A placid sun sets over the tranquil mountains of south central Kansas as a six pack of Harley Davidsons pull up to the Main Street Tavern, the finest establishment in Willishaven. Willishaven cannot only claim to be the birthplace of the largest slice of pumpkin pie this side of the Tallahatchie, well shoot if it ain't home to the finest one pump gas station in North Southern County than the Willishaven Wombats high school FOOTBALL team ain't the best this side of the gosh dang Tallahatchie! Once you boot open the old western movie style doors to the Main Street Tavern with your boots you are generously showered with the afterwash of a thousand NASCAR Monster Energy Series pit stops worth of four dollar pitchers of Bud Lights. The air of the bar is draped with the aroma of freshly shorn handlebar mustaches, A1 steak sauce and conversations about last night's big ball game. A bartender with an eye patch, a black Ron Jon t shirt and a brown faded Life Is Good ball cap with a picture of a sprightly couple of Baby Boomers playing a spirited head to head in pickleball ambles over to greet you but not before spitting on the counter and wiping it with a yellow dish towel, thus successfully counterbalancing the activity and perfecting the art of busy work. The bartender asks you if you would like Bud Light, Budweiser or a spritz of water from the garden hose out back. You opt for Bud Light as you are on a 30 day instant beach body diet and also allergic to the cultivation of plants. The bartender asks you what you are doing in town and you tell him that you are visiting to report on the World Darts Championship for a print newspaper from London. He says what's that. You say print newspapers or London and look around for a mirrored chortle from one of your newest chaps. You are met with a slate of faces blanker than an Etch A Sketch that you accidentally left in the back pocket of your jeans and sent through the washer and dryer. Several watchers-on go so far as to raise an eyebrow while others venture farther into the center of the dangling lamp in the middle of a cold, dark room (you know, the one that indicates that an intense interrogation either just happened, is currently happening or is about to go down) by asking you why you got that dumb smile on your face. The weird thing is that you don't even realize that you got that dumb smile on your face because your body is pretty much paralyzed with fear but it might have a lil something to do with that Jumbotron Bacon Cheeseburger with extra mushroom chile barbecue sauce that you just polished off in the last commercial break. The World Darts Championship is about to toss off at the Willishaven Convention Center which houses 3,000 eager spectators, nearly leaping clear out of their New Balance sneakers (the official sneaker of the World Darts Championship and a proud sponsor of Wendy's, the most mouth watering burger in Willishaven other than the Jumbotron Bacon Cheeseburger with extra mushroom chile barbecue sauce down at the Main Street Tavern which is kitty corner to Second and Puma Meat. You slap down one of your Capital One credit cards on the bar which reminds you of Jennifer Garner and how you want to marry her and move to a cabin on the shores of Lake Erie and raise a family of Black Labs and walk a couple miles into a little downtown area to get ice cream cones and stop by Starbucks to read the Wall Street Journal (even though you don't even care about what is going on in the Dow Jones or the NASDAQ or NASA or even NASCAR for that matter even though that is probably not something that would be reported on in the Wall Street Journal) and go to a petting farm at noon on a random Tuesday to feed all the meme worthy goaties lil pebbles of sand from an hourglass and go to a drive in movie with your Bird Scooters just to mess with the staff and ride your Bird Scooters on the bike path on the shores of Lake Erie just to mess with all the angry bike riders and mob on your Bird Scooters in the town's lil downtown area while you do some crazy parkour style pranks just to mess with all the cute old ladies who are walking around the downtown area with their dogs who should be in their purses also they should probably be walking around and doing laps in a mall somewhere with their dope neon fanny packs and turquoise jumpsuits that look like something the Fresh Prince would say was a little too Hilary Swanky, yeah that would definitely be a safer environment and a win-win for everyone involved especially the dozens of hot cocoa vendors aimlessly wandering around local malls at 8:45 in the morning (their has been a crippling scourge of hot cocoa vendors aimlessly wandering around local malls of late...which local malls? If you are reading this, then they may not be far away, perhaps closer than you ever could have possibly fathomed, maybe even just a handful of mere moments off the path that you just beatened - if you're up to it and feeling properly paranoid (Properly Paranoid is my favorite steampunk ska band - I saw them open up for a flock of pigeons (not the English new wave band A Flock of Seagulls, I'm talking about literally a bunch of flying rats) on a stump by the E Train.) about the whole situation, go ahead and very cautiously toss a doggy bag of baby marshmallows on the ground and if someone wearing a blue apron, a New York Yankees ball cap and a dirty stache comes a scramblin', you best get to splambiblin'.) (Also Parkour'd is my favorite Ashton Kutcher reboot other than when he single handedly made the atmosphere and general vibes of the Two and a Half Men set do the first ever 900 on a half pipe for a sitcom set.) AND (we're still doin' the Jennifer Garner cabin on the shores of Lake Erie thing, get with it, snap into it, let's get with the five dollar program here (bitter rival of Subway), folks, get on board the ferry that Jennifer Garner and you no doubt have caught a million times to Canada in your sugar high induced daydreams because Jennifer Garner can legally only go on ferries that are going to Canada, it's a fact, you can look it up on Google or Bing it or Ask Jeeves, I don't care - dude hasn't worked a day in his life as far as I'm concerned since he made out with that big internet search engine windfall, you're tellin' me that finding out what the tallest mountain in Costa Rica is is more difficult than getting a coffee stain out of a three piece suit before Tide To Go was invented? Fuggedaboutit ya goofys) drive a few miles out of town to catch the first pitch of a minor league baseball game and spontaneously decide to go volunteer to help out with the in between inning promotions so you get to try to catch giant trout in a sombrero to raise money for some kid to learn how to play the French horn (which is a totally awesome cause even though it would be even more totally awesome if it was to raise money for some kid to learn how to play an American horn...U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! Where my American horn tooters at?) Anyway, you go check out the World Darts Championship at the Willishaven Convention Center and it's packed to the brim with 3,000 strong, you want to call it Willishaven Strong and splash it across the front page of your fancy British newspaper sandwiched in between a story about an adorable old lady who's obsession with tea has become the newest and steamiest fad in town and a brawny young man who recently migrated north to the wild forests of Scotland to find his true self and returned with nothing more than a loin cloth (the same one that looks like something Fred Flintstone would throw on after a heavy night of drinking river water) and a knapsack that is packed full of brilliant memories that will last him a lifetime (or at least for the duration of several marathons of Christmas movies on Lifetime) as well as a bunch of weird Mario Kartish mushroom caps that he's most likely gonna try at home while zonking out, gorging on Flamin Hot Cheetos and feverishly playing...everyone, let's do it together now...MAR-I-O KART! Y'all just won a free go kart, please send by snail mail to your local barista a fifty dollar Starbucks gift card to redeem your reward.
Buy Chris's books SPONGE CAKE & WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE? on Amazon
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