

The workday was a miserable mess. My discombobulated head floated about the office searching for a mental pillow. My failure was nibbling behind my ear with too much incisor to be considered pleasant. The boot disk, the last vestige of hope I had for detonating this insipid house, had failed. It seemed I would be forced to format the entire drive and lose everything.

“Never.”

Excuse me?

“Come on, Dylan old buddy. This is YOU you’re talking about. Never say die, fight to the end, something something cliché! Are you seriously going to let a little house in the middle of the highway stop you from saving all your stuff?”

But I’ve tried everything, Motivation Key.

“Did Winston Churchill say he had tried everything when Reagan told him of the Death Star? Never. When the Spanish told him the earth was flat, did Isaac Newton gravitate to the bar? Never. Did Brittany Spears stop singing when she got fat? Did dinosaurs stop scaring after meteor-ed flat? Did Lou Gehrig stop playing because he corked his bat?”

Never!

“You can say that again. Now go out there and DESTROY HUGEPOS!”

I will, and thank you, Motivational Key!

January 27, 2010: Hour 78

As motivated as I was, there was nothing I could do until Wednesday. Work and life kept me from even attempting to dislodge HUGEPOS. This was probably for the better as HUGEPOS and Fred were still honeymooning, and no one wants to see that.

I went back to the drawing board. Why were these commands not working? There must be a REASON HUGEPOS was blinking repeatedly at me with the brain damaged look of its own offspring conceived with Fred.

I recalled reading earlier about how my hard drives were too newfangled for HUGEPOS to understand them. Several folks had said there was an update for HUGEPOS so it could learn how to read my hard drives. Perhaps, if I could upgrade HUGEPOS, I could then make another wrecking ball disk and blast the house in the middle of the highway to pieces.

January 27, 2010: Hour 79

Upgrading most software requires simply downloading a small patch. It normally takes about 30 seconds. If you’re updating a HUGEPOS (Norton, Windows, Steam, etc.) you are forced to use a BIGGER POS proprietary update utility. This inevitably will get lost on its search through the internet, and won’t find a thing. It was therefore no surprise at all when I clicked the HUGEPOS update button and…

“It blinked repeatedly at you with the brain damaged look of the paint huffing inventor of Symantec Update?” You guessed it, Quick to Quip Key. Norton’s website had a link to download an updated uninstall tool as well. Clicking on this resulted in… well… I’m sure you can guess.

If I was going to update HUGEPOS, I’d have to find the update files on some random blog or forum.

January 27, 2010: Hour 80

It was starting to look like a hopeless pursuit. I scoured forum after forum only to find dead links that had been abandoned years ago. HUGEPOS was nearly lost to the annals of forgettable software. People had moved on. There were newer, even more worthless Norton products to vent about. My little house problem had been forgotten. Then I found the most beautiful blog I’ve ever seen. It didn’t have a flashy background, and it had no pretty banner. My salvation came in the form of a white background with black Chinese text simply called Gary’s Glog.

I don’t know who Gary is, but I would like to shake his hand. He had the two files I needed to update HUGEPOS when nobody else did. I am not fluent in Chinese, but I have to assume his blog entry on that day in 2008 read something similar to the following:

I’ve finally fixed GIANTTURD! I had to update it first, which proved to be a nearly impossible task. If anyone two years from now falls victim to this same insidious trap, there’s no WAY they’re going to find these two files. I am therefore going to post them on my blog, and ensure they stay there until the end of time to help pay it forward.

Heed my warning people of the internet; do NOT under ANY circumstances install GIANTTURD. If you can’t read Chinese, go find someone to translate this page for you before doing anything that would build an obnoxious sandcastle on the beach between you and the surf. Good luck, and may the force be with you.

- Gary

If only I had followed Gary’s advice, all of this could have been avoided. I installed the two updates without a problem in less than a minute. I then made my wrecking ball floppy disk with my borrowed USB floppy drive.

I gingerly plugged the floppy to my battered PC. This was my last chance. If this disk failed, my PC would be doomed. I took a deep breath, and powered the machine on.

It blinked… once. Then I could see the house in the middle of the highway before me. HUGEPOS smiled in the window. That happiness suddenly turned to fear. It turned to terror. I was in the middle of the highway in an M1 Abrams tank. I was grinning ear to ear.

HUGEPOS screamed and ran to the kitchen.

“Fred, Dylan’s found a way in! He’s going to kill us all!” Fred’s vision darted to the front window and my incoming armor.

“Quick, darling. head out the back! I’ll hold off this loser!” HUGEPOS kissed Fred, and ran for the back door. Fred grabbed his M72 LAW and kicked down the front door. “Hey pig! You think you can get through this house? Smoke you!” He loosed his rocket, but my depleted uranium armor easily deflected it. His cheap plastic computer case, on the other hand, did not offer him the same protection from my tank. A moment later, there was a crater where Fred once stood.

HUGEPOS ran out the back.

“Hey, Dylan!” she called over the house. “It looks like I’m gonna make it away! I’m gonna spread this same terror to the next unsuspecting sap, and there ain’t a thing you can do!”

“Maybe not, but I can.” HUGEPOS whirled around in time to see Gary’s menacing glare. His jian was raised high above his head in killing position. “I couldn’t kill you two years ago, but you’re not getting away this time!”

“Gary, NO!” HUGEPOS screamed. The protest was a short one. A moment later, HUGEPOS fell lifeless to the ground.

Gary sprang atop my tank and turned to me with a smile.

“I guess this is it,” He said looking back to the little house in the middle of the highway.

“It sure is…” I fired one high explosive round from the tank’s cannon. The little house shattered into flaming splinters that showered the air like stars on a clear night. As the smoke and debris dissipated, I could see ahead of me. The path was clear. My stuff was safe.

My PC booted into Windows for the first time in four days. It was over.

January 27, 2010: Epilogue

I don’t think I’ve ever uninstalled software that quickly after booting, Monkey Keys. I made sure every last shred of HUGEPOS was properly purged. Never again will a Norton product grace my hard drive. One 30 second Google later and I found five more free programs that would do the exact same thing. These were all made within the last few years.

“There’s one thing that still bother’s me, Dylan.” What’s that, Scooby Key?

“Couldn’t you have just booted with a Windows CD and done a system restore?” I blinked repeatedly at the Monkey Key…

January 25, 2010: Hour 21

I was able to procure several floppies, and I announced I would be leaving at lunch to further troubleshoot. The clock was ticking. That very night I had a scheduled Team Fortress Two event with many of these same co-workers. My very reputation as a techie was at stake. I felt confident though. After all, I had brought an ancient Fintstone era PC back from the brink of death the night before. Surely the destruction of this stupid little house in the middle of the highway would be child’s play in comparison.

“You should be careful, Dylan. Arrogance breads bad karma.” Your FACE breads bad karma, Mystic Key.

January 25, 2010: Hour 25

Ancient tech in hand, I approached Fred. Surgical equipment lay strewn about the operation site from the night before. He still booted fine, and I was even able to install HUGEPOS on him with no incident.

See, I told you this would be easy.

“Karma…”

I popped disk one into the drive and went to format it. For the non techs, this is a way of writing an instruction manual on a new disk for the computer to read. Computers are like trained monkeys sans the fez. As such, they have no clue what to do when given something fresh out of a store wrapper. They generally try to eat it. So I was explaining to Fred the disk would need to hold a wrecking ball capable of destroying a little house in the middle of the highway between me and my stuff.

I very gently tapped Fred on his shoulder twice and tried to tell this to him. He blinked repeatedly at me with the brain damaged look of the majority share holder at Norton.

“Oooooo, sounds kinda like…” You shut your font, Taunt Key!

January 25, 2010: Hour 26

I’m sure I was audible by aliens thus far unreached by the SETI project when I screamed in Fred’s face. I set about the usual vein troubleshooting. Maybe a different disk would work? Do I just need to reseat the drive? Are my BIOS settings correct? Is there something wrong with the floppy drivers?

Fred laughed at each of my ideas to find any rational explanation behind his sudden inability to do the one basic function I needed. Out of desperation, I tried running HUGEPOS to put the wrecking ball on an unformatted disk. HUGEPOS joined in Fred’s laughter. Then Fred asked HUGEPOS on a date, and HUGEPOS agreed.

The two decided the movies were rather cliché for their first time out, so instead they went to the park. It was cold, of course. The deep freeze didn’t matter though. Whenever HUGEPOS gazed longingly into Fred’s eyes, there was magic.

The two had a lovely dinner at a small, family owned Italian place. Fred had the lasagna since it was the only thing on the menu he could actually pronounce. HUGEPOS called him out on this, and the two started laughing. It was at that moment that Fred wondered if he was in love.

It was only the first date, but they had so much in common. They were nearly the same age. They both hated doing their job. They both loved blinking repeatedly at me with the brain damaged look of any woman who would willingly marry anyone on the HUGEPOS staff.

