Subject: Re: We Just Got Back from McMinnville, and Boy, Are They Happy About It!
Date: 09 Dec 1998 00:00:00 GMT
From: atruwe@shoggoth.uoregon.edu
Organization: Revenge of the Startlingly Inept
Newsgroups: alt.slack.devo, alt.foot.fat-free, alt.freaks
References: 1
König Preuße, GmbH wrote:
>
> Monkeys with Pants! It was kind of like Men Without Hats!
> Butt different. We took off by fossil-fuel powered land traction
> vehicle and all went well until some damn where just short of Tigard
> when the FFPLTV experienced fuel depletion, ceased making
> infernal combustion noises simultaneously manifesting an inverse
> correlation in forward velocity vis a vis terra firma.
That's actually pretty close.
And now, the True Story of the Monkey Pilgrimage!
Well, I took my final, got my stuff together, and walked off to find my
car. The tires are all holding air, which was a pleasant surprise. It
took me about 20 minutes to get out of the parking lot, though, because
there had been some small accident and a car was being towed.
I put on my new, texture grip driving gloves and drove up to Corvallis
and my good pal Sean.
I got there in good time and managed to find his dorm with only a small
amount of confusion. I am really bad at navigation, but I remembered a
street. The streets in Corvallis are named after presidents, and
they're in CHRONOLOGICAL order. If I lived there, I'd be smart by now.
Anyway, I found Wilson dorm, and was about to park when I realized I had
to get a visitor's permit. It took quite a while to find the booth, and
then I was turned around and had a hard time finding Wilson again. I
eventually did, however.
The door is always locked, but someone else opened it as I was about to
use the call box. I got in the elevator and headed to Sean's room.
His dorm is like the former USSR. Bits are crumbling off, there's
graffiti everywhere, and it's decorated like a mental ward. His walls
are covered with Contact paper in a fetching wood grain design, and
there's a little call box by the door. It's like being either crazy or
Russian. Quite cool.
I gave Sean the Pokey figure I'd drawn, and he made appreciative noises
and hung it up on his wall. I suppose Sean will get Pokey laminated
sooner or later and put it in his window.
Sean's car was doing something odd, so we set off towards McMinnville in
my DeathBug2000. The drive was pretty, but seemed longer than it really
was. We drove and drove. Finally, we hit McMinnville. It appeared to
consist of a Texaco and a motel, and an intersection. We turned left
and drove for about five miles, then turned around.
"Huh. I'm _sure_ there's supposed to be a town here."
We turned around in a vineyard's driveway and headed the other
direction.
"You know, Sean, I'm just going to drive around, but if we don't find
those monkeys by 8 PM, I'm heading home."
"Okay," he chuckled, "but I sure do hope we find the monkeys."
We stopped at the intersection with Highway 99. There was a red light.
I shifted into neutral, as is my wont, and depressed the brake.
It turned green. I pushed the clutch in and shifted into first, then
started driving. Over the hill, we could see the lights of town.
Perhaps the monkeys were there. I shifted into second. I depressed the
clutch again to shift into third gear, and heard a terrible
ping!
and the clutch pedal had no resistance. Unfortunately, I was not in any
gear, and so action had to be taken. I remember panicking and swearing
at this point, but Sean claims I just said "Uh-oh," and calmly steered
into the nearest driveway.
And there we were.
We got out of the car and examined our surroundings. We were in the
parking lot of a factory home dealer, Golden Homes (or Golden West or
something Golden). It was about 6 PM, and somewhat dark. Luckily,
there was a grocery store just a couple of blocks away. We walked to
it, looking for a phone.
I was sort of worried. I have a towing insurance card, but I had really
no clue exactly what to do. That's when it started to rain.
I tried to phone home collect, but couldn't get the hang of the phone
system. Sean graciously volunteered his calling card, which was equally
confusing to use. The McMinnville phone system was probably purchased
from some larger city in the mid '70s, we decided. No one was home at
my house, so I left a lengthy message.
We went to a nearby Subway to get out of the rain. I drank a medium
diet cola, which was a mistake. Caffeine is not a good thing for me.
As we walked back to the pay phone, to try again, I felt like my eyes
were the size of saucers, staring wildly at everything around me.
Back at the phone, I left another long message. Then we used the phone
book to write down the address of where we left the car. Remembering
our original goal, with trembling hands we looked up Alf's Burgers and
Ice Cream. Yes. They had an ad in the Yellow Pages with a picture of
several monkeys in it. 1400 Baker Street. The map was torn out. We
decided to walk down the main street a little bit more, in case there
was a big sign somewhere that said "Monkeys Here! Watch the Monkeys Fix
your Volkswagen or Other Imports!"
