There once was this sewer rat named James. James was born into a relatively small family in rat's standards; which would be roughly 450 brothers and sisters. Now James was a pretty happy rat. He enjoyed snacking on post-digested produce and swimming in other people's waste, like any other rat would. But James was different.
James didn't have a tail, or eyes, or a fully developed nose, or his two front paws, or a movable spinal cord, or fur, or bottom molars, or much of a brain. You see, James' mother went on a strict 'Carbs' diet when she was pregnant for James and some of his siblings, and every rat out of this bunch died at birth, except for James.
James only managed to stay alive because he fell out of his mom and landed right at one of her nipples, and began to nurture himself right away.
Now, at the age of 1 and 1/2, which is like 23 and 1/4 in people years, James decided to shoot on out of his boyhood rat den, and explore the sewers of the world. James' mother and brothers and sisters were all sad to see him go, but James' father couldn't pry himself away from watching the ol' Rusty Spam® Can to give James a little of his precious time.
James father is named "Not Awesome." He's sort of grumpy all the time, and doesn't really move much. I guess we'd all be grumpy though if we grew up with the name "Not Awesome".
Anyhoo, James decided to forget about waiting for his father’s goodbyes, and allowed the emotional trauma to settle deep within his subconscious, where it could do more damage in the future; James had to get going! It was difficult for James to travel, due to his missing front paws and rigid spine, but he managed. James had to smack his head on the ground in front of him, and drag the rest of his body forward, while pushing with his back legs. It was absolutely adorable. Trust me.
Once James began to pick up momentum, he scooted his way down a dark sewer pipe, and in 7 days, he finally made it five feet. This was the farthest he’d ever traveled, so James decided that his journey was over and to head back home. Unfortunately for him, the pipe he wandered down was a drainpipe. And there was a rainstorm beyond the concrete sky, so the pipe filled up with rushing rainwater, and swept James right off his head.
James plummeted through this rusty, iron caked cylinder, twisting left and right. He smacked his face up against the pipe walls a number of times, causing a few of what teeth he had to fall out of his creepy little head. After what seemed like an eternity and 3/4, the rushing water came to a halt and James lie unconscious and shivering, now miles away from home.
A few hours later, James propped his bruised head up from the damp pipe floor, not completely sure where he was or what happened. All he knew was that home was a long ways away, and his stomach was ‘squeaking’ from hunger. He scooted his way down the pipe a couple inches and stopped suddenly. Looking sideways with his right empty eye socket, James peered down a sudden drop at the end of the drainpipe. If you ever saw “The Fugitive”, the movie version, and you know that famous scene where Harrison Ford is getting chased by an angry, and slightly overweight Tommy Lee Jones, and Han Solo has to stop at the edge of that pipe because there’s this huge drop into some river. Well picture that scene, but instead of Indiana Jones, picture James the rat. Got it? Wonderful. Well James doesn’t have eyes, so he walked forward anyways, and fell with a nice crisp ‘smack’ on the mud-frosted ground of the sewer below.
James patiently lifts his head up and blood trickles down his snout from a small abrasion above his left empty eye socket. James feels around the ground for something on to grab that could assist him in standing back up, but only locates a juice box straw. James lay on the ground thinking of what to do next, collecting his thoughts, dreaming of swimming in puddles of motor oil as a child. Then a little drop of James’ blood drips onto his tongue, and he likes the taste. No, he loves the taste. James forcefully shoves the long end of the juice box straw into his open wound and begins sucking on the other end. James isn’t quite smart enough to realize that he’s bleeding, so he continues to drink drink drink. He picks his head up a little and gurgles some of the saliva and blood in his mouth, and swallows it with a loud gulp. Then James begins to feel dizzy. His head sways back and forth, with the straw sticking out of it making a 90-degree angle. James quickly falls asleep with a tiny little rat-grin on his naked, red stained face.
The next morning, James awoke to a loud crash. There must have been a car accident on the street above. Yeah, a car accident between a Hummer 2 and some dark green 2004 model SUV; with a ski rack on top, and four perfect children in the back seat. Well, they’re probably through the perfect windshield now, but let’s get back to James, shall we? James walked blindly down the sewer for quite some time and tripped over an old message in a bottle embedded in the mucky sewer floor. James sniffed at the mouth of the bottle and got a runny nose. Poor James was allergic to messages! He curiously sniffed at the message again and gave out the largest, loudest, most powerful sneeze a rodent could give, and what happened next was a miracle.
James’ sneeze shot him back into the sewer wall with incredible speed, finally loosening up his stiff spine. Now you have to picture this in slow motion: after James’ back crashed into the stone sewer wall, the back of his skull struck next, with such force a spray of blood squirted out of his mouth, and these small black balls shot out of James eye sockets and snapped back into place. James had eyes all along! They were just recessed in his head and rolled back so that what James thought was blindness was actually him looking at the inside of his cranium his whole life. James blinked, squinted, and looked around with amazement. The sewers were better than he ever imagined!
With his newly ‘located’ ability of sight, James pulled the bendy straw out of his head with his few teeth and wandered down the sewer towards what strange and fabulous adventures could or could not be in store. That was a huge sentence. James began spinning on his tail stub, and liked it so much he decided that when he had grandkids, he’d entertain them with this party trick. James span and spun and spunned all the way to a huge crocodile doing pushups in a large sewer chamber. The croc peered over at James and screamed like a little girl. I really loud, green, scaly little girl.
The crocodile shook its narrow head from side to side to shake out its disbelief and gawked at the spinning rat once again. Then the crocodile said in a really low quivering voice, “What in the world is you doin’ there ratty?” James stopped in his tracks, looked up at the big green beast and smiled a choppy grin and said, “I’m spinning.” “Uh-huh. I knows it bucko. Now listen. You see, um… why?” Asked the croc. “Because I had the urge to twist and swirl and throw in a little bit of churning.” Responded James. The crocodile stuck out a stumpy clawed fin and said, “My name's Clamface Nuckit Krostpo Yamston. Pleased to meet you__?” “James!” James said with a final whirl that lead to a nice soft landing on his belly. Then James vomited on the ground in front of his own face and smiled at the crocodile again.
