My Dad works with people.

Specifically my Dad works with angry and/or stupid people. His official job title is "property manager." What that means is he makes sure all his residents are following the neighborhood rules and regulations (also known as C.C. & R's), he monitors landscaping issues, and coordinates a staff that operates the country club, golf course, and other neighborhood maintenance and security issues.

Beyond that he is the man people complain to. Most home owners know this guy in their neighborhood as "the guy everybody hates." It's amazing, when I tell people what he does, they all say that.

One time my Dad was working in a retirement community that had a large duck pond. It was one of those neighborhoods where a handful of houses have their back yards overlooking the pond. That is considered a benefit and actually raises the property value of the house. That means the people that live there paid slightly more for their house than their non-pond-facing neighbors.

This one old guy had a complaint about the ducks. Apparently the ducks liked to waddle on up to his back patio and take little duck dumps all over the place. The phone conversation with my father went something like this:

Old Guy: Those $%#@ ducks keep crapping on my damn porch! You've got to do something about this.

Dad: I'm sorry sir, those ducks are outside my control. There's nothing I can do. We can't put up a fence either, because that is against your C.C. & R's.

Old Guy: Well, you've got to do something. Couldn't you put up a sign, or something?

(at this point my Dad actually pulled the phone away from his face and looked at confused)

Dad: I'm sorry, what?

Old Guy: A sign! Put up a sign that says "DUCKS KEEP OFF."

I am not making this sh*t up here. My Dad, being the upstanding guy he is did his damnedest to sit on his mirth for a few more minutes, and then got his way off the phone and laughed giant tears of glee.

I imagine that because we live so close to the border the sign would have to look something like this:

DUCKS KEEP OFF!

!LOS PATOS NO ENTRAN!

The Fairy Tale Continues

Part VIII

..Then Noel wrote...

After a very long (11 hours about) rest, the Princess was rudely awakened by a set of razor sharp claws sinking their way into her butt. She whipped around immediately but saw nothing. What in the hell? She knew she couldn't have imagined it because of the pain in her ass but she squinted and squinted through the dark and could just barely make out something very small hopping around in the bushes. The shadow bounced here and there and disappeared under a bush but Noel could see two blue-green glowing dots peering at her. She began to crawl towards the small beast, grabbing a branch that was nearby as she went, and lowered herself down to look under the bush. At this point one tiny little paw shot out from the bush and the razor claws raked her across her nose.
"AAAArg! Damnit!!! What in the hell was that?"
"That," said a small batty voice, "is the demon monster Marvin. You don't want to tangle with that thing... seriously."
Noel wheeled around to find her vampire bat friend sitting on top of a large rock nearby munching on a juicy ripe pomegranate. She hadn't even noticed him until now, but was strangely glad to see him and only hoped that the wicked side of him would be kept in check by John Wayne, the booming voice, and the tiny batty voice.
"Are you serious?" Princess Noel asked the bat. "That thing seems pretty small to me. Granted he did put a good set of claw marks on my nose and butt, but that's nothing compared to what I've been through in the last few days. Speaking of which, how did you get away from the spider nest?"
"Oh, we just poofed back into my bat self and flew off into the night. Oh, by the way, we brought you some pomegranates. Thought you might be hungry after all that fighting and falling and flying and whatnot."
"Really? Thank you! I'm starving!" Noel said as she cautiously turned away from the dark bushes and moved toward the rock. " So, seriously, this little pain in my ass is supposed to be some crazy demon thing?"
"Oh yeah! Absolutely. It just fell out of the sky one night and we haven't been able to get rid of it since. It doesn't really wreak havoc until the night time, so it's not a huge issue."
"What about people who are trying to sleep?"
The bat burst into laughter at this apparently absurd thought. The Princess was annoyed by this behavior, thinking her question to be perfectly valid.
"They don't." said the bat, continuing to giggle to himself.
At that moment, Noel's foot, which had been hanging over the side of the rock, was brutally attacked by a multitude of claws and teeth, but by the time Princess Noel looked down at her foot, the thing was gone again. Cursing this demonmartian thingy, Noel turned back to her meal and tried to get information from the bat about escaping the enormous woods.
"Oh, it's not all that hard," said the bat. "All you have to do is follow the Yellow Brick Road."
"Oh... of course..."
"You'll probably want to get out of here as soon as possible because an awfully mean witch owns this dark forest and she's on the hunt for something ruby red that she keeps rambling about. Better hide those pomegranates when you set off. Also, you'll want to get out before having to spend another night fending off the demon Marvin."
"Oh god, that thing is just ridiculous. I haven't even seen it yet, but it doesn't seem all that bad."
"Whatever you say," said the bat while yawning. "We should probably get some sleep before tomorrow."
"We?"
"Well yeah, I have to make sure you don't get eaten," reasoned the bat.
"I'll be fine. Besides, won't you just *poof* yourself into a pile of ashes anyway in the morning?"
"That's why you're going to carry me in your bag."
"What bag? I don't see any bag. I don't know why on earth I would have a bag when I'm barely even clothed anymore."
"Oh yeah, I guess we'll have to do something about that," observed the bat. He sat on the rock and thought a minute, rather reminding the Princess Noel of Pooh, and then jumped up with victory. "I've got it! All we need to do is find which tree it is. Somewhere around here..." the bat trailed off as he began to fly straight into several trees. Noel wondered how on earth he had not been smushed by this point, but continued to watch the bat slam into the trunk of a few more trees before, finally, one of the trees just sucked him in. The Princess was horrified having just seen her only companion eaten by a tree. She stared at the tree in shock and then, the bat flew back out of the tree. "Ok, it's this one. Come over here and get John Wayne's snakeskin hat and I'll just sleep under the hat until it gets dark again." Noel walked over to the tree and slowly pushed her hand through the bark and pulling out something of a hat that was apparently hidden in this strange tree.
"Holy s**t... that was weird."
"Yup, now go to sleep. And put that hat over me. I've got to wake up before morning.