Fred was taking a huge risk here, but he had to say something. He swallowed a bit of sourdough bread, and boldly cleared his throat. HUGEPOS looked up in anticipation.

“Windows was unable to complete the format.”

I took out my José Canseco bat and swung with the force of a thousand suns into the side of Fred. Bits of motherboard and case showered the room in a techno glitter. He coughed out a blue screen once, and then there was silence.

January 25, 2010: Hour 28

“You KILLED Fred!?” Alright, relax, Humanitarian Key. I was only imagining. In reality I gave up and wrote part one of this story. The only thing I hadn’t tried was using an entirely different floppy drive, and there was no way I’d find anyone with that. I was doomed.

Or was I?

In the midst of writing part one, I received a text from one of the Team Fortress Keys. He had a USB floppy drive I could try! I was running out of time, but told him I would stop by his house when he got home to pick it up. If this didn’t work, I would be forced to play on his old PC and suffer the humiliation.

January 25, 2010: Hour 30

With an hour to go, and a new floppy drive in my hands, I powered up my laptop. This was going to work. A few clicks later, and my laptop was formatting a floppy disk. I gave Fred a quick kick for good measure. He had it coming… karma.

HUGEPOS even cooperated by properly making its wrecking ball. I was elated. All I needed to do was plug the USB floppy drive into my new PC and run the boot disk. I’d make Team Fortress 2. I’d be a hero!

I raced to my PC and virtually slammed the drive in the back. That little house was going to get it now. I was going to atom smash it into oblivion forever. The machine booted into the disk. I selected the wrecking ball. Adios house! I hit enter.

It blinked repeatedly at me with the brain damaged look of the tattered remnants of my sanity. The house remained, and I’m fairly confident HUGEPOS and Fred were celebrating their honeymoon inside.

I could have dropkicked the monitor I suppose. I did the next best thing. I went to my friend’s house to play on his old PC. Mine remained dead, and I had failed.

“That was beautiful, Dylan.” Thanks, Fatty Key. You should go on a diet.

“I… ok…” So, where was I? For those Keys who aren’t aware, in reality I am a computer guy. I know, I don’t get it either. I spend all my working hours trying to get stupid combinations of 1’s and 0’s to talk to each other in some language other than projectile vomit. This normally requires quite a few cuss words and objects capable of taking a tumultuous thrashing.

Suffice it to say, by the time my weekend rolls around I am plagued and comatose of working with machines. That is precisely why my latest endeavor with my personal PC was so flipping annoying. I remember it as if it were yesterday…

January 24, 2010: Hour 0

It all started as I was setting up my PC from a recent LAN party. I had purchased a new hard drive several weeks prior because of an ominous clicking noise my computer had taken to emitting. I feared the hard drive may soon crash. (For the non-tech reader, this means I lose all my photos and e-mails. Yes that can happen, and no I will not back up your files.) Because I was being extra proactive, I purchased this new hard drive with the intent of moving all my files to it. Thus, all my precious stuff would be safe from the failing hardware.

Since I was extra motivated that day, I decided to go forward with the copy. I spent several minutes searching online for the best tool to clone one’s hard drive for free. My search landed me on an older Norton product, Ghost 2003 (henceforth known as ‘Highly Unreliable Gamble Effectively Purged Own System’ or HUGEPOS).

HUGEPOS is relatively straightforward. You’re asked to select a source and a destination hard drive. Then you click a little clone button, and the software reboots and copies one drive to another. In theory.

In really, HUGEPOS does the exact opposite of what it is supposed to do and DESIMATES both hard drives. Here’s how it goes down in non-computer terms.

HUGEPOS rebooted my computer and then made itself a house. This house is right in the middle of the highway between me and my stuff. Because this house is there, I can’t get to any of my stuff without first bulldozing through the house. The house is suppose to go away as soon as my stuff is all nice and copied. The problem here is my stuff did not copy because HUGEPOS is a huge POS.

My stuff did not copy because HUGEPOS was too old and did not understand what my newfangled hard drive was. So, instead of copying my hard drive, or moving its stupid house off the road, it blinked at me with the brain damaged look of a computer programmer who I hit repeatedly with a bat for inventing HUGEPOS.

January 24, 2010: Hour 1

At first I didn’t realized the massive trouble I was in. Oh sure, HUGEPOS didn’t actually do its job, but I was unaware of this whole “house in the road” situation. So I did what any good techie would do and rebooted my computer again. Instead of booting to Windows like a good PC, I was presented with the black and white letters of HUGEPOS asking to try the copy again. I told it no. It blinked repeatedly at me with the brain damaged look of the project leader who oversaw the creation of HUGEPOS.

No matter, thought I. I’ll simply reboot again and quit out of HUGEPOS before it starts. This proved impossible. Now I was nervous.

I sprang into action on my spare laptop and Googled the issue. I found many people had this issue with HUGEPOS. Apparently it was common for Norton products in general to be huge worthless pos’s. There was a solution; According to Norton themselves, if I broke into a window on this house in the middle of the highway, I could sneak through a back door and get to my stuff.

So, I broke into the window and snuck into the house. Inside, there was a startling sight; I saw HUGEPOS blinking repeatedly with the brain damaged look of the marketing executive who thought a picture of a PC’s ghost should inspire confidence in the product not killing your PC.

January 24, 2010: Hour 3

Now things were getting desperate. This ridiculous house in the middle of the highway was NOT moving. I had tried every way of bypassing it with the computer alone. The next step, according to dedicated forum crawlers, was to use a boot disk. Yes, that’s right, a floppy disk. You know, one of those things that no computer or laptop has had a drive for since 1999. They’re small, square, and vaguely resemble something I want to heave across the room. Apparently, if I made this disk it would act like a wrecking ball against this stupid house in the middle of the highway between me and my stuff. There was a problem though.

I had no floppy drive on my PC. So I tried to make a boot CD instead. To do this at all, I had to install HUGEPOS on my laptop.

January 24, 2010: Hour 5

After finally getting a working version of HUGEPOS downloaded and installed again, I entered the boot disk utility. This had an option to make a bootable CD. Hallelujah! I set to work making one right away …only… what is this? It asks me to insert a floppy disk. Well that did confuse me since I was under the impression we were making CDs here.

I checked online.

“Oh yes,” says the forums. “The option to make a bootable CD requires a floppy.” I stared at the laptop screen, blinking repeatedly with the brain damaged look of someone who just read “The option to create a bootable CD requires a floppy.”

January 24, 2010: Hour 6

It had become apparent to me I NEEDED a floppy drive to make this boot disk to get rid of this stupid house in the middle of the highway between me and my stuff. I had one option; on my old PC that had been mostly dead for years sat a neglected floppy drive. I could not hook this up to my laptop, since laptops and PC components are racist against one another. I could not hook this to my poor disheveled PC since I was unable to boot into Windows to make the disk. My only option was to resurrect my old PC. I had to bring my old PC back to life in order to make a wrecking ball boot disk to destroy the stupid house sitting in the middle of the highway between me and my stuff.

I hit the power button on my old PC. It did not turn on.

January 24, 2010: Hour 9

It’s funny how angry you can get at inanimate things when they seem to be “winning.” Here I was nine hours into my repair efforts (which, I will remind you, were all started by trying to PREVENT this type of thing from happening) and nothing was working. My new PC, my old PC and my laptop all seemed to be laughing at me and pointing their twisted RAM in my direction.

“HAHAHAHAHA, U c@n’ts f1x d3m Pr0b13mZ!!! ZOMG L0LZZZZZZZZZ!”

Shut up, PC. I made you what you are, and I can destroy you.

“NOPE! Iz @11r3dy the DEAD!”

The blasted thing was right. It was right until I finally isolated the last problem, and the old girl sprang to life. I had brought my old PC back online! Now I just needed to install HUGEPOS for a THIRD time and make a boot disk!

Disk… that’s when it dawned on me. I had no disks.

I could have cried I suppose. I did the next best thing. At 9:00 PM eastern standard time, I went to sleep.

NOTE: Phillip from accounting would like to mention he, in fact, does NOT wish any of the readers a Merry Christmas. Phillip is a huge jerk and we all hate him. No, seriously, this guy is awful. We’re going to fire him the first of the year for a younger, hotter intern. Don’t let him know though, we wouldn’t want to spoil his Christmas. -OH

Perhaps the issue lies in how old our values of courtesy really are. Modern ideas mostly stem from the middle ages when chivalry became a buzzword used in PowerPoints by entrepreneuring young capitalists. Basically, there were these dudes over in Arabia around 500 AD who were loyal and courteous knights. They did it so everyone would know how amazingly awesome they were. I mean, come on. It’s simple to be a jackass with mad skills. Mad skills generally beg to be flaunted in a most jackasstic way. But to have bo staff skills and nunchuck skills while at the same time holding the door open for ladies? That’s basically a super power.

