…in the visitors’ waiting area at San Quentin, the main prison in the California State Penal System.
“Feh!” says Samantha. “It smells like someone peed in here!” Indeed. We look through a large window at the inmates’ exercise area, and we’re adjacent to solitary confinement. It’s disturbing to see so many murderers, arsonists, rapists, and other felons, but the presence of several burly, armed prison guards is at least reassuring.
We watch for a while, wondering what the various felons are thinking about us. I wear a light gray sport shirt and black slacks, with brown walking shoes; Samantha has on a rather slinky cocktail dress, bright white, showing only a hint of cleavage. Her flaming red hair is full and long. She wears plain white pumps. On her right wrist she wears a wristwatch and a green bangle bracelet. She is soft-spoken but effective, and has quite the dignified air about her, not surprising for a woman about 5’10" tall.
In fact she catches the eye of quite a few inmates, separated from us by a thick pane of glass. These people actually show courtesy towards this pair of visitors they can’t hear or talk to; no surprise, considering the guards stationed everywhere.
We decide to leave and gesture courteously to the inmates, who respond likewise.
As we exit the prison doors, escorted by the guards assigned to us, we enter, to our surprise…
in a small room. I feel groggy–like I just woke up after being drugged. I immediately notice that my hands are tied or handcuffed to a chair and there are electrodes attached to my head. I don’t see Samantha but there are three male figures in the room. However, I can’t make them out to well because there’s a bright light shining in my face. The man in the center addresses me in a snarky tone.
“It’s alive! It’s alive!”
“Where am I? Where’s Samantha?” I mumble.
“Gone. Long gone. That’s all you have to know,” says the center man.
I hear the guy on the left say,“We got a real blue one here don’t we?” He seems to be reading something.
“He’s the bluest one we’ve had this week,” replies the center man. I can now make him out a little better. He’s big and seems to be wearing a white with red pinstriped long-sleeved dress shirt and suspenders.
I say, “Who are you and what’s going on? And what do you mean by ‘blue’? Do you think I’m depressed or something?”
“Oh, this has nothing to do with any funk you might be in,” the center man says with contempt.
“Well, I haven’t checked my complexion recently but I am pretty sure I didn’t see any tinge of blue the last time I looked,” I tell him. “And if I am now taking on blue hue , I think you ought to get me to a hospital right away. That’s definitely not a good sign.”
Zzzzzt. I feel an slightly stinging electric charge course through my body.
“Ow.”
“Each time you make a smart-ass remark or say something we don’t like, you’ll get a shock,” says the center man. “The voltage will increase with each shock.”
I notice the man to the right sitting behind a table operating some type of equipment. Obviously, he’s the shocker.
“The reason you’re here has nothing to do with any mental illness you may have,” explains the center man. “But it does have a lot to do with your definite moral illness.”
“What are you talking about? Have I been kidnapped?”
Silence. The three men ignore me.
“Am I under arrest? Are you trying to charge me with something? Because if you are, I’m not saying anything. And I want to call a lawyer right…”
Zzzzzzzt.
“Aghhh!”
This one hurts a lot more. A queasy feeling invades my stomach not so much from the shock but the realization that I’m in for a lot worse before this is over.
“There’s no real need for you to say anything,” the center man says. “We have all the evidence we need.”
“Evidence of what? I didn’t do anything.”
Zzzzzzzzzt.
“Aaaaaagh!” I taste metal.
“Is that supposed to be funny? You blue Americans make me sick,” the center man disgustedly says.
“I…I…I…,” I stammer.
“I…I…I…,” the center man says mockingly. “Typical of a selfish moral weakling.”
I finally put together a coherent sentence. “What’s this ‘blue American’ business and why am I being blamed for anything? I’m pretty sure you have the wrong guy.”
“Oh no Mr. _____,” replies the center man. “It’s all here on paper. Care to take a look?”
The center man gestures to the guy on the left who brings over a large ream of paper. I can see the guy on the left is younger and shorter than the center man. He too is wearing a white dress shirt with red pinstripes and suspenders. He speaks to me.
“I have here your entire voting record.”
“Isn’t that secret?”
Zzzzzzzzzzzt.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Despite my scream, I hear derisive snorts from the three men.
When I finally compose myself, I look at the paper with my voting record being held in front of me. It all checks out: time, place, and who I voted for. Everything from presidential elections to school bonds.
“We also have your tax records,” says the guy on the left. He briefly passes the tax forms in front of my fact long enough for me to see my signature.