Clamface the Croc looked at the minuscule pile of rat vomit and snickered, “It seems you have caused your stomach to seize up and distribute acids and digested food all over my floor.” The crocodile began rolling in it and laughing a high-pitched, booming chuckle. James stared at this odd behavior with his fresh pupils and shook his newly flexible head in disbelief. The crocodile fell asleep from all the rampant movement. James used his head and back legs to push himself over to the crocodile’s back and used his few teeth to pry a large scale off of the croc’s back. James flipped the scale so that the rounded end was on the ground and he jumped on the other side and his face and two feet stuck to the puss and blood that coated the inner half.
Okay, this part gets pretty graphic, but it has to happen. James flipped a full can of beer with his nose and tossed it up onto the crocodile’s bladder with speed. This awoke the crocodile and made him urinate right in James direction. I apologize again for having to write this. Once the urine headed towards James, he grabbed a pee-wave with the crocodile scale and surfed down the sewer, farther and farther away from his home. Some times James said “Cowabunga!” but some mutant turtles that dwelled in the sewers as well yelled something about copyright infringement. When the urine finally dried up, James came to a feathering stop on top of a big old pile of trash.
James could not understand why someone would use a sewer as a dumpster, or how they could get such items as nine blenders, a slot machine, half a radiator, and a Buick down their drain. Well screw it, James thought, and dug around the trash to fulfill his juvenile curiosity. After a good long while of looking through trash, James located a treasure chest! Well, it was a little plastic box, but James doesn’t know the difference, so give him a break. He popped the chest open and inside laid the most beautiful treasures he’d ever seen. Well, he’s only been able to see for a few hours, but you get the point.
Okay, imagine the chest/plastic box opening, and this aura of light begins to pour out from the contents within. This didn’t actually happen, well it’s a fictional story so obviously it didn’t happen, but what I mean is that the light didn’t glow in the “real world” of the story either. It glowed in James’ mind, because he’s a bit odd. We still love him though, right? RIGHT?!? Good.
James propped up the top of the case with his nose and took out two items from the box with his two or three teeth. The box was someone’s mini-manicure kit. It has such items as samples of unpopular nail polish colors. There’s some nail polish remover, a pair of tweezers, a fine poly-bristle fingernail brush, some metal toothpick things that clean out the crud under your fingernails, and the two items that James took out, which were a 4” compact file and the ever-important nail clippers. James licked the ends of both of these stocking stuffer worthy products and jammed them into the undeveloped holes that were where his front paws were supposed to grow. He winced in pain, gave out an annoyingly high-pitched yelp, and fell to the junk covered floor, rocking back and forth like a widdle baby. You’ve got to question the rat’s logic sometimes.
After whimpering for what seemed like way too long, even for a rat, James got up and gave his new appendages a ‘trial run’. He ran up one mound of trash, and down the other. Oh, it was such fun! The weird thing is, James was so used to walking with his head that he still used it as a fifth leg. Okay, picture James running at full speed; got it so far? Think of a horse gallop, but right after the right front ‘leg’ hits the ground and right before the left one hits, he slams his head on the ground and pushes his body quickly, like an extra foot! A string of saliva flies out of his mouth with every trot. The problem with running this way though is that James had to keep his eyes closed, so as to not get any shards of metal or glass or Germany in his precious new corneas.
James was so happy that he was running for the first time that he lost track of where he was going, and ran for roughly 57 miles in the matter of minutes! A world record! (The prior record holder being a mouse from Mexico who ran the same distance, give or take a few miles, in a half hour.) James just kept run-ning and run-ning. The only reason he stopped was because he ran himself into a brick pillar! James opened his eyes and shook his head, which made a clankity cowbell sort of sound. He turned to his right and saw a really friggin fast blur of a thing! This thing stopped with a screech, and all these shoes on flesh colored sticks (people… I’m trying to be creative) came stomping past James. One even stepped on James’ phantom tail, if you can believe that!
James recovers from his tail sort of being stepped on and walks into the fast thing. Okay, that’s annoying, I’ll just call it a subway for christsakes! James strolls into the subway train and a bunch of people walk right over him and sit down. James nestles himself under a seat and totally takes a nap! He sleeps because he is tired. He is tired because he was running. And if you don’t know why he was running, then I feel sorry for you and I hope you hurt yourself.
The train moves along all day and James finally wakes up and walks out of the train. He has no idea where he is now, or why people are screaming running from him. James smells under his nail clipper-armpit to check his “rodent body odor”. No, that’s not why people are running. C’est la vie! James walks up onto the city street and smells the sweet pollutants drifting through the air. Awwwww, just like home. (It’s a sewer joke! HA!)
It appears to be nighttime, but people are still walking around all over the place. This must be the city that never sleeps. “What is New York City Alex?” (Jeopardy reference…) James trots along proudly with his head up high and makes his way into an alleyway. He can hear voices in the darkness around him; voices purring threats. “Mmmmeowyou look good enough to eat. Prrrrrrrrrrrr.” “I want to have a tasty little treat Neooow.” “ Meow, he’s coming closer.” “Prrrrrrr. Walk into my mouth.” “Hey, since when could cats talk?” “Shut up Steve!” “Well, seriously! It’s like we’re part of a damn Disney film or something!” “Since when did cats know about pop-culture, Steve?” “Oh yeah. Good point. I’ll shut up.”
James, the poor naïve soul that he is, continues walking down the dark alley, figuring these kitty cats are talking about a bucket of KFC® chicken wings. James peers ahead and strains his eyes, but there’s nothing but darkness (Not The Darkness, that creepy English band that seems to be ripping off Queen and getting away with it). Then a light bulb turns on. The light casts a number of menacing shadows on the weathered brick wall of the alleyway: the shadows of demonic felines, straight from hell. James continues walking. Man, an alley is huge when you’re only 2” off the ground. Finally James makes his way to the end. There’s an old fence made up of decayed wooden boards, and a couple of old, rusty trashcans. A large, ferocious cat pounces down onto the trashcan lid and smiles at James, drool sliming from the corners of his Cheshire grin. A skinny calico cat jumps from the dark onto the other trashcan. Three more tattered kittens swagger elegantly into the light that shines from an old candelabra lamp.
“Howdy!” Yells James, and gives a big toothless grin, while making an “EEEEEEEEE” sound. If you’re picturing this just the way I am picturing this, than it is really funny! OH MAN! Anyway… The fat cat looks to his feline counterparts and back at the dark floor of the alley where they can all smell a rat. (To eat, not a stoolpigeon. Ya dig?) The fat cat opens his mouth casually, thinks of the right way of putting what he is about to say, and speaks slowly, “Hello there young man. The names Tubbinski. This not-so-healthy chap to my right is Christoph, and these three charming tigerettes are Martin, Steve, and Trisha. We own this alley and would like to get to know any guest that happens into our… territory.”