So, these really nice Arab guys were walking around picking up all the European chicks. The European knights were all, “whaaaaat?” so they followed suit. Ironically, most of these “chivalrous” Europeans went on to slaughter the Arabs (with as much courtesy as possible) during the Crusades.

Later on, a bunch people who became rich when their parents stole things during the Crusades decided to enroll in aristocratic courts. They were taught all manner of manners such as how to properly address rampant bread famine amongst the peasant population. These manners were later written down in the Courtesy Book so every one of the three literate people of the time could learn which fork to start a meal with.

This was all well and good back in the day. Let’s take the classic door hold. A knight would ride up at full speed before a lady and dropkick the door asunder for her. This was a necessity. The lady was so puffed out due to 70 layers of corset and dress she was physically unable to open the door.

Now let’s take the same situation today. Could there be a more complicated move that yields less happiness? You saunter up to a door with someone behind. If you’re too far ahead of them and hold the door, they suddenly feel as though time has slowed to a crawl. Every agonizing nanosecond that passes, they are forcing you to expend your energy for their sake. They feel compelled to totter up at this weird half-walk half-run pace that resembles a limping jackrabbit. While they’re still a tad too far away they’ll reach out with a free arm in a vein gesture to show how committed they are to relieving you of your Atlas duty. By the time they finally grab the door, they only have energy to mutter/sigh a weak “thanks.”

What if the door opens inward? Then it’s an even bigger mess. You can hurry though ahead of the person and do a spin move to pin the door against the wall while still standing in the person’s way. Alternatively, you can try to extend an arm through the door in front of you and use mad tricep fulcrum action to pin the door open for the person. Either way, you end up looking ridiculous, and the person going through the door feels embarrassed and hurries by.

Then there are always the few people who take OFFENCE to your helping them as if by holding a door you are decreeing to the world this person is incapable of helping themselves in even the most trivial of life’s challenges. They may say nothing at all, or reply with a snooty “I’ve got it.”

The rarest outcome is the desired one; somehow timing your arrival at a door perfectly with another party and easily pulling it aside as they stride in. Car doors are the most obvious candidates for this to work, but even here you must be wary. In a parking lot it is neigh impossible to beat a person to their door without sprinting there ahead of them. If you do make it ahead, you’re pinned against another car while they pass resulting in an awkward butt-shimmy dance.

“Come on, Dylan. Holding the door for people is just common courtesy. What if their arms are full of groceries?”

Your best bet, Oddly Situational Key, is to strike up a casual conversation with this grocery carrier, and ask her to dinner. You can take her on no less than three dates and share jollies about each other’s past. Soon, you will reach a level of social contentment with her that transcends the usual awkwardness associated with strangers helping each other. At this point, ask her back to her place. There you can safely hold the door for her while she enters.

“…Dylan, I think you’re missing the point entirely.”

YOU’RE OUT OF ORDER! Holding the door isn’t the only time courtesy can be discourteous. How about waiting for everyone to be seated before starting a meal? Sure, this sounds great on paper. In practice you run into all types of insanity. You may be sitting there all calm and collected in the face of glorious food when suddenly one of your comrades starts to devour everything before him. He may notice you have not started yet, and then he feels super awkward and guilty for being a terrible person. Now he has to sulk the entire dinner, and will end up drawing a bath in his own tears as he relives the moment all night. All this just so the last person to the table can trumpet, “Oh, just go ahead and start before it gets cold.”

Picking up objects someone else drops is a move of pure havoc as well. Inevitably, both parties involved go in for the kill. This can result in headbutting, unintentional squats, loss in balance, or an accidental romantic relationship.

“So what’s your solution, Negative Ninny? If everyone started running around slamming doors in their neighbor’s face so they can get to dinner first and finish before anyone else has even picked up their dropped mail, would the world suddenly be filled with daffodils and happy honey?”

You paint a rosy Bob Ross, Satirically Tragic Key. Like I said in my lead, I think courtesy is important. I also think it requires some finesse. Realize it can be just as obnoxious to hold the door for someone who is 30 paces behind you as it is to slam it in their face. If a host gives you a blessing to start eating, don’t be obstinate in your procrastination. Be sure to actually call your headbutt romance, but wait a few days beforehand. It’s the little intricacies that help preserve courtesy for the next generation.

“So what’s your take on picking up the bill at dinner?”

Not even gonna go there, Running Joke Key.

This got me thinking; I’M some idiot too. Why can’t I have a list of unforgivable songs? So I began to mentally list songs I hate. Unfortunately, that list is in the thousands. So, in the interest of me not developing carpal tunnel and being forced to sue my keyboard manufacturer for lost wages and mental anguish, I decided I had to narrow it down. Monkey Keys, I present to you:

Dylan’s 6 songs that WILL cause people to enter a murderous rage and bludgeon bystanders with extreme prejudice.

Complicated – Avril Lavigne
I challenge the Monkey Keys of the world to make sense of this awesomely bad song. Ok, so I get Avril is dating a guy who acts like every other guy. He’s DIFFERENT around his male friends (oh NO! ) She’s a little confused though since she’s under the impression the guy acts against his nature when he’s with the guys. HAHAHAHAHA, no Avril. He acts messed up and weird around YOU. That dude you hate? Yeah, that’s who he really is.

That aside though, Avril quickly drops the whole premise of her song for a more rhetorical bit.
Why’d you have to go and make things so complicated?
I see the way you’re actin’ like you’re somebody else
Gets me frustrated
Life’s like this you,
You fall and you crawl and you break
And you take what you get, and you turn it into
Honestly, you promised me
I’m never gonna find you fake it
No no no

Huh? I fall and I break in life? Possibly. I mean life is a constant struggle for social, economical and romantic peace of mind. What the HECK does it have to do with this dude who acts proper around his firends though. And what do you mean I promised you you’re never gonna find me fake it? Is English even your first language?

Gives You Hell – All American Rejects
Hope it gives you hell
Hope it gives you hell
Hope it gives you hell
Hope it gives you hell
Hope it gives you hell
Hope it gives you hell
Hope it gives you hell
Hope it gives you hell
If you find a man that’s worth a damn and treats you well
Then he’s a fool, your just as well, hope it gives you hell
Hope it gives you hell
Hope it gives you hell
Hope it gives you hell
Hope it gives you hell
Hope it gives you hell
If you find a man that’s worth a damn and treats you well
Then he’s a fool, your just as well, hope it gives you hell
With that sad sad look that you wear so well
Hope it gives you hell
Hope it gives you hell
Hope it gives you hell
Hope it gives you hell
If you find a man that’s worth a damn and treats you well
hope it gives you hell
Hope it gives you hell
Hope it gives you hell
Hope it gives you hell
Hope it gives you hell
When you hear this song and sing along oh you’ll never tell
Then you’re the fool, I’m just as well
Hope it gives you hell
When you hear this song I hope that it will give you hell
You can sing along I hope that it will treat you well

Thank me for saving you three minutes and thirty three seconds of the above separated by rubbish. (Yes, that is the actual amount of times they utter their supper witty lyric.)

I got the feeling – Black eyed Peas
Man, I’m feeling down. That tonight’s gonna be a good night! Really, Black Eyed Peas? It is? That tonight’s gonna be a good night! Well, if you say so. I think I feel better already! That tonight’s gonna be a good night! Yeah… you said that already. I’m happy it’s going to be because… That tonight’s gonna be a good night! Ok, seriously. I was all ready to have a good night, but now… That tonight’s gonna be a good night! Shut up already! That tonight’s gonna be a good night! DUDE, I am SO going to give you an actual black eye! That tonight’s gonna be a good night! Scratch that, I’m going to tear your arm off and beat you with it until you die if you say that one more… That tonight’s gonna be a good night!

If You Seek Amy – Brittany Spears
First of all, what is Brittany even doing making music anymore? Second of all, what was she on that spawned this rot of the damned? Her intro sounds like a bubble headed ode to Mr. Roboto. La la la lala la la la! And if you make it through that you’re treated with her attempt to be street!

Oh baby baby have you seen Amy tonight?
Is she in the bathroom? Is she smokin up outside? Ouuh
Oh baby baby does she take a piece of lime
For the drink that I’ma buy her
Do you know just what she likes so?
Oh oh tell me have you seen her
Cuz I’m so-oh oh
I can’t get her out of my brain
I just wanna go to the party she gon’ go
Can somebody take me home?
Ha ha he he ha ha ho

If anyone finds Amy, tell her to run for her life. Brittany is on the prowl.