The next day the two set out for their adventure out of the dark forest. While following the Yellow Brick Road, Princess Noel was accosted several times by the Demon Marvin and barely caught glimpses of the apparently Tasmanian beast. After about the 13th time, Noel about lost it and just yelled at the top of her lungs. "I am going to KILL that thing!!!"
Having heard the Princess's familiar threats, a small search party nearby came running through the thicket to find Noel sitting on the ground looking rather annoyed and talking to herself. (She was really talking to the bat, but they didn't know that.)
"Princess Noel?!"
"Oh my god, how did you find me? Did you bring the horses, can I just go home now?" she eagerly asked the guard.
"Well see, here's the thing," started the guard (Noel didn't like the sound of this already) "We're not really here."
"Well of course you are, I'm standing here staring at you."
"Well... yes... technically. But, you see, the teleporting spell that brought us here expires in about... 3 minutes."
"Well shit! What am I supposed to do now?"
"Since we know where you are, we can begin to send out guards in your specific direction who will meet you along the road as soon as possible."
"Ok, fine. But I still have the problem of the witch who owns this forest."
As she said this the guards began to glance around nervously.
"I ran into a witch once... she turned me into a newt." (suspicious glance from the other guards) "...well I got better!"
"Also, I have this Marvin Demon thing following me and guerrilla-style attacking me."
"I can help you with that," came a voice from the middle of the crowd. Out of the mass emerged a woman who was really quite lovely and who looked strangely familiar to the Princess but she couldn't quite place how or from where. The woman walked up to Noel and dropped a small bottle of liquid into her hands.
"What is this?"
"Herbal sedatives. Three drops will knock that thing out cold... give him five. The only thing is getting him to eat the stuff."
"No problem," remarked the Princess. "Who are you who is so wise in the ways of science?"
"Don't you recognize me? I'm the one whom you tied for the title of "fairest" with, my friend."
"Oh yes! I knew you looked familiar."
At this point the crowd began to shimmer and fade.
"We'll send someone as soon as we can your highness!" shouted a guard as his voice echoed off.
Okey dokey, thought Noel. I can handle this... and then she heard it. That now very familiar sound that made the Princess' ears prick up and listen closely from whence the purring noise came. Much like the croc who swallowed the clock, this noise meant the approaching of the Demon Marvin, only apparently he had swallowed a motor. Princess Noel glanced around cautiously and the purring stopped. I don't like this, she thought. It's far too quiet. Then, out of a bush, came something flying towards her thrashing madly in the air. Noel had no idea what to do and so stuck out her hand only to have teeth sink into it.

Dun dun duuuuuun...
To be continued.

I just have three simple things to say today:

1 Judge not lest ye be judged.

2 Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

3 WTF?

That is all.

COMMENTS

Please, do not ask me what this post is about. If you don't already know, then this is irrelevent to you, and you shouldn't worry about it.
Thank you.
Joey 06.23.05 - 7:35 pm

I am without sin since I am catholic and we have a reset button
what kind of stone do you prefer that I throw?
mulk 06.23.05 - 7:55 pm

I am also without sin, since I operate outside the realm of religious law. And I throw stones indiscriminantly because:
a) some people deserve to be stoned
b) I am not qualified to make the distinction between who should and who shouldn't be stoned.
Josh 06.23.05 - 8:12 pm

I am without sin because I am a very boring person.
*throws a rock in joey's direction*
therealdavid 06.23.05 - 8:48 pm

this is true.
mulk 06.28.05 - 1:03 pm

What about the sin of bad fashion sense? Or the sin of being a miserly jew?
I'd put them stones down if I was you, D. :-)
Joey 06.29.05 - 5:55 am

Holy Lack of Ethics, Batman!

Okay, so I don't watch much tv, and when I say I don't watch much, I really mean it. The coming of "reality" tv and a busier lifestyle than I had as a kid don't leave much space for the idiot box. Occasionally I feel left out when folks joke around about some pop culture reference that I'm not aware of, but...

Meh.

Recently, Meg and I have had a new addition to the family. We got a new kitten with freakin' huge eyes like the grey aliens from X-Files. In honor of his extra-terrestrial appearence we named him Marvin Kaseijin (Kaseijin is Japanese for martian). We call him Ka for short. Some of you may remember my old baby-sitting technique on Marvin's older brother, Henry: the television. The images and sounds seem to be enough to trick a kitten into thinking he is not alone, and so he stops crying and watches. Just like Henry before him, Ka succumbs to tv and is quiet and calm.

Now I shall tie this all together. Since I leave the tv on for him when he's alone, I tend to leave it on when I'm in there feeding him and/or playing with him, so I have seen more boob-tube lately than is usual for me. Mostly I have been seeing a lot of commercials as most programming is inane and does not hold my attention nearly as well as my fuzzy big-eyed friend.

One ad in particular caught my attention. It went something kinda like this:

Voice Over: Maybe one day you'll take your Samsung camcorder to the company Xmas party. Maybe the next day you'll use your Samsung MP3 player to show your boss some of his more shining moments from the party. Now you've got a company car. Then maybe you show the Vice President some highlights from last years yacht party. Now you've got a corner office. Then later the president says "I hope you bring that camcorder of yours to the next company party." And you say "sure." (then we go to black and "SAMSUNG" shines across)

Now that is a paraphrase, but in case this isn't clear, they are talking about blackmail. Not only are they talking about it, but as the voice over describes these events, we see them played out. Now, don't worry, I'm not flying off the handle in outrage here, I'm just a little concerned about us as a race and a culture.

Now, I know what you're thinking, you're thinking "but Joey, aren't you over-reacting? Don't you think it's a just a joke?"

Sure, ok. It's a joke. I'm not going to say that blackmail can't be funny under the right circumstances. Lord knows I've had plenty a' laugh 'round the ol' water-cooler while showing a C.E.O. pictures that I took of him with a crackwhore in the back room at his son's bar mitzvah. Oye, what a schplotz that was! BUT there's a fine line here. Allow me to explain.

Let's say a company that makes, oh I don't know... something like... moustache trimmers! Let's say that this company ran an advertisement wherein somebody blackmailed somebody else. Here it's absurd, and unrelated to the product. That would be fine and dandy because the moustache trimmer is in no way used in said blackmail. It's a joke because it has no connection with reality.

But in the Samsung scenario the key difference is their products could actually be used for blackmail, and in all likelyhood are used in that way by somebody somewhere. Not only can Samsung be useful for blackmail, but key to the whole thing, really. I mean come on, the ad is practically a step-by-step guide on how to use hand-held electronics to climb a corporate ladder made from the knives protruding from your co-workers backs.

It's like their saying to John Q. MiddleManager: "come on, John, shell out a couple hundred bucks on some Saumsung equipment and you can leave a trail of once powerful men tattered and broken in your wake."

I don't know. Like I said, I'm not exactly angered by this, but more troubled, I guess. I mean, what's next? Crowbar commercials listing the best models for brinking into each type of home? Or a laptop ad showing kids how to hack into banks the world over? Or worse yet, ads showing people how to make more movies with Martin Lawrence?!?!

shudder

I hate to make fun of the dead, but...

Is it just me, or did THIS GUY share his name with a late-night, Cinemax soft-core flick.
I think I might have even seen this one.

*********************************

To The Journals...

Last June a couple friends and I went to Vegas. I tend to write more when I'm travelling than any other time. On this particular trip I jotted down some quotes that grabbed me.

Keep in mind that most of these were said and/or recorded while we were drunk/sleep-deprived.

"That's bad Joey. That's evil coming out of your butt."
-Nick G, on farting

"I remember one of the drunkest times I've ever been drunk."
-Nick G on booze

"You have to glue the Legos on, stupid!"
-Nick G on how to build a life-size boat out of Legos and balsa wood

"Phone book! Phone Book! In The Air! On the Ground!"
-Nick drunk and throwing around the hotel room phone book and singing about it

"Mira, banana banana! Mira, banana banana!"
-Ryan and myself adding lyrics to the wicked drumming at the end of Prodigy's Firestarter

SIGH

I had my first film "premiere" last night. It was not exactly what I expected. No, scratch that; it was WAY far from what I expected. Now, don't misunderstand. I had no illusions about the importance of this film. I wasn't expecting flash bulbs and red carpet action or anything, but something at least somewhat classy.

At the very least I was thinking maybe a small reception for the cast and crew. Nothing big, but maybe a table of finger foods, and some cheap wine.

What we got was a charity event for which we were pressured to sell tickets at $30 a pop to our friends and family. We were allowed one guest each. My guess is they were so far over budget that they couldn't afford to rent the house themselves so they coordinated with a charity. I figure the charity pays for the venue, we supply the entertainment and the charity scoops up all the proceeds. Smart, but totally the opposite of classy.

Also, on the way there I was worried Meg and I were a touch under dressed. I showed up wearing my khaki suit with an open-collared, untucked shirt and sandals and Meg wore a lovely flowered sun dress (both of us looking like semi-casual/nice beach wear) and we were actually over dressed. Many of my colleagues from the shoot were actually wearing jeans and t-shirts. There were others that were dressy too, but we were definitely in the minority.

I don't know. Like I said I wasn't expecting anything too fancy, it was, afterall, a low low budget indie flick. I guess I was just hoping that we could all just take the night and make it important for us, even if it wasn't to anybody else.

Oh, and by the way, the film itself... well... um, the performances were great.
The effects are kinda muppet-ish, and the editing is jarring at times, and there are chunks