“Well hi then! My name is James. Don’t call me Jimmy. It ain’t Jimmy. It’s James. No way to the Jimmy. Yes way to the James.” Tubbinski looks a little confused, but shrugs his shoulders and continues, “Well, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, James. It is my hope that we will all become the best of friends. How would you like to live with us? Here, in the alley. I’d really like to get to know you, and I’m sure you’d just love to get inside me.” The other cats snicker. “See what makes me tick. You know, the kind of things friends do.” Christoph bends his neck down towards James and strains to see a glimpse of his future dinner. “I can not see you. Martin, bring that lamp in a little, let us get a good look at our new companion.”
Martin grabs the long neck of the lamp with his mouth and tilts it toward the dark floor where James sits. Christoph brings his sharp yellow eyes closer to his future meal to get a good look. The light slowly shines upon James’ grotesquely abnormal face. Christoph jumps back and gives a “REEOW!” Steve begins vomiting. Trisha is trying to claw her way over the slick old fence. Christoph has fallen unconscious. Martin dropped the light so that it shines from under James, and makes the deformed rat that much scarier. Tubbinski keeps his cool and breathes deeply. “My god, what in the world are you supposed to be?” Asks Tubbinski in his pseudo-British accent. James cunningly replies with, “I told you, I’m James! A big N to the O when it comes to Jimmy.” Tubbinski sits and thinks for a moment then as quick as a fat cat can move, he gobbles James up.
It’s dark and humid. The ground is slippery and textured. The walls are constantly moving and feel slippery to the touch. The smell is strong and burning within the deepest parts of the nasal cavity. The sliding of the floor towards darker regions never stops. This is how it feels to be inside the mouth of a fat alley cat. And FYI, it’s not a pleasant feeling, unless you’re freekin nuts! And James is just that. He is laughing his little rat-ass off. He’s running towards the start of Tubbinski’s throat. The average rodent psychologist would find this as a suicidal act, but James is just curious. There’s a thick, bold, black line between suicide and curiosity.
James jumps head first into Tubbinski’s throat, and rides his esophagus down to his stomach. Now you biological-savvy folks are like, “Hey! He can’t live through this. BlahBlahBlah, stomach acid, what about the teeth, yaddayadda.” Well, uh, shut up. Okay? He doesn’t land in the stomach acid, how do you like that? Huh? Yeah! He, uh, he slows at the end of the ride down and wedges himself at the bottom of the stomach opening. James touches the bubbling liquid of digesting food with his nail-file leg, and the tip of the file burns off. This helps James realize that the cat’s stomach is not the place to take his monthly rat-bath. Yeah, I said rat-bath.
James is freaking out about now. Wouldn’t you? Shut up, you would too. James has to think, and fast. And that doesn’t happen; so scratch that direction of the story. James has to think, and slowly: really contemplating his next move. So he does what any live rodent with sharp teeth would do inside another living creature, he beings eating his way out. First he starts tugging away at the really slimy, tough interior of the throat. Once that’s out of the way, the cat’s skin seems incredibly easy to chew at. With only a few snips and swallows, James is crawling out of the cat’s abdomen, while this poor kitty is screaming and writhing in pain. Mother nature wasn’t expecting that I bet. Like, she’s flipping out! Mother nature lives in a cave up in a mountain in Antarctica. But in a clearing that resembles paradise. She watches stuff on a huge crystal ball while she sits in rocking chair, knitting. Oh, and she married Darwin’s ghost. This is all true.
James casually makes his way from the tortured yells of the fat cat with a bleeding hole in his inflated stomach. The cat police show up in a little remote control car, but James just walks by them pretending to whistle. “How do you pretend to whistle?!?” You might be asking yourself, and me. Which is pointless, because I am not where you are, or if I am, read on and leave me alone, because I will answer your question. Haven’t you ever seen a little kid make there mouth into the whistling shape and just make a high pitched sound with their vocal chords? Stupid kids. They don’t make the relation that air is going through a contracted orifice, thus making a sound with the constriction and the breath that’s applied. They have to squeal like a mini-opera singing pig. Apologies to those who already knew what pretend whistling was. But then again, if you really cared about not wasting your time, you certainly wouldn’t be reading this.
Years go by, and James sleeps the entire time. He hooked up an I.V. made out of a cheese wiz can and a bendy straw and stuck it in his mouth, next to the hose dripping from an old outdoor sink. He spent these past few years under someone’s porch. It was a nice porch. James liked it so much he named it! He named the porch “Herman”. James loves naming inanimate objects that he cares about. For example; James named his favorite K.D. Lang record Wendell, and his vintage cigar case was called Judy. What a crazy freakin rat.
James wakes up after his three-year long nap and yawns loudly. He yawns so loud that the porch he was under begins to shake and collapses on top of him. James dies, end of story. Thanks for reading.
What’s this? Out of the rubble climbs a small hairless creature. Is it a mole? No. Is it a naked dwarf? Yup! That’s it, a naked dwarf. I thought it was James for a minute.
No. Wait a moment. It’s not a dwarf. It is! It is James the rat! And he’s dead and being dragged by an inbred black lab. Stupid dog. Oh well. It looks like James was really dead after all.
This black lab, hmm… let’s call her Joanie, like that dog from “Joanie Loves Chachi” and “Happy Days”. So, Joanie the black lab will be the new main character of the story. Joanie walks into her master’s home to show him what she found, but the master is too busy swearing at his damn porch collapsing. So Joanie drops James’ corpse and walks over near the refrigerator and licks herself for about two hours.
Okay okay okay! FINE! A dog leads a boring life, and in turn would make for a boring story. This pains me but… A magic fairy flies into Joanie’s master’s home and sprinkles some power or something on James and he comes back to life and leaves the house and we continue with something more interesting.
James had lost his two artificial front limbs, named Frederick and Charlene, so he’s back to slapping his head off the sidewalk and pulling his body forward again. It’s still funny. It is! Yes it is! Oh man! Now that’s funny! Look! Ha! Funny! Hilarious! Hilarious and funny! James had been living under the porch of a semi-condemned house, which stood smack dab in the middle of a semi-respectable street of a semi-affordable suburban town. James looks up with his new-ish eyeballs and sees the fairy that brought him back to life flying towards a park.
