The Concert

You know when you really don't want something to happen, thereby begging the gods of nature to will it to somehow, against all odds, actually come true? Now, that is just cruel.

It was your first punk concert - more like an enormous mosh pit with some tunes in the background to keep everyone grounded, to be fair, or at least the closest version of grounded that could possibly be achieved in a setting like this. What was the setting? The famous (or perhaps I should say infamous) Tipsy Hippo Bar and Lounge, a Los Angeles establishment that is not just known in the City of Angels but by all forms of life around the world for its incredibly stocked jukebox, holding such a wide variety of songs that it is rumored that no one has ever walked away from the machine with a wisp of disappointment, at least that is the word around the mean streets of Silver Lake.
"Why do I do this to myself?" You mutter to the darkness under your breath after delivering a full fledged and well timed elbow to the unsuspecting gut of an oncoming cocktail waiter (there are cocktail servers at the Tipsy Hippo because this is one of those super hipstery punk concerts where it is also really posh and upscale while at the same time being a place that you would never take your grandmother or even risk telling her about it for fear of the thrill causing her heart to do the first ever 900 of its kind, a day that will go down in the history books for the rosiest of the organs along with the tin man's tall tale of tragedy, that thing where athlete's hearts are too big for their body and it is really scary but a metaphor for life at the same time and the fact that Necco's is not going to be selling their legendary sweetheart candies so y'all will have to do it old school and stalk your crushes from a safe distance instead of trying to slip them secret messages via the delicious candy hearts that have been fan favorites since they catapulted themselves onto the scene and shook the universe's sweet teeth loose (without even having to tie a knot around it and slam a door!... The tooth fairy was a legitimate gawd.). This is the kind of place that would have iPads built into the booths but they had an app right splat dip in the middle of the home page where you could just flat out order illegal drugs right to your table, without even having to alter your tush's level of cushiness. 
You begin to hear a faint hum that seems to be emanating from the back of the bar, to the left of the giant ironic paper mache sculpture of a hippo leaning against a brick wall, casually sipping a Moscow Mule and adjacent to the elephant in the room, both giant animals caught in a massive spider web of trying to get the gorilla off their back, all of them paper mache'd and all of them spectacular in all their glory, sort of like a nativity scene for the Animal Planet or what the Crocodile Hunter is experiencing right now up there in Heaven (although there would probably be some paper mache crocodiles in the mix too if that was the case). It is unlike any noise that you have ever heard, unlike any noise that you believed to be possible for a human to create...perhaps the key word is human? But there are no animals allowed in the Tipsy Hippo Bar and Lounge, not even service animals, they have a special puppy kennel for them in the backyard by the barn so if you the booze start to wear off and you begin to feel uncomfortable in a social situation again, you can amble your way out back to the Cute Caboose (Trademarked by the Tipsy Hippo Bar and Lounge) to give your good vibes another kick in the rear end. The sound is almost other worldly, more powerful than the spiritual sum of ten thousand maniacs collectively shrieking their life story off the Golden Gate Bridge to a flock of befuddled onlooking tourists who have no idea what kind of mess they just got themselves into. You follow the noise because you have no other choice, at least not in your mind which has become overrun with emotion, flooded with curiosity and tidal waved with pure and sheer joy. Shoving your way past gaggles of punk teens and their step dads, donning matching black beanies, Bart Simpson themed tattoos and apathetic attitudes towards the state of humanity, you feel like now you are smelling the noise, if that is possible. 
The hum is transmogrifying into more of a rattle as you inch closer to its unknown origin, skirting past the pair of barbacks who are making small talk (well, one of them is making small talk while the other one is pretending to make small talk while actually flirting, but who's keeping score anyway?) You wish that you could throw a net over the sound (go all Deadliest Catch on its sound waves) and stuff it into a bottle, next to your favorite ship model, the one of Captain Jack Sparrow's Black Pearl that you bought from a dude who looked like Johnny Depp on the Venice Beach Boardwalk, so much so that he caught your eye enough for you to slam on the brakes of your roller blades and ask the fella if he had ever bleached his facial hair or perhaps made the bold leap of faith to invest in scarves at a young age, only to see the accessory's stock skyrocket by more than tenfold right in front of his smirk which was more in vogue than the magazine.    
You peer around the corner into the kitchen and see a bright light, almost to the point of blinding, shining out from the dish pit. Reinvigorated with interest, sparked with life, ready for your next hurdle in life, you bound toward the light and in the general direction of your destiny. Before you know what is happening, it is all over. 
The last thing you remember was slipping.
Then you hit your head on the giant blender.
You thought you saw stars and tweety birds but maybe that was just an idea that you got from the movies that sort of slunk its way into your consciousness, insidious in its cartoonish ways. You woke up in the hospital...all your friends and family are there. Everyone who has ever meant anything to you at any point in your life - they all visited you at your bedside while you sat in that hospital for the next eight weeks... Your high school football coach. Your manager from when you worked at the Olive Garden who helped you study for the Bar Exam. Your friend from the fifth grade with whom you hucked an egg at the wall of the outside basketball gym and got called into the principal's office in return. The first girl you ever kissed. Your co worker buddy, Ted, who was a server at the Olive Garden and y'all partied and did Star Wars reenactments using a couple endless bread sticks as light saber substitutes. Your dad's best friend. Your mom's worst enemy. The evil record producer who tried to cop your band's sound and sell it to the radio for straight up cash, under the table. All the referees, umpires and officials who had the honor of working one of your many games throughout the years of your illustrious athletic career (they wanted an apology). The Olive Garden.
 They were all there - everyone who ever made a difference for you and in you. These people meant the world to you at one point but now they are but a distant memory, relegated to the role of tent pole, forever destined to hold up the canopy of your life's narrative. These are the people that you will tell your grandchildren about, the ones who pop up in your dreams without warning and leave in just as quick of a flash, their back to you as they walk away out of your mind's dream theme park (your brain's personal 24 Hour Fitness, if you are more of a Sporty Spice). You were so happy that you cried. A lot. Tears of joy. And pain, with some concussion medication thrown in there to shake the cobwebs loose. But mostly joy...Joy that you were able to see so many people who were so critical to helping you become the person that you are today. Individuals that you never thought you would see again. Names that you forgot but faces that have opened personal checking and savings accounts, opened up lines of credit and taken out significant loans in your memory bank until the branch finally closes for good one day, hopefully many, many days from now.  
Never. 
You would never wish this traumatic event on even your worstest enemy. To be holed up in that hospital, unable to leave your bed without calling out to a nurse (and they were always so busy that you might as well have just been calling out to the heavens, let's make it the Crocodile Hunter's Heaven for good measure). 
But if there is one good thing that can be taken from the whole incident, one saving grace that you can steal from the matter, it is this. 
People.    

  Buy Chris's books SPONGE CAKE & WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE? on Amazon 

Visit Chris's website christheauthor.com 

The Fish Tank

You are astonished by the extent of attention that was paid to the meticulous artistic design of the pirate skull sculptures in the tank as you gasp for air before realizing that you are underwater so air is not really a thing right now...wait you are underwater? It's weird - yeah, it will take some getting used to and you don't like the idea of doing it without your trusty pair of goggles, but you are swimming underwater and have gills and the whole package, kind of like a low rent Aquaman if he wore swimming shoes. You bump into a huge goldfish and say sorry for your rudeness.