“And this,” he says reaching for a large bundle, “is a record of every CD, book, magazine, video, DVD disc, and computer game you bought, rented, or loaned over the last six years.”
“You’re bluffing,” I state expecting to get a shock. Nothing comes.
“Take a look,” he says. This time the guy on the left takes his time and lets me fully review each page. I’m so amazed by the thoroughness of the job that the fact that they’ve monitored every aspect of my life doesn’t immediately dawn on me. However, when it does, the queasiness in my stomach increases by ten fold. If this is a nightmare, it has gotten out of control.
"We also have records going back six years of every ticket you purchased for a movie, concert, or show, " explains the center man. “We know what TV shows you watch, what radio stations you listen to, and the route you took to class or work every day. We have your entire scholastic record from kindergarten through college. We have copies of every e-mail you sent, every web site you visited, and every message you posted at every message board. Just about every aspect of your life and how you’ve lived it over the past six years is all there on these sheets of paper. Of course, this doesn’t include your little escapade with Samantha and friends. The documentation from that interesting little episode isn’t ready yet.”
The center man draws closer to me. He’s balding with a slightly puffy face. However, he’s strongly built–not someone I’d try to pick a fit with. He opens his mouth and softly says, “And do you know what all this proves?”
“No,” I say almost whispering.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzt.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!” There’s bile in the back of my throat. One more jolt and I’m going to vomit.
“It proves you are truly a ‘blue’ American,” the center man proclaims. “You people have had all the advantages of living in this nation and you have nothing but contempt for this country and those who love it. You mock people of faith while indulging in behavior offensive to all those who hold values sacred.”
“I’m not anti-American and what do you care how I live my life,” I tell them. “I really don’t see why I’m here (and don’t shock me this time).”
The center man continues. “We are at war Mr. _____ and need strength. However, blue Americans like you are the weakness that will destroy this country from within.”
“Who are you anyway?” I have never been told this.
“We are people who, when we see weeds in the garden, pull them before they spread,” is the center man’s reply. I don’t feel good about.
The three men hold a conference at the back of the room. I can’t make out all of their conversation but the words “can’t do anything about him” and “waste” are audible. Then, with their backs turn, the three move apart. Time slows down to a near standstill. I hear three clicks that sound ominously like the cocking of three guns. Then, all at once the three men turn around with their right arms reaching out and…
…start a tickle fight with each other. (We tried to tell you this was surreal.) An orderly comes in and wheels me out on the gurney. As we leave the room, I hear peals of girlish laughter. “What was that all about?” I ask of no one in particular.
As I am pushed through the doorway, I am now in an office chair. I hear more peals of girlish laughter. As I look around, I notice I am in the midle of a sorority house pillow fight. Nothing but young women in pj’s, underwear, sweats, or combos of that, jumping, running, wrestling…
“Ah… The good stuff again.” I say to myself.
Three of the girls notice me, and with smiles on their faces and loose fitting cropped t-shirts and thong panties on their bodies, they grab me and begin to…
…spin my chair around and around and around and around.
I’m getting dizzy, and I tighten my grip on the arm-rests, to avoid being thrown clear out of my seat.
“What… are…you…doing?” I cry, as I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Twirling you!” giggles one voice.
“Spinning you!” says another.
“Launching you!” shouts a third.
Surprised, I open my eyes just in time to see a a puff of smoke rise up from underneath my seat. The smoke envelops me, as the ground and the girls and the sorority house fall away, and I’m propelled upward, toward the ceiling.
There’s a skylight directly above me, and as I crash through the glass, I suddenly find myself…
…cut up really bad, and covered with glass shards.
Also, I seem to be…
…resting fairly uncomfortably in the branches of a massive maple tree, suspended approximately thirty feet above the ground. Due to the angle at which I was propelled out of the mysterious compound and into the tree I’m almost completely upside down, my head facing the ground while my feet are wedged two or three branches directly above me. A family of meadowlarks stares querulously at this unwelcome guest.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a small, dilapidated building nestled amongst the lower branches of the tree. Peering closer, I think I see a tire swing, a “No Girls Admitted” sign attached to the door - it’s my treehouse that Dad and I built when I was seven! I try to wriggle closer, but as I try to move I feel a ferocious, ice cold pain shoot from the base of my spine down my left leg and back again, as if someone were playing a torturous game of ping-pong with my nerve cells for balls. It’s so unbearably painful that I try to scream, but nothing comes out - except for a mouthful of maple leaves.