We walked for a few minutes and came upon a street sign on the ground.
We were _on_ Baker. And the numbers were descending. A few more
blocks, and we saw Alf's. It looked like any other '50s-theme
restaurant. We crossed the street and saw:
MONKEYS.
In a little room in the diner, with big glass windows (reinforced with
metal) were two monkeys. I have NO idea what kind of monkeys. One was
a New World monkey. I know that 'cos he had a prehensile tail. He
swung himself from one end of the room to the other and didn't stay
still for a minute. The other one was a little larger and had no tail.
He had a very elongated face, like a baboon but even more so. Sean was
ogling the monkeys from the window facing outside. The monkeys stared
at Sean. Obviously, he wasn't a local. We went inside.
The locals there looked as though they had already seen the damn
monkeys, thank you very much. I went to the counter and ordered a
hamburger and fry combo, mostly because I didn't want to stare at the
menu for 15 minutes trying to decide. Sean ordered the same combo,
while glancing back at the monkeys, and I paid. I got another diet
cola. Bad. We sat down at the table closest to the monkeys. Sean
stared into the monkey room, and the bigger monkey came up to him and
stared back.
The monkey made some kind of gesture with his mouth, and Sean asked me
what it meant. "I dunno," I said, "do it back at him." So Sean and the
big monkey made faces at each other while the little monkey whipped
itself around the room and I checked my blood sugar.
The hamburgers arrived and were very good. Sean took quite a long time
to eat his, because the monkey distracted him. They stared into each
other's eyes. I stole a bunch of his fries. I kept expecting Sean to
suddenly punch through the glass and grab the big monkey, then say
something like "Jimbo says KILL" and wander off, dazed. Some kind of
monkey mind control was definitely going down. I think it was near
closing time, because the little rambunctious monkey kept clinging to
the door of the monkey room and looking out the window, like someone was
out there.
Did I mention they were wearing pants? The little monkey had red pants
with a tale hole, and the big somber monkey had a jungle print on his
pants.
Anyway, the little monkey finally pushed against the door and got out.
For a second we thought he'd escaped, but the big monkey watched
uninterestedly. I think the little monkey was being put to bed. The
big monkey got lonely or something, and started pacing around the room.
Faster and faster. He started pushing himself off the walls to gain
momentum. It was like a MONKEY VORTEX. Faster and faster! Then
someone opened the door and deflected the monkey. A matronly woman came
in, took the suddenly docile monkey by the hand, and walked him out the
door.
Bedtime for monkeys.
We finished our food and left. It had started raining harder, and we
walked the way to the grocery store wishing we'd brought the umbrellas
from the car. I phoned my home again, and Pop finally answered. He
advised us to get the car towed somewhere close and try to find someone
going to Corvallis who'd give us a ride.
I called the Allstate road number and described the VW and the place
where it was. We walked back to the Bug to wait for the tow truck. The
rain stopped.
The tow truck driver was helpful -- took us to a mechanic who was still
somewhat open. There we called Greyhound and found out that the bus to
Corvallis comes through at 4 PM. I had a final at 8, and we both really
wanted to get back to our dorms anyway. So we bit the bullet and called
a taxi company.
The taxi driver was an older woman, near deaf, and with very thick
glasses. She drove us to Corvallis at 45 mph, with the heater on all
the way. She told us about all the auto accidents she'd seen or been
in, while she leaned to about 3 inches from the windshield, squinting at
the road.
I wanted to say "Okay, you get in the back. _I'll_ drive us to
Corvallis."
We got there eventually, and I gave her all the money I had except $10.
The caffeinated sodas I'd had previously were making my head hurt now,
and I was very sleepy. We went back to Sean's room, where I actually
saw his roommate. His roommate was asleep. Apparently, he is very
often asleep. He _looked_ like the kind of guy who'd go to Communist
rallies.
Sean drove me back to Eugene, and we both wondered what to do. Sean's
leaving for Medford sometime Friday, so if my car isn't ready by then,
he'll give me a ride home. I'm sort of annoyed; I was going to be home
today. I have a final Wednesday, and then I was just going to drive
like a bandit home.
Oh, well. At least it broke down in a town, and it wasn't raining more,
and I didn't have somewhere URGENT to go. If it had pulled this stunt
in the mountains on the way home, with all the snow and ice, the
distance between towns, and the 6% downgrade, I'd be in a much worse
mess.
More updates if there's interest, or startling developments occur.
Annna
--
| <atruwe (at) gladstone.uoregon.edu> | Annna Truwe |alt.slack.devo|
|"Popeye's moral lesson was simple: any problem can be solved with |
| a combination of violence and nutrition." -- L. Fitzgerald Sjöberg
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