"Hey, watch it, buddy - I'm swimmin' here!" The goldfish caws out with a beautiful Brooklyn accent, fit for a pizza delivery dude from a musical on the far side of Broadway.   
You apologize profusely before making your way North to the far side of the tank, eager to explore what your amazing new universe has to offer. You thread the needle through a pair of enormous statues of the nautical heroes SpongeBob and his ol buddy Patrick as you show off your newfound aquatic prowess to no one in particular, it's a free show so whoever wants to witness your greatness can step right on up to the plate. Michael Phelps should take a back seat to you while Missy Franklin bows down to your mastery of the marine world. 
"Dave! Dave!.... DAVE!" Your girlfriend Nicole bellows out as she shakes your elbow with great ferocity and purpose; her main purpose being to stir you from your slumber. The problem is that it isn't just any ordinary slumber...you see, you popped a few too many party Tic Tacs and found yourself in quite the pickle. Well, to be fair it is more like you found yourself face first in your grandparents's goldfish tank right splat dab in the midst of your family's annual Christmas party. Luckily for you, the majority of your family was firmly wrapped in the grasps of an incredibly intense and off-the-charts competitive game of Charades, a game for all the Marbles, or at least first picksies in the next game of Marbles. Bubbles chortled and danced their way to the surface of the tank as your Aunt Karen flapped her arms around the living room in a wild fashion, fit for an insane asylum or an insane game of Charades. Finally, after what must have added up to many fish years, your face reemerges from the depths of the goldfish tank as you gasp for enough air the fill the lungs of ten thousand cigarette smokers.
"Gahhhh! Whaaaaaaaa-?" You screech out unwillingly as you nearly topple over backwards on your neon green yoga ball and become a makeshift game of Jenga in and of itself which happens to take home the third place ribbon in the contest of your family's favorite game to play at the annual Christmas party, closely trailing Charades and Marbles and just ahead of Twister (you should see the ferociousness with which Aunt Karen hurls and flings about her arms in a circular rotation, a human windmill and statuesque personification of a person's will to exceed, no matter what the field may be, taking the game of Twister a bit too literally, perhaps, maybe she thought they were playing the movie version of the game).
You wipe a little smudge of plankton off your upper lip, clear out a few pebbles of fake sand from the depths of your ears with your pinkie fingers and an emotional look settles on to your face, an expression that you have never had the ability to conjure up throughout the entirety of your storied existence, that is, not until this very moment, a moment of momentous proportions, a moment that will be written about for the rest of time, at least by you in your chapter of your family's collective memoirs.
"Let's do this thing." You say as your words sting the atmosphere, the equivalent of poetic dry ice.

Then you and Nicole took the Christmas party by storm, first politely and passive aggressively forcing your way into the game of Charades before taking it home in addition to the whole satchel of Marbles, becoming victorious when she correctly identified you as a school of fish taking a night class about geometry. 

  Buy Chris's books SPONGE CAKE & WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE? on Amazon 

Visit Chris's website christheauthor.com

The Movie Premiere

The theater wanted to buzz as the momentous instant of the premiere neared with every waning second. The catwalk seemed like it was on the brink of toppling as the ravenous crowds went crazy and threw tomatoes and other various vegetables at the stage but in like a positive way, not that they are trying to do that old school renaissance heckling move (not to be confused with the old school renaissance heckling move where you insult a comedian's bloodline, where you poison the drink of someone who is about to poison your family's best friend in an attempt to bring a halt to a longstanding feud that The History Channel would love to make an eight part documentary mini series about (and turn them into the next Hatfields and McCoys but with more of an emphasis on the always present possibility of one's ability to poison an enemy's drink, so let's just say like if the Hatfields and McCoys bucked heads in an episode of Bar Rescue) if only they could get their grubby paws on the rights to the story or where you dance on someone's grave to do a field test for a video game that you are work shopping with your start up buds, Dance Dance Execution) but they were bringing back the ol tomato toss move in a misdirected but well-spirited attempt to promote the nutritional benefits of the much undervalued category that holds way too small of a slice of the highly controversial and foodie blog hot button issue that is commonly known as the food pyramid. 
Swaths of paparazzi adhered to a similar migration pattern as they collectively trailed the stars of the film, Ring of Fire, which is a horror film about an illegal ring of fireworks dealers and the inner workings of one of the most dangerous organizations on the face of the charred Earth. Nicolas Cage is the star of the film as well as being the director, writer and assistant to the organizer of crafts services (pigs in blankets are a must have, having long since became an edible mascot of sorts for the movie in a huge March Madness sixteen seed knocking out a number one seed level upset over onion rings (Bill Raftery was so discombobulated, he pretty much started overheating and random numbers started to flash across his eyes and steam began to come out of his ears then he just said everyone on the court had onions and he started throwing handfuls of onion rings at the crowd, much to the delight of the hungrier spectators but greatly confusing the referees and coaching staff of the Pigs in Blankets squad) for the sake of the obvious pun match with the film's title because as everyone knows, Nic Cage is a big pun guy, it has been a widely spread fact ever since he did that one man play from inside one of those floating cages, you know the kind of cage that you might find featured in a strip club in an apocalyptic movie about the not-too-distant future, a time when the hover board is still in the works and Dave Franco has eclipsed his older brother in popularity.) Jennifer Lawrence is there too, as she is one of the leads in the film, but the funny thing is that she is walking a peacock and looks like she is getting ready to film a commercial for a Wag! style phone app for peacock owners instead of dog lovers...one of the beautiful, colorful creatures of nature from Cage's flock, for certain. If you were a fly on the wall you would witness a reporter asking Jennifer Lawrence a dumb question (you would know that is was dumb by the way she recoiled her head in disgust and wrinkled and crinkled her nose like a lame yoga exercise (other lame yoga exercises include Trying To Touch Your Toes But Not Quite Making It And Just Calling It Good, Downward Hot Dog, Taking A Little Cat Nap On The Yoga Mat In The Ray Of Sunlight That Is Stealing Through The Crack In The Window Because You Never Realized That Sleeping On A Yoga Mat Feels Like Laying On A Bed Of Frozen Yogurt With A Bunch Of Hearty Toppings On It and my personal and a fan favorite, The Hippo Hula)). 
The time has finally arrived to settle down and watch the movie so everyone grabs their monster sized buckets of popcorn and suspect movie theater "butter" mix and plops down on some of the nicest, most cushiest seats in the universe, the kind of movie-watching seats that make you forget that you are watching a movie and you start to think that you are actually in the film, they are that comfy, like multi-dimensional levels on trusty the ol comfort bar chart that Bed, Bath and Beyond created in 1983 during the great comfort boom (comfort is actually one of the main focuses that consumes the time and resources of the mysterious and hotly debated "Beyond" department.)
"That's not what I meant - stop it!" Cage bellows out as the crowd erupts into a fit of laughter fit for a jester at a scene in the film's cold open which you might call a burning hot open if you are feeling particularly cheeky and would like to put a twist of the whole "Ring of Fire" thing (you could also go the Lord of the Rings route if you are wont to do so and feeling a proper level of  cheekiness and mysticality). It must stink to create something as a director and have an audience, not just any audience but the first audience that witnesses the piece of work, not quite understand what you were trying to get across or not fully pick up what you were putting down, Jennifer Lawrence ponders as she loses herself in the eyes of one of Cage's peacocks from one of his many flocks of the illustrious beast with more eyes than the Illuminati for which Cage also happens to hold the position of a founding board member and Executive Explainer. 
And so Nicolas Cage and Jennifer Lawrence just straight up stood up and walked out of the theater right in the middle of their movie, but not before they hucked a few handfuls of smoke bombs at the big screen to throw a lil personal flair on the whole situation and also because of the firework connection to the film...the peacock got a bit spooked and fought with Lawrence against her rope leash but she held on to it strong and kept her eye on the prize and by prize I mean not angering her best bud, Cage, so that she could make it to the sequel of Ring of Fire which will be called Ring of Fye and not have anything to do with the first film but it is crucial to remember Cage's stance on puns for all the pieces of this bizarre jigsaw puzzle to fit together, though.  

Buy Chris's books SPONGE CAKE & WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE? on Amazon 

Visit Chris's website christheauthor.com

The Underwater Love Story

The water rippled outwards as a congregation of lily pads jostled about underneath the nearly unbearable weight of their inhabitants. The bullfrog moved swiftly and without the capacity for mercy as it caught a lazy horse fly (or at least an attentive horse fly that listed into a aura of laziness) in a Ninja-like fashion before jack knifing into the pond, thus putting an even larger spotlight on the water's ever growing ripple effect issue. As the bullfrog sliced and diced through the water, he caught the eye of a beautiful sea horse. The sea horse was just minding her own business as she galloped her way back to the stable. Hank, which is the name of the bullfrog because it seems like an appropriate name for the oaf of an excuse for a nautical creature, called out to the breathtaking sea horse but she did not so much as turn around or break stride in response, let alone give him the time on her Apple Watch which obviously has the ability to operate in an underwater environment. Hank croaked again and waited patiently for a return message of affection from his future lover but again he came up empty web footed. And so our friend Hank, the ugly bullfrog, croaked once more, this time a more full fledged yelp with an easy-to-detect tinge of urgency overriding its energy, being a rain cloud to its parade, a croak of pure lust (a cat fish call if your cheekiness levels are up to date and not out of whack) in the general direction of Leslie, which is the name of the sea horse because it seems like an appropriate name for a docile gem and perhaps the flat out best shining example of a nautical creature to grace our planet. Much to Hank's chagrin, Leslie made like our old buddy from the big screen Dory and just kept on swimming, but then all of a sudden, a wise looking jelly fish swooped in from off camera. 