London Bridge – Fergie
Producer: You know what we need, crappy underpaid music writers?
Crappy underpaid music writers (in unison): What?
Producer: We need a remake of a nursery rhyme. But not just ANY remake. We need a remake that only brain damaged teen girls will enjoy.
Crappy underpaid music writers(the fat one eying a doughnut): How about Ring around the Rosie?
Producer: You’re fired. Next idea?
Crappy underpaid music writers (the one who’s always looked down on, but tonight’s gonna be a good night for him): What about London Bridge is Falling Down?
Producer: Hmmm, that’s pretty good. It’s sufficiently vague, kinda edgy. All we need to do is come up with a way to make it sufficiently retarded.
Crappy underpaid music writers (the one who is going to ride the coattails): First, let’s get the worst artist EVER to sing it. Fergie. Then we start the song with all these “AWWWWW SNAP”s. Fergie will be so blown away by the AWESOMENESS of the phrase “Aww Snap” she’ll be BOUND to proclaim her awesomeness in a truly stupid way. Probably something like,

When I come to the club, step aside
(Oh snap!)
Part the seas, don’t be havin? me in the line
(Oh snap!)
V.I.P. ?cause you know I gotta shine
(Oh snap!)
I’m Fergie Ferg and me love you long time

Producer: YOU’RE PROMOTED TO LORD OF THE AGENCY!
Crappy underpaid music writers (the one who’s always looked down on, but tonight’s NOT gonna be a good night for him): YOU LIED TO ME, BLACK EYED PEAS!

My Humps – Black Eyed Peas AGAIN
Honestly, I wanted to come up with something witty for this, but it is SUCH a bad song, I was rendered unconscious by just READING the lyrics. Good luck with just the first few bars…

What you gon’ do with all that junk?
All that junk inside your trunk?
I’ma get, get, get, get, you drunk,
Get you love drunk off my hump.
My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump,
My hump, my hump, my hump, my lovely little lumps (Check it out)
I drive these brothers crazy,
I do it on the daily,
They treat me really nicely,
They buy me all these ices.
Dolce & Gabbana,
Fendi and NaDonna
Karan, they be sharin’
All their money got me wearin’ fly…

AHHHHHHHHHHHH, I can’t do it anymore! Driving a railroad spike into my head sounds better than this! HOW COULD SOMETHING LIKE THIS HAPPEN! And someone likes it? LIKES IT! If I find you… you Neanderthals of musical taste, I’m going to grab the NEAREST tire iron I can find and…

The staff of Obfucational Hazard apologizes for the abrupt end of this rant. Our lawyers advised us that Dylan’s murderous shouting could result in lawsuits from the elderly and confused. To preserve your innocence, we will continue the blog at the end of this childish display. We hope that this sad dislike for the musical genius that is The Black Eyed Peas won’t stop you from reading Obfuscational Hazard in the future. Thank you for your cooperation. -OH

…and you’ll need the jaws of life just to SIT DOWN AGAIN!

Whew, I feel better after that. By the way, if you like anything by Black Eyed Peas, we are now nemeses.

The whole thing used to be called Samhain and was a celebration for the end of harvest. The ancient Celtic IRS would audit the food stores for the winter while everyone else put on masks to pretend they were dead. They believed this would fool the IRS into ignoring their undisclosed mutton. Sadly, it was still subject to estate tax.

Eventually some striking individuals decided to call the 31st All Hallows’ Eve as the evening prior to the similarly named All Hallows’ Day. This was abbreviated to Hallowe’en by the lazy before being abbreviated again to Halloween by the even lazier. Future Dylan informed me this will be abbreviated further to Hall’een and then Hleen respectively before ultimately being called H in accordance with the single letter proper noun standard of 2047.

Pope Gregory III blindsided H Day by moving the Christian holiday All Saints Day from May 18 to November 1 sometime around 834 AD. The attempt was to fully Christianize H since the burning mutton fires lit by the pagans lowered land value in Rome. However, the sudden name change confused the Celtics who had been at the pub. The result was a weird blend of attending mass and going door to door with masks on to collect “soul cakes.” The cakes were consumed until fatness set in so evil spirits would ignore the consumers. Evidently they were shallow evil spirits.

As is tradition in America, the Celtics brought H over on the boats to be completely screwed up. The cakes became candy to remove any hope of nutrition from the practice. All the religious malarkey was replaced with Spiderman costumes, and the sense of pride and honor in one’s family ancestry was replaced with blackmailing neighbors under threat of egg to feed children they didn’t know. The traditional ‘trick or treat’ question itself is actually a thinly veiled threat against the homeowner. A more descriptive phrase ‘prepare to have your homestead redecorated in rotting carcasses and fecal matter before ultimately being burned down or treat’ was ultimately rejected as it took too long to say and cut into candy time.

This was all fine and dandy for the free loving children of the 60s, but now they’re grown up and determined to stop future generations from ever having the fun they did. Alternatives to trick or treating have arisen in the form of lame parties and sit-ins. While this is a widespread practice, it is not widespread enough to remove trick or treating entirely.

Modern H is now celebrated by purchasing way too much overpriced candy. Said candy is dispensed in one of two ways. It can be physically handed to the three children and five teenage punks who come to your home over the course of three hours by referencing the following formula:
amount of candy per child measured in ‘fun sized’ bars (C)
number of children at door (D)
time passed in hours (T)

C = 1/D * T^4

The other option is placing said candy in a dish with a ‘take one’ sign to be taken via the following formula:

amount of candy per child measured in ‘fun sized’ bars (C)
number of children at door (D)
age of child in years (A)
total candy in bowl (T)

C = T * ((A/15) /D)

With any C greater than T meaning a break and enter by the child to collect C pieces of candy.

“So, Dylan, you must really hate Halloween.”

On the contrary, Pumpkin Key, I’m simply getting in the festive mood. It’s about time to be picking out those costumes. I might also suggest buying that pound and a half of candy now. As we get closer to H the price goes up:

Price per bag (P)
Day of the month (D)

P = D^3

“So what do you think you’re going to dress up as this year, Dylan?”

A failed economy.

“…so do they make a mask for that or what?”

I learned a better lesson in second grade when I called a girl butthead for kicking me off the slide. Slander can send you to the hoosegow. That or a crying girl gets whatever she wants. Or perhaps, more generically, charisma wins over reason.

All good lessons, but interestingly, all taught by my peers. I started contemplating common lessons taught to kindergarteners by our authority figures today. They often sound good in theory, but end up a confusing mess for us later in life.

How about, ‘Don’t take candy from a stranger?’ That’s all fine and dandy until someone brings in candy and is told, ‘Don’t bring in candy unless you have enough for everyone.’ Pardon me Miss Bipolar, but I don’t know where Snotty Timmy was keeping that bag of M&Ms before he came in. For all we know it served as his personal spittoon for peanut shells and Skoal. So my head reeled with confusion until today when a young lady offers me candy on my way into work. Is this a good witch, or a bad witch? She didn’t try slipping me some poppy seeds, but she sure didn’t float in on a pink water balloon either.

I turned the candy down only to discover later she had been working for the United Way and was trying to promote the start of their campaign. In sticking with Kindergarten, I may have inadvertently doomed thousands of kids.

How about ‘Wait your turn?’ This is one that needed a caveat. Sure, it makes sense while waiting to ride the Raptor or checking out at Wal-Mart, but try it when merging onto the autobahn. Better yet, think about it while waiting behind someone else who is trying it when merging onto the autobahn. This rule has the potential to cause homicidal outbursts. What if you were in a Graduate-like situation, and Elaine is getting married off. Do you wait your turn? If you do I can guarantee Simon and Garfunkel ain’t got your back. Then you’re stuck listening to Green Day, alone, on the bus

‘Don’t talk with food in your mouth?’ Tell that to Jimmy Stewart while he’s addressing congress. You don’t talk for 23 hours nonstop without a Hot Pocket or two. What if he had followed this rule? The Boy Rangers would have been so disappointed. The very foundation of youth patriotism would have been destroyed. Why, I’d postulate the entire fabric of the country would unravel in social discord. Way to disobey Jimmy!

“Dylan, may I cut in?”

Of course, Courteous Key.

“If I could offer an observation, your arguments are flimsy at best. While every rule has moments when it would be better to disobey, the majority of the time there is a good reason to uphold them.”

What!? You would side with the teacher?

“Huh? No I was simply saying tha-“

TEACHER’S PET! TEACHER’S PET!

“Is this really necessary?”

Hey, if you love teacher so much, why dontcha MARRY her?

“I’m already happily married to Oppressive Key.”

Alright, I can see I’m preaching to those who fell along the road here. All I have to say is Robert Fulghum should rethink his theory. Kindergarten lessons? Ha! Everything I really need to know I learned from the Dukes of Hazard.

“You can’t be serious!”

Of course I am, Oppressive Key. You two make an adorable couple by the way. The Dukes taught me valuable life lessons like police can’t follow you across the county line. Every town has a fat man trying to undermine your moonshine operation. You can break as many laws as you want with no repercussion whatsoever as long as you help save the day. You have a hot cousin. Dodge Chargers have better suspension than an ocean of Tempur-Pedic® mattresses. This is compelling stuff I use every day!

