Wizards Classic Tales of Shame
Chapter 2
Gardening with the Wizards
The names have
been changed to protect the near-retarded.
This is a classic Wizards story passed on from generation to generation.
Some think its words are written allegorically, perhaps as a lesson,
others are sworn to secrecy as to the true nature of the tale about to unfold.
- Anon., c 2000
The front office met to review the film 2 Wednesdays ago -
John Paul, Grasshopper, and I were in attendance, Patrick was absent.
John Paul decided to bring a blender and a box of alcohol to make
margaritas. For those of you who
know John Paul, this was fully predictable, but this time it bit John Paul in
the rump.
As John Paul and I were enjoying a Margarita on the front
steps, Grasshopper showed up in bad sorts; he wasn’t pleased with his job, he
was hungry, and he wanted a drink. John
Paul obliged about the drink, and as Grasshopper talked about his woes, the
drinks went down one after another. I
fed Grasshopper a microwave pizza to get something into his stomach, and he just
kept on drinking along with his dumb brother John Paul.
During the review of the video, John Paul must have
interrupted the process 5 times to make a new batch of margaritas for the boys.
Without question, most of those margaritas ended up in the glasses of
Grasshopper and John Paul. In fact
Grasshopper, our little AV boy from the bayou, was getting so inebriated he kept
messing up running the video - this, of course, is completely out of character
for the video anal one.
The video drew to a conclusion, and as John Paul and I were
cleaning things up, we noticed Grasshopper was passed out on the couch.
I nudged him, and as he got up exclaiming how drunk he was, he made a
beeline for the bathroom and puked his guts out.
I got Grasshopper a big glass of water.
He took his glass of water outside, sat on the front steps, downed his
water, and passed out again. This
whole time, John Paul was blabbering on like a 2 year old who learned to form
complete sentences about shit that either made no sense or didn’t matter.
Surprisingly enough though, John Paul articulated a pretty coherent plan
how we could bring Grasshopper home. The
original plan was that John Paul and I would drive Grasshopper home leaving
Grasshopper’s work van at my house. This
plan evolved into I would drive Grasshopper home in a separate car and John Paul
would follow in the van. We packed
things up so we could execute our plan, and as we went outside, we found that
Grasshopper had degenerated from the front steps to sleeping spread eagle on my
front lawn.
I explained to Grasshopper the plan, and he blurted out,
“I need to go home”. I told
Grasshopper that’s kinda the basis for the whole plan, but ... he didn’t
listen. He blurted out again, “I
need to go home”. His verbal
repetition reminded me of someone else I know with severe head trauma. I got Grasshopper into my car, John Paul got in the van, and
I waited for John Paul to start the van so we could leave.
I waited, Grasshopper kept yelling, “I need to go home”.
I waited more, Grasshopper yelled more.
Finally, I told Grasshopper to yap up, and miraculously, John Paul was
able to start the van. I went down
the block and turned the corner. Looking
in my rearview mirror, I noticed John Paul was not behind us.
I stopped, Grasshopper yelled, “Don't stop! I need to go home”. I
said John Paul wasn’t behind us, and Grasshopper said, “I don't care, I just
need to go home!”. I then saw the
van turn the corner two blocks behind us, proceed another block, and then John
Paul stopped the van. With the van
running, lights on, and door wide open, John Paul walked a block up to our car
and said we needed to take the back roads - that we were going to add an hour to
the trip. I said that’s fine.
Grasshopper agreed, incoherently, to give me directions, and John Paul
walked back to the van. I pulled forward another 4 blocks, looked in my rearview
mirror, and noticed that John Paul hadn’t moved from his original resting
spot. Grasshopper reprimanded me
for stopping, and yelled out that he needed to go home and he didn’t care
about John Paul. Finally, John Paul
pulled up behind us, got out of the van, and told me he was too drunk to be
driving. Being we were only 6
blocks from my house, John Paul agreed to drive back to my house and would wait
while I bring Grasshopper home. All
seemed well.
I told Grasshopper I could get to the Ford Parkway near his
house, but at that point I would be lost. In
fact, I told him this about ten times, because he kept clunking his head against
the passenger window and passing out as I talked to him.
I kept my share of that deal, and got us to Ford Parkway.
I yelled at Grasshopper to wake up and I needed his help with directions. He didn’t wake up. I
gave him a punch and told him we were passing the Ford plant, and he needed to
wake up. Startled, Grasshopper
perked right up and shouted, “Minnetonka Boulevard is your best bet.”.
I scolded him for being an idiot, and pointed to the Ford plant that we
were passing. Panic set in and Grasshopper yelled out for me to take a
left, NOW! I quick took the next
left...and...it was a dead end. I
asked Grasshopper if he knew where we were, and he said no, but he thought
taking a right down the alley would be a good idea.
