Tuesday, November 08, 2005

A Farewell To Arms

Ferguson Royal was living a quiet, normal, life. He enjoys a comfortable living as a computer programmer, bowls in a league every week, owns his own home, has a dog and was a talented amateur juggler. The only thing missing, according to him, was a good woman to share his mundane, yet satisfying, existence. Now, allegedly, due to a skirmish with his neighbor, he has two more missing pieces to his contentment – his arms.

"One day, I woke up and my arms were missing," Royal claims. He believes his neighbor, Merle Leeks, a butcher by trade, is responsible for stealing his arms. According to Royal, one night he was at Leeks’ house "having a few drinks" and enjoying his neighbor’s hospitality. He doesn’t remember going home that night.

"We were whooping it up pretty good. When I get a little tipsy, I like to juggle. People seem to enjoy when I juggle atypical juggling items in their home. It adds to the fun." The last thing Royal remembers before he woke up in his bed armless the next day was juggling Leeks’ custom set of butcher knifes. Royal claims that Leeks drugged him, sliced off his arms, cauterized the wounds with a curling iron and deposited him into his bed.

Leeks provides a different course of that evening’s events. "That idiot invited himself over, drank all my booze, juggled everything he could get his hands on and must have eventually blacked out." The local authorities found no signs of foul play at the Leeks residence. "Of course not," Leeks elaborated. "Nothing happened. Nothing except that lunatic juggling my mother’s urn and spilling her ashes all over my living room, only to be licked up clean by that stupid dog of his. That’s when I kicked him out. The last I saw of him, he was stumbling down the street juggling imaginary elephants. ‘Look how strong I am – I’m juggling pretty blue elephants. Ewhoowooie!’ He woke up half the neighborhood with his hollerin’."

Police have no clues as to what happened to Royal’s arms. It appears they are not trying too hard to find out. "On one level, it’s a real tragedy what happened to him," stated Officer Leon Plunk. "But then again, he’s been a pain in the ass since he’s moved to town two years ago." Officer Plunk described numerous accounts of general juggling related pestering and crudeness on Royal’s part. "It could have been anybody in a two mile radius, not to mention friends and family of people in this area who have had the misfortune of experiencing Mr. Royal’s act. Most people were darned sick of his juggling. Frankly, we don’t have the resources to interrogate all of the suspects." Plunk feels the greater good is better off because of this incident.

As an avid juggler, Royal has spent many hours in his back yard flinging various objects into the air, at times to the dismay of some of his neighbors. The houses in the neighborhood are packed tightly together on each block, offering room for only small backyards. Neighbors are very familiar with the outdoor goings-on of each other.

"I don’t mind the balls, the bowling pins or even the chain saws," stated Regina Balsthwaite, Royal’s widow neighbor living behind him. "But it’s a little disturbing when you’re having a cookout and you see him tossing around live chickens, inflatable woman dolls, dog poopy, pantyhose filled with gravy, small children with duct tape on their mouths, dentures, ash trays coated in mustard, weird red things, Teletubby skeletons…". I think we get the idea, Mrs. Balsthwaite. "…melted blocks of cheese, giant wads of partially chewed roast beef, fish parts, oranges, globs of horse drool…"

Reporter: Enough. Enough! That’s enough, Mrs. Balsthwaite. Globs of horse drool? What the hell is wrong with you?

Royal: It’s just stuff I have lying around the house.

Reporter: You have globs of horse drool lying around the house?

Royal: Sure. Well, after I tantalize the horse with elusive bags of delicious oats…

Reporter: This is nuts. Wait a minute. Mrs. Balsthwaite, what is the problem with Mr. Royal juggling oranges?

Mrs. Balsthwaite: (screams) AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Reporter: Alright, that did it. I’m calling this story off. This is too absurd. I was looking to do a story about a man who had lost his arms and the struggle and frustration he faced trying to live a normal life.

Royal: I’m getting a callus on the end of my nose from trying to type programming code with it at work. That’s pretty frustrating.

Reporter: You’re lucky you’re not in jail for child abuse for juggling those children with duct tape on their mouths.

Royal: Those rascals! Oh, how they enjoy it so. I taped their mouths so their audible jubilance would not disturb the neighbors.

Leeks: Those were screams, moron.

Royal: Give me my arms back, Leeks! I know you did it.

Leeks: Even if I did do it, I wouldn’t give them back to you.

Royal: What about my bowling average? I was almost up to 180. Now I’ll be lucky to break 60 by kicking the ball down the lane.

Leeks: Freak.

Reporter: Mr. Royal, it seems that the people in your neighborhood are all better off with your loss of arms. I now have to terminate this story. Good day to you.

Royal: Are we gonna be on TV?

Leeks: Yeah, can we be on TV?

Reporter: No, I am not associated with any television stations.

Plunk: I’ve been on TV a number of times – on that show Cops.

Royal: This would have been a good story for Cops.

Plunk: Not really. Not unless we caught the perpetrator in the act. Or if we even knew who it was. This would be better for Americas Most Wanted, except that nobody in America wants to catch this person, other than to give him a reward for ending the juggling insanity.

Royal: I thought you all enjoyed my juggling.