The next thing I hear is a crisp snapping sound, and suddenly I’m falling headfirst…
into a pool of water. I feel myself sinking rapidly. The water around me gets colder and murkier the deeper I go. I seem to be the only living thing in the pool as I don’t see any people or fish around me. I look up toward the surface. Bad decision. It looks as though I’m more than 25 feet down and the light of the sun is already getting dim. Somehow, I stop the momentum of my descent, turn, and try to swim back toward the surface. My lungs are starting to hurt from the lack of air. However, although I know I’m swimming upward, I can’t see the lights from the surface anymore. My worst fears are confirmed when, upon reaching the top, I discover the pool is covered with lid made of some type of hard rocky substance.
Trying to avoid panic, I seach for a break. Finally, I feel a tunnel opening and decide to follow it. Fortunately, it leads to an unobstructed surface break and I emerge into…
…the emergency ward of a large hospital in the San Francisco area. I feel much more comfortable than I have in several days. And again, a busy and dedicayed-looking physician tells nurses, “He’s conscious now.” I give a sigh of relief, although I can tell much of my body is bandaged, there’s an IV in one arm, and a nurse comes and takes my blood pressure, pulse, and breathing rate about every 20 minutes or so.
Then the physician leads three people into my room. Samanta, none the worse for her experience, whatever it may have been; a dignified older man with a briefcase and a large manila folder; and a police lieutenant in uniform. Before the trio approach me, the doctor speaks to them, apparently telling them how long they may talk to me.
They approach. Samantha is practically in tears–and so am I when I notice this.
The dignified man shows his business card, which even has his picture on it: Edmond Bartholomew, Esquire. He hands the envelope to the officer, who opens it.
Mr. Bartholomew tells me, “You’ll be glad to know those men whio tied you up and gave you ‘shock therapy’ have been located and arrested. Show him the pictures, Officer Clay.”
Lt. Don Clay shows me three 8x10 blowups of photos. The three men who abducted me!
“They’re the ones! Where are they now?” I asked.
“They’re in jail under charges of kidnaping, assault, and false imprisonment. Both you and Samantha. Will you make a complaint?”
“Damn right I will!” Lt. Clay handed me the papers and a pen, and I read them and signed my name with a flourish.
“They have long records of crimes like this. They’ve all served at least ten years in Folsom or Sing Sing or McNeil Island. They’ve also had psychiatric treatment and have records of drug abuse.”
“Well, it’s good to know that you caught up with them.” Tio the doctor I said, “How much longer will I have to be here?”
“About another week. You did not suffer serious injury, and we want to make sure the shocks you got and the fall you suffered did not cause you anything permanent.” Samantha, still in anguish, cried bitterly in my arms. I was hard put not to break down myself.
Finally the day came when I needed neither hospitalization nor physical therapy. Samantha had been visiting me constantly, as had her wealthy father–who paid for my hospital stay. He had hired Mr. Bartholomew, who, with Lt. Clay, visited me several times in the hospital before my release, to get a sworn deposition. “Those three shock-therapy goons are locks for 20 to life in Folsom or San Quentin,” the lawyer said. One time George Galloway, Sam’s father, came to assure me much of the same. “And I’ll help you get work in whatever field you choose,” he added.
Thanks very much, Mr. Galloway." 
I strode arm-in-arm with Sam out the hospital doors. We took a taxi–I was many miles from my car–and went to sup at an upper-crust restaurant her daddy frequented. As we entered the doors, however, we saw a sight that would keep us laughing with delight for a while. Inside the restaurant atrium was…
…Al Gore, in a pink tutu and cowboy boots, singing Smells Like Teen Spirit to a large fern in the center of the atrium. A spotlight was shining on him.
After a wonderful meal and several drinks, it was time to leave. Samantha suggested we go to this out of the way piano bar on 16th st. in LoDo Denver.
Having no idea what city we were in, I agreed.
Hailing a cab, we rode for a few minutes and were deposited at the front door of Sam’s Place.
As we entered the club, I saw…
a life-size plaster statute of Colonel Sanders–the kind that used to be in KFC’s years ago. It seemed odd to find an item like that in a supposedly high-class restaurant like this but, upon further examination, there was a good reason for this: the restaurant had turned into a trendy pseudo-diner and was decorated with kitschy pop-culture items from the last 50 years. I thought the new theme was rather unoriginal (after all, every hamlet with a population of more than 100 seems to have a place like this) but Samantha seemed rather amused by the decor. A hostess is a black evening gown led us to our table and told us the special of the day was chicken ala king with mashed potatoes. I wasn’t interested.