"She can't even hear you." The jelly fish sort of leaned over to Hank and whispered in his ear.

"Why would you ever say something like that?" Hank yelled at Keith, which is the name of the jelly fish because it seems like an appropriate name for a death magnet of a sorry excuse of a mermaid's pillow.

"Leslie is deaf and she has been ever since she followed that nautically themed Metallica cover band, Enter Sand Castle, on tour. (I want to say that she was a super fan of Band of Sea Horses but I know that must be wrong because they don't have the same head banging reputation (you might say that they don't pack the same punch to the back of the head in the mosh pit) as ESC so the mega tour would not have had as great of a impact on the well being of her delicate lil sea horse ears.)" Keith let out with a shrug, seeming to lose interest by the millisecond with the situation with which he so dramatically interjected his almost overwhelming presence just a handful of mere moments prior.

 "I must write to her but first I must study and thoroughly and utterly master the art of writing - will you share your ways with my humble being?" Hank posited with the nobleness, warrior-like attitude and falsely deserved bravado of a Disney knight.

"Yeah, I don't have any hands...good luck on your journey, though, god speed, my brother." Keith peeped out, holding the back of his tentacles up in display for all the world under the surface to bear witness to his lack of hands, kind of just bringing a screeching halt to Hank's inspirational, crowd-riveting speech (the kind of speech that would get all the spectators sitting in the whole auxiliary gymnasium banging their feet in synchronization on the stands, rousing their level of excitement to within a long putt of its ceiling for their capacity to safely process joy) about writing a series of letters to Leslie in an old school pen pals type of situation that would be a real box office darling.  

Buy Chris's books SPONGE CAKE & WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE? on Amazon 

Visit Chris's website christheauthor.com

The Cruise

Margaret and Jim wind sprinted as if they were auditioning to be extras in a movie about the Olympics as the final bell for the departure of the cruise rang out in a loud, obnoxious manner that could only indicate a certain level of snobbishness. They were late yet again, for another thing, but then again that was nothing new for the couple that was often held back in a wide swath of facets of their beautiful life together by their lack of appreciation for the almighty hands of time or otherwise known and better represented as Sacha Baron Cohen's character in that new Alice in Wonderland movie. There was the time that they were late for their jet ski rental appointment so they still haven't gotten to experience the thrill of jet skiing around Lake Tahoe (which would have been breathtaking). There was the time when they were late for their stand up paddle board rental appointment so they still haven't gotten to experience the sereneness of stand up paddle boarding around Lake Tahoe (which would have been awe inspiring). There was the time when they were late for their zip lining appointment so they still haven't gotten to experience the spine tingling fear of zip lining over Lake Tahoe (which would have been particularly difficult for Jim due to his crippling fear of heights that he has dealt with ever since he grew up sleeping on the third level of a tri-tiered bunk bed because he was a triplet and drew the short straw on the big day of the bunk bed level assignment which was the most important day of his life up to that point)...Basically, they missed all of their appointments for adventures in nature during their vacation in Lake Tahoe because they were having too much fun playing their new favorite board game of all time, Ticket to Ride - also, there cabin didn't have any clocks for some reason (it was like the opposite of Doc Brown's lair in Back to the Future), so that was a minor roadblock for the time-challenged duo to overcome as well. 

"All aboard the Floating Barnacle, greatest ship in all the sea!" A captain who looked like he belonged to box set of figurines that you might find in a gift shop located in the base of a lighthouse or maybe at a garage sale adjacent to a bustling lagoon. His cap was askew, just so, so as the sunlight would not blind him but everyone would still be able to catch a glimpse of his often discussed and highly unavoidable eye patch (Hot Topic should release a casual eye patch, though, you know for when you want to just sort of hang out on the plank instead of straight up walking the whole thing or if you ever want to attempt to rob a bank while wearing an eye patch...you can contact me via message in a bottle if you are a Hot Topic exec - thanks y'all), the same one that made him the heartthrob of so many Pirates of the Caribbean fan fiction writers in his halcyon days of parrot yore. 

There might as well have been a finish line tape for Margaret and Jim to sprint right on through (while holding up a single finger to indicate, in celebration, that they are number one) as they approached the eye patched captain, wheezing and groaning, hocking more loogies than a whole baseball team put together (without a doubt, the worst off-Broadway play of all time). 

"Top of the mornin' to ya... Captain Mo." The eye patched captain offered the couple with a toothy grin and a penchant for politeness as he extended his hand in greeting. Years of soot had thanklessly burrowed their way South of his fingernails so that they were left with a yellowish tinge that would make even the heartiest of travelers throw up in their mouth just a lil bit. In a cool hipster turning of the rudder, the eye patch that Captain Mo was wearing was made by Ray Bans, a nod to the ease with which corporations assimilate into our everyday lives and make us forget that we even lost an eye in an extremely painful incident that ended up on the front page of TMZ's nautically themed sister network when a snapping turtle attacked us because we were infringing on their turf (an area that was well-defined in the mind of the animal but a line in the sand that was fuzzier in Captain Mo's vision, especially in the immediate aftermath of the event when he only had access to half of his original vision)...The good news is that Captain Mo has become a FaceTime favorite of many of his friends as they utilize him as a sort of anti Santa Claus figure of lore to try to spook their kids into just going to bed already (this little trick works especially well when they are staying up late to watch Sponge Bob or Gilligan's Island or another show about the sea).   

Margaret and Jim smiled back at Captain Mo and jokingly introduced themselves as, "The Late Couple", which induced a hearty laugh from him as his belly expanded and deflated, moving in and out with the tide just like the rest of his life, which he only defines in water-themed metaphors. As the three new amigos walked on deck, the Late Couple observed the brilliant design of the Floating Barnacle and gave each other a little insider look that indicated that they had finally, once and for all determined that it was, in fact, the greatest ship in all the sea. 

The steady hum of elevator music rattled in the halls of the deck as passengers began to mingle about, tossing one liners only heard in the movies at each other like samples of cocktail shrimp. The Late Couple were all but the bell of the ball as they danced and pranced and straight up did that Dirty Dancing move without even missing a beat (almost as if they had been practicing it in a local hole in the wall auxiliary gym for an hour every Tuesday night at approximately 10:15 pm after they had just got done watching that week's second episode of Dancing with the Stars and were appropriately hyped for that night's dance sesh), much to the chagrin of Captain Mo, who was reported by a hard working busser (who was taking a break to have a sip from an iced lemonade that was in a glass that actually somehow had more ice in it than lemonade, like literally... I'm about to send Bill Nye some snail mail and let's get to the bottom of this - someone put on a cup of coffee...no ice) to have been seen seething in the background as he sat cross-legged in the shadows and played dice while experiencing intermittent bouts of aimlessly staring off in the distance and silently praying for more attention (much deserved in his shallow opinion, albeit 'twas given to him in regular doses for much of time) to be offered by the crew and the rest of the gang. So as you can tell, everyone (well, everyone except Captain Mo, that is, good ol disgusting Captain Mo) was having an amazingly fun time, it was kind of like they had all accidentally stumbled into a portal that had somehow, brilliantly, transmogrified them into the universe from the Great Gatsby (the one with Jay Z because this was a particularly hip assemblage of travelers on the ship today who are primarily middle aged and elderly but they still use Apple Music because they read about it in a brochure at the post office). As the Floating Barnacle pushed off to sea (and by sea I mean the icy shores of Lake Erie), it was pretty much rocking, like this boat was straight up rockin' so you better be a knockin' (because you don't want to rudely barge in on the always crucial cribbage tournament that will be in its suspenseful midst, without a doubt), you could have gone so far as to label it to the Flying Barnacle or maybe even the Flying Dutchman if your creative juices are nearly out of stock. 