“Well Dylan, all the pieces seem to be falling into place. But there is still one thing that is troubling me…”

Alright, go ahead, Inspector Clouseau Key.

“What did Jimmy Steward do during that filibuster when he had to take a pee?”

…I…well that is to say… Hmm…

I mean, seriously? It’s been two decades now, and I’ve yet to make any attempt to come back in time and give myself a jumping high-five? This is simply inexcusable. I vowed at the primal age of five to one day demonstrate time dilation to myself with an hourglass of pudding. So what’s going on, Upper Gravity Well? For your sake, Doc better have taken you on a trip to bring Deloreans back from the dead.

So let’s give me the benefit of the doubt. Maybe getting Johnny Delorean acquitted of his moon sugar charges was my doing as part of a three tiered process to save the stainless steel chariots. If that were the case, I’m sure I gave baby Dylan some sweet stock tips on my way back though the wormhole. Elder Dylan’s penmanship is pretty dodgy though. Chances are, my parents thought the acronyms and numbers were doctor’s orders to force feed me pie. Now I’m broke and addicted to rhubarb. Thanks future self.

And what’s with not bringing me any genetic enhancement chips? At the very least you could have given me super strength, or the ability to turn into horseradish. Did you think I don’t know about the horseradish famine of ’17? We could have been heroes, me!

“Dylan, calm down! You must realize the inherent dangers of time travel. One wrong Johnny Be Good and you could chaos theory yourself out of existence. In fact, what if you came back in time already, changed some minute thing, and made it so you’ll die before you can go back in time to meet yourself?” An impossibility, Henri Poincaré Key. If I came back in time, it must have always been. The very act of me going back in time has already been affected by different reality me going back in time. I’m just super bummed pre-time travel me doesn’t even get a t-shirt out of it. I’ll bet they make some sick shirts in the future; all cotton beasts without those stupid itchy tags. You would think we as a society would have transcended shirts with tags by now.

“Dylan, have you considered the possibility time travel itself is an impossibility and just will never be?” …Alright, that’s it, Chronology Protection Conjecture Key. I vow to make my first time travel destination right behind you a second before you wrote that blasphemy so I can slap the stupid out of you. You’d best get ready!

“Uh… nothing slapped me.”

Well there’s only one explanation.

“I’m right?”

Nope. Time travel me has come from a time where violence is abolished. Our people are a strong and proud breed, yet gentile as a soothing spring rain. We rule only with the love in our hearts. One day, we hope to spread this example across all galaxies and end the suffering of the universe. We are but one species. We stand alone in this endeavor, but united under the banner of a unified earth, we shall see nothing but victory!

“That’s just ridiculous. I mean, humans are inher-OUCH! Why did you slap me!?”

Oops. Guess there’s just a twenty second delay when exiting the gravity well. Say hi to me for me, and tell me I want to see me right away.

“Ok. Hey, future you brought me a tagless T.”

Oh, sweet! Did I bring me one?

“Nope. You said you could only afford one shirt in this economy.”

…I hate me.

“You mean Swine Flu?” Silence insolent Key! Even uttering the words will bring about our damnation.

“You can’t be serious.” Of course I’m not! But if I don’t try to blend in with the absurd fear mongering I may be McCarthyismed into an internment camp. You see, ever since the first unwashed guttersnipe was paid 40 dollars American to be injected with this trivial sickness to bolster useless drug sales, society has collapsed into a quivering blob of terror.

Let’s start with the basics for those Keys who couldn’t snag a government digital converter box coupon and missed TV for a few months. Swine flu (or H1N1 influenza if you have a thing for extra syllables) is the flu.

“Wait, there has to be more to it than that, Dylan.” Oh, you didn’t let me finish, Excitable Key. It is also POSSESED BY THE DEVIL!”

“…” Alright, you got me. I meant to say it’s… um… wait, seriously what the crap is the difference between this thing and normal flu. Let me check with the Center for Disease Control.

Let’s see… symptoms… Here we go. Coughing, fever, sore throat, runny nose… nope that’s all normal flu stuff. Sounds like it spreads the same way. Oh, wait maybe it’s really deadly! Oh… no not really. Wow, 36,000 people die annually of normal flu.

“Hey, quit educating yourself. You have a post to write.” Sorry, I got caught up in trying to find a solitary difference in this huge pandemic that will usher in the end of the earth and the sniffles. There has to be something to explain why every time I turn on the TV I see concerned anchormen blithering about its spread. Something must tell me why anti-flu stocks searching for the “miracle cure” are soaring at crazy inflated rates. There must be rational why my workplace is covered with biohazard posters explaining the danger of flu plague and how to cover your mouth properly when you sneeze. A shred of evidence must exist proving it was a good choice to shut down entire communities where one person was found to have an illness that is EXACTLY the same as what millions get every stinking year.

Oh, I know what it is. The government finally passed that law forcing stupid people to breed uncontrollably. I was a firm proponent of that one.

“Dylan, you know that’s a fallacy. Stupid people would breed uncontrollably regardless of the law. It’s called Arkansas.” I know, Soon to be Tarred and Feathered Key. In reality, those committing the worst acts of flagrant sensationalism know darn good and well Swine Flu is no different than anything humans have been dealing with since the beginning of time. Like everything else, it’s all about cash money. The news forgot how to report back in the Age of Enlightenment, so they make up scary sounding things to sell advertising time when a celebrity hasn’t recently died. Work puts up posters and schools close down out of lawsuit phobia.

What is inexcusable is our lemming attitude toward it all. I have coworkers who have begrudgingly hung posters listing the signs of flu that wouldn’t help anyone who attended kindergarten. I have family who watches the news and complains about how pointless the swine flu reporting is while the remote lies unutilized micrometers away. Then there are the people who are truly stupid enough to live in terror and buy into the whole crisis.

“Well, you know what really caused all the Swine Flu fiasco?” What’s that? “This econo…” Oh no! I’ve had enough of THAT malarkey too. Looks like I’ll have to lock myself in the basement until World War III starts so there’s something interesting on TV.

“Why not pick up a good book?”

Yes, Levar Burton Key, World War III.

Emotion, she taught, should never have to be spelled out for the reader. Saying something akin to “Billy was happy” is the writer’s equivalent of a laugh track. It’s weak, and someone in the audience invariably comments on how horribly contrived the weakness’s setup was. A reader shouldn’t need to be told how a person is feeling. The emotion is self evident in the person’s actions, words and the surrounding situation. If done correctly, the reader is the one who walks away feeling exactly what the character feels.

We were tasked with demonstrating the concept in an exercise. My own example is lost to the recesses of my brain. One can imagine how compelling it must have been with an impact like that. A girl in my class, however, wrote something I did not forget. It was a brief story. Even so, I’ll fail to do it justice.

An elderly woman is being thrown a birthday party by her family. Her children and their children are playing and talking amongst themselves. The apartment is soiled with dollar-store streamers and confetti. She sits, alone, at a card table with a cardboard party cone perched atop her curled white hair. A grocery store, sugar-free cake sits with a single candle to her front. Someone mentions it’s time to sing the song and open the gifts. Perhaps it was one of her daughters’ husbands?

A CD of a band she doesn’t know; no CD player to play it in anyway. A gift certificate to a restaurant in the city. Maybe she can eat there if she visits. The children eat cake first and return to their games. She gingerly picks up a knife.

“Let me help you with that, Mom.” A small, lopsided, piece is presented to her on a paper plate covered in cartoon balloons. She picks some up with a plastic fork, but halfway to her mouth it drops in her lap. She’s looking at it in silence. Her daughter has answered a phone call and laughs to the voice on the other side.

“Look at the time! We have to get going. It was good to see you again mom.” The procession exists slightly faster than it entered. Alone, she picks the crumbs from her lap. They don’t taste right. She looks through welting eyes at the discarded cordless phone tossed amongst some streamers. It’s too far away to pick up. No one would answer anyway. There’s probably next year.

“I’m your knight in shining armor,” Stancliff said with a grin.

“Where’s everyone else?” I asked, slightly offended no one else had come.

“I tried to wake Hobbes up. The key word being try. He tried to save you last night. Had half the dock ready to sail out here.” I smiled. That sounded just like him.

“So how did you make it here, man,” Nicolai asked the obvious question as we couldn’t see Stancliff’s ship anywhere.

“The ship is still under repair,” Stancliff said with a sigh. “It probably will be for some time. I found out with Hobbes last night there was a ferry service that comes to the island every day. I was able to get here on that. I got four return tickets. We just have to make it to the launch in the next three hours.”

“How far is the launch from here?” Finnius asked.

“About three miles.”

“Three miles, Stancliff?” I gulped. “We have a cubic tone of rubbish. There’s no way we’re going to be able to get it there with just the four of us!”

