I picked the closest one to start with. I walked in and was greeted by a very cute woman behind the counter. I always thought this was a good idea for a liquor store. Back in the day when I worked in one, for a while we had a cute girl manning the register. Her presence always seemed to make our customers (not to mention all the male employees) happy. Of course, this didn’t particularly please her boyfriend at the time, but hey if you don’t want your girlfriend to be constantly hit on by other dudes well then date an ugly girl. After she quit, we all rallied to the owner to try to convince him to hire another one (as if hiring a pretty girl was the same as heading over the pound and picking out a cute puppy). Unfortunately, he had a perfectly reasonable counterpoint. This was a liquor store. We could all be bleeding from open leprous sores and it wouldn’t deter our regulars in the slightest. Besides which, he had this to add: petite counter girls were of absolutely no help when it came to lifting kegs into customers’ cars. Damn, I hate logic!
Anyway, lest I digress too much...I asked the aforementioned cutie if they had any wine corks in stock. Her reply was a blank uncomprehending stare as if I had just spoken in some alien dialect. After a few seconds of this, her neurons apparently rebooted. She shrugged and pointed me in the direction of some guy working near the back of the store. I walked over and asked him the same question. He smiled at me, nodded, and then proceeded to point directly at a nearby case of Coors.
“Not Coors, Wine CORKS,” I corrected him. At this he looked completely puzzled, as if the mysteries of the universe itself had suddenly appeared and challenged him to single-handedly solve them. He then told me that he would go check in the back. I strolled back towards the counter to wait as the view was much better there anyway. As I approached, the cute girl, her mind now functioning again, leaned over the counter (with her tight, low cut t-shirt, I might add) and began engaging me in small talk about the weather outside. All the while several thoughts flashed through my mind.
Could it be that she thinks I'm cute?
Could it be that she likes me?
Could it be that I happen to be the only person standing near the counter?
Why am I caring about any of this? She has really nice tits!
As we continued our fascinating conversation about the temperature outside, my ever intrepid cork sleuth returned, the same smile as before on his face. “Yes”, he said in his somewhat broken English, “We have Gallo Port”.
*Sigh*
“Not Port, wine CORKS. You know, the things that go into the bottle of wine to keep it from spilling all over the place?” I said, pantomiming the action. This obviously didn't make it any clearer to him, as he then walked over to the counter and handed me a corkscrew. Well at least that was a better guess on his part. Close but still no cigar. I decided to try one last time, figuring that was all I had left before this fellow’s cerebral cortex finally gave up the ghost and burnt to a crisp.
No doubt exasperated with my asking for such a rare and valuable artifact as corks, this time he gave up and again I was pointed to the rear of the store. “You talk to manager,” he said, then dismissed me. Oh well, at least now I was getting somewhere...err maybe.
I walked to the rear of the store where I had been directed (get it...directed! Sometimes I kill me), only to find an empty space with three doors: an exit, the door to the beer fridge, and one unmarked. I stood there for a few moments wondering if maybe he hoped I would just get the hint and use the exit, when I head a toilet flush. The third door opened and out popped another man, still in the process of rearranging his pants and obviously not bothering to wash his hands.
The manager, I assumed, thankfully didn’t offer me a hand to shake as I explained my dilemma to him. He nodded assuredly and led the way back to the counter (where the view was still very nice). He handed me a plastic wine bottle topper. Not quite what I was looking for, but maybe enough to get the director off my back. “I need about ten. How much?”
“Three seventy-five,” he answered
“For ten?”
“Apiece.”
“No thanks,” I said and turned to leave, knowing that I was most likely not going to be reimbursed for an invoice that stated “Ten wine corks: thirty-seven, fifty”.
“Wait!” he yelled after me. “This is just the display model (display model?). Why don’t you take it? If you like it, you can come back and pick up the other nine later.”
Well I couldn't argue with that price, so I accepted it, feeling a bit dirty like I had just participated in my very first drug deal...”the first one's free, kid.”