Leeks: It was fun the first couple of times you did it. But you got out of hand. You juggled my and my wife’s shoes.

Plunk: What’s wrong with that, Mr. Leeks?

Leeks: We were still wearing them at the time.


Royal: That was a good night. Remember that?


Reporter: I’d love to stroll down psycho-juggler memory lane with you all, but I really have to wrap this up. The story is over.

Royal: But what about my happy ending? What about the challenges that now stand in my way? What about my courage, suffering life with no arms? What about me finding a woman to fulfill my mundane, yet satisfying, existence? You foreshadowed it in the first paragraph.

Reporter: Yeah, good luck with that.

Royal: I’m serious. I have NO ARMS! I need a woman now more than ever, if you know what I mean.

Reporter: I know what you mean. Mrs. Balshwaite?

Mrs. Balsthwaite: (screams) AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Alrighty then, I'll be brave and make the first post.

My first thought reading this was of a snip I saw on something called Sushi TV, I think. I was channel surfing and didn't see the whole bit, but it appeared to be about Japanese men bowling by blowing the bowling balls down the alley. I think I would have as much patience to watch this competition as to watch paint peel, but perhaps Mr. Royal could hie himself over to Japan and create a new life as "blow bowling" champion.

The other thought I had was that Mr. Royal wouldn't be able to do the "numa numa" dance anymore. Too bad.

Actually the numa numa video I liked the best was the fan one made using World of Warcraft characters. I play Diablo II - Lord of Destruction, but I have a nephew that plays WoW so I was familiar with it.

I play a barbarian named, appropriately enough, Arnold in Diablo and get to go around smashing things without actually having a house full of hunks of junk that not even howard can sell on eBay.

Actually, not quite true, my children seem to generate lots of hunks of junk, but not even howard can sell it on eBay.

There's my post. Fire at will.

Anonymous said...

Could you post a link to that Warcraft "numa numa" dance? I would dearly love to see it. The Lego one was pretty great, but I think that would take the cake.

Moist, brilliant as always. Completely out of left field, but brilliant. And we were so worried after RS:INXS was over. Silly, silly us.

Anonymous said...

http://members.cox.net/newhomes/TheNumaWoW.mov

Anonymous said...

Shucks, it looks like it cut part of it off. Ouch.

Trying again, cut and paste this to your address line, but take out the extra space between slash and TheNumaWoW.mov:

http://members.cox.net/newhomes/
TheNumaWoW.mov

Sid said...

I'm not a gamer so I'll stick with this Numa Numa.

Moist Rub said...

Thank you all for the birthday well wishes. However, it's not until next week. But, I'll remember what y'all said and feel warm and gushy inside when the time comes.

Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday.

Sid said...

MR - sorry I missed your birthday last week.
Belated best wishes.

Anonymous said...

You should wear a giant foam cowboy hat on your birthday. That would be funny.

Anonymous said...

Who is Howard?

Anonymous said...

howard is someone apparently connected with the Lovehammers that places up for auction on eBay various Marty Casey/LH items. I gather the proceeds from said auctions are used by LH ( or perhaps it is CaseyMegaCorp) to further their aim of world domination. (Or perhaps to pay off Moist and Sid to keep them from spreading nefarious rumors.)

My reference to howard is in regard to the large piece of a Washburn guitar smashed by mmmmMarty at the Tweeter Center concert on 10/1. The said "hunk of junk" was made valuable by the fact that dear Marty had touched it, played it, and smashed it. Then MC, Bobby, Dino, and Billy all signed it. The auction ended on Oct 13 and the piece o'guitar winning bid was $1,350.00.

The Baby One More Time music given to Marty on the RS:INXS show, autographed, etc., also sold by howard, went for $2,275.00. The With Arms Wide Open music given to Marty, autographed, etc., went for $1,125.00.

I'm working on coming up with the Leprosy items that Moist and Sid, et al, should sign to help finance the Dirge-a-palooza-Moist Rhythm'n'Blues-Leprosy-Reunion-Tour with ABBA karaoke sidestage, but inspiration isn't forthcoming on that yet and I'm afraid my post is already too long. Another day, perhaps.

Anonymous said...

I'm no gamer either, Sid, but you gotta admit that it was pretty frickin' hilarious. I think I'll always prefer the original, though. Nothing beats their little kick-dance on the wing of the plane. Nothing.

Anonymous said...

Who's got the Leper House sign? That would fetch untold gobs of cash. What's with the word verification noise before posting? I'm having flashbacks of voting for Marty.

Anonymous said...

Dalebud...

Word verification:

Because friends don't let friends type drunk.

Andree

Sid said...

Dalebud - where you been?
The word verification noise was implemented because the masses didn't like the spam. I found it entertaining, but nobody else liked ads for karate pants. I bet Turd Ferguson thought it was funny, too.
As for the sign, it would only be worth large sums if signed by all the members of Leprosy.

Anonymous said...

nina! dalebud! vi! More & more of the gang's all here. I'll have to run out and get those Lil' Debbie cakes - and I found diet Faygo Frosh that I could order online for Sid F'er. OK, dalebud, send the rest of those demands, uh, contract riders ...