From Bob_Chapman@brown.edu Mon Jul 06 09:27:37 1998

Newsgroups: alt.slack

Subject: A Clone's Ride Home

From: Bob_Chapman@brown.edu (Crazy Bob)

Date: 6 Jul 1998 16:27:37 GMT

To make up for the fact that I'M going to have to pay for CrazyBob's

speeding ticket (with his money, so I guess it evens out), I didn't have

as much trouble getting home from Brushwood as my former self had getting

there, probably because I was relying on my memory implants while all

that poor sod had was Friday's "directions." I did get a little lost at

one point though:

The plan was to get off 90 East at exit 11a to take 495 diagonally to 95

South, but when I saw exit 11 there was a big sign saying "To Providence"

so I took it and ended of on state route 122... the scenic route.

It was probably better than taking the highway... what with all those

close calls me nearly falling asleep and plowing right into something (my

new JHVH Hates Phred tapes helped keep me going, (thanx Andreux... or

Andreux's clone, really... I'll be in the Chicago area later this week to

visit the old people who paid for college, so I'll get in touch w/ you

about the X-day tapes) and whenever I started to fall asleep I'd just

start making Jelly-Man noises) and the winding side roads kept me alert

and awake, as did the many speed traps... having to reduce speed from 55

MPH to 25 MPH on a moment's notice keeps you centered.

I was doing fine until I reached the little Rhode Island town of

Woonsocket, which I'd never actually seen before, just all the signs on

I-95 which led to many late night driving-home-from-Boston games of "What

Do You Plug into a Woonsocket?"

I'm sure it's a nice enough place, but there was a bridge closed for some

reason, and they sure don't know how to set up proper detour signs... I

lost 122 more times than I can count... I was beginning to think that I

was never going to get out of Woonsocket. I was so distracted, in fact,

that I didn't even notice the throngs of people setting up lawn chairs on

the sidewalks...

I had pulled into the parking lot of a Dunkin Donuts to turn around and

head back to the last place I'd seen the erstwile route when the first

explosion came. I looked over in time to see a second volley of fireworks

going off in the distance. Now, despite my experience with them this last

weekend, I still love fireworks. I don't care whether they're celebrating

the birth of a nation or the end of the world, they give me Slack. I

turned off the car engine, grabbed my bag of chips and bottle of soda,

turned up the radio and climbed out the sun roof to watch the show.

Even though they weren't aimed at me, these fireworks also weren't bought

by an impoverished cult. Woonsocket apparently has some kind of budget

for fireworks displays! Plus they had that nice effect of distance

fireworks where you see them two-three seconds before you hear them. I

sat there, eating, drinking, listening to music, and watching the show.

There was a crowd of little kids with their parents standing next to

their van parked right in front of me, and all the little kids were

jumping up and down excited watching these great blossoming orgasms of

light in the sky, and after all the hateful rhetoric of the weekend, I

remembered the forgotten passage in the Book of the SubGenius where it

points out what should be obvious: "There ARE NO normals!"

And as I looked up from the little kids getting so much Slack from a day

late Fourth of July fireworks show, my eyes fell across a sign off to my

right with a big arrow pointing the way to 122 South.

Now, I don't know exactly what it was that made me decide then to look

straight ahead, or why it was that I hadn't noticed it before, but I

looked across the street, and across the street from the Dunkin Donuts

was a coin-op laundromat. The sign on this laundromat said "Bob's 1 Stop"

only the "Stop" was burnt out and for a moment I could have sworn it said

"Bob's #1."

Praise "Bob."

And as I drove away from Woonsocket I KNEW that "Bob" had wanted me to

see those fireworks... who else would work through incompetently placed

detour signs? And I realized then what my former self up on that saucer

could never figure out, what Perfect Slack truly is.

"Bob" is perfect Slack. The rest is just gravy.

StCrazyBob'sClone