James felt the need to investigate. In fact, he said aloud “I should investigate.” By the time James makes it to the park the fairy is flying away. She was inside a small hole at the base of a large tree. James slaps & drags himself into the tree and sees a twitchy little thing. This thing looks a little like James actually. It’s a furless rodent that’s a little bigger than a rat. The thing’s skin is actually hardened though, and yellow in color. It has a long tail, but is completely stripped down to its bones. The eyes of the thing have been gone for some time, and its mouth contains two large front teeth sticking from its gaping jaw. The body is completely flat and void of organs, and its little feet start to tweak out a bit. Then a cry of excitement bolts out of within the hollow body of this dried up carcass and the creature jumps up and out of the tree into the park laughing as it goes. James smiles, “Sweet! A zombie squirrel! He should have some nutty stories to tell!” (Pun intended)
James runs (as well as he can) out of the tree and into the park to investigate. Sure enough, there he is, a 10-month dead squirrel corpse running around in the grass and scaring picnicking families. James yells out, “Hey!” and the squirrel stops running about and looks at James. He doesn’t have eyes of course, they were the first organs to rot away, but he can still see. Don’t argue with fairy magic. His vision is even 20/20! That fairy was no rookie. When that fairy decided to bring a dead squirrel back to life, it did it with perfection. No messing around. Getting the job done.
The squirrel begins to spin in a clock-wise motion and runs over to James in this spinning fashion. Once the dead squirrel is in front of James it stops moving forward, but continues to spin in place, running in its own squirrel-sized circle repeatedly. James tries to speak to the squirrel, but the squirrel doesn’t seem to care about much else but running in this small rotation.
“Uh… Hello? Um… Mr. Squirrel? Excuse me?” James pleads in the squirrel’s direction, but this poor excuse for a leather rug just runs, runs, runs in his circle. James looks around and sees a small stick on the ground. He picks it up with his teeth and swiftly jabs the stick at the squirrel. This reminds me of another story. One time, when I was about eleven-years old, I stuck a plastic Wiffle Ball® bat into the front spokes of girl’s purple and pink bicycle. The bike pivoted around the yellow, plastic bat, and she went over her handlebars. After the amazement wore off, I felt bad.
The squirrel flips about and wam! bam! oof! he falls face first into the grass and dust in front of his oak mausoleum. “Jeeth! Why’jya do that!? I wath havin me thome fun!” asked a lisp ridden undead squirrel. “I was trying to get your attention for quite some time, but you would not stop your spinning.” replied Mr. Rat. The squirrel looks up at James, and then stands on his four crooked legs, “ Oh! I’m thorry. I wath thpinning for a reathon though.” “And what would that reason be?” Asked James, who was surprisingly curious. “It’th becauthe my name ith Thpinny!” said the squirrel in his high-pitched voice, spitting out his words faster then an auctioneer. “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you Spinny. I’m James.” At this, James goes to shake Spinny’s hand, but realizes he doesn’t have any front legs to do this polite act passed down from generation to generation in our culture. Err… Hand shaking, that is… I really don’t know the exact history of the handshake, but I’m sure it’s incredibly fascinating. If anyone’s really interested, I am sure you could find a book about strange human traditions at your local library. Knowledge is power! All right!
James can’t shake hands, claws, paws, whatever, so he turns around and uses his left hind leg. Spinny doesn’t seem to mind, and shakes it politely. “It ith thertainly an honor to make your acquaintanthe my dear rat! Now there’th thoming that’th been bothering me. Why do I look like thith?” “Like what?” asks our naïve little rat. “Well” Spinny says, looking at James “Thort of like you, I guethth.” James turns back around to face Spinny, and becomes very self-conscious. ‘Do I really look like a dried up squirrel body? ‘ he wonders, but shrugs it off, because he thinks that Spinny is mighty handsome. “I think a fairy brought you to life.” “Oh. That maketh thenthe… Tho, I wath dead?” “I guess so.” “But now I’m not dead?” “It appears that way.” “That’s thumtin’ thpecial!” And with that, Spinny began twirling around like a fool yet again.
A week passes as Spinny and James join forces in an attempt to… oh no! I never really gave James a specific goal. Oh dear, that’s bad writing on my part. James has just been wandering around for the entirety of the story. Okay, let’s pretend I said that when James left his family, he was going to make something of himself, and come back to his home-sewer bigger than Mickey Mouse. Leaving to go on an adventure is so boring. The adventure should come upon James because of his journey. So James tells Spinny about his need to become a famous pop-icon with a logo that’s just as popular as Mickey Mouse, and Spinny agrees to join him in his attempt to become, like, totally huge and like famous, and like oh my god, rich and stuff.
So anyways, a week passes as Spinny and James join forces in an attempt to make James the Rat a household word. Err… Words. Household words; a combination of words… To make James the Rat a combination of words that would be said in every household. Spinny tells James how when he was alive, he remembers cars picking up people in suits. They didn’t have to drive themselves anywhere! The suit told people how important they were. Spinny would usually run away from people if they were within a 15 foot proximity, but he’d forget to run away from these important people. He’d just stare at their suits, and wonder about what sort of food he had in those pockets. The squirrel brain is a strange place.
The squirrel thought process is as follows: You need to find food, preferably nuts, berries, birdseed, or garbage and crumbs. To best scour the terrain for said edibles, you must move about swiftly and in jerky motions. If you find something you can devour, you stop, and sit on your butt, with your tail making the shape of an “S” behind you, and you pick up the desired mouth-full with both front paws, and needlessly over-chew it. While eating, you need to constantly stop and look around. Everyone is out to hurt you: birds, dogs, leaves, and especially people. If you see a person in the area, run! Run quickly, and look for something to climb up. Anything wooden should do. You have tiny, sharp claws, so use them! And that’s how a squirrel thinks. Now that we’re all on the same page, let us continue.
Spinny convinces James that he needs to wear a suit, and tells James that he’ll be right back. Spinny runs off… scratch that… spins off, while James sits in a public flower bed, blanketed from the bright city sun by the soft pink of a petunia pedal. Meanwhile, Spinny spins his way down the sidewalk. You’d know were he was from a distance, by watching all of the busy city people screaming and jumping away from the center of the sidewalk, in a malformed domino effect. Spinny finally comes to a halt in front of a “Men’s Big and Tall Custom Tailor” store. As Spinny makes his way into the store, a crowd of people tumble out in a hurry, screaming and sweating, with looks of confusion and disgust on all of their faces.
