Did You Ever Notice...?
The Electric Big-Bang Swing Machine © 1997
How We Got to the They Might Be Giants Concert
|
It had been a slow summer. The days seemed like years and the years seemed like days, for fun activities to keep me occupied were few and far between, and my life up till that moment felt like a cool ocean breeze: too short for my liking and strangely unfulfilling. What social life I had was at the mercy of my evil friends, they set the agenda and I obeyed or was left behind. My past was seen through another’s eyes; I was detached and apathetic about my very being. So it was that on that gloomy morning in August, sitting in a Denny’s eating breakfast with my friends, affected by my lonely misanthropy, I was struck by the brilliance of that stupid idea of Sean’s: "Hey guys, why don’t we start a unicycle gang!" At this point I feel it my duty to correct myself: the plan was not Sean’s, but mine, originally, yet I had phrased it not one hour before (while scarred by severe sleep depravation, mind you) as an absurd joke in a tirade of farcical whimsy. Sean, however, was clearly quite serious. In fact, Sean was wearing his "serious hat," which might lead some of you readers to assume he was joking, but I for one don’t take such gestures lightly. Believing, not altogether incorrectly, that a "unicycle gang" like the one he was describing would bring about a certain level of camaraderie that was lacking in our circle and hoping that this gang would add adventure and excitement to my dull summer, I was the first to join him in his zany Seanness. Tony was quick to follow, envisioning with glee the wanton destruction that would ensue if the gang could be persuaded to prey on innocent pedestrians. My friend Steve was reluctant to participate, but it was inevitable given Steve’s proneness to peer pressure. After a few minutes of argument and pleading, Steve was one of us. He whined, "If you guys took crack, I’d be in big trouble," so I tried to explain to him the physics of saying "No!" Nevertheless, I was glad that he had joined. With a quick call to TeeJay, our gang was complete. Later, others expressed interest in joining our confederation, but we denied them that privilege, noting that none of them had unicycles and sensing that they were just in it for the women. It was appropriately symbolic when the sun rose in a glorious menagerie of colors upon our leaving the aforementioned Denny’s that fateful day, a sunrise that foreshadowed our rise to greatness in the back-neighborhoods of Blue Bell and Ambler -- the influence we would exert and the power we would wield. One would have expected a good day of solid rest to work its magic on the centers of reasoning in our sleep-deprived brains, showing us in a nightmarish slide-show what would happen if we brought this lunacy to term, but, alas, God was mocking us that week. After collectively deciding to call ourselves "the Thunderwheels," we got matching white outfits and elected Sean our leader. To make ourselves known around town, we accosted old ladies at the supermarket and hung up posters everywhere that read "Watch your children; the Thunderwheels are in town!" Then Tony rode around Blue Bell with a megaphone, made a loud beeping noise, and yelled "This is a test of your gullability! If I had been really mean, the beep would have been followed by instructions to make you look stupid. This was only a test." None of us could see the point of what Tony was doing or any relationship between this act and the Thunderwheels; however, Tony frequently confuses us like that, so we ignored him. Anyway, the next day we began our first ride, donning our new uniforms and putting on our trademark sunglasses before mounting. Following much deliberation, we decided to ride around the block and demand protection money from the neighbors. Whenever anyone refused, we would beat up his dog and then steal all his utensils. If someone cooperated, we threw condoms at him and screamed, "There’s your damn protection, you pervert! We’re not encouraging promiscuity, but you’ve got to watch out for STDs these days." Evidently, someone called the police on us. The patrolmen chased us for a couple miles, but I kept throwing doughnuts out the window to entice them and, in response to our brilliant golden apple strategy, they soon stopped their pursuit and went back for the doughnuts. The next few days we tried to keep a low profile, honing our unicycle skills in the parking lot near Steve’s house and plotting our rise to power. Tony told us to call him "Ernesto" and would intermittently laugh hysterically and chant, "Ernesto! Ernesto!" We naturally thought he was drunk and pretended we were to deep in concentration to hear him hoping he would ultimately shut up; however, when he suggested we call Sean "Rodriguez," we knew that it had gone too far. pNaomi, who was rollerblading with us that evening asked to join the gang as "Quick Release," reasoning that until she got her own unicycle she should be merely a sex object who hung around us for kicks (although I pointed out she could be our mechanic). Steve threatened to leave because we were all being stupid, and indeed he returned to the safety of his own house and locked all of his doors. Luckily by the following morning I had convinced Tony he was being a complete moron and pNaomi not to join us till later, so Steve was with us again. At that time we also reached a general consensus that we should only ride at night, each carrying a single torch for