Live! from Las Vegas

"Well, this day is certainly starting out normally," Stanley commented, then called to Vince, "What's wrong now?"

"Consuelo must have been eating one of those dagwood sandwiches again!" Vince roared. "There's a huge piece of lettuce on my desk!"

"Well, at least it wasn't taco sauce," Stanley replied.

"I need to write an engineer report and give it to the man from Clear Channel who's going to stop in today," Vince said.

Suddenly there was a whirring sound, then a loud, angry yell.

"What in the world??" Stanley looked down the hall puzzled.

On his way to Vince's office, he met up with Jay, who'd just came in. "What's wrong with Vince?" Jay asked.

"I have no idea," Stanley replied.

When they peered in Vince's office, they were appalled to see Vince wrestling with the paper shredder. "Give me that piece of paper!" Vince yelled at the machine.

"What's that, Vince?" Jay asked.

"THE RATINGS!!!" Vince shrieked.

"The ratings?" Stanley repeated, shocked. "What are you doing with the ratings, Vince?"

"Dan Allen gave them to me to give to the station manager!" Vince replied, tugging at the paper the shredder wanted to devour.

"How did the paper shredder get turned on anyway?" Stanley asked.

"I DON'T KNOW!" Vince yelled. "I JUST HEARD A WHIRR AND SAW THE SHREDDER TRYING TO EAT THE RATINGS!!"

Dan Allen came rushing over. "What's going on?" he demanded.

"The paper shredder is trying to eat the ratings," Jay replied.

Suddenly, with a loud ripping sound, the paper tore free. "WHY IT'S AN OUTRAGE!" Vince roared. "TO THINK THAT THE SHREDDER WOULD TRY TO EAT THE RATINGS!!"

Dan, Stanley, and Jay came over to inspect the paper. "Well, Vince, at least the most important part is here," Dan said after examining what was left of the paper.

"What a way to start the day," Stanley remarked.

A few minutes after the man from Clear Channel had left, Vince's telephone rang. "Hello," he said.

"Mr. Hummel?" an unfamiliar voice said.

"Yeah," Vince said warily.

"This is Gerald Masters, the senior vice-president of Clear Channel," the voice went on. "That was a very interesting report you wrote, Mr. Hummel, but I have one question."

"What?" Vince asked, more warily.

"Do you always enclose lettuce leaves in your reports?"

"WHAT??!?" Vince yelped, realizing that another of Consuelo's infamous lettuce leaves must have gotten inside the manilla envelope.

So it was on this particular Tuesday morning, at Marty's house in Henderson, Marty was greeted at the front door by Burt from the Disney film No Deposit, No Return. The statue was made out of caramel.

And then one of the kids came over to Marty and said, "Daddy, there's a giant piece of toast in the kitchen."

"A giant piece of toast?" Marty repeated.

The little girl, Kelsey, nodded. "Uh huh. It's burnt, too."

Marty went to investigate this weird thing, which turned out to be the Toastinator. "Oh brother," was his only comment.

Then Marty's wife, Mary, called from the living room, "Marty, what on earth is this??"

Marty and Kelsey went into the living room to see. Mary was staring at a statue of Jesse James made out of angel food cake.

"Why do all these statues keep coming?" Mary asked. "It doesn't make sense!"

Another weird feature of the statues was that they usually carried a warning message to be quiet, as if the receiver had witnessed a crime or something and the criminals were warning them not to tell.

"I have no idea," Marty said. He knew he hadn't witnessed any crime . . . Nothing seemed to make sense any more!

"And what are we going to do with all this candy and cake?" Mary went on.

"I could eat it," Kelsey volunteered gleefully.

Then Mary noticed the statue of Burt. "Where did that come from?" she asked.

Marty was appalled. The statue had moved from out on the porch to inside the house, over by the grandfather clock!

"That was out on the porch!" Marty exclaimed. "How did it get in here?"

Then one of the boys came out of the recreation room. "Dad, the Lone Ranger is in there! And he's made out of popcorn!"

"Maybe you could donate them to the charity bazaar at the fairgrounds," Jay suggested.

"Hey! That's a great idea!" Marty said.

"Marty! There's a statue of Zorro in the kitchen!" Mary called. "Made out of cereal!"

"What statue is that, Kelsey?" Marty asked.

"The one of Big Joe," Kelsey replied. "He's holding his pencil and is ready to snap it. He's made out of soap. And he's making a clicking sound."

"Clicking sound?" Marty repeated. Did the statue have a bomb in it? To Kelsey he said, "I don't think we'll take that one." Then he picked up the phone and called the bomb squad.

That was definitely unexpected news!

"Whipped cream?" Mary repeated.

The bomb squad officer nodded. "Yes, Mrs. Thompson. Whipped cream." He turned back to the statue. "We'll deactivate the bomb so whipped cream won't go everywhere."

"Who would do these things?" Mary exclaimed. "Do you think it's just a prank, Marty?"

"I'm not sure what to think," Marty replied. "This would be a lot of trouble for a prankster to go through. I just hope Vince doesn't get one of these whipped cream bomb statues," he added. "Would he ever be mad about that!"

"That's right," Marty replied.

"This is sure some strange prank," Jay commented.

"Maybe it's not a prank," Marty said. "Maybe some crook really thinks we did witness a crime. There was a message on the Big Joe statue that read, ‘Keep quiet. Remember the pencil.' Remember in that Disney movie No Deposit, No Return, Big Joe—the crook—was always snapping pencils as a warning."

"This whole thing is really weird," Jay said.

Just then there was a loud yell from Vince's office. Stanley was getting a soda and went to see what was wrong with Vince. He was shocked to see whipped cream everywhere in Vince's office—on the walls, on the ceiling, on the carpet, on the desk, on the window . . . and on Vince.

"Good heavens!" Stanley exclaimed. "What happened in here?"

"A STATUE OF MOUNT EVEREST BLEW UP AND SENT WHIPPED CREAM EVERYWHERE!!!" Vince shrieked.

Jay, in the broadcast booth, heard Vince's shrieks. "Uh oh," he said to Marty, "I think Vince has met up with a whipped cream bomb."

"Shredded ratings, lettuce in engineer's reports," Jay added.

Then Vince let out a horrible yell. "LOOK AT THIS MESS!!"

"Oh, I'm so sorry, senior!" Consuelo's voice was heard. "I did not mean for the vacuum bag to explode! I knew I should have changed it this morning!"

"AUGH!!!"

The phone rang. Marty answered. "Hi, Live from Las Vegas."

"Hi, Marty! This is Trixie from Ohio!" a high-pitched voice chirped. "Could you please play ‘Paper Tiger' by Sue Thompson?"

"Sure," Marty replied. "Hey, thanks for listening!

"Finally," Marty said wryly to Stanley and Jay, "something happened today that isn't strange!"