In high school, back in the 70s, I was pretty cool. I had an awful haircut, looking like a cross between John Denver and Don Ho. Also, I had a mustache which wasn't really a mustache, consisting of eleven white hairs and resembling the ass end of a muskrat.
Each year the school had a talent contest. Since I thought I was cool and funny, I decided to do a stand up comedy act that bordered on the ridiculous. Actually, the whole thing wasn't too bad. I played a character that started out as very pompous and self-important, but went through a series of transformations into desperation and ended up crawling around on the floor trying to eat bugs. I'm sure this sounds crazy, but it was funny at the time.
Part of the act was shedding clothing as it went along. My outer layer was an English butler outfit, featuring white shiny "shoe boots" with zippers on the sides, and an English derby cap with a feather poking from the top. As the skit moved along, the clothing began edging to more common things -- among others, a green leisure suit complete with fake chest hair and lots of gold medallions. The last get- up was one of those disgusting white sleeveless tank tops with large coffee and ketchup stains, a set of tourist-looking Bermuda shorts five sizes too large (borrowed from my three-hundred-pound uncle), and black high top socks with disco boots.
The show played for four straight nights because it was fairly well known in our little suburban town. On the third night, an unexpected surprise came about. I had eaten out at a little grimy cave called the Dairy Dream: three hot dogs with onions that tasted like crumbs from a Polish sardine cannery, and an order of fries that tasted like dehydrated Dak bacon.
There was no way to go to the bathroom during the talent show because you were not allowed to leave the stage area. And so, fifteen minutes prior to my appearance, my garbage dump began burning like a paprika sandwich on Wonder Bread. I began calculating my ability to get through the final few minutes without an antivirus formatting of my C drive. I was sure I wouldn't make it. I had no choice but to immediately go through the back and walk through several hallways to find a restroom.
Upon arriving, I got violently sick. Before even getting inside the bathroom, a virulent strain of hardware began uploading through my private settings. Reaching the crapware, I pointed my mouse at the groupshare and dumped my A drive. Those weenies had gone through me in less than forty minutes.
As you may realize, the worst was yet to come. I desperately needed to reboot my firewall, but I didn't have the time. With three sets of clothes, there was no way to get all it off and then back on and still do the skit. So I decided to put the whole thing on standby.
Crawling back like a drunken and disoriented sea otter, it became obvious that some of the weenies had made their way into my outfit. Some of the people I passed in the hall began laughing at my sorry state, but I quickly decided that the costume was silly-looking enough on its own, and that I had nothing to worry over. Wrong.
Just as I came to the stage, the director called out, "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? You are on in one minute!"
Just then, as I stepped to the curtain, a JAVA prompt came on my screen, and a billow of macrosoft squished out of my pipeline.
I had no choice but to stagger out on stage.
People began laughing right away, just like every other night, because I looked incredibly ridiculous. But what no one knew was that I was squeezing my connector as hard as possible to prevent a cookie.
It was the longest five minutes of my young life. I cannot remember much, but somehow the sheer panic of the situation contributed to the comedy, and everyone was in hysterics. Instead of removing the clothes as I had before, I simply ripped them off. Each quiver prevented a power surge, and I kept the cut-and-paste from happening. But, inevitably, I was unable to prevent a laptop powerdown.
I slathered off the stage like a slab of baloney being fried with a blowtorch. Wild cheering and screaming followed my misfortune. Somehow, the whole thing had produced a most hysterical comedy act -- one that I could never repeat.
I didn't have time for a curtain call. Unable to walk, I crawled out the emergency exit to the parking lot. As I got into my Duster, any casual observer would have thought that I'd just escaped a failed lobotomy and had been hit by a lightning bolt before opening the car door. Warm weenie onions were pouring from every crack in my ePod. Finally I was on the familiar plastic seat, unable to even aim at the floor. Allowing an upchuck of unprecedented size, I let nature take its course and released every file in my folder. The Duster would never be the same, and could never be sold or even given away.
It was several minutes before I was able to move.
The episode was far from over. Starting the car and thinking of little else besides getting home and getting out of my clothes, I floored the Duster, and was able to reach a speed of fifty m.p.h. after several minutes.
Blue lights.
The police officer knocked at the window of the loser cruiser, and when I rolled down the glass he jumped back like John Kerry at a botox convention. "What the hell do you have in there?!?"
I managed to convince the officer that I'd had a fine dining experience at the infamous Dairy Dream, and that it was still oozing from several cavities of which I was aware (and a few I was not). He laughed. Then he let me go. When I got home, I went into the bathroom and spent the next four hours trying to debug my processor, even though the had unit overheated and the fan had given out.
Recently, while traveling in Georgia, I passed a Dairy Dream. I stopped. Sure enough, hot dogs were the feature item on the menu!
I decided to have some ice cream instead. With age comes wisdom.
-- Don Splatter