'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
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