Eventually Grasshopper got us on track, and as we approached his house,
Grasshopper told me, over and over, that everyone in the house would know he’s
drunk. I said so what?
Grasshopper didn’t hear me and he kept going on and on about everyone
would know he’s drunk. Finally, Grasshopper went inside, and that began a new
adventure for John Paul and me.
Pulling up to my house, I noticed John Paul passed out
spread eagle on the front lawn (sound familiar), but I didn’t notice the van
anywhere. I prodded John Paul and
asked where the van was. He
responded, “I dunno”. I
explained to John Paul there was expensive video equipment in the van, and asked
if he had walked back to my house. He
responded, “I dunno”. At this
juncture, John Paul rolled onto his stomach and crawled up the front yard’s
embankment to my wife’s flowerbed and proceeded to throw up all over her new
Hastas. My bedroom window, where my
wife was asleep (hopefully) was wide open and faced directly to John Paul and
his sounds of vomit. After John
Paul had purged himself, I asked again where the van was.
He responded, “I dunno”. I
told John Paul he needed to give me the keys, and I would go find the van. It was now about 1:15am.
As John Paul stood up, a police car passed in front of our house
obviously to survey the situation. I
waved them on, but John Paul panicked. He shouted, “this is REAL bad and I’m NOT going to
jail”. With that he started
running between the neighbors houses to get away.
I chased him, calmed him down as much as I could, and again told him I
needed the keys to Grasshopper’s van. Reaching
in his pocket, John Paul realized he didn’t have the keys, they weren’t in
the front yard, and he didn’t remember where else he might have fallen down.
I asked if he could have locked them in the van, and he responded, “I
dunno”. John Paul spread-eagled
on the front lawn again, and I went to get my bike so I could search for the
van. I came out, woke up John Paul,
and he crawled up the embankment and puked on my wife’s flowers again.
After his second purging was done, I told him he had to go in the patio
that he couldn’t lay down on the front yard.
John Paul got up, and seeing my bicycle, he tried to grab it from me. I asked why he needed to grab my bike away, and he said the
cops would get me and that this is really a bad idea. I thought of using reason with John Paul, but I knew I
shouldn’t try. I told John Paul
to go into the porch, he agreed to go there and wait, and I went looking for the
van.
I looked all around for the van, and could not find it.
Eventually I ran into the cops who had passed my house earlier, and after
explaining the situation to them, they agreed to look for the van on the east
side of Xerxes and I should look on the west side.
Riding along, I noticed a van parallel parked in a catty-wampus fashion.
Upon investigation, I had found Grasshopper’s van, all locked up, and
no keys inside. I rode back to my
house, and luckily John Paul was not passed out in the front yard.
Unfortunately, he was not in the patio either.
His car was still there, but John Paul was not.
It was now about 2:00am. I
road my bike up and down the street and alley softly calling out for John Paul. I figure the cop paranoia had set in again, and he had found
himself a good hiding place. John
Paul was not to be found. I went
inside and decided I should call Saint Mary to see if John Paul had taken a cab
home or had called her. As I was
talking to Saint Mary (who had no idea where John Paul was), my wife got up to
let the dogs out. She opened the
back door and then she yelled out, “Jesus Christ!
I found him”. Looking in
the back yard, John Paul was sound asleep on the sidewalk and the dogs were
liking his unresponsive face. I
told Saint Mary I would bring John Paul home, and proceeded to get him up.
John Paul stood up, swaggered around in a few circles, walked down to the
brick patio, dropped to his knees, and threw up all over another one of my
wife’s flower beds.
John Paul understood that I would bring him home.
We walked out to the my car and miracle of miracles, I found the keys,
both John Paul’s and Grasshopper’s, on the sidewalk.
I gave John Paul his keys, and told him to get into MY car and I would
drive him home. I got in and
started the car, but John Paul waddled over to HIS car opened the driver’s and
passenger’s doors, started the car, put the lights on, and came back to me and
said he’s ready. I pointed out to
John Paul that he was a moron, and we would be taking my car that is why it was
running and I was already sitting in it. The
dim light bulb of a brain flickered and he said, “OK.
That will work too”. I got
John Paul home, and I finally went to bed around 2:45am.
To complete the story, Saint Mary called in the morning and
said when John Paul walked in he kept saying over and over that he didn’t
drive more than 2 blocks and the cops didn’t get him. Saint Mary didn’t understand what he was talking about
since she hadn’t heard the complete story.
She said John Paul finally shut up and passed out, but only after he
threw up again. When I got up
around 6:45am, my wife was not real happy.
She had gotten no sleep, she had worried about me driving all night, John
Paul had puked on all her flowers, and
to top it all off, Harley (our dog) saw the puke in the back yard flower bed in
the morning and proceeded to play in it.
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