Spinny spins up to the counter, where a tall, thin man with a small black mustache stands, towering over the flat corpse that is Spinny. “How may I help you?” asks the man in a ‘I think I’m smart and rich, but I’m really not’ accent. “Well, ya thee, my friend needth a thuit, and tho I thought you could help me with it.” Spinny says, fighting his instinct to run away from the man with the mustache. “It would be easier to have your friend come into the store, so we could custom fit him, sir.” Says the lanky, well dressed man, completely disregarding the fact that he’s speaking to an undead squirrel. “Well!” Spinny says “I wanted to thurprise him. It’th thort of a gift, ya know?” Spinny winks his empty eye at the clerk and smiles. “Oh, a gift. I should tell you upfront, we only gift-wrap during the holiday season. Do you have any idea what your friend’s measurements would be?” asks the man, in a monotone, almost English accent. “I haven’t a clue! Jutht gimme thumthin that’th on thale.” And with that, the man walks into the back room. A moment later he comes back with a dark plastic bag. He holds it by a hanger that is peeking out of the top of the plastic. “This is all we have for sale. It was recently returned to us from a man who lost his legs before he could wear the suit. It’ll be $450.00 please.” “Do you take Vitha?” Asks Spinny, and the clerk nods. Spinny hands the clerk his Visa card, the clerk slides the card through the credit card machine, patiently waits for the receipt, hands the receipt and a pen to Spinny, and Spinny signs the slip, takes his carbon copy, as well as the suit, and leaves the store with a “Thankth!”
Spinny shows up to the flowerbed and presents the suit to James. James is delighted and puts it on right away. “You look fabulouth!” Exclaims Spinny, as he glares in awe at a big black tuxedo and shoes thrown on the ground, with a lump where the middle of the back would, the lump being James somewhere under all that material. James makes his way out of the neck of the dress shirt “I don’t think this is going to work Spinny. It was a nice thought though.” Spinny smiles and says “It’th okay, I’ll try to return it tomorrow, and get a refund. You should come along, becauthe the guy at the thtore thayth that you should be fitted for the thuit.” James thinks a moment and says “But I like being naked.” “That maketh thenthe. We’re not people, tho we don’t need to imprethth them the thame way they imprethth each other. You’re tho thmart Jameth!” And Spinny starts spinning in place, while yelling out the occasional “Yippee!” and “Yahoo!”
Later that night, in the flowerbed, Spinny was sound asleep, after a good 3 hours of spinning and yelling 1950’s exclamations. James couldn’t sleep though. He couldn’t help but feel that the readers liked Spinny more than him. James felt that his own personality was dry and boring, and feared that the story may soon be called “Spinny the Zombie Squirrel”. These thoughts soon passed, but they helped James realize that he was flawed and human after all. Then another thought crossed his mind, a thought that went like this, “I’m not human. So therefore, I am not flawed.” And with that, James fell asleep with a creepy little grin on his pointed face.
The next morning the sun shown into the slits that are James’ eyelids, the blue morning air sneaking into his minuscule nostrils. The crisp air causes his nostrils to twitch a little, then a little more. A yawn moans out of James’ gaping jaws, and he opens his eyes with a few watery blinks. He shuffles from under the flower pedal that made his blanket, and made his way over to Spinny, who apparently spins in his sleep, because his head was where his boney tail was the night before. It was a slow, 180 degree rotation that took about 7 hours to complete. Once, back when Spinny was alive, he slept for a full year, and was able to spin at the same speed as the Earth on its axis, and managed to not age that one year because of it. Fact!
James goes over to nudge Spinny and wake him up. It doesn’t work. James nudges him harder, using his nose to press Spinny on the head. Still sound asleep. James nudges one final nudge, backed by a little early-morning aggravation. The nudge was so hard that Spinny finally turned his head to look at James. Spinny’s mouth was wide open, and his empty eye sockets stared blankly ahead, then his head rolled off his neck and onto the ground. James gave a blood-curdling scream; like this: “AHHHHHHHH!” Spinny’s head rolled around and looked at James.
“I have a thlight headache thith morning”, says Spinny calmly. (Spinny Calmly… heh heh. Sounds like that could be his whole name. “Hi, I’m Spinny Calmly, and you are? Oh… Well it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Or “The name’s Calmly. Spinny Calmly.” But alas, squirrels don’t have last names.) James looks down at the head and totally freaks out! “I thought I killed you!” Spinny laughs a wheezy, saliva spitting laugh and says, “I’m already dead, thtupid! Now, how’th about you figure a way to put my head back on.” James thinks. This might take a while, reader. (You may want to sit down. I’m not sure why everyone chooses to read standing up.) And James thinks *click* *click* and thinks some more. He would not be just a nothin’, his head all full of stuffin, his heart all full of pain. He would dance, and be merry. Life would be a ding-a-derry, if James’ nudging did refrain.
Now comes a montage…
Picture James and Spinny coming up with a bunch of wild ideas to put Spinny’s head back on, and then trying the ideas out. I hope you thought up some whacky ideas. I have a couple ideas too. Like, there’s one that involves a whole pulley system, and then there’s one that involves a paper airplane and crazy glue. Nothing works, so make sure the ideas you come up with aren’t too good, or you’ll stop the story from progressing the way it needs to. They give up and lie on the ground exhausted. Oh, and Spinny has lipstick on from one of the attempted plans. (Don’t ask, don’t tell…) Then James prays to God.
Suddenly, miraculously, Spinny’s head is back on his body. They both look confused. Then God came down upon them. He floated down. God wore a green button up shirt and a pair of brown pants. He stood a towering 5’3”, and had blue eyes, wavy brown hair (cut to a moderate level), and weighed only 115 lbs. God spoke in his majestic voice, which could often be confused for a female’s voice, but it isn’t. He lands gently on the ground and raises his mighty arms above his head and looks down upon James and Spinny, saying “Hello”.
James, quivering, says “Hi-i-ii-i.” Spinny just looks in awe. Then God says “I came here to help. I also came here to show off my power!” Then God makes a building disappear, and then reappear as a giant wedding cake groom figurine. “Are we impressed at my power!?” bellows God at the rodents. “Y-e-e-eees! Of c-c-c-c-course, your majesty”, says James. “Majesty? I don’t have a crown, do I? How can I be royalty without a crown?” Asks God. “Oh, my mistake, I am so sorry sir.” “Don’t you mean ‘Your Majesty’?” says God as he points at a crown upon his head. Then God laughs and literally pats himself on the back because of how much power he has.