I turned to Samantha and said, “I really can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am to you and your father. I am forever in your debt.”
“It’s nothing,” said Samantha. “I’m sure you would’ve done the same for me. But all that’s in the past, we still have a long future ahead of us.”
“I know but there are still a few things that bother me. Like WHO WERE THOSE GUYS and what motive did those guys have to kidnap you and me? And how did they manage to monitor my whole life for the last six years? I mean they weren’t bluffing; they had EVERYTHING there on paper.”
“They were simply insane, delusional, obsessive, fanatics,” explained Sam. “You can’t expect people like that to be rational.” She took her hand and brushed away some strands of hair that had fallen over my face.
“And who slipped me the mickey that allowed them to get the jump on me? It couldn’t have been one of three guys because I don’t remember seeing them until I was tied up in that room. (And, come to think of it, shouldn’t I drop those two college causes I apparently never attened. I don’t want to get an “F” on my record.)” I was still bothered by a lot of things.
“You’ll go crazy trying to figure everything out,” Sam said. “Just relax and remember that it’s all over and nothing more can hurt you.”
I sighed.
“Now, I think my father would like to join us for dinner,” said Samantha. “Can you call his office and invite him to come down here? I forgot my cell phone so you’ll have to use the pay phone. Here’s a 35 cents and his number.”
I get up from our table and walk across the restaurant to the 50’s-style pay-phone booths located by the restrooms. I think to myself that I really should relax. I’m out of danger, together with Samantha, and have a high-paying job waiting for me in the field of my choice. It’s about as perfect as life is going to get. I should just kick back and enjoy it.
There are five empty phone booths lined up across from the door to the ladies’ and mens’ rooms. I go to the second one, open the folding door, and step inside only to find that…
…I am about to be run down and eaten by an Allosaurus. I quickly step out of the phone booth, back into the resturaunt. Everything normal.
I stick my head into the phone booth and see the Allosaurus sitting in a BarcaLounger, reading USA Today.
I decide I really don’t need to call after all. But, as I start to turn around, a man runs up to me shouting…"
“Don’t look back!”
“What do you mean ‘don’t look back’,” I say as I get ready to head back to my table with Samantha.
“Just don’t look back,” the man says. “It’s for your own good.” He’s now in back of me with his arms on my shoulders as though he was trying to prevent me from turning around.
“Now, calmly walk out the door,” he says. I can’t get a good look at him but I can tell that he’s a little taller and fatter than I am. He seems to be wearing a blue-hued tweed jacket and dark green chinos. He also seems to have a slight accent of an origin I can’t identify.
I reluctantly begin to walk out the door. Is something wrong with Samantha? I don’t hear any real commotion in the restaurant. Everything seems normal.
“When you get outside, go left and proceed up the street for two blocks,” the accented man says. “You can run if you want. In fact, I recommend that you do. After that, you can turn around and look back.” All the while, he’s about several inches directly behind me and holding his hand close to the sides of my face so he can block my peripheral vision.
We go through the atrium and out the door onto the sidewalk. The man says, “Okay, I’ve done all I can do. Now, take off.”
I turn left and start running. I want to at least look back and find out what’s going on but I have a feeling the man was looking out for me and knew something that I wouldn’t want to know.
Finally, after two blocks, I stop running. I then turn around and discover that…
…the world is changed yet again. The city sidewalk has disappeared, and I’m standing on a broad walkway overlooking a sea of clouds. I turn around again, but the scene doesn’t change.
There is no visible door nearby that I could have passed through. The walkway juts out from the side of a vast complex of buildings that curves off towards the hazy horizon like a mountain range enclosing a bay. Other walkways join towers and leap across chasms. The gound is invisible below the clouds.
On the horizon I see mountains. Rising from beyond them, its colours softened by the distance, is a colossal structure that must be tens of kilometres high. As I watch, a spherical object, itself many kilolmetres in diameter, rises from it and accelerates into the late-afternoon sky. It leaves a trail of roiled clouds.
“Samantha…?”
Silence. The walkway is glassed in; no noise enters from outside. A few tire-tracks stripe the polished but somewhat dusty floor. There is the occaisional bench amid planters bearing bushes and trees, but there are no signs, and no other persion is visible. I start to walk.
“Hello? Anyone here?” I walk faster. There are no doors or exits to be seen.