Sadly, one not-really-a-cork was just not going to cut it. I figured I'd move on and try again, this time in a bit of a hurry as I had just eaten up a decent amount of time (albeit the counter girl was more then worth it). I knew the other liquor stores in the area would probably not stay open much longer.
I walked about three blocks and stopped into the next store I came across. There I went up to a much less cute counter woman and proceeded to ask her for wine corks. She handed me a corkscrew.
“Not a corkscrew, just the cork.”
She handed me another corkscrew
“No, just the CORK. The thing the corkscrew pulls out”
She nodded, flashed me an uncomprehending smile, and then proceeded to point me towards a case of Coors
At this point I lost it, “I don’t want any motherfucking Coors! I don’t want any goddamn corkscrews! And I sure as shit don’t want a bottle of Gallo port! All I want are some freaking corks!”
I finished my rant, sure that the cops were about to be called, but all she did was keep flashing that same stupid grin at me. She then responded in a very heavy accent, “Sorry. English no good.”
*ARGH!*
I took a moment to compose myself and then walked out the door to try again, certain that at some point I was going to have to break down, buy a case of wine, and hand out the contents to the local hobos just so I could get the damn corks. Unfortunately, as I shut the door behind me, I noticed the Closed sign being put in the window. Goddamn it! It was ten PM already and by law they all had to close shop. I could practically feel the new asshole the director was going to chew me.
I started back towards the theater. I had walked a few blocks when I looked up and noticed some of the crew stopped at a red light. They saw me and waved me over. Turns out they were taking a break and heading out for a bite to eat at a strip mall a few miles down the road. Coolness! There was a Shop-Rite in that same mall. I was pretty sure they had a liquor store inside. Even if they didn’t, they’re a freaking supermarket. Of course they’d have what I needed.
We got there and I trotted over to the store. Unfortunately, the liquor department was already shut down, but nevertheless I decided to try anyway. I walked up to the courtesy counter and noticed that the person on duty was the manager. Good place to start. I asked him for wine corks, trying my best to stem the murderous rage that I knew would flare up if I was handed another fucking corkscrew.
“Corks?” the manager asked.
“Yes,” I replied, feeling the beginnings of hope stir inside of me.
“You mean like the corks that would go into a wine bottle?”
“Yes! That's exactly what I mean,” I answered, nearly overflowing with joy at having finally found the sole other human on the planet who actually understood what I was asking for. “What aisle are they on?”
“Sorry sir. We wouldn't carry anything like that here,” he said and went back to whatever he was doing.
“No, I suppose you wouldn't,” I answered, crestfallen. I stifled a sob and then turned around to fade sadly back into the night...corkless now and destined to be corkless forever.
X-Deer
A few years back, during the holiday season, I found myself sitting with my family engaging in that timeless holiday tradition of surfing through the various shows we had saved to our TIVO. One of the many Christmas programs clogging up my hard drive, and no doubt preventing it from taping far
more important fare...such as the SyFy channel's latest Saturday night masterpiece (the kids were already on my bad side for deleting the prior week’s rerun of Mega-Sasquatch vs. Mantelope), was that classic of classics, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Having watched this an untold number of times as a child myself and being able to practically recite the story by heart now, I quickly grew bored of even the concept of watching it and found myself clicking past it to our other possible selections.
The children, however, were not to be deterred. They insisted on Rudolph. Thus my fate for the evening was sealed. Alas boredom is never a good thing for me. My mind tends to wander to places it shouldn’t. This time proved to be no exception. Tossing around various concepts in my head, I came to a startling conclusion. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer runs a fairly close parallel to the comic book adventures of the X-Men. Each has essentially the same conflict of normal vs. non-normal, but they both wind up trying to solve those conflicts in slightly different ways. One is family-friendly relying on the power of friendship and song to bring the parties together at the end. The other...well it involves a lot of explosions, punches, and maulings. That minor tidbit aside, though, the similarities were too much for my brain to ignore.
