Mr. Saturday Night Special

A Night in the Life of Yours Truly

Left: I had the misfortune of running into “Suzette” here at the Arlington Heights Playboy Club. What made it unfortunate was that I was quite inebriated and am now apparently engaged to the chipper fellow pictured. It could be worse, of course. He DOES shave his legs.

by Cheese

It’s Saturday night. A time when a young man’s fancy turns to his pants, or more pointedly, what’s in his pants. Now, I am no longer “young” by most definitions, but I am not quite knocking on death’s door either. I can hear the calling of the frothy mug. I feel the desirable tug of a night spent painting the town. I can taste the freedom of neon lights, gorgeous women, beer nuts, and endless testosterone. So I call my closest friend Mike, grab my fedora, and start driving towards the Arlington Heights Playboy Club.

It’s been years since I’ve set foot in the club. I figured by now there were new employees and I resemble the picture of myself on the wall less than ever, so the lifetime ban imposed on me will be much harder to enforce. Plus, of course, there’s the fedora. No one recognizes you when you’re wearing a fedora, right?

Mike is waiting for me at the entrance. He’s a large man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and ballhugger jeans that would make Steve Perry blush. His heavy brow gives him a look of authority that his comical pompadour all but erases. He’s an excellent drinking buddy because no matter how many beers you put away, he never starts looking like an attractive woman. Or an attractive man for that matter.

Without a word needing to be spoken between us, we pay the cover charge and enter. It takes seconds for all the old familiar sights and smells to overwhelm me. The red brick interior. The plush velvet carpet. The odor of beer, sweat, crisp dollars, and loneliness. I felt right at home. Until........

“Umm, dude,” Mike whispers, his unibrow furrowed in consternation. “Is this some kind of a joke?”

Walking towards us is a pair of “bunnies”, or scantily clad club employees. The one on the left is 300 lbs bone dry, 350 soaking wet I’m sure. The one on the right has a mustache and talks like my uncle Ed. Both of them have Mike and I stopped in our tracks, hands still on wallets, the phantom taste of that first beer still flirting with our tongues.

“Hi fellows,” the buffalo says. “Care to buy a lady a drink?”

“Where do we get the lady?” Mike asks, always as smooth as good bourbon.

“Look no further,” the mustache says, and actually wiggles his hairy ass at me.

I hear Mike make a wretching sound beside me, and move to take action. “Um, we haven’t been here in years. Since when did they start hiring guys as bunnies?” I ask.

“Title IX buddy,” the mustache replies. “It’s not just for women’s athletics, you know?”

“Err, OK,” Mike says. “What’s with the blob here?”

“I prefer metabollicly challenged,” the brontosaurus says. “The American’s with disabilities act covers morbid obesity and ensures that I have the right to work here. Get enlightened gentlemen! Look around!” And with that the “bunnies” moved off.

Sure enough, Mike and I looked around and really took in the employee pool for the first time. There were midgets, crossdressers, siamese twins, amputees, malformed faces, and people in wheelchairs. The only person not represented among the “bunnies” was hot women. We started to back up towards the door.

“I wouldn’t do it fellas,” said a whispering voice. We turned to find an old man huddled over an oak table in the corner. “I tried leaving once like you all. The freaks all came to my house the next morning and screamed about enlightenment in my front yard until every neighbor on my street was sure I hated all the handicapped, crossdressers, and retards on the planet. To this day no one talks to me. My advice would be to go get a beer or three. Pretend to enjoy yourself. Then leave at closing time.”

So we drank. And drank. Then drank a little more. With each one, we were SURE the bunnies would begin to look appealing. Short of that, we hoped for an alcohol induced coma to allow us the opportunity to escape.

Neither occurred of course. We got blitheringly drunk, pretended to have the time of our lives, puked our heads off in the surprisingly clean white porcelain of the club’s restroom then blacked out. Sunday morning we awoke, heads throbbing, in a king sized bed. Mike was spooning with the mustache, and I was tightly holding my Suzette. (see above)

This Saturday, Mike and I are going to watch M*A*S*H* reruns in my living room and drink water. If we feel really crazy, we’re going to go the library and check out books on Title IX and the Americans with Disabilities act. It’s time to write our Congressmen.

Stalemate

by numbsain

B. Today we have a special guest with us. Someone who needs no introduction, so without further ado, let's bring him out shall we?

Audience: (Applause)

B. We’re just all so excited that you were able to come today and talk with us.
M.R. Oh, sure you were.
B. It’s such a thrill to meet you.
M.R. Big thrills.
B. I’m sure you feel the same way, right?
M.R. Oh, of course! my gosh, this is like the high point of my life.
B. Oh come now, my show’s not that special. I’m sure there are others that are more important.
M.R. More important than this? Gosh no, this is as good as it gets.
B. Oh you’re pulling my leg.
M.R. Who me? I wouldn’t dream of it.
B. Are you sure because you sound a little sarcastic to me.
M.R. Really? I can’t imagine why.
B. Look maybe we should just wrap it up.
M.R. Oh, I’m so disappointed.
B. Your hurting my feelings.
M.R. Aw your feelings? I’m sorry I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.
B. are you sure?
M.R. Positive.
B. You really do like my show?
M.R. Absolutely.
B. Aw, that’s so nice, but you know, I never realized how gullible you were.
M.R. What? are you serious?
B. Hyuk Hyuk! Gotcha!
M.R. You set me up! I’ll get you for this!
B. Oh, a little hostile are we?
M.R. You’re damn right I’m hostile.
B. You’re serious?
M.R. You have no idea. Did you forget, I can destroy you with one phone call?
B. Okay look, I didn’t want to say this but I know what you did with those kids and I’ve got enough on you to have you thrown in prison for a long time, Mr. Rogers!
M.R. Think about it: if I go down, You're going down with me, Barney.
B. Grrr...
M.R. Hmm...