“Oh, this doesn’t look that bad,” Stancliff grinned patting the casket cooler. The original plan was to drag the campsite to the launch in one load. That degraded into dragging it there in two loads. After 400 feet, we realized it wasn’t going to happen at all.

“This casket cooler weighs a billion pounds!” Stancliff panted as he stopped in his tracks. We stood around realizing it was an impossibility to get our gear three miles in three hours. Ahead of us on the beach was a man with a fishing skiff.

“You know, we need this guy’s help,” Nicolai said. I agreed.

“Hobbes tried to employ the locals last night,” Stancliff began. “It was a less than fruitful effort.”

“Well, Stancliff, we have no choice,” Nicolai said. He and I marched to the man’s campsite.

“Howdy, sons,” the man said with a smile as we approached. What brings you to the casa de Frank?

“Well, we’re having a bit of boat trouble I’m afraid, Frank.” Nicolai said.

“We really hate to impose,” I said, “but could you possibly help move our gear to the ferry launch? We’ve come to the conclusion we’re quite incapable on our own.” Frank laughed.

“Why boys, we’ve all been there. I’d be happy to help bring your stuff. Only problem is, I only have room for one of you in there.” We decided Stancliff would go with the man. What was one more three mile trip for us?

Three miles in the noon sun with no sunscreen in the Northern Lands of Carolina turns out to be a lot.

By the time we made it to the launch, or bitten, burned bodies resembled lagoon creatures. We made it in time with all the gear though, and an hour later, we were sailing back to the mainland.

After another round of unloading the national treasure from a ship, we ran into our final obstacle; how do you load a compact car with four people and enough gear to establish a space colony?

“I think they’re going to try to get all that in that car!” a passerby said to his wife. “This should be better than a movie!”

“There’s no way they’re going to get it all in,” another lady laughed.

“There seems to be some general pessimism about our situation,” I said glancing around at the gathering crowd. “Folks, no worries. We’re pro packers.”

“We’ll see about that,” a gentleman in a fine Hawaiian shirt remarked.

“We can get this all in, right?” I whispered to Stancliff. He bit his lip and looked from the pile of goods to the car and back.

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t gamble on it…” he said reluctantly. The coffin cooler alone took up the entire trunk. We couldn’t close it entirely, but we managed to find a belt in one of the bags to tie it down with. Finnius and I got in the back next, and Stancliff and Nicolai piled goods on us until the luggage to air ratio was frightfully high. Bags from the trip were crammed into every inch of free space. Nicolai piled more bags onto himself, and Stancliff piled a few on himself in the driver’s seat. By the time the doors to the car clicked shut, we didn’t have an inch to move. The small crowd clapped.

I have my doubts about clowns driving very far in their clown cars. I guarantee they don’t do it while their skin is reminiscent of a leper’s. An hour later, we were back at Stancliff’s palace.

“It’s the lost boys!” Maid Megion exclaimed with glee as we crossed the threshold. “They’re back!” I fell into the couch as the guests gathered around us.

EPILOGUE:

The following night, Hobbes, Moni, Megion and I returned to the island. Perhaps I’m just a glutton for punishment. We took the ferry out, and packed VERY light. We just brought the Taj Mahal, a SMALL cooler and a sleeping bag. We camped on the ocean side of the island to avoid the sand flies. The rumors of it being desolate were true, but it was beautiful. The cost stretched forever in either direction with nothing but seashell and white sand beaches. The inland was blocked by a small sand dune. There was no wood to be found for a fire save one large log Hobbes and I managed to roll a half mile down the beach to the campsite. Using grasses and twigs we were able to light the behemoth.

Late that night, Hobbes and I stood on the beech watching the waves crash.

“Hobbes of Thickgrowth,” I said, “Here’s to Memorial Day ’09.” I raised my glass of mead in the air. “Here’s to the loss of our great steeds.”

“Here’s to the loss of Sir Jon the Gear Slayer.” He said.

“To the Trip of a thousand mountains.”

“To the canoeing of sandals.”

“To the saving of Rick…”

“And the saving of our feet.”

“Being lost and found again.”

“That goes twice for you, Feanor.”

“To Saint Nick,”

“And to people who own boats and are not saints.”

“Here’s to our mutual knight in shining armor, Sir Stancliff the Benevolent.” I said raising my glass higher.

“And here’s to us, for being here on this beech.”

“I’ll drink to that,” I said finally tilting the glass to my lips. We stood a while longer on that beech. “Hobbes…” I said finally. “Would you do it all again, even now knowing what the outcome is?” Hobbes stared a long moment over the water. At last, he drew in a great sigh and answered me.

“Not in this economy.”

“Hobbes,” he cautiously began. “I don’t think I can get this thing going again.” The pair had made it back to the launch where the others had finally arrived. They milled silently around the ship as Stancliff prodded it with various fix instruments.

“We can’t leave Feanor and those guys out there,” Hobbes protested. “There has to be something you can do!” Stancliff just looked up from the engine and shook his head. “We can’t leave them, guys! This is more than just a forest. They’re stranded out there, and we have to come up with something. You’d all want the same!” The crowed shuffled around anxiously.

“Hobbes,” Brian began at length. “What do you expect us to do, man? We have no ship.”

“Then I’ll get us a ship!” Hobbes ran down to the dock as everyone looked on.

“That a babe,” Moni said following her brother. The two approached the first ship they could find.

“Pardon me good sir,” Hobbes began. “Were you and your hearty crew thinking of disembarking toward the islands?”

“Why we were young squire,” responded the captain. “Why do you ask?”

“My sister and I seek passage to save a stranded comrade of ours. We were wondering if there was any room to spare on your vessel.”

“Oh I am sorry lad. There’s nary enough room for me and my kin. Do ask around though. It is the south and everyone is very hospitable.” With that, the captain fired up his ship, and sailed into the setting sun.

“Very hostile, more like it,” Moni mumbled. “I guess we keep trying?” Hobbes nodded, and they approached the next ship.

“Never going to break, eh Nicolai,” I said shooting him daggers. He just laughed and wandered toward the coffin cooler. “I suppose we should prepare for the worst. We should check the supplies we have.”

“Absolutely,” Nicolai said with a tankard of mead in hand. “We have drink a plenty… supply check done.”

“Guys,” Finnius said. “We don’t know how long we’re going to be here. We should probably make sure we have enough food and water.” Luckily, we did. The party had packed an astronomical amount. We had chili, sausage, omelets, hotdogs, and seven types of Twinkie to start with. They had also thought to pack a cooler of water.

“It’s good someone plans in this group,” I said.

“We clearly need a name!” Nicolai said triumphantly out of the blue. “I think team FUBAR sums us up nicely!”

“A little cliché,” I said lying in the sand. “What about Revenge of Gilligan’s Ghost?”

“Is Gilligan dead?”

“Unknown, but heck, it’s catchy.”

“I hate it,” Finnius said with teen angst.

“I guess we can be ‘Team Gather Firewood’ then,” I said getting up.

“I think Gilligan Ghost is better than that man,” Nicolai said with a frown. The three of us set about deforesting the surrounding deadwood. The tide was coming in, and it was necessary to cut as much as we could before it was inundated with water.

The island was beautiful in a desolate sort of way. Our team had chosen to make landfall as far from other campers as we could. There was no one to be seen. The inland was filled with a forest. On the far side, roughly a mile through, was the ocean side of the island. There was little known about this area, but most speculated it to be a barren desert environment. Our side was a mix of beach and swampy inlets. Several paths we had used to make it to our campsite were already filled with marshy sea water as the tide rolled up the beach.

I split off from the group and made my way into some dense undergrowth. Crabs were running amok under my feet. The forest curved inland, and various signs of wild horses were all around. As I lazily stumbled around picking up branches I happened to glance up.

“In a place like this, I would NEVER have expected to see you…” I said with a smile.

Four boats later, Hobbes and Moni had only managed to hear four different ways of saying ‘no’ to a fellow human being in need.

“Guys,” Stancliff said from behind as the pair was shot down for the fifth time. “We have to call it. It’s getting dark, and I really don’t think we can make it out tonight. Even if we could, there’s no way back. Let me work on the ship tonight. We’ll find a way.” Hobbes said nothing. He turned his gaze to the sea for a moment. Stancliff was right of course. There was little he could do now except wait.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Feanor.” He thought. “Alright, let’s go.” The team drove back from where they had come. The Lost Boys were alone.

“So why do you think, in a situation where the three of us are already lost, did Feanor take it upon himself to get MORE lost?” Finnius asked Nicolai in disgust as they peered into the woods.

“Is it more lost, or loster?”

“Loster sounds like lobster man. It has to be more lost.”

“Are you sure? I feel like, ‘Jane was the loster of the two’ is a sentence.”

“I feel like your brain is broked.”