A story thus formed in my head: an unholy fusion of the two sagas, combining the elements of both universes. Our tale goes a little something like this:
We fade in to the North Pole...at least we assume so, after all one frozen wasteland looks just like another. Just trust me on this one. We continue to pan in closer and eventually we come upon a cave. Now this isn’t just any cave. It’s the cave of Santa's favorite reindeer, Donner (or Donder, or Dunder, or whatever the hell his name originally was). Now before we get any further, let’s note that I said Santa's *favorite* reindeer. He’s Santa’s most beloved and all he gets is a damp dark cave to live in. Makes you wonder what Santa’s least favorite reindeer got. We won’t dwell on this, although if I had to guess...well let’s just say Santa isn’t exactly a thin fellow and leave it at that.
Anyway, back to our tale. Donner's mate (perhaps also given to Donner as a gift for being the favorite) has just given birth to an adorable little fawn. Unfortunately, as with all such tales, there's one major catch to this happy little scene; a catch which Donner is quick to notice and subsequently be driven into a frothing panic about. The baby deer has one major peculiarity. His nose glows in an unearthly red light, a light which only begins to hint at the possible destructive power which it may contain. In other words Dolph, as Donner names his freak son, is...*GASP*...a Mutant!
Before Donner can do little more then shriek in horror at the abomination before him (which hypocritically ignores the fact that he's a FLYING reindeer, not exactly at the top of the normalcy scale), in enters his oppressive master, Kris Kringle (Santa for the slow amongst you). He’s come to congratulate Donner on adding yet another member to his herd of overworked and abused animal slaves. He checks in on all of the newborn reindeer as only the best will be given the honor of dragging his overburdened sleigh all over the entire planet on Christmas Eve. However, Santa is immediately taken aback as he notices Dolph's genetic aberration. Santa, long known for his oppression of sub-species, is furious with Donner. He breaks into song to explain why there are no freaks allowed in his herd and then he leaves with a thinly veiled threat that Donner should do something about his son, otherwise it's going to be Dolph and Donner-kabobs for dinner. Donner, having been brainwashed by years of forced servitude, quickly agrees and decides to hide Dolph's powers from the rest of the world through a combination of subterfuge and psychological abuse.
He succeeds...if only for a short time.
We cut to one year later. Dolph has grown and is still managing to successfully hide his mutant deformity. We catch up with him trying to make friends, but alas it’s all for naught. His cover is blown as his maturing powers suddenly activate. His nose explodes in a fiery burst of energy, maiming several nearby reindeer. Fearing the wrath of Santa and being purist snobs in their own right, the other reindeer cruelly inform Dolph that only normal flying reindeer are allowed to play in their reindeer games. They shun him and race off to find Santa so that he might correct this problem. Embarrassed and angered, Dolph runs off into the unforgiving frozen wasteland before they can return.
Fade to Santa's elven sweat shop. Here we see the backbone of his operation, a race of genetically bred sub-humans which Santa uses as his slave labor. There are no chains or shackles as Santa just gives them the option: work for me or leave. Before you think that this might not be so bad, allow me to remind you that they're in the middle of the Arctic Circle. WHERE ARE THEY GONNA GO!? However, all is not lollypops and candy canes in the land of repressed toymakers. One of their own, an elf named Hank, decides to throw off the shackles of oppression and declare his intention to stand up for his rights.
He wishes to be free! He wishes to choose his own destiny! He wishes to be...a dentist? Uh, yeah. Well whatever. Just as we begin to cheer on this rebel, though, we can’t help but be distracted by a sociopathic, almost feral, glimmer in his eye. Does he want to be a dentist to help fight tooth decay or do his true desires instead lean towards bloodily yanking the teeth out of every other living creature’s mouth? We will have to wait and see. Before we can ponder this further, he is punished for his disobedience. For daring to speak against the will of the master, he is ostracized and cast out to the bitter cold.