After a time, I stop and look out through the glass wall of the walkway. The light has changed: the sun is noticeably closer to the horizon, and off to the left, buildings lay long shadows across the clouds.
“Hello?”
“Hellooo! Answer me!”
“Anyone?”
Suddenly a madness takes me. I scream and pound the wall. I rip bushes from the planters and scatter dirt across the floor.
“You &**^%$!! I’ll make you answer me if it’s the last thing I do!”
There is no response. I rip a small tree from its planter and smash it against the window, again and again. The soft wood of the tree soon pulps, but the window is unharmed save for a smear of dirt. I run in a panic, unsensing, uncaring where I go. The walkway passes brfore my maddened eyes. Then blackness.
Some time later, I come to my senses. I’m lying on the floor, shivering. My head hurts, my lips are cracked, my leg is twisted under me.
I look around. A scar of earth shows where I’d tripped over a planter. The long long walkway curves away in both directions, but immediately opposite me is… a door.
A door!
I try to rise, but my leg folds under me. Pain. I drag myself over to the door, and push it. It slowly opens.
I slowly crawl through it. The floor is polished hardwood, and the light is different…
it’s a bright florescent light. I can hear the hum of the light fixtures overhead. However, my objective at this point is trying to get on my feet. I grab ahold of the doorknob and struggle to get up. When I do, my leg lets me know it’s not ready to support it’s share of my body’s weight. I shift my weight to the other leg and lean against the door for support. Foolhardily, I try to walk. I take the first step with my unhurt leg and than slowly drag the other one. It again signals my brain that it doesn’t want to do this. Nonetheless, I continue through the pain to take gradually bigger and faster steps until I’m hobbling around in a circle. Finally, the pain decreases to a point where I can fully walk by myself.
I look around at where I am. It’s a large room with wood panelling that contains nothing but a conference table and chairs in the middle. I see a man seated at the table reading a newspaper and drinking coffee. I don’t think he’s looked at me the entire time I’ve been in the room.
“Excuse me,” I say to him. “Can you tell me where I am?”
The man slowly puts down his newspaper. He looks as though he’s in his 60’s. He has receding line of gray hair and large black eyeglasses. He’s wearing a dark gray suit, red tie, and dress shirt that’s been loosened on top. His demeanor looks world-weary.
“Well, you certainly look blue,” the man says to me.
“I’d like to know where I am,” I tell him. “Then maybe I’ll feel better about myself.” Again, the whole “blue” business has cropped up. However, I optimistically think to myself that the old man just means I look depressed.
“Welcome to the club,” the man says. “I’ve been here a lot longer than you and still have no idea.”
“Why don’t you just head out the door?”
“Eh, why bother? I’ve got a chair, I’ve got a newspaper, and I’ve got a mug of coffee. I guess that’ll do.” With the last sentence, the old man’s voice trails off a bit.
“Are you waiting for something?”
“I think I was but I can’t remember it right now. I swear my mind’s like swiss cheese.”
I look around the room a bit more. In addition to the door I came in, there are three other doors on each side of the room. I wonder which one I should try.
“Oh, by the way,” says the old man. “You can read any part of my newspaper that I’m not reading. I’m done with the front page. Why don’t you read it?” He pushes the section across the table to where I am.
Figuring it might help my leg if I relax for a little while, I sit down in a chair across from the old man and pick up the newspaper. However, I look at the front page and am shocked to read…
FANATIC ABDUCTORS ESCAPE FOR ONE DAY
Maniacs Try to Stalk Their Earlier Victim, and Are Located by Police with Help of Five Women.
As I read the story I note that one man, who of the three who abducted me was taller and thinner, seemed to bear a suspicious resemblance to the older man I saw later. Doubtless he was a makeup expert. Well, they nabbed them again, and, according to the story, they’ve been put under armed guard–in Chino, some 450 miles away. Good. I don’t need this any more even if Mr. Galloway doesn’t hire a goon to go after them.
I wonder: Who were the five women?
This time, someone else opens a door. Samantha! She looks like she’s been in a fight–and won, though her assailants got in some blows themselves. But she’s in high spirits as she runs to me to treat my leg–which, as it turns out, has suffered nothing more than a sprain and a few cuts.
We embrace. “I know you’re going to want to know about the five women, so I asked them to come. And here they are.”
Into the room come Jane Bradley, Louise Brown, Loora Oranjeboom, Mary Blonda, and Louise Sharp! (From the thread about 26F, the five-dollar bill.) I am dumbfounded that they would appear here, and dressed much as I have imagined them–Jane in a dress emphasizing her ample bust; Mary in worn jeans and white blouse; Louise in cardigan, striped T-shirt, and jeans; Loora in sweatshirt and running shorts; Eloise in an expensive dress.
