Everyone at Casa Lesbo breathed a sigh of
relief when it was determined that little Abdul was nowhere
near the Piggly Wiggly when it blew up. Apparently the little
terrorist was at a nearby 7-11 chatting with a long lost cousin
and filling up on Slurpees when the pig blew. Thank God! Several
witnesses saw them, so the whereabouts of each terrorist was
well documented.
As the days passed little Abdul was becoming more and more
proficient at English and American customs. He would spend
most of his free time watching American television, and his
dent on the sofa next to Skipper was now permanent. In between
shows and while on commercial breaks, he had acquired a most
peculiar fascination with games involving any form of leaping
or jumping, such as hopscotch or jump rope. Skipper was more
than happy to assist in broadening the little terrorist’s
cultural horizons. The two would spend hours and hours playing
little hippity-hop games. Little Abdul’s Muslotic voice
could be heard echoing throughout the halls of Casa Lesbo.
“Higher bitch! Jump higher! Harder! Slam it baby! Higher!
Land harder! Go baby, go! Drive it home!” From the main
porthole Ken could see the little terrorist tossing cupcakes
high into the air, and Skipper would jump up and fetch them
from the sky. Ken found the whole game thing quite odd. Any
normal person would develop an affinity for softball and soccer
after spending large amounts of time with a lesbian. Why hopscotch
and jump rope for the little terrorist? And why had Skipper
gone along so willingly with the games? She was usually quite
happy being sedentary in her dent on the sofa.
One night Ken arrived home quite ravenous and decided to
order a pizza from terrorism take-out. As luck would have
it, little Abdul was out on delivery already, so his cousin
Mohammed would be delivering Ken’s pepperoni delight.
Right on time, twenty minutes after placing his order, the
doorbell rang. Ken grabbed his wallet and answered the door.
“That wheel be twelve dollars and thirty-seven saints,
please.” Said Mohammed. Ken was feeling rather generous
and gave Mohammed fifteen. He also hoped that the large tip
would be incentive for Mohammed to remove any nitro that may
have been hidden under the lid of the box. “Keep the
change, dude.” Said Ken. “Oh thank you so much.
Have a good evening, sir!” Said Mohammed as he removed
a small test tube from the side of the box. Yet another bombing
avoided by a large tip. Ken could eat his pizza in peace now.
Ken took the pizza into the galley and opened the box, to
allow the mouth-watering aroma to fill the air. Mmmmm. Hot
pizza! Ken began to salivate profusely. He removed the first
slice from the box and placed it on a plate. The pizza was
still quite hot, and Ken did not want to risk burning the
skin off of the roof of his mouth, so he waited for it to
cool. While Ken was waiting for the pizza to cool, he happened
to notice some strange markings on the pizza box, in the void
where the slice of pizza had been. “Hmmm. That’s
odd. I wonder what those are.” He thought to himself.
Upon closer inspection he realized that the markings were
Arabic characters. The pizza was now cool enough to eat. As
each slice was removed and consumed in succession, the markings
continued to be revealed. Ken began to eat faster and faster.
He simply had to see the whole picture.
Finally, twelve slices later, Ken had the complete diagram.
The document was scribed entirely in Arabic. Ken found this
quite odd. “I wonder what all this means! Maybe it’s
a contest and they just forgot to include the instructions!
Maybe I’ve found the secret treasure map to a pot of
gold! Maybe I’m RICH!” Ken’s imagination
began to go wild. He pictured himself in a villa high above
Monaco, wearing a caftan and being attended by several flawlessly
complected youths. His mouth began to once again salivate.
The sound of the dream phone ringing shattered the fantasy.
It was the man from terrorist pizza. He was quite upset.
“Did you get the wrong pizza? I am terribly, terribly
sorry! We’ll bring you another, just give us back the
box! We need the box back as soon as possible. Do you have
the box?” “What do you mean? I got the right pizza,
and by the way it was quite tasty!” “No, no…Mohammed
brought you the wrong pizza! You must return it right away!”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible! I’ve
already eaten the whole thing.” “Well, that’s
OK. Just give us back the box!” “Why are you so
concerned about a pizza box?” Ken said coyly, hoping
that Ed McMahon would be the next voice on the phone informing
him that he’d won a billion dollars in the Terrorist
Pizza Clearing House Sweepstakes. “It’s very important,
you must return it immediately.” Clearly Ed McMahon
had not yet arrived. Perhaps he would arrive with the camera
crew at a later date. “This is ridiculous! It’s
just a pizza box!” Replied Ken. “No, no…you
don’t…” Click. Ken hung up the phone and
went to inspect the pizza box further.