“HA! Broken, fool!”

“I know that you idio…”

“Guys, come quick!” I yelled from the woods. The two looked at each other in panic, and ran into the brush. In a matter of moments, they came running into the glade I had found.

“Feanor, what’s all this then?” Finnius asked. “Are you alright?”

“Better than,” I said turning to him. “I found a long lost friend!” Before me, sitting amongst some large crabs, sat a Santa Claus doll.

“Saint Nick!” Nicolai exclaimed with glee. “At least there will be presents for us!”

“And maybe Christmas in July if we never get out of here,” Finnius said scoffing at the doll. “Let’s get back to cutting things…” We continued for over an hour until the sun had started to go down. With a lighter we found in a bag, we were able to start a fire. We talked for hours, us three. All of our goods were placed in the giant tent Hobbes had brought. The beast was unofficially referred to as the Taj Mahal from our trips in years past.

“Feanor,” Nicolai said at length. “You know it’s tradition we jump the fire.” I glanced at our inferno thinking the idea less than stellar.

“You know, Nicolai, with everything that has gone wrong this trip, what makes you think one of us won’t be burned alive on this beach?” He laughed and contemplated my comment at the same time.

“All I know is we have a saint to save.” He smiled and stood before us. “Feanor,” he said looking at me, “You’re with me.” For some reason, I was. Maybe it was the absolutely ludicrous nature of the trip up to that point, but I knew somehow we’d all be ok. With a look of assurance from Nicolai, he said, “On three…”

His countdown reached zero, and the two of us leapt the flames perfectly. We were in a full run a second later toward Santa’s glade. When we arrived, we found the place had been flooded and was now Santa’s swamp.

“The mission remains the same,” I said. “I’m going in.” The murk beneath my toes felt strangely soothing. The crabs that had infested the area prior must have made an executive decision to leave. A moment later, I held Saint Nick in my hands. A moment after that, we evacuated him to our fire. A moment after that, I was asleep in the Taj Mahal.

Morning came too quickly, and I was itchy. Itchy, itchy, itchy. Sand covered the ground of the Taj Mahal, so I assumed it was just that. Then I felt a nibble.

“What the crap,” I mumbled as I struggled to wake myself. Another nibble. Then another. My eyes shot open. “Ugg, bugs!” I shouted. Tiny flies were everywhere. They were so tiny, they had been able to ninja their way through the mesh windows of the hall. I was covered in them, and they had an affinity for human flesh. “Guys, bugs!” I swatted frantically as they feasted. The zipper to the Taj Mahal picked a perfect time to be impossible. I tore at it frantically, and finally made it outside. The sun was just starting to rise over the horizon. With nowhere else to turn, I ran into the ocean.

Ice water never felt so good.

Hardly a minute passed before Finnius and Nicolai had joined me. We laid there for a good thirty minutes as the parasites fluttered overhead.

“Going to pickup bug spray?” I asked Nicolai in disgust. He laughed again.

“Sunscreen too,” he said. I looked out over the water at the rising sun. In a matter of hours, we’d be roasted alive. I sighed. The sun was enough to draw the flies away at least. As morning rolled in they retreated to their burrows. I was able to find some peace back in the tent for a few hours. I was coated from head to toe in more bites than I’ve ever seen. I called it beach pox.

“So how you think we’re going to get out of here,” Finnius asked. I kept my eyes shut and tried to concentrate on something other than the building itch in my arms, legs and chest. It was a good question I didn’t have a good answer for. We had made it through the night, but the night had been hand fed to us. We three Neanderthals would have a trying time if we had to do much more. I shuttered thinking about the flies.

“Finnius,” I said after a while. “You know what I was thinking about while lost in the forest the other day?” He shook his head no. “I was thinking how it’s times like these that define the rest of my life. They let me realize how thankful I am for the simple things. Good friends, food and shelter. Those good friends will get here and bring us back to shelter for food. I know it.”

“Well, it is Hobbes we’re talking about…”

“…I hope it at least.”

“Guys, get out here!” Nicolai yelled from the beech. We emerged into the noon sun to see him waving. Further down the beach was a man in white. He walked steadily toward us with purpose. It was Stancliff.

“Oh, dear,” the Queen of Wings beckoned. “Slow us down so that I may shred these volatile waves.” Jamie donned her best aquatic armor and her primitive single-person skiff. The mighty ship slowed to a crawl as Nicolai threw a rope to the queen, and the vessel prepared for shenanigans.

“I do love a solid wipeout,” Finnius grinned as he peered over the stern. Jamie gave the “I’m ready to die” signal, and Stancliff dropped the hammer. The ship tore off at its fastest pace yet as the queen righted herself. Nary had a turn passed, however, before Nicolai noticed a troubling phenomenon.

“Yo, Stancliff,” he called glancing at the engine of the ship. “This thing s’pos ta be smoking?” Stancliff whirled around to see his ship’s engine become a cloud making machine. He quickly un-dropped the hammer bringing the ship and the queen to an abrupt halt. Finnius burst into laughter as his hopes for a face plant were realized.

“Why did you stop you plebe!” Jami groused as she emerged from the briny deep. “My head hurts!”

“The ship is acting a fool again!” Stancliff called. He removed the engine cover to discover the engine was lacking in anti-smoke sauce.

“You have no idea how to keep a ship running, do you?” Nicolai laughed. “I mean should I get out and push?”

“It might help,” Stancliff grumbled. “We may be able to make it back to the loading dock before this thing stops entirely.”

“What of the others?” Lady Kendal spoke glancing back toward the forest. “Surely we can’t leave them out there.”

“We haven’t a choice,” Stancliff said as he calculated in his head. “If we turn around and pick them up, we’ll never make it back to the launch. We’re going to be pushing it as it is. I’ll have to run her real slow.”

“They’re on the beach,” Finnius shrugged. “As long as they don’t do anything stupid, we should be able to find them.”

Hobbes and I stupidly peered into the green goo before us.

“What do you think lives in there, Feanor?” he asked. “The surface is so smooth.”

“It looks like the marsh of the damned,” I muttered trying to peer through the gelatinous surface. “Come on, Hobbes. We need to catch everyone else before we’re lost entirely.” The two of us limped on at an increased pace. The thought of being stuck in the dead marshes after nightfall was enough to spur us on. A few minutes later I saw Maiden Moni peering back toward us through the haze.

“I found the fools!” She called over her shoulder to the rest of the group. The two of us collected ourselves as we climbed a steady incline out of the haze and into the twilight. We had reached another fork in the path. To our left was a small clearing in the forest with an abandoned looking cabin in the center. Along side it was an ailing flatbed chariot.

“I suppose we should see if anyone’s home,” I sighed as Hobbes and I passed the group and headed toward the house.

“Are you kidding me!” Brian said staying where he was. “Do you know who lives in the woods? Toothless cannibals at best! I don’t know about you, but there’s no way I want to be gummed to death. I just have this thing about digestive enzymes; they’re not me.”

“Well I’d prefer people to a bear,” I said glancing back.

“Yeah,” Hobbes agreed. “People are slower than bears,” The party followed us with Brian hesitating an extra few seconds. We approached the moss covered door and tried to peer through the frosty windows. Nothing in the glade stirred. With another sigh, I banged my fist against the door.

Twenty minutes of slow no wake had brought Stancliff’s crew close to the shore. The queen was now wrapped in towels and glared at Stancliff. He gave a meager “I’m sorry” look as the ship tapped against the dock. With a few sputters, the engine of the ship was finally silenced.

“Nicolai,” Stancliff said as he tied the boat to the dock. “I need you to take Jamie, Kendal and Finnius back to the palace with the ship.”

“Where are you going?” Finnius asked.

“To find your brother and the cast of ‘The Hatchet.’”

“Then I’m coming with you,” Finnius said with newfound resolve.

“I don’t know, Finnius.” Stancliff said sizing him up. “I’m not certain where to look. Are you going to be able to keep up?”

“As long as you are,” Finnius grinned. Stancliff smiled, and the two ran to his chariot.

“Come on. There’s not much daylight left,” Stancliff said as he sped down the road.

Nicolai stared after the two as he tugged the ship toward its trailer. He paused a moment as if in deep thought, and then continued to pull.

The group waited in anxious anticipation as my knocks rang out. Brian’s eyes were visibly darting about looking for some kind of weapon. Several moments passed, however, and no drunken hillbilly emerged. The cabin was abandoned.

“What if we let ourselves in just to see if there’s a phone,” Moni said.

“Well,” began Hobbes, “As much as I appreciate a good breaking and entering, I shutter to think where we’d be if the owners DID show up.”

I gave the door a quick tug. “It’s definitely locked.”

“Then what about this chariot?” Moni asked as she approached the flatbed. Without a moment’s pause, she pulled the door open and climbed inside.