Fate, though, is not finished with our two heroes yet. Before they can freeze to death, Dolph and Hank meet up with each other. Thus the formation of their outlaw band of Christmas mutants begins. As they travel the frozen tundra, they soon bolster their ranks with a pick-axe swinging mercenary named Yukon Jack. Their adventures eventually bring them across an army of misshapen and deadly toys, exiled by Santa to an island due to their freakishness. After all, Santa has reckoned what little boy or girl would want to play with a doll that shoots acid out of its mouth instead of wetting itself, or a teddy bear made of titanium alloy instead of fluff? Which little boy or girl indeed?
Upon learning that Santa's biased attitude extends to all forms of matter, whether animate or not, Hank angrily declares that St. Nick must die...painfully! Dolph, however, rebukes him as that would make them just as bad as Santa himself. They must be stronger then that. At Dolph’s words, Hank manages to quell the raging animal within him...for now.
Their ranks swelling, they realize they need add only a little more power to their army before they can strike back. They soon come across that strength in the form of a vicious wild-man roaming the frozen north and eating all those unwary enough to cross its path. It is here, faced with life or death, that Henry rejoices as he is finally able to let the beast within him rage freely. Unleashing his adamantium dental drill, a bloody battle ensues. Hank finally manages to defeat the beast by viciously ripping every last tooth from its jaws. Subdued, they add its monstrous strength to their movement.
Thus empowered, Dolph leads the final assault on Santa's slave shop. As Hank, Yukon, and their yeti-like ally slash and crush their way through the ranks of Santa's zealots, Dolph learns at last how to control his powers. His nose glows red and from it springs forth high intensity laser blasts which mow down his enemies by the dozens. It all comes down to the final battle. He and Santa fight one on one. It’s a horrific, gruesome affair that is eventually won by the heroes as Santa, his defenses shattered and his back to the wall, is forced to capitulate under the threat of having pieces of his jolly old self blasted all over the North Pole.
Rather then vanquishing his foe, though, Dolph shows that his time in exile has taught him wisdom and mercy. He accepts Santa’s surrender with the following terms: equality for all, leadership of the reindeer fleet for Dolph, and new homes for the freakish toy masses that had joined his cause. Santa has no choice but to accept. We pan out as all celebrate the start of what could be a new golden age up in the frozen north.
Epilogue. We fade back in as it is now Christmas Eve. Sant
a is riding along in his sleigh, being pulled by his newly freed reindeer now led by Dolph. All seems right with the world. As Dolph lights up the night sky to illuminate the way, we see Santa and one of his helper elves taking the misfit toys and tossing them overboard, presumably into the arms of the many children waiting below...
But wait! Suddenly we pull back to reveal the truth. They're not over any houses. They're over the middle of the Atlantic Ocean!
The battle may be won, but the war is far from over...
Next Issue: Santa creates an army of six-foot tall wooden cyborgs to crush his enemies.
Ajax: Slayer of Trojans, Destroyer of Grease Stains
It’s always nice to go back and re-read the classics, well some classics at least. You couldn’t pay me to slog through A Tale of Two Cities again. Anyway, I love to go back and revisit the days of high adventure. It’s kind of like seeing an old friend again...assuming that old friend carried a sword and battled monsters in his spare time. Now that I think about it, an old friend like that would be a hell of a lot cooler then the old friends I actually have. That aside, reliving some grand adventure is a great way to kill some hours. The problem, though, is the more you read the same tale over again, the more you step outside of the main story and notice the details. Sometimes those details get you thinking.
Fairly recently, I was rereading the epic classics of the Iliad and the Odyssey. This time, one odd little detail stuck with me after I was done. There are two Greek warriors named Ajax. Homer differentiates between the two by referring to them as Ajax the greater and Ajax the lesser. I guess last names hadn’t yet caught on in those days and the only way to tell people apart was in relation to each other. Thus you wouldn’t be Bob Johnson and Bob Smith. You’d be ‘Bob the Mighty Ogre Slayer’ and ‘Bob the Much Less Cool then the Ogre Slaying One’. Not a bad deal if you were top Bob in those days. Much less fun if you happened to be a normal schlub just trying to feed your family and live your life, while avoiding any ogres that happened to be running around.
The Poptart Manifesto Page 6