“I will give you one wish, if you so choose, James and Spinny”. “How’d he know our nameth?” whispers Spinny out of the corner of his mouth. “Because he’s God, and all knowing” replies James. “Well, what should we wish for? Thumptin fun, like a thet of Pogth, or a Big Wheelth?” “No, no, no. We need to think carefully about this.” So James thinks *click* *click* and thinks some more. He would not be just a nothin’, his head all full of stuffin, his heart all full of pain. He would dance, and be merry. Life would be a ding-a-derry, if James’ could think a wish un-plain.
“I have it!” yells James. And God’s all like “Okay? Tell me." Then God points his finger at a woman pushing a baby carriage and the baby turns into a giant snake and swallows the mother whole. Then God averts his attention back to his humble rodent creations. “I wish for Spinny to have a mustache he can’t shave off.” says James, then looks confused. “I didn’t mean to say that.” God laughs a squeaky cackle and Spinny is given a thick orange mustache. “Oh man.” Says Spinny with a reluctant sigh. Then God begins floating up into the sky again and yells down, “Peace out, suckas!” and disappears into the clouds. James looks over at Spinny and smiles.
Sure enough, Spinny span to a razor, because he had one around, because he liked “playing barber” with strangers, because he’d always wanted to be a barber, because his grandfather was a barber for squirrels, because their tails get too furry in the summer, because of genetics. So Spinny takes his razor and tries to shave off the big orange moustache, but the razor blade just melts into a puddle of metallic liquid (cool to the touch, but not too cool). Spinny thinks a moment and then says “Now if I can’t do thith, than I’ll denounthe my faith.” James asks “And what would this be, amigo?” Spinny replies with a “I’ve gotta be able to thtyle it, baby! Woo!” And Spinny spins off to a drug store to buy some styling mousse. Meanwhile James decides to leave Spinny forever because Spinny was kind of annoying and was really holding him down, keeping him from experiencing the world. Spinny was looking for a commitment, but James the Rat is a free spirit, and no undead squirrel will change that, and if they can’t deal with the rat being the way he is, always wanting to change him; then they never liked him in the first place. They just liked James for his hot-bod, and figured they could mold his character at a whim. Well James wouldn’t have any of that, no sir, he has a good grasp on his personality and self, and the foundation is strong, and no squirrel can change that, not even Spinny.
James head-slap-runs himself into a hospital.
While “walking” around, trying to discern what all of this chaos was, a nurse runs up to him and stops. “Hello Dr. Kleen, you’re in early today, we have a guy with his chest totally ripped open and getting some kind of big-time heart surgery and you should go help.” “Okay”, says James, and he walks into the operating room. Sure enough, there’s a 60-something year old man on a stretcher with the skin of his chest open and lying on both of his sides, like those cereal boxes you get to go, you know, they have the perforation in the cardboard that’s shaped like an “I”, and you cut into the cardboard and the bag with a butter knife, and you can poor milk in the mini-carton because of the bag, and you eat it while you’re in a hurry, but not in such a hurry that you forget the milk. That’d be ridiculous. Yeah, his chest is open like that.
James jumps roughly 5 feet in the air and lands on the old man’s forehead. “Hello Dr. Kleen, glad you could come and help us, we can’t seem to find the problem. His heart won’t beat.” James thinks a minute, then replies “He sounds dead.” “Oh, that Dr. Kleen! He always puts us to shame”. James looks down at the old man’s exposed ribcage, looking at it’s shiny texture, the thin tissue caked between the rib bones, the red tint that the inside of his body was, how everything seemed to be floating in a skin-bag full of water. Mmmm. Water. James was thirsty.
So he jumps off the stretcher, tosses his stethoscope aside, and scouts-out a soda machine. James sees a soda machine, and he was surprised to see that it had everything it offered, none of the buttons were unlit, meaning out of stock. James was so impressed he named the soda machine Chief Shops-For-Bargains, and climbed inside the machine to drink a ginger ale for free.
The ginger ale made James’ mouth sticky, so he yelled “Dammit!” Someone was waiting for an elevator, so James decided to wait with the person waiting. Wading. Waiting. They were in a fountain, and they were wading for the elevator, and the elevator thought it was ‘awesome!’ because you weren’t supposed to be wading in that fountain. It was just for decoration. The elevator was video-taping the person and James’ antics and was going to bring home later to edit it into his “Jack Ass”-like video. Then the elevator and 30,000 other people would send their tapes to MTV every day and hope to get their bad-choices aired for entertainment purposes.
The elevator ‘dinged’ and the door slid open and James followed the waiting person inside, to wait some more. The music in the elevator was slow and repetitive. The floor of the elevator was linoleum, and the roof of the elevator did NOT have one of those hatches that seems to be in every elevator in every movie, just incase the elevator gets stuck or a half-invisible Kevin Bacon tries to I don’t know what to you. This waiting person pressed the top button, leading to the top floor. And with a ding, the elevator opened, and James was about to get out when an X-Ray technician walked into the elevator and went to press the top button but saw it was already lit, looked at the waiting person and smiled. The X-Ray tech was in his late twenties, had a thick black goatee, and wore his lab-coat baggy. He looked down at James and nodded “Dr. Kleen”. The elevator made it to the top floor at last, and the three characters exited quickly, but not too quickly.
James continued following the walking person (formerly known as the waiting person). The walking person walked up one more flight of stairs, and the two of them were on the roof. A helicopter was about to take flight. The pilot yelled something inaudible to the now running person and waved his hand to get into the helicopter. James followed and somehow hopped onto the helicopter just in time for it take off. The co-pilot looked back at James and said, “Buckle up, Dr. Kleen” and turned on the radio, which was pointless because no one could hear it. The now sitting person took a helmet and put it over James. Safety first, folks. If I could have you leave this story with one thing, it would be to take safety seriously. Safety. Safe tea. Say ftee. Go ahead, say it. Say ftee. Shout it at the top of your lungs. “Ftee!” Feel better? I do. The helicopter is off to someplace, which is just an excuse to move James to a new location. And the helicopter lands at a car accident in the city of…
Meanwhile, Spinny starts wearing a bowtie and biker-chaps. He styles his moustache so that it looks like a profile of himself. The moustache is in the shape of Spinny’s profile, the profile of an undead squirrel. He also dyed his moustache jet-black, f.y.i.