“Moni, what are you going to do?” I protested. “Hotwire the Grapes of Wrath truck?”

“If that will get us out of here,” she said digging further into the vehicle.

“Get out of there, Moni” Hobbes said impatiently. “We’re not stealing abandoned chariots.”

“I was only going to borrow it,” Moni said. “But the keys aren’t here anyway, so I guess we’re out of luck.” Everyone fell silent. I looked at the sky hoping to see some remnant of Mr. Sun. He was now asleep. A darkening purple sky was all that remained.

“We have to keep going,” I said. Sir Rick led the way in the direction we had been going. I ran about gathering the largest branches I could find, and made another arrow pointing the way we went. There was no defined path through the clearing, so I could only hope Stancliff would find the markings. I limped up to the rest of the group to find Rick strangely absent.

“Where’d our knight go?” I asked glancing about.

“No clue,” said Hobbes. “He just started running up the path.”

“Rick!” I called out to my own echo. “Come on, let’s try to catch up.” We increased our pace and the forest seemed to thicken around us. As we rounded another bend we found more telltale signs of questionable humanity. No trespassing signs dotted some of the trees on the path. At length, we found a large house atop a hill that appeared so Amityville we left well enough alone. Finally, we rounded a bend to see Rick waiting for us next to a gate and the road.

“The way out,” I sighed as everyone broke into a run toward the exit. I smiled at Hobbes as we lumbered on behind them. We emerged on the side of a road I hadn’t seen before. To our left sat another abandoned chariot.

“Well where do we go now,” Rick said looking both ways. “I think the launch may be to the left.”

“What if they never made it back to the launch though,” I said. “We’d be no better there than we were in the forest. Do we know which way the palace is?”

“I think it’s right,” Brian said. “I can’t be sure though.” As we talked, Hobbes walked around the abandoned chariot. He kept peering in the windows and began feeling under the doors.

“What on earth are you doing?” I asked him at length.

“Guys,” he said. “I think this is Stancliff’s chariot…” Everyone gathered around in interest.

“Well, where is he?” Megion asked.

“Good question.” Hobbes said feeling around. “And why didn’t he leave us the keys?”

“Maybe he didn’t know we were coming out here,” I said glancing back in the forest. “He could have gone in looking for us.”

“Stancliff!” Hobbes yelled back into the dark woods. There was no reply.

Stancliff and Finnius pulled up to the forest’s edge. As they disembarked, Stancliff peered into the trees.

“There’s a maze of paths back there,” he said. “I think I know one that will lead us to the drop-off point. We really need to hurry though.” Finnius nodded, and the two ran headlong into the woods. They ran for some time. Finnius felt himself tiring steadily, but pressed on. At several forks in the path, Stancliff paused and glanced in each direction. He then made a quick internal judgment and ran forward. As suddenly as they had entered the woods, the pair was greeted with the open air of the river, and the clearing where the shore party should have been.

“Hobbes!” Stancliff yelled as he walked toward the shore. “Feanor! Where are you guys?” Everything was quiet. “Those idiots had to run off somewhere, Stancliff mumbled peering in all directions. Five separate paths lead out of the clearing in varying directions.

“Hey, Stancliff,” Finnius called from the beach. “I found something!” Stancliff came running up beside him. There was a note in the sand.

“The path at 8:30,” Stancliff mumbled glancing at his watch. “We’re 30 minutes too late Finnius. Which path does he mean?”

“There!” Finnius said as he saw an arrow of sticks.

“At least they did SOMETHING right,” Stancliff smiled. “Come on, Finnius. We have a half hour to make up.” The two took off down the labeled path. At each fork they were able to follow our signs. Soon they had crossed the dead marsh and entered the abandoned cabin clearing. The path ended here, and the pair paused to knock on the door to the cabin.

“Well where did they head off too now?” Stancliff said as the two meandered around the clearing.

“Here,” Finnius ‘Mantracker’ said as he came across the largest arrow yet. The pair was off again. Before long, Stancliff stopped in his tracks.

“What is it?” Finnius inquired looking around.

“Did you hear that?” Stancliff asked coking his head to the side. Finnius took a few steps forward and listened. Faintly, against the chirping bugs of the night, he heard it.

“Stancliff!”

“It sounds like Hobbes,” Finnius said. The two ran forward, and around the next bend, saw us all.

“There!” Hobbes yelled pointing at Stancliff. “And Finnius too!”

“Praise be the luck of the silver,” I said with a smile. Stancliff and Finnius came running forward. “It sure took you two long enough!”

“It took US?” Finnius protested. “You’re the ones who went bushwhacking.”

“It’s good to see you guys again,” Stancliff said shaking my hand. “Let’s get out of here.” Before long, we all made it to Stancliff’s palace to hear the tale from everyone. Our merriment lasted long into the night.

As dawn dawned the following day on the Northern Lands of Carolina, I rose to activity all around. People scurried about with tents, food, chairs, sleeping bags, cloths, pillows, toothpaste, lanterns, and anything else they could conjure up a necessity for on an island. It was the day we were to start out journey out to sea. We would be camping on an island eight miles by one mile in a stretch of islands lining the coast of the mainland known as the Outer Banks.

It didn’t take long for the obvious inquiry to cross my mind; what of Stancliff’s ship? I managed to find Hobbes who was somehow in the know.

“Well, Stancliff found the problem and everything should be a-ok,” he said. “Yesterday’s two technical problems seem to have been completely independent of one another.”

“That’s good.” I replied watching some of the palace denizens load things into the ship. “I’d hate to become a castaway.”

“Nonsense,” Nicolai said sauntering up to us. “That baby is good as new. I made sure of it myself. We’ve been testing it all morning. Now be sure you get in the chariot with Stancliff and me so you get out to the island first. Everyone else is going shopping for more garbage.”

“What else could they possibly want to bring!” I said flabbergasted at the notion. “That boat is already loaded to the brim.”

“Sunscreen, bug spray… probably toilet paper. I don’t really know. It’s not important though.”

“We are going to the great obelisk of Sonic though to get a delicious slushy treat,” Jamie said as she passed me and got into her chariot. “You should come, Feanor. It’ll be delicious.” I began to recall a past journey involving sweet green nectar, and felt myself being swayed.

“Bah, Island Feanor,” Nicolai scoffed. His argument was a compelling one. I jumped into Nicolai’s chariot along with Stancliff, Hobbes, and Finnius. With the boat in tow, we headed for the cost.

“We’ll make landfall first,” said Stancliff as he drove. “You guys can start setting up the camp, and I’ll head back to pick up the next load of people. I think if we bring all this junk over in one load we can get everyone there with just the two runs.”

The ship’s load was even more impressive when I saw it up close. As we backed the ship into the water and began to board, I had great difficulty finding a spot to sit. The ship sat low in the water with all the goods.

“Looks like people didn’t pack too light,” Nicolai remarked as we pushed away from the dock. Our bogged-down ship sputtered against the small outlet river, and we were off. Stancliff took special care to keep the engine from being overpowered as we headed into open water. He then gave the ship full power. We all expected the usual rush as the ship planed out, but there was too much weight. The stern continued to drag lazily through the water.

“I need everyone to get on the front,” Stancliff called. One by one, we clamored over the mounds of bags. Soon I was sun bathing on the bow of the ship and staring up at the cloudless sky. Our added weight in the front managed to level the ship out, and we were able to make it to the island.

The unloading of Stancliff’s ship resembled the landfall of the pilgrims at Plymouth Rock. Stancliff dropped the anchor several hundred feet from the shore. We lazily looked over the absurd amenities that needed transporting to the beach.

“This is going to take forever…” Finnius moaned as we dropped over the side. Trip after trip, we loaded our bodies with as many bags as we could. At one point a coffin sized cooler needed transportation. Had the water not been waist high, there would have been no moving it. We resorted to floating the behemoth to the shore, and then quad-dragging it a foot up the beech. Finally, we had the ship unloaded.

“Alright guys,” Stancliff said. “Hobbes and I are going to return to the mainland and pick up the rest of the party. You decide on a place for camp and get things in order. We’ll be back in a half hour.”

“You can count on us little bro,” Nicolai said slapping the cooler. We all watched with slight apprehension as the boat sputtered to life.

“Thank goodness, “I said with relief. “For just a second I was worried.” Hobbes waved as the pair sailed off into the setting sun. For team beachhead, the work had just begun. The three of us set about picking a campsite and moving our goods through the crab downs. Tents were erected, and firewood was gathered. We started the campfire, and began cutting down more dead trees.

We had been toiling for nearly an hour when Nicolai paused. With a sigh, he wandered to the edge of the water and starred out to sea.

“What is it, Nicolai?” I asked as I stepped up beside him. It wasn’t a question I really needed to ask.

“He’s not coming back.” Nicolai said as a weary smile crossed his lips. I followed his gaze over the lazy waves, and we said nothing.