“We sensed it was you whom those bastards abducted. The three guys attacked us, and we and our husbands beat the stuffing out of them. And the police saw it and congratulated us for defending ourselves adequately against three dangerous escaped convicts.” I looked out a window and saw the five husbands sitting on a large bench waiting.
I thanked the women profusely and the seven of us exited the room. We went to a local hospital where I got routine treatment for my injuries–from the Angels’ training staff, no less.
After this episode I discussed the situation at length with Samantha, Mr. Galloway, and the five women and their husbands. As I was recovering from the injuries they prepared me to practice some martial arts and use of handguns. We were given permission to practice use of firearms on a local pistol range used by the police department, and Samantha and I (as well as the five other women) did reasonably well.
After a sumptuous dinner in the Sharps’ mansion, we had a nice long visit, the twelve of us, in a large sitting room in the mansion. Samantha explainbed, as her father came (He and Jack Sharp were golf buddies), that she had urgent family business in St. Louis and gave me a cell phone and numbers to maintain contact with her until her return to California. We hated to part, but part we must.
I felt glum, but happy just the same; I feel you are better for knowing certain people even if your contact with them is limited or, in this case, interrupted. I left the mansion and headed for the Oakland Amtrak station, armed with the cell phone, the pistol, some martial arts, and the benefit of experience.
Apparently, the grim, suspicious, and injurious episode was behind me: as I boarded the Amtrak train, I saw to my amusement that I was now at the entrance of…
a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant. I looked around at all little kids running around playing whack-a-mole, yelling at stiff animatronic figures, and eating crappy pizza while their parents took refuge at the tables. Some hapless shmuck in a rat costume approached me and said…
“…Driver, does this bus leave for Newark?”
I snapped, “Yes, it does, Madam…but do you think you should really be traveling in your delicate condition?”
The customers roared. Apparently this schmuck was an employee of Chuck E. Cheese and this was a prank, part of his job. He had actually sneaked a microphone close to my mouth, to ensure that whatever I said would be broadcast thoughout the place. I ordered a bowl of ravioli and a mug of root beer and cooled my heels for a while.
Then the cell phone rang. It was Samantha. She cooed, “If you go out the back door of that Chuck E. Cheese and pause at the utility pole to your right, and tap it with the knuckle of your left thumb four times, you’ll get a pleasant surprise…ciao!” As she spoke her voice became more and more sultry and inviting.
This intrigued me. What do I have to lose? I paid for my meal and went out the back exit and followed Samantha’s instructions.
I heard a crumbling sound inside the pole; then–shades of Get Smart–the ground surrounding me slowly sank. Samantha was absolutely right:
We were now in a basement office, having fallen in the the pole. She’d predicted it would happen, I’d just forgotten about it. Once we dust ourselves off Samantha starts rifling through the files, muttering to herself about knowing that she’s “in here somewhere” while I look around the room. I guess I made too much noise when I slipped on some sunflower seed shells, because the next thing I know she’s gone and an angry man wearing a suit is dragging me through the door and out into the hallway were I see…
people dressed in polyester leisure suits singing and dancing to “YMCA”. They see me, gasp, and immediately fall to their knees saying “Master! The Master has come! Let us worship the Master!” What? I say. What do you meah? They say “You are the Master! You are our leader! We worship You oh supreme Master of the Disco!” :eek: I shreik and start running. I run and run. Suddenly I turn a corner and…
see that it’s a dead-end. The disco mob approaches and its spokesman, a pudgy balding man with a mustache who’s wearing a hideous ill-fitting orange leisure suit, addresses me.
“Oh, great Master,” he says with adulation. “We have waited years for your return! Now lead us in song!”
I’ve never seen these people. I hate disco. But, the mob is blocking my way out and outnumbers me. There’s only one thing I can do: sing.
“What song do you want me sing,” I ask.
“Oh great wise Master, it’s your choice,” replies the spokesman.
Hmm, my choice? I guess I don’t have to pick a disco song if I want. For some reason, I decide to sing the first song that goes through my head: Take the Skinheads Bowling.
“Everyday, I get up and pray to John,” I begin. I then continue through the rest of the song. I’m surprised I know all of it.
“Take the skinheads bowling, take them bowling”, I finish. I look at the disco mob. They react to my performance by…