Back to James. James James James. Say it out loud. “James“. Now say it a bunch of times in a row, but not really fast, say it like you would if you were referring to someone named James within your proximity. But maybe this person’s name is James James James James James James James James James James James James James. The name sounds weird when spoken out loud. Maybe it’s the J sound mixed with the ‘ames’ part. I bet that’s it…
James jumps off the helicopter and pulls a trapped person out of the car with his teeth and his powerful hind-legs. The person was medium-well. The smell of the body reminded James that he was hungry and so he went across the street to an old diner/truck stop.
The diner had that classic feel about it. The country music playing in the juke box, the twang of each note bouncing off of the linoleum floor, up to the tin roof and spread to the ears of the dining customers. The lonely drivers sitting at the stools, separating themselves with an empty seat between each other. Truckers are lonely people by trade. Having as much time to think as they do, you begin to realize how unimportant petty conversations with strangers can really be. James felt like a trucker, having his own adventures on the road. This truck stop was as much for him as it was for any of the truck drivers that sat at the bar sipping their coffee and eating their meat.
James wanted a booth. He never sat in a booth. The waitress walked by him a dozen times before James cleared his throat (James fears negative confrontation to the point of not even asking a waitress to wait on him... Chump...) The waitress, a woman in her late twenties, wearing a baby-blue polyester one-piece dress/uniform and lap apron, stopped and looked down at the bench and jumped back. After allowing a moment to realize what she was looking at she quickly grabbed a broom and came back to swat the rodent off of the seat before any of the dining public saw the vermin in the diner. James yelled “No!” The waitress stopped the broom bristles only inches from James’ head and said “Excuse me?” “I just want food, I’m quite hungry. Please don’t hit me.” The waitress took the broom away and leaned in to look at James. “You’re… You’re… You’re a rat.” She whispered. “And you’re a person.” James replied in a whisper. Still leaning down to look at James the waitress asks “But how can you talk?” “We can all talk. Every animal can speak. We all have the ability, and we all talk to each other, we’re born with the knowledge. We just don’t speak to people. Human beings are relatively unintelligent animals, which is obvious when you look at the fact that they can‘t speak at birth.” A string of drool oozes from the corner of James' mouth (Oh, the irony).
The waitress asks James if he wants a booster seat, and James nods. The waitress runs off and comes back with a plastic, orange cube. A butt imprint pressed into the top of one end, crayon marks covering the sides of the seat. “Would you mind helping me?” James asks the waitress politely and she complies. The bald little rat gently makes his way onto the waitress’ open palm and she lifts him up to the top of the seat. “Thank you.” The waitress finds a way to smile through her disbelief “You’re welcome.” The waitress takes a wet-nap from her apron and covertly washes her hands behind her back while James spoke. “My name is James.” The waitress gives out a slight gasp and thin smile forms on her face “You have a name! I mean, of course you have a name. And my name is Elaine. You are most definitely the most interesting customer I have had the pleasure of waiting on, you know that?” “Well,” James began, bashfully “I don’t mean to be bold in my comment, but you haven’t waited on me, and I am rather hungry.” “Oh my god! I am so sorry, of course! Now what would you like?” “I suppose I could be a complete cliché and ask for some cheese, but I think I’m going to bend the expectations tonight and ask for a salad, and make it a small, my stomach is only so big.” “And anything to drink?” “Oh, a water would be fine.” “Okay, a salad and a water.” Elaine starts to walk towards the kitchen, pauses a moment, and comes back to James’ booth. “You do have a way to pay for this, right?” “Pay? Oh my. No, I’m afraid I don’t. I’m so sorry. It slipped my mind. I don’t usually buy my meals, you see, I usually just eat garbage off the side of the road.” Elaine leans in and whispers “You know what, don’t worry about it. It’s on me. I get a free meal every shift, but I usually eat before work anyways, so I’m never hungry. I have plenty of free meals saved up, and I’d be delighted to share one of them with a nice customer like you.” “Oh thank you, thank you so much Miss… Elaine. If I could repay you I would.” “Seriously, don’t worry about it James. Now just sit tight, it’ll be out in a few minutes.” James smiles at her and she walks away. James sighs and looks off into space as he relaxes into the booster seat.
The meal is finished and James clamors his way down off of the booth seat and carefully makes his way out of the diner whilst staying as inconspicuous as possible. The rain is ruthlessly pouring down as James steps out to face the harsh weather. There doesn’t seem to be much around the diner for miles, except for the highway, cars driving at high speeds, spraying the collected rain water back into the air. James eyes a car near by and runs under it. Seems like a dry place to contemplate his next stop, and how he’ll ever get out of this barren location.
James wakes up with a jolt of surprise. His shelter's motor kicks on. The car rolls above his head slowly. James jumps onto the lip of the back bumper, realizing this was his only way out of the truck stop. The car would likely be going into town. From there, James could find the local sewer and get back to a terrain he's used to for a while.
The car parks in front of a rundown house converted into an apartment building. James is shaking, cold and wet from the storm. It's dark out now, he wasn't sure how long he had slept under the car for. The silhouette of the driver walks toward the apartments. James sneezes a little sneeze. The figure turns. "Who's there?" James looks up at the figure, "Elaine? What are the chances?" "James!? What are you doing here?" "I fell asleep under a car outside of the diner. I guess it was your car. I caught a ride into town." James sneezes again. Elaine rushes to him. "You're all wet! Look at you! Come in and get warmed up." "Oh, I'm fi-" Elaine grabs James and rushes inside.
Elaine's apartment is surprisingly bare. The walls have that faded decorative wallpaper left over from the fifties. A small couch rests in the corner of the room, a mattress sits on the floor next to the couch with a mess of blankets and sheets spread over the top. A small kitchenette is acr... You know what? Who cares what the apartment looks like? It isn't going to play a prominent part in the telling of the story. She lives in a bare apartment. Done! Next!
You ever see Howard the Duck? There's this scene where Lea Thompson starts flirting with Howard (the duck). It seems like they were about to have this odd romantic encounter, but it's interrupted just in time. No duck on girl action that night! So, keep that in mind. Elaine wraps James up in a towel. They have small talk. She leans in for a kiss. Let's just say... No one came in to interrupt these two love birds... Stuff happened, although I'm not very comfortable saying what exactly. I say this though, wasn't Richard Gere great in "Primal Fear"? His performance was outshined by a young Edward Norton. Shame...
The next morning. James crawls out of bed, Elaine can be heard in the bathroom (uh-oh, maybe I should have mentioned that there was a bathroom in the apartment). James walks into the bathroom all 'Pierre De Marco' like. He was about to say "Mornin'... baby" but not a sound came from his mouth. What stopped him!? The pair of dentures sitting on the edge of the sink, that's what! "AHHHHH!" screamed James. Elaine turned quickly to see James in the doorway, frightfully walking backwards. "What?" said a toothless mouth. She looked back at her false teeth on the sink. "Oh. Wait! I meant to tell you! I swear." James looked at Elaine with the meanest look he could conjure "You disgust me." he said in a piercing tone. And with that James teleported out of the apartment in a puff of purple smoke *BAMF!*.
*BAMF!* James reappeared in a Pool Supply store. He found some chlorine and snorted a line of it. Then he ran out of the store and started licking the bottom of some kid's shoe. The kid kept trying to walk away, but James just kept behind him, licking the bottom of the shoe with every lifted step. The kid winks at you (the reader) and kicks back, smacking James in the head with the heel of his shoe. James shoots back and lands in a cool dude's pompadour. James decided to do this groovy cat a favor and ate all of his hair. The hipster got upset over this and grabbed James by his head, he winks at you (the reader) and tosses the rat into oncoming traffic. James does his best impression of a pinball, shooting from car to car, Ding! Ding! Ding! He falls straight into an open manhole (only 2 turns left), and hides in the corner of the sewer to wait out the rest of his chlorine high. The come-down wasn't pretty. And to make matters worse, he would eternally smell everything with the additional odor of a YMCA. Poor James.
* NEW STUFF STARTS HERE. 12/01/07 *
The next morning James awoke with a terrible headache. He stumbled around the corner of the sewer he took shelter in the night before, trying to walk off what was left of the chemicals kicking around in his body. His headache wasn't feeling any better (probably because he hits his skull to the ground with every step, but that's just a guess, I'm no doctor... Well, not that kind of doctor). He made his way out of the sewer somehow, because rats can do that sort of thing; the mystery of how sewer-life can get from 15 feet underground to street level without the use of thumbs or webbing (nerd (that was directed towards me) (not you))).
It was on this very street that James realized he was living a circular life. Why does he always end up walking around the streets, meet talking animals, and have his trusty narrator constantly make jokes about how he is a rat in certain absurd situations (which stopped being funny 3 years ago, mind you...) James needed something new, something exciting, something not in a city. There it was, across the street, his answer, his prayers granted, his pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, his lucky stars, his- okay, I'll stop.
A travel agency with a flight to the Amazon!
" OuuuuUUUUuuUuUuuuuUuuuuUuuuu!!! "
*Sound Bite Explanation * That was the audience of 'The Price is Right' after hearing a sweet Showcase. "A new Car!" "A Trip to beautiful Hungary!" "A new Dinette Set!"
So James followed a fellow leaving the agency, a fellow that looked all ready to get rolling. He had his suitcase packed up and a passport in hand. James hopped into a front zipper pocket on the suitcase and nestled his filthy body among the traveler's clean socks.
The flight was comfortable.
James got to fly the airplane for a few hours.
James climbed out of the suitcase before the baggage was claimed. Then he managed to kick himself. He kicked himself right in the head! He kicked himself because he was now stranded in an airport and had about zero ideas on where the hell the exit was. But then he noticed an exit sign and left the airport. Our dude J-Man totally slipped by the metal detector. Good thing too, for James has a certain piercing he's kind of embarrassed about and didn't want to have to explain it to security.
The Amazon rainforest was conveniently right outside the airport. Within the jungle a tropical bird says "K-kaw! K-kaw!" A tropical fish says "B-blub! B-Blub!" A tropical merchant says "H-Hey, buy this nice figurine of a giant beetle. It's an ashtray too!" "H-Hey, buy this nice figurine of a giant beetle. It's an ashtray too!"
This world was vast, green, moist, moderately populated, clean. This world was very different from the city James was familiar with. A fruit came flying at his head. A monkey was laughing his bulbous blue ass off up in a tree. He grabbed another fruit from a branch, then threw it right at James again, missing him by a hair (we can assume). James looked up at the monkey and yelled:
"Hey, quit it!"
The monkey, although not being from an English speaking country, could speak it fluently. Good thing too, because that's pretty much the only language I'm comfortable in. Oh, I should point out now that I Wikipedia'd the Amazon, and apparently every animal in the rainforest speaks fluent English. Nice!
So, the monkey says, "Hahaha!"
James sighs and looks at the fruit. James liked fruit, so he took a bite from one of the previous projectiles. It was delicious.
"I don't recall saying you could eat that!" yelled the monkey.
James rebuttals with an obvious remark "I don't recall saying you could throw it at me!"
This is conflict, folks.
The monkey climbs down the tree with drastic monkey speeds, grabs James, and makes his way back up the tree with such agility that a tear is falling from my eye as I type this. The monkey plops James down on the branch in front of him and looks him right in the face. Then the monkey says,
"Wait, what? I couldn't hear you down there. My ears aren't the best with distances."
"I said that you shouldn't have thrown that fruit at me."
"Ohhhh. Okay. I figured you'd say that. Well, my "B" . I won't do it again. Kay?"
Then the monkey grabs a plastic dart off the branch next to him and throws it at James.
"It's not fruit!" Says the monkey, "Sucker!" Then the monkey backhands the rat and the rat falls off of the tree and on to the forest floor.
The leaves break his fall.
The impact breaks his nose.
His nose bleeds and a boar runs straight at the scent of the open wound. The boar stops with a screech and looks down at James. Then the boar scoffs and turns away, walking proudly on his tippy-toes back into the jungle foliage. James doesn't like the Amazon, so he wakes up from the dream. Ha! I suck... Yeah, it was a dream, and now he's back in his sewer, from way before the story even started. None of it ever happened. It was all a dream. The whole damn story. The end.
.....
Naw, I'm just kidding. That last part was the dream, caused by severe blood-loss, due to the broken septum in his nose. The end.
.....
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All rights reserved to Jeff Coulter. Any unauthorized reproduction of this material is prohibited.
mrjeffkrinkle@gmail.com