He noticed that the markings were inscribed in felt-tip number
5 pen width. Hmmm. They were not printed along with the other
text on the box, they had been added later. He noticed that
some of the letters had been smudged by grease that had seeped
from the pizza. Terrorists obviously had not yet discovered
indelible ink. It probably never occurred to them since they
originated in arid climates. Ken decided to call his dear
friend Sheikstra Sandbox. Sheikstra was originally from the
Middle East, and now resided in the United States. She found
it entirely too difficult to express her views on sports bras
in her homeland, and just up and left one day. She was now
sole proprietress of Bra and Jelly World.
“Sheikstra, this is Ken. Listen. I have some Arabic
text that I’d like you to have a look at and see if
you can translate it for me.” “No problem sweetie.
If you want you can come by later tonight. I have a sale on
Jogbras and grape jelly right now, so I can’t break
away while I’m at work. I’ll be home around ten
thirty.” “Great! I’ll see you then.”
“Ciao Kennie!” “Ciao Sheikstra!”
Ken carefully cut the bottom from the pizza box and placed
it in an airtight Glad ziplock bag. He inspected the color
seal to make sure it was airtight. Indeed the ziplock had
turned green. The text had been secured. He discarded the
remaining fragments of the box and went to his airlock to
select an appropriate outfit for calling on Miss Sandbox.
Something loose and very cottony…he coordinated a lovely
Donna Kaftan outfit consisting of a white cotton henley and
black drawstring pants. Shoes and leather accessories by Kenneth
Coleslaw completed the outfit. Ken showered and applied massive
amounts of cologne before donning the outfit. Whenever he
went to call upon Sheikstra he made a point of honoring the
traditions of her homeland. Before long it was ten o’clock
and Ken was ready to depart. He gathered up the ziplocked
text and headed for the Dream Vet.
As he sealed the main airlock and proceeded down the path
to the Vet, Ken noticed several dark shapes moving amongst
the shrubbery. Suddenly the shapes converged and proceeded
towards Ken at an alarming pace. He ran towards the Vet. The
shapes surrounded him and began shouting for him to stop.
A shot rang out. He heard the bullet ricochet off of a nearby
neighbor. Ken shrieked and dodged for the vet. “Damn!”
he exclaimed as he realized that he had snagged his Donna
Kaftan outfit. “Those bastards have really ticked me
off now!” That was it! He had seen enough random ensemble
violence in his time and he wasn’t going to stand for
it any more. He reached into the emergency kit, cleverly concealed
beneath the Vet, and pulled out…the ultimate weapon.
Inside the emergency kit were several colognic grenades of
High Karate cologne. Each grenade contained enough concentrated
cologne to stop a dozen terrorists dead in their tracks. Ken
pulled the pin and exclaimed “Hi-Yah!” as he launched
the first grenade. Two more followed in rapid succession.
“That’ll teach you to snag my ensemble!”
The terrorists were quickly engulfed in a smelly gas cloud.
Ken had conveniently stored one of Skipper’s extra designer
gas masks in the emergency kit, so he was immune to the toxic
vapors. He jumped into the vet and drove off, leaving the
gasping terrorists behind.
All the way to Sheikstra’s Ken kept a close eye on
the rear-view mirror. No sign of being followed. He pulled
up in front of Sheikstra’s tent and parked the Vet behind
a cluster of palm trees, so as to conceal it as much as possible.
He ran up to the flap and rang the gong. “Coming!”
Ken could hear Sheikstra calling out from behind the flap.
She raised the flap and bid him to enter. “Sheikstra,
you won’t believe what just happened! I was attacked
by a band of renegade terrorists on the way over. I don’t
know what they wanted, but they were definitely after me!”
“Oh, you poor dear! Terrorists are rare in this region.
They must have been imports.” “Whatever, I’m
just glad I was able to break away! Thank God for High Karate!”
“Well, have you brought the text?” “Yes,
here. Have a look.” “Would you like some tea while
I study it?” “No thanks. I’m still a little
shaken and would probably just end up spilling it on my outfit.”
“Well, have a seat and let’s have a look together.”
“OK.”
“Oh my. This is quite serious my dear. These are the
plans for a bomb! And not just any bomb, it’s quite
sophisticated. It’s designed to be pressure activated.
It appears that pressure builds up gradually by a series of
strong pumping actions, like hopping. When the pressure finally
reaches the critical level, kaboom!” “Oh no!”
Ken became quite concerned. “What is it my dear?”
“Abdul has been playing all kinds of hopping games with
Skipper lately. You don’t suppose he’s planning
on concealing the bomb in her fake leg do you?” “It
would appear so.” “As much as she’s been
hopping lately, she’ll be a walking A-bomb! She’s
got enough power to explode an entire trailer park in one
bounce!” “Well, would that be such a bad thing?”
“Those poor people have it bad enough with tornadoes,
Sheikstra! It just wouldn’t be fair!” “Well,
we don’t really know where he plans to launch the attack
now do we?” “You’re right! For all we know
he could be planning an attack on Casa Lesbo! I need to find
Skipper and warn her as soon as possible!” “That
would seem most prudent my dear. Most prudent.” |