light and effect. Thus commenced our first real tour of the territory we had marked out for ourselves. It was uneventful at the beginning —- anticlimactic, to say the least! Granted, occasionally we would circle a hapless biker, who by all rights should not have been about at that time of night, and taunt her unceasingly, teasing, "Ha ha! Two wheels? What kind of an idiot needs two wheels to balance?! Are you retarded or something?" Then we would remove one of her wheels, hit it repeatedly with lead pipes until it was so malformed it could hardly be called a wheel in the conventional sense, and shout, "Now you’re in our world, missy! How does it feel?! HAhaAHAHAhahhHHAHaHAhAHAa!!!" That sort of mean-spirited entertainment got old rather quickly and, given a few more days, we probably would have abandoned the gang altogether. Then it happened: we met our arch-nemeses, the Thundersticks. Apart from their black attire and evil goatees, they looked exactly like us; we were almost twins -- five pairs of twins, that is. They too carried torches, but there the similarity ended, for they were on pogosticks, not unicycles. The lack of a wheel on their mode of transportation struck fear in our hearts, for truly they were our superiors. (The theory goes that each time you subtract a wheel from the standard four, balance becomes that much more difficult. That was why we felt obliged to mock any bikers who passed our way, and also why were so astounded to see those freaks on no wheels.) We approached one another cautiously and I couldn’t help noticing how handsome Evil Chuck looked. "Hey, you stole my face!" Tony exclaimed as he sipped lighter fluid and spit fire at the object of his annoyance. Evil Sean asked, "Why would anyone want to?!" and he started making weird faces and high pitched noises. Steve looked particularly bitter. He sighed and said, "I’m going to kill myself," as Evil Steve did the same. I felt obliged to apologize again, so I looked at Steve and said, "I’m sorry I stole your Garbage Pail Kids." In response, Steve turned from suicidal to homicidal, and from homicidal to genocidal. Displacing his repressed anger, he threw his lead pipe at Evil Chuck, striking him squarely on the head. Evil TeeJay flashed his glow-in-the-dark teeth and started to make his way towards Steve, which is quite a feat on a pogostick. Having been plunged into gang warfare by Steve’s thoughtless action, we thought it best to retreat to safe place. Easily outrunning the Thundersticks, we reconvened at Steve’s house to assess our situation. "Stupid!" TeeJay yelled, smacking Steve across the forehead. "We’re not ready yet! We don’t have the necessary resources to win a conflict of this magnitude." Sean agreed, pointing out that our idling skills were also lacking. He then abdicated his leadership position in favor of Steve, saying, "I can’t handle the pressure!" Tony suggested we maim a few pedestrians to salvage the evening. I’m glad to report we were all to tired to ride anymore that night, so Tony was outvoted. For the next week we went our separate ways and tried to forget about the boy we had killed. I myself didn’t want the Thunderwheels to ride again, but I guess it was inevitable. That’s when the trouble started… (to be continued) |
| Caller: | Hello? I’d like a free psychic reading. |
| Psychic: | Shut the hell up! |
| Caller: | What?! |
| Psychic: | Listen, mister, I’m psychic. This freebie was implemented to trick idiots like you into calling our nine hundred number, but you’re not going to, are you? You’re too cheap to pay a dollar twenty five a minute. |
| Caller: | Well… eh… can I speak to your manager? |
| Psychic: | No. Can I speak to your manager? |
| Caller: | I don’t have a manager. |
| Psychic: | I already knew that. I’m psychic. |
| Caller: | Er, okay. Hey, if you’re psychic, why didn’t you call me? |
| Psychic: | I didn’t want to talk to you and I was hoping I was wrong. Besides, this call is free. You only get that service on the nine hundred number, and since you pay by the minute you get called quite often. |
| Caller: | Listen, can you just give me a reading? |
| Psychic: | Sure, but only because I know you’ll hang up afterwards. |
| Caller: | Cool, what are my lucky lotto numbers? |
| Psychic: | 81, 117, 93, 4087, 432, -2, and pi/18. Put your life savings on them. |
| Caller: | But the big seven lotto only goes up to 80. |
| Psychic: | Shut up. |
| Caller: | Will my wife and I have a girl or a boy? |
| Psychic: | The question is irrelavent. Your wife is going to leave you for a bartender because you lost your job and frankly you weren’t that good in bed anyway. Don’t worry though, before your first alimony payment is due she gets run over by a truck, instantly killing her and your unborn child. |
| Caller: | Oh my god! Wait, I never lost my job. |
| Psychic: | You will. Tomorrow, in fact. Go out with a bang: curse your boss out today and quit before he can fire you. |
| Caller: | Is there anything I can do to save my wife from dying? |
| Psychic: | Eh, you can run in front of the truck before she does. |
| Caller: | Really? Which truck? |
| Psychic: | Any truck. Just make sure you die. |
| Caller: | Okay, thanks. Oh, and you were right: I probably won’t call your nine hundred number, but I’ll be dead soon anyway, so it’s not like it matters. (click) |
| Psychic: | Yes! That was the easiest $20 I ever made. |
|
Did You Ever Notice...? |
The Electric Big-Bang Swing Machine © 1997 |
How We Got to the They Might Be Giants Concert |