B. It’s a beau-ti-ful day in the neigh-bor-hood a...

M.R. I love you, you love me, were a hap-py fa-mi-ly...

~numbsain

The Peculiar Tale of Old Man Cravetts

Old man Cravetts was a crochety old geezer. Used to sit on his front porch and crochet everything from doilies and douche bag cozies to donut pillows and cat scrotum warmers. Now, since he was older than night time, Cravetts was feared and hated by the neighborhood children. Even so, he’d always try to crochet things for them as they rode by on their bikes throwing things at him he’d previously crocheted for them. “Ya know I try to be nice to those kids and they just don’t appreciate me,” he laménted as he cut into another bolt of heavy metal print fabric. “Maybe this Lars Ulrich afghan will get their attention.” He muttered cheerily to himself.

One blistery autumn morning, Cravetts strolled out onto his front porch for another day of yarn wasting when there on his front lawn was little Bobby Youngonion lying unconscious and covered with blisters. “Now don’t lie to me you little wrapped scallion, I know you’re not unconscious and what are you doing all wrapped up in that blister pack? You want me to ship you off over fed-ex?” That was a little joke Cravetts often made because his over-fed ex wife used to eat children.

Well, Bobby was conscious, but barely, for when he removed the bubble packing from the boy he noticed he was covered with second degree burns! “Oh my gizzards” shouted Cravetts, “what happened to you boy?” “Ow,” bobby moaned, signaling for him to douse him with cool distilled water to prevent infection and then to call the local paramedics by twitching his left pinky. But Cravetts ignored Bobby’s instructions. “I’d better take you inside, slather you with butter, wrap you up in fabric bandages, nurse you back to health and raise you as my own son!” said Cravetts. “Oh god please no! Just shoot me now, you insane old coot” indicated Bobby by widening his right eye and then fainting.

Several painful weeks later on October 31st, while Cravetts took an epsom salts bath to sooth his painful muscles from hoisting the boy up to change his bandages three times a day, Bobby drifted into consciousness and managed to stumble out of bed and make his way to the front door. Still wrapped from head to toe in bandages, the boy stumbled out the door and down the street toward the “safe” neighborhood where all his friends were trick or treating gayly.

“Hey where ya been Youngonion!” one of his friends shouted. “Nice costume,” he added, but Bobby was beside himself from the pain and continued hobbling toward his home. When he arrived, his mother was waiting on the front step furious. “Where have you been for the past three weeks young man?” she shrieked wickedly. Bobby started to explain but thought his mother would see that he was critically burned and call the paramedics. But she did not because it was HALLOWEEN and so, instead of caring for his raw painful infected skin, she started beating him mercilessly as any good mother would do to a boy with healthy skin after being gone for so long. Then she shoved him up the stairs and into his room where he screamed in agony all night. “Oh be quiet up there you big phony” his mother yelled, never realizing her son was on the verge of death. Finally at 2:00 a.m., his raw infected body gave out and death mercifully came to Bobby Youngonion on Halloween night.

How he got burned in the first place and why a cat would need a scrotum warmer remains a mystery to this day. Oh yeah and that crotchety old geezer was a mystery too.

~numbsain

The Not So Scary Tale of the Possessed Kapok Tree

Within the fiery catacombs of hell, there once lived seven tremendously evil demons. For sport, they would spin their heads around backwards, elongate their pierced tongues, speak drunken gibberish, or dance counterclockwise around horned beasts while chanting cryptic Latin phrases.

Eternity is a long time so, despite their playful activities, the seven demons soon became bored. Eventually, the demons worked up the courage to approach Old Scratch himself—Satan—to ask permission to leave Hell in order to temporarily dwell in the space/time dimension of mortal man.

“Okay,” whispered Lucifer menacingly, while playing Solitaire. So the seven demons left Hades through a spiral portal to reach the human dimension. Soon, they arrived in a remote forest in the central Amazon Basin between the Negro and Japura Rivers, the two main tributaries of the Amazon. The Amana Reserve contains spectacular and untouched biodiversity with the highest concentration of the endangered Amazonian manatees in the whole Amazon Basin. The complex also supports river dolphins, black caimans, anacondas, jaguars, black uakari monkeys, harpy eagles, and a host of plant and freshwater wildlife.

Impatient and hungry, the demons were determined to possess a soul immediately. Not having acclimated their devil pupils to the intense solar light emanating from the rainforest, the demons inadvertently entered a Kapok Tree. So, the Kapok Tree became possessed.

Not long after, the animals indigenous to the rain forest noticed slight changes in the personality of the Kapok Tree. Irrespective of external weather conditions, the tree swayed left, right, backwards, or clockwise. Later, it began to secrete sap from its numerous pores. It began to shed limbs, which fell to the ground with thunderous explosions. Finally, it shed its leaves even though this was unseasonable.

After three weeks, having exhausted their repertoire of tricks, the demons became bored once again and made the journey back to Hell. And there they remain to this day. OR DO THEY? Bwaaaaahaaahaaaaa!!!!

~Goldmind