All of a sudden, the indistinguishable sirens of the Floating Barnacle began to sound off. The masses of people began streaming for the exits, pushing each other out of the way in an extremely violent and unpleasant manner just for the chance to get off that dang ship. But what could they possibly be running from? Lifeboats were flung over the edge and into the sea with great ferocity, toeing the line of being tossed with malice in the heart of the tosser until you remember the great deal of stress that has just been heaped on this individual who probably hasn't had this much pressure on them since they biffed an easy three hopper that would have won their team the city championship and the principal announced them as Bill Buckner a few weeks later at graduation (for some reason I feel like Sam Elliott is the mustache that Bill Buckner dreams that he could be one day, like the kind of mustache that you would see on a post card in the back of a bookstore on the campus of a quaint college in New England, the kind of mustache that stops beer trolleys right in their tracks, the kind of mustache that shouldn't even be called a mustache - it is that good, so good that it deserves a different name and a distinct category altogether, let's call it a lip beanie or maybe nose socks or maybe a partial face warmer).

It turns out that the thing that everyone was running from was something that was very frightening and life threatening indeed - 'twas a small family of rhinoceroses who were slated to be the big finish of the big annual Floating Barnacle Talent and Animal Show that was set to kick off that night at seven, after the big cheesecake judging and eating contest that was set to tip off at six. Luckily, pretty much everyone escaped the wrath of the scary beast of an animal...save for our good ol friend, Captain Mo, unfortunately. In a terrible series of events, Captain Mo was trying to outrun one of the baby rhinos when the Mama Rhino jumped out from behind a vending machine and flat out surprise attacked the poor ol cap'n. Captain Mo was gobbled up like a bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos sitting out in the open at a late night Halo party gaming sesh that was purchased from the same vending machine that the Mama Rhino so stealthily staked out for a duration of over seventy two hours, chomping at the bit while waiting to strike back against the bald-faced spirit of her mortal enemy.   

Buy Chris's books SPONGE CAKE & WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE? on Amazon 

Visit Chris's website christheauthor.com

Cinematic Steaks

A harmonic cacophony of broken dinner salad bowls rings out in the open concept kitchen of Cinematic Steaks, the restaurant that was infamously on the brink of breaking the Michelin star rating system after its Crushed Up Reeses's Pieces & Red Velvet Swirl Brownie Pudding was welcomed to the dessert menu as well as the hearts of countless patrons. The delicacy even earned the honor of having its own Facebook page designed for it by one of its many super fans which is truly one of the highest honors that can be bestowed upon a restaurant's dish if we are going to be one hundred percent transparent here. What makes the whole deal all the more heartwarming is the fact that Tom from MySpace (that's right - THAT Tom!) recently became a fan of the dessert's Facebook fan page because apparently he is really good with letting go of grudges against competing corporations that helped lead to the demise of his company...The widely renowned CURP & RVSBP fan page, purveyor of mystical munchy magic, even made it into his Top Eight friends (Tom jailbroke his Facebook account so that it would allow him to utilize the feature that was so popular on his former social media platform) in addition to the former CEO's Fave Five as he continues his campaign to be the next Time Person of the Year. 

"Who the H-E-double garlic bread sticks did that?" The kitchen manager barked out while effortlessly scooping up a couple ramekins filled to the brim with Crushed Up Reese's Pieces & Red Velvet Swirl Brownie Pudding and tossing them onto the tray of a server who was passing by in a hurry, eager to make their next buck. 

The entire kitchen staff simultaneously broke out into laughter as the kitchen manager's facial expression finally cracked too, despite her being the title belt holder as the champion of staring contests at the restaurant. Pots and pans began clanging or they might as well have been as the roof of the restaurant was on the cusp of being raised. This kind of positive energy from the head of the house seemed to emanate outwards toward the front of Cinematic Steaks as the wait staff seemed to conjure up an internal Five Hour Energy, ingested via beer bong straight to the soul. Speaking of Five Hour Energy drinks, those babies are divvied out like orange Tic Tacs (which are actually the only Tic Tacs or at least the only ones that are worth a sneeze) by the higher ups in the kitchen of the well known establishment where movies meet meats - the caffeine consumption of our favorite restaurant is through their fully reinforced roof.  

"Y'all know how to carry plates, right - or do we have to have a special meeting this Saturday morning to get coached up on that one, too?" The kitchen manager cooed with a smug look pasted across her face as she shot a free throw (and bellowed out, "Kobe!", as is custom) with a dirty yellow rag into the hamper next to the back door. A chilly breeze whistled in through the door that was propped open with a colorful green, red and yellow striped empty cardboard box that previously contained a wide variety of green olives as the full harvest Moon glistened, playing the role of a night light for a nearby extended family of raccoons that was making a feast out of a plate of leftover beef tenderloin with a side of mashed potatoes. 

All of a sudden, a hush fell over the dining area and the blinds on all the windows began to rattle about as if a brigade of hungry ghosts were trying to pass through them. The sound of forks and knives dropping to the table echoed throughout the restaurant as gasps filled the open spots in the air. One server who was particularly caught off guard capsized an entire tray of ice waters before wind sprinting straight out of the front door of the building. An important-looking woman who was flanked by two hulking, broad-shouldered brutes wearing bulky Aviator sunglasses and expensive three piece suits that were made in Italy by a descendant of Leonardo da Vinci bounded toward the host, a trembling teenager whose braces kept chattering against each other to make a metallic buzzing melody (not to mention the Oreo crumbs that were sprayed about in an undesirable manner) kind of like if bionic bumblebees became a thing (excuse me, WHEN bionic bumblebees become a thing...sorry I didn't mean to offend the Transformers franchise, Mark Wahlberg, please don't beat me up in a movie). The only proper way to describe the way the woman looked would be bold...everything about her was bold, starting with her shoulder pads that sharply jutted outward at a 180 degree angle and nearly tore her flowery and pleasant looking blouse and ending with her mustard hued Crocs, yeah you read that correctly, her mustard hued CROCS (no, she didn't spill a glop of Heinz Yellow Mustard on her brand new Crocs - believe it or not, they were designed to look that way!) - not only did this woman have no shame but she reveled in making strangers feel uncomfortable in her presence to the point of insanity. Maybe it wasn't a lack of comfort that she was seeking in particular but perhaps a general aura that she promoted in herself and projected towards strangers, an aura of superiority mixed with her head being lost in the clouds without even knowing the forecast. She slipped a Ulysses S. Grant (a fifty dollar bill for you non-president trivia experts out there) into the pants pocket of the bumbling host before gracefully making her way to a table that was sitting literally right smack dab in the center of the restaurant, like there should have been a spotlight that shone down on this table, its coordinates were that centrally located. I forgot to mention that this woman had a magnificent, brilliantly warm looking mink vest, think on it kind of like on the same track as the one that Mr. Burns sang that song about except this one most likely has less puppy fur than his ("Now made with fifty percent less puppies!"). So the lady walked all elegantly to the center stage table (if Cinematic Steaks itself was a table then this table would be that table's centerpiece; a replica of Round Table's little table thingy known as a pizza saver that rests in the middle of their pizzas, as it were) and draped her mink vest over the back of her chair like she owned the place before one of her secret agent dudes acted like a gentleman and pulled her chair out for her to sit down. A few of the remaining servers threw elbows at each other and boxed one another out like they were competing with Charles Barkley, the Round Mound of Rebound and one of the greatest sports analysts, nay people to ever grace a television screen, to grab a board of great significance, perhaps to win the national championship or save the local nuclear power plant from closing down or maybe even both if the screenwriters are feeling lackadaisical because they ate too much red meat. A scrawny female server in her twenties edged out the other servers for the final position of being able to serve the Mink Vest Lady, as she will be known from here on out until I reveal her real name to you in a Name Reveal Party. The scrawny female server stood proudly in front of the Mink Vest Lady like she has just won a city-wide footrace (without even hopping on the monorail and cheating, either!), feet firmly planted in the ground at shoulder width as she is setting up to take a free throw (to save the local clown college from finally closing its doors, once and for all, due to lack of FUNding...please don't be angry at me, just yell into a body pillow if you need to let out some feelings - we're gonna get through this blog post together, it's almost over, I promise) which is what you call it when you win the opportunity to serve a customer of the Mink Vest Lady's prestige. You see, the Mink Vest Lady isn't just any mink vest lady...she is the top food critic in all of Shallow Rock, New Mexico which is one of the best little unknown hamlets for cuisine in all the world! Not only is Mink Vest Lady a tougher judge of food and service than any other person who walks through that front door (the Simon Cowell for cows, if you will) but she is also the most generous tipper in the history of the service industry in the greater Southwest United States region. 

"What can I offer you to drink this evening, Ms. Mopple? If you are ready for food too then I am all ears...if not, then take as much time as you need, don't sweat it, since when did it become a race to see who can get their order in the fastest, am I right? That would be, like, the most boring Survivor challenge of all time except it would really be more related to a reward for winning one of the challenges since that is a scenario in which the contestants would, in fact, be ordering food..." The server offered with a heavy dose of familiarity, nearly caught up in her own web of reality TV confusion, acting as if she might try to guess what the legendary food critic might venture to order on this fine Tuesday which is bizarrely the busiest day of the week for the restaurant due to the large contingency of regular taco consumers.  

"Hello my dear, how are you doing today? I will have a couple Moscow Mules and a side salad with your freshest Romaine lettuce and your finest Ritz crackers crumpled up on top. I will also have a grilled cheese sandwich with Gouda cheese, Tapatio hot sauce and bacon bits sprinkled all over it with a little gloop of guacamole next to it." Ms. Mopple announced to the server but it might as well have been a popular single camera sitcom on NBC and she might as well have deadpanned at the camera afterward because it sounded a lot more like she was doing a 30 second commercial spot for Cinematic Steaks...where the small handful of carnivorous screenwriters go to eat (a tight knit group who has been hanging out together for years and make up the remainder of MySpace Tom's Top Eight friends on Facebook as well as filling the four remaining spots in his starting Fave Five lineup.) 

The food arrived in a timely fashion, further bolstering the server's already bound-to-be hefty tip from the stylish Ms. Mopple.

"This..." Ms. Mopple shouted out with her mouth full as she gestured wildly at the grilled Gouda sammy and shook it around violently to further draw attention to the scene that was already bound to be spotted on TMZ in the next twenty four hours apparently having left the bulk of her manners in the backseat of the car service, eyes bugging out as if she had just come across a UFO parked in her driveway or maybe it was just one of the fellows who films a show about chasing UFOs on the History Channel who showed up at her front door and tried to hawk her a box set on Blu-ray of said show, "This...THIS, my friends, is what I call a grilled cheese sandwich." 

Then Ms. Mopple deliberately stood up from the centerpiece table (but not before slapping a crisp Benjamin Franklin down in the middle of it and half sitting down for a second to use a giant steak knife as a substitute for a toothpick), put her infamous mink vest back on and walked out of the front door of Cinematic Steaks without speaking to a soul as her secret agent dudes grabbed their doggy bags and sheepishly followed her outside, on her mission to find a better grilled cheese sandwich. The weird thing, though, is that Ms. Mopple, the Mink Vest Lady herself, never did find a better grilled cheese sandwich or any other craft grilled cheese sandwich for that matter because on front of the following day's Shallow Rock Sentinel, right splat dab in the middle of the page, was her bold announcement of retirement from the food critic game, a stepping away from the industry that gave her everything, the profession that made Mopple a household name, the power outlet for her soul's hearty appetite. I guess once you make it to the top of Mount Everest, you just up and buy a farm in the middle of Iowa and build a cool lil baseball field on it and a bunch of people drive hundreds of miles to come see it...So what I am really trying to get at here is that if they ever make a prequel for Field of Dreams, go ahead and bet the over on altitude. 

Buy Chris's books SPONGE CAKE & WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE? on Amazon 

Visit Chris's website christheauthor.com

The Underwater Restaurant

You know how everything is supposed to be better under the sea, at least according to that song from the movie with the nautical unicorn? (Nautical Unicorn is my favorite lo-fi band from Boise, Idaho...I saw them open for Built to Spill inside the world's largest potato according to the Guinness Book of World Records and the crowd broke out into a massive mash pit, people were throwing shreds of garlic everywhere, this one lady slipped on a giant stick of butter, another dude who had been hittin' the partyin' button on his video game controller for the ultimate game known as the Game of Life (not to be confused with the popular family board game which happens to be called The Game of Life, I'm talkin' bout life Life and not the 2017 space drama starring the dude from Waiting... and a bunch of aliens or the 1999 comedy about the pokey starring Eddie Murphy before he took the world by storm and made it shake in its little yellow rain booties in The Haunted Mansion, either) a lil too hard almost up and drowned in the lazy river of gravy, the whole festival weekend was truly an out-of-skin experience, I guess you had to be there.)

"Welcome to Maroon 5 Lobsters, the most luxurious landfood restaurant in all the sea. My name is Hope and I will be your server for the day. Can I get y'all started on some glasses of sand from Fiji?" A wily octopus, the kind that has been working in the industry for way too long so that she has that permanent smirk painted all over her face, ambled over to your table which was actually just a big ol clump of seaweed that had been sewn together by a sea turtle grandma who found out that she had way too much time on her hands now that all of her kids and grandchildren have moved on to various aquariums around the world.  

"Yes that would be wonderful. Could you ask that eight top of dolphins to pipe down over there? Sure, a bachelorette party is one thing and totally cool and acceptable but do they really have to be lighting off sparklers and running around with them like they own the place? Someone's food could get some sparkler debris flung onto and I don't know if I can handle digesting any more sparkler debris after that New Year's Eve party at Frank's when everyone had sparklers and Frank's wife didn't really know how to properly handle a sparkler so the banana cream pie kind of got transmogrified into a banana cream sparkler pie, much to the chagrin of Frank's mother, who had spent many meticulous hours preparing the banana cream pie dish on New Year's Eve Eve, which was actually an original recipe that was passed down by Frank's grandmother who was kind of known as the Rachel Ray of the sea, people used to call her Rachel Stingray, she was the first aquatic animal to release a cookbook that didn't promote nautical cannibalism so she is pretty much an oceanic hero on par with Aquaman (he is still widely recognized as being an oceanic hero, even after the movie), no big deal." Cindy regaled Hope, who kept looking down at one of her many watches as her other tables began to get restless and her impatience grew and energy for fake politeness withered, with the infamous banana cream pie New Year's Eve story that had been turned into an instant legend as it had been passed around at many a meal since the incident. Cindy twiddled her tentacles in delight and looked at her jellyfish compatriots for approval with a big ol cheesy grin. 

All of a sudden, the leader of the dolphin bachelorette party (presumably the bride-to-be) perked her nose up into the air as if she had just caught a whiff of a delicious bucket of rotten fish heads. She briskly stood up from her eight top and floated over to the jellyfish's seaweed table like she had something to say and by golly, consarn it, did she ever!

"Excuse me, honey? Do you know who you are talking to right now?" The dolphin bride-to-be asked but more like told Cindy and her table mates. Cindy looked at her fellow jellyfish for some sort of clue, anything that could help her stumble into an answer that would not result in her being cussed out in front of her fellow jellyfish, the ultimate level of embarrassment in the jellyfish community. 

"I'm...I'm...um..." Cindy mumbled and fumbled for words but could not seem to locate the right ones...maybe it had been too long since she had played that popular sea phone game, Words with Fishes. Maybe she was frightened for her safety, judging by the menacing look on the dolphin bride-to-be's typically adorable mug. (Even when dolphins try to be menacing, they just end up being more cartoonish which turns everyone within striking distance to them into pure mud.)  

"That is Donna...you probably should never talk smack about Donna ever again...she will take you down to Davy Jones's Locker as well as everyone you know." A smaller, more impish looking dolphin sidekick told the table as she nodded at Donna, who had already been briefly sidetracked and was in the middle of towering over a poor lil seahorse host who was just trying to do her job. Before you even knew what was happening, pretty soon Donna was holding the seahorse host upside down by her tail and shaking all the rumpled up dollar bills and gold coins out of her pockets. Cindy returned to the group's conversation about which is the best place in the ocean to get sushi but couldn't help but steal glances at the beast of a dolphin and her dastardly deeds, probably the meanest dolphin in the illustrious history of dolphins. 

When Cindy returned home and was about to go to bed, she was absolutely shocked at what she found on her pillow of seaweed...it was the severed head of the poor lil seahorse host, with blood and guts splayed everywhere to indicate that the scene of the crime was still fresh. Cindy wasn't really sure how it was a direct threat towards her since she did not know the seahorse, notwithstanding she still felt bad for the cute little thing and all its family, and it was still pretty alarming to witness the scope of the horrors that Donna was truly capable of. Cindy was so shell shocked and full of fear that she could hardly sleep that night and had to call an Uber to get to work in the morning because she was so tired and also paranoid that Donna had planted a car bomb in her Hyundai Elantra so she made sure to tell her neighbor, Steve the Starfish, a old-timer and veteran of the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise (he played the role of the starfish that lived on the side of Bootstrap Bill Turner's right eye), that she was having trouble getting her car started so would he please try to get it started for her while she was at work. 

Buy Chris's books SPONGE CAKE & WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE? on Amazon 

Visit Chris's website christheauthor.com

Will Smith in Rectangle Robot

The brilliantly tangerine hued Sun is setting and the cheesy cratered Moon is rising and Will Smith is Will Smithing it up and all is right with the world until it wasn't and it became too late, too soon. You see, the year is 2049 and Will Smith is a merely a simple geometry teacher in a small town in Iowa, let's just say the same one as the one from Field of Dreams for old time's sake, you know, the one that most people identify with the great state of corn. It's a Wednesday morning in the Autumn and Will Smith is being driven to work by his car, feet kicked up on the dashboard and doing the morning word search in the newspaper that he still has delivered to his house for some reason (the reason is because Will Smith is an old school dude and may still be clinging to the past, reflecting on the brightness of his future throughout the duration of his halcyon days as the Fresh Prince and trying to squeeze the memory of the feeling into a bottle next to his favorite ship) when he gets a very important FaceTime. Well to be more crystal clear, Will Smith's iPhone 37C began FaceTiming the Hollywood movie icon by itself - it was pretty bizarre, that's for darn certain. It was kind of like that hologram of Princess Leia from Star Wars except with less cinematic stakes. (Cinematic Steaks is my favorite Omaha Steaks competitive brand - each steak is shaped like a different character from the history of the big screen...the most popular item is the one that is shaped like the DeLorean because the meat of the cow's tush is so succulent that it takes you back to a time when you used to hang out before school with an eccentric old man doctor who was going through a rough period of coping with a mild clock obsession then you skateboarded to school and caught free rides by hanging on to the rear end of unsuspecting vehicles before self-driving vehicles became a thing and they made a setting where they don't allow high school punks to use their trunk like that moving rope that you grab onto to get to the top of the sledding hill at the ski resort.)

"Hello, Will. It's good to talk to you - how are you doing? I hope that all is going well in geometry class and all the shapes are fitting in together very nicely like a perfect row of Tetris or a great game of Jenga or an awesome match of street Checkers where the normal rules of the game are completely disregarded. Alas, 'tis unfortunate but I must play the role of the bearer of bad news for you. A great plague is about to besiege society and everything that it encapsulates will, without a shred of a doubt, be disintegrated into a very, fine dust within a matter of seasons. You know that classic rock and roll song, Dust in the Wind by the band of goofy and greasy looking Earth people known as Kansas (these hooligan rock stars kind of look like if the state of Kansas was a person but if it was somehow even flatter - I'm talking like, two dimensional or something, like they just got pressed all the way down by the weight of their 70s porn mustaches and one glob too many of peppermint scented beard oil...Kansas looks like if they started a cult, the president of the official International Cult Council (or the ICC if you are in the club and know the password) would be like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow your roll there fellas...we don't let just ANYONE become a cult leader around here, there are some rules about general hygiene and your ability to be presented to the public...we really appreciate the effort, though, but we are going to have to pass on your proposal...but have you heard of Scientology? Real great stuff, some real salt of the Earth kind of people - let me get you in touch with my buddy, Tom...have you ever sent a letter by motorcycle carrier pigeon?") which also happens to be the title of one of your American states? So why am I telling you all this - why are you the chosen one, as it were? What did you do to earn the position of Planet Saver, Earth Protector and World Wide Safety Web - was it something that you said on an airplane that was overheard by an air marshal who doubled as an FBI agent and part time World Wide Safety Web or a generous tip that you gave your barista (you gave your barista a gift card to a competing coffee company for Christmas, so that was a pretty funny gotcha moment, but everyone drinks coffee, right? Chalk that one up to a win-win and an over on the laughs line.) or maybe a great Christmas gift that happened to land in the hands of the right person in your white elephant gift exchange at the office Christmas party? (The office Christmas party actually turned out to be pretty lit, Shelly had a few too many glass stockings of eggnog (you should probably know that that nog was not mixed by someone who was in their right state of mind; it was about two parts gingerbread flavored vodka, three parts nog, four parts mashed up gingerbread cookies and five parts wanting to have an amazing night that you will remember for the rest of your life once your co workers help you piece it all together (a beautiful jigsaw puzzle of destruction and pandemonium on the level of all the inmates in your town escaping the insane asylum and taking over the Dairy Queen but the townsfolk still go to the Dairy Queen on a regular basis because those dang blizzards are addicting and they are always hoping that the ice cream will all fall out of the cup when the employee tips it upside down to test the frozen treat's holier than thou level of thickness (take that Wendy's and your sloshy Frosties - that should be the whole name for them, they should just call them the Sloshy Frosty and save their customers some time on doing the viscosity math) so they will get a free blizzard if the insane asylum inmates stay true to Dairy Queen's company policy and promise to their loyal customer base although they don't really have to because Dairy Queen customers's brains are typically too frozen to cobble together a logical defense, but I should probably mention that Logical Defense Cobbler is the top selling flavor of blizzard at most Dairy Queens, especially among lawyers and individuals who are studying for the bar...whew! I just said all that without taking a breath so now I know how Michael Phelps feels...like a shark that you would want to grab a beer with! Every day is Shark Week when you are Michael Phelps!) the following Monday morning when y'all are shooting the breeze by the water cooler after you get done comparing the stats from last night's big game...it was absolutely terrible.) and ended up slippin' into a sloppy make out sesh with a real life reindeer and its beau - Dave recorded a video of it on his iPhone and emailed the clip to TMZ and they featured it on their annual Christmas themed special holiday episode that is hosted by Ryan Seacrestmas who is actually just Ryan Seacrest but souped up like Santa Claus after a few too many glass stockings of the ol Evil Egg Nog that will make ya slog.) Anyways, yup your life is about to change just a bit so ya better get ready for the hurricane of insanity that is moving West on your meteorological map on your personal Weather Channel in your soul's existential DirecTV satellite dish...ciao!" 

And just like that, as quickly as it began it ended as Will Smith's iPhone 37C self-destructed, emitting a miniature explosion that could only be compared to a demo of a football stadium made out of Legos and scuffed his luxurious leather jacket up a little bit which rubbed Smith the wrong way. The whole thing was so much for Will Smith to handle in the moment that he went ahead and pulled over at the nearest Dave and Busters (his default audible in any time of great mental anguish) instead of going to school to be a geometry teacher and zoned out for a while on the giant Fruit Ninja while listening to The Dark Side of the Moon in reverse and questioning the legitimacy of human's existence...While he was pondering whether it was too late for the human race to overcome the incredible and overwhelming power and intelligence of the technology that we have created, the Fruit Ninja Sensei broke the fourth wall (literally) by walking through the screen and into the third dimension. 

"Now this? It's on." Will Smith said in a cool action hero kind of tempo before looking at the camera and shrugging like Jim from The Office but it was really more like Jim from the Netflix thing, Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan.

So Will Smith kicked the Fruit Ninja Sensei's butt with great ease and hardly breaking a sweat, despite taking a steady barrage of cantaloupe, honeydew and watermelon straight to the melon. Then he drove to Des Moines and hopped on the first airplane to Australia, the farthest place from Iowa that he could brainstorm up in this time of great stress and worry for the state of humanity. Unfortunately, the singularity that his iPhone 37C had so gravely forewarned about in its prophetic, crystal ball of a message affected airplanes too so the GPS system on the airplane kind of took over the whole 747 and they ran straight into an active volcano that was in the midst of a devastating eruption so they were essentially like the cherry on top of a Bloody Sunday. 

Buy Chris's books SPONGE CAKE & WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE? on Amazon 

Visit Chris's website christheauthor.com

The Safety Vault

'Twas a miraculous piece of modern manufacturing to say the least and remember what they say; less is more and Les is more (which is the motto of the tire tycoon Les Schwab). It may have been dubbed a safety vault but nothing about it seemed to be too safe - they should have just changed the title to a Danger Vault...The Danger Vault is also the worst gymnastics event in the Olympics, it's like, why do they even do that one? There are so many injuries and they warn you about the nature of the event in its title if you just lend it some attention.

"Please, do not touch the safety vault." A youngish gentleman who is proudly sporting a jet black goatee and spiked up, gelled hair (think Ryan Seacrest but with more of a punk garage, Green Day cover band kind of vibe...maybe Ryan Seacolgate? OK OK, now we're havin' some fun here. *high fives a random lady who is riding by on a bicycle...actually she is riding a stationery bicycle and you are the one who is walking by her but let's not get bogged down with the deets here, all that matters is that you are reading this and because of that, I love you and always will*) and donning an orange polo shirt with little pink writing that read, "Vault Visitors Tour Guide".  

"Now, I am not supposed to do this...no one is ever allowed to do this, I mean. You are about to bear witness to the most difficult and mind-bending of animal tricks that you have ever seen - like, you thought you were impressed when your neighbor taught their Golden Retriever how to bark on command when Keeping Up With The Kardashians came on TV? Well, wait til you see this doozy of a trick. What I'm saying is, don't tell any of your friends or family that you had the opportunity to see what you are about to see because one thing is for darn sure; you will never be able to shake and erase the Etch-A-Sketch that is otherwise known as your mind after you see this. Everyone give me your cell phones please so I know that you are not recording this whole thing so that you can post it on your Facebook and impress your grandmother and all of her friends who are also on Facebook." Ryan Seacolgate walked around the lobby full of eager tourists with an empty pillow case (a pillow case that was colored orange with little pink writing that read, "The Official Pillow Case of the Vault Visiting Facility") as each individual reluctantly dropped (some of the phones even had a miraculous Yo-Yo effect that would make even David Blaine blush and ribbit with delight) their iPhone into the abyss (along with a few weirdos who had Androids for some unknown godforsaken reason), putting them in a state of technological purgatory that they had not experienced since those handheld Yahtzee devices were taking the world of high rollers with crippling gambling addictions by storm and a handful of elderly people couldn't get over the fact that the guiding hands of witchcraft were certainly at play, how else could they get all those numbers into that little rectangle robot? (Rectangle Robot is my favorite Will Smith movie for sure...it is kind of like I, Robot except that he is a geometry teacher who tries to save the world from the singularity and Elon Musk and....) There were Polaroid cameras draped around most of the tourists's necks like they just got out of a time machine instead of an airplane or perhaps the two items became combined in a Doritos Super Bowl commercial except with a real life scenario instead of from the perspective of Donny Drapes. 

*creaaaaaaaaakkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk* 

The interior of the danger vault was lined with a thick cluster of leaves, the kind of leaves that would collect huge rain droplets on their surfaces after a nice night of rain so that you could take up close pictures of them to post on Instagram and all that jazz. There was a black mesh netting that was covering the entire leafy area, making the whole environment seem all the more ominous in its presentation.

"This...this is what you all came here for. This is what many of you traveled for thousands of miles and spent thousands of your hard earned dollars to see. Some of you probably dreamt about this moment while you were taking a catnap on the tray that is attached to the seat in front of you on the Southwest flight. Others may have been secretly daydreaming about when this momentous happening might occur while you were pretending to flip through the custom blenders section in the Sky Mall magazine (there are some pretty cool blenders in that section of the Sky Mall, right? Did you know that you could get a blender that was in the shape of a parrot so you could be the number one Parrothead in all the archipelagos?) What you are seconds away from witnessing is the LeBron of the King Cobras which very simply means that it is the king for those of you who are not sports fans in the slightest, the most venomous of the snake in its species and one of the most dangerous creatures on the face of the Earth. And yeah yeah, I can hear some of the murmurs from some of y'all who ARE basketball fans who are saying - but I thought Kobe was the Black Mamba, isn't LeBron just stealing this bit from Kobe if he is going to be the King of the King Cobras - what's the deal with all that? And to those of you clowns who are attempting to make that clown argument, I would just like to say one thing - good riddance to ya. But seriously though, LeBron is that much better than Kobe that he pretty much has free reign to do what he wants and take whatever nickname that he pleases, so I guess to answer your question, yeah LeBron is gonna hawk the snake-based nickname from Kobe but if LeBron wanted the general public at large to start addressing him as The Yeti, pretty soon Jeff Van Gundy would be bowing down at the spatted up ankles of the Abominable Snowman (if any basketball player ever spatted up their shoes, LeBron would be the first to do it) after the media timeout and all the fans would start wearing their puffy coats and winter gloves and singing Christmas carols in the arena to show their respect for The King and all the odd requests that make up his rider. Ah yes, but we are talking about this King Cobra and his name is Malcolm, if you will just take a look here, as a group we will all watch as Malcolm -" 

An audible gasp whisked over the roof of the crowd as the faces of the vault visitors went ashen. One person dropped their official Danger Vault Nachos, sending shreds of jalapenos splaying in a miniature jalapenado (Jalapenado is my favorite made for TV sci fi movie...my favorite part is when the gang is all at that underwater Mexican restaurant for Sammy the Seahorse's bachelor party and the giant, unrealistically large shark orders an enchilada and gets real ticked off at the octopus server (of course the server is an octopus, dude can carry like fourteen Arnold Palmers at once, there is no question they are the best sea creature servers in the bustling underwater restaurant biz) for putting jalapenos on it because the giant shark ordered an enchilada without jalapenos so he just kind of freaks out and creates a miniature jalapenado that sweeps the entire underwater restaurant out to air (instead of getting swept out to sea, when stuff is underwater it gets swept out to air because it is like that episode of Seinfeld where George just does the opposite of whatever he would normally do), thus the title of the film, Jalapenado) while another astonished individual's jaw actually dropped all the way to the floor so the janitorial staff had to rush in and clean it up and they were all decked out in orange uniforms with pink writing in the spot where a name tag would be that read, "Danger Vault Janitor" and they were each carrying a handful of orange equipment that had pink writing on it that read, "Danger Vault Janitorial Equipment". Once the janitors realized the gravity of the situation at hand, however, their tune quickly changed from annoyed to terrified. One of the more fearful members of the crew sprinted out of the front door like they had just seen the ghost of a giant snake while another couldn't quite gather their mind marbles so they just kept repeating the phrase, "Everything is gonna be A.O.K." while they sat in the fetal position in the corner of the vault room, completely disregarding their professional duties and the sacredness of the highly selective Danger Vault Janitorial Staff. 

"Malcolm?" Ryan Seacolgate half whispered and half chirped as he looked around with an astonished look that has only been seen in the case of an individual realizing that they have just let a deadly animal escape their cage and will definitely lose their job at the end of the day (and that is the best case scenario if that is the worst thing that happens), a potential menace to society for years to come if Seacolgate doesn't get a handle on himself.

The next second was craziness. Pandemonium erupted in the Danger Vault room as throngs of people pushed past each other like they were trying to bust into Walmart on a Black Friday (or Black Thanksgiving night) to pick up the latest game console of the day to win back the love of their ten year old son who it turns out is super shallow. Ryan Seacolgate went from having a cool gelled up hairdo to nearly having his scalp ripped off as he was trampled by the group of vault visitors who were growing more and more wary about the legitimacy of the whole Danger Vault complex. 

Little Susie was thoroughly enjoying her Subway sandwich, plain ham on white bread with a slice of cheddar cheese and light mayo, with her mother when it happened...it is days like these that are the calmest for Susie, who has been splitting time with her mother and father after their lengthy divorce nearly broke the newest edition of the Richter Scale for Couples. Susie was talking to her mother (although it was really more like she was talking AT her mother) about her favorite show, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, but how she was frustrated that she couldn't really watch it anymore because whenever she tried to, all the dogs in the neighborhood began barking in unison for some reason like a dang symphony directed by the worst conductor of all time, when the fateful moment happened...At first it was hard to tell what exactly WAS happening because it all took place so quickly, in a matter of milliseconds as it were. The front door of the popular chain of sandwich shops exploded into a million little pieces (my favorite drama on ABC) as if a timebomb had been implanted in its base while every single window in the joint blew up into shards in synchronization (Synchronized Windows Blowing Up is one of my favorite sports that is often featured on the Wide World of Sports, usually to a very confused pair of commentators who still haven't quite figured out whose idea the sport was or how the person slid it by the Wide World of Sports's official rules committee or what the rules of Synchronized Windows Blowing Up even are other than the fact that the windows have to explode and all at the same time, obviously, thus the title of the sport.) Olives and lettuce and slices of tomatoes began flying all around the lobby of the shop, you might even call it a...Jalapenado. But yeah, Malcolm, the most venomous King Cobra on the face of the Earth and the LeBron of King Cobras, pretty much messed up that Subway so bad that it barely even looked like the shell of a Jimmy John's after all the shenanigans and little Susie didn't get to watch the premiere of the new season of Keeping Up With The Kardashians on Snapchat, unfortunately, but the screenwriters of Jalapenado did salvage a great idea for the film's sequel so the whole situation wasn't a loss-loss, at least, Subway extra large soft drink half full, right? 

Buy Chris's books SPONGE CAKE & WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE? on Amazon 

Visit Chris's website christheauthor.com

Burger Town

Burger Town was an emporium in the 70s, not just of foodstuffs but of entertainment for all, a mill of mirth, a factory of fun, the third R in the phrase that is known round the world, R & R & R. It was the kind of place that you not only went to but that you lived for and a staple in Tampa, Florida's high octane burger district which is a magnet for tourists in addition to burger magnates; each day that you were deprived of it seemed longer than the last until twenty four hours felt like a fortnight. There was a ball pit but it wasn't just any ordinary ball pit...it was a ball pit with a legit diving board and a karaoke machine built into the side of it so you could rock people's worlds whilst jack knifing into said ball pit. The sinks in the bathrooms were encrusted in gold and the hand dryers would blow a bunch of lil gold particles around in a beautiful mini tornado of gold that could probably fetch a handsome sum of monies on the QVC channel or one of its sister networks. The mirrors in the bathrooms already had fake mustaches drawn on to them so that you wouldn't have to be a graffiti artist just to prank your best friend. Not to mention the toilets, oh the toilets, you would toil for many hours in the scorching sun, relentlessly picking ripe strawberries from your high volume strawberry farm, for the opportunity to use one of these magnificent beasts of modern science and technology. You have heard of bidets, yes? Well, picture a bidet but instead of blasting some nice room temp water at your bum, the machine sends a cascade of Paul Mitchell's top of the line hair care products, Funfetti and an inkling of good vibes towards your tushy (not to be confused with Tushy, the supplier of various bidet attachments in case you want your house guests to find out that your most vulnerable spot is the fact that you are a proud New York Jets fan club credit card holder when they are in THEIR most vulnerable spot.) 

In the foyer of Burger Town (yeah that's right, when is the last time that you heard about a fast food place having a foyer? Last time I checked, Ronald McDonald voted nay on the foyer.) there is a massive red to yellow ombre-shaded chandelier that dwarfs everyone who walks in, making them realize that they are merely a sheep and Colonel Sanders is a shepherd and that all this talk about sheep is making them hungry for some sheep, is that on the menu yet, maybe a seasonal delight? They will be looking forward to the McSheep Burger which will be served with a coconut almond cookie that is shaped like a white picket fence. 

It is the day of the opening ceremonies of the world-famous, incredibly awesome, twenty eighth annual Burger Olympics, which just successfully defended their title against a menacing lawsuit that was recently levied by the International Olympic Committee (the IOC for those of you in the know), mainly pursued by the organization's lawyers as a thinly veiled ploy to distract from their lengthy history of corruption and bouts with controversy, showing that misdirecting TMZ camera operators is truly an art form that can not only be practiced but whittled down to an exact science. Ah, the Burger Olympics...a festive, grand ol time when world peace meets world hunger halfway - what in the H-E-double french fries does that mean? Who knows but one thing is for gosh dern sure - it moves the merch! When you get a free sec, you should go pick up a beanie or a snap back ball cap, a sweater or a tank top and a pair of sunglasses or a pair of transition glasses with the official slogan of the Burger Olympics ("When world peace meets world hunger halfway") at the nearest merch table in the foyer of Burger Town or on Amazon, using the promo code "GoldenBurger". That reminds me, I should probably let you know about the Golden Burger, the highly coveted trophy that is the size of a beach ball that was inflated by a member of the training staff of the New England Patriots (so it is partially deflated and thinks Tom Brady is the GOAT). Speaking of the Golden Burger Trophy, that reminds me of the Friesman Trophy which is like the Heisman Trophy but for fast food athletics (the trophy is a marble sculpture of a fries cook who is stiff arming an oncoming fries cook who is trying to put more salt on their fries because letting another fries cook salt your fries is a sign of disrespect and a big no-no in the fries cook community which is very tight-knit and highly exclusive sort of like Fight Club but it would be called Fries Club and the first rule of Fries Club would be that you do not talk about Fries Club, especially when your mouth is full, that's just rude.), a modern masterpiece of art, architecture and artitecture that rests comfortably beside the Golden Burger in the towering trophy case that is located in the swanky foyer of Burger Town in between two burgeoning merch tables and behind a vending machine that only sells packets of condiments and pills to treat your inevitable heart burn that Burger Town employees are required to forewarn all the customers about when they hand them their bag of food (it is kind of a buzzkill, but then again, so is heart burn and at least you will know it's coming so you won't get caught off guard like a surprise party for heart burn...imagine if you walked through the front door of your home and a bunch of doctors jumped out from behind your couch and kitchen island and were like, "Surprise! You have heart burn - now here are some pills to help you treat it." A person who doesn't like surprise parties would really detest the idea of a surprise party for heart burn - it would be what you call a double whammy situation. It might turn their heart burn into a heart fire...even your dad would be like, that joke was pretty corny, let's spice it up a little bit. If a dad joke is told in a cabin in the woods and none of the lumberjack dads laugh, is it still a dad joke...and who is making the next batch of chocolate chip pancakes? Did I just describe my favorite REI commercial?)  

The main attraction at the opening ceremony of the Burger Olympics is the lighting of the heart fire torch...just kidding, that would be ridiculous - it is obviously the dipping of the sacred tater tot into the holy bucket of ranch, of course. In addition to the sacred tater tot being slathered in holy ranch, the team captain of each country is handed a lil pyramid with their order number on it. After their team picks up their triangle pyramid dealy, they move on to the next stage of initiation which is when they are forced to nominate one member of their squad to ask the keeper of the sacred tater tot for a water cup (just for water ONLY *wink, wink*), then they go fill it up with the soda beverage of their choice at the soda beverage machine (you get bonus points for a graveyard mix and the more different drinks you use, the more bonus points you get). As for the events, there is the quickest burger flipper, the most graceful burger flipper, the tallest burger flip, the crispiest fry, the most mouthwatering milkshake and the person who looks the coolest in a visor. Yeah the Burger Olympics get pretty hotly contested but at the end of the day, the good ol U.S. of A usually takes home the most golds because we are the home to Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and we know how to do a burger real good and real right.  

Buy Chris's books SPONGE CAKE & WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE? on Amazon 

Visit Chris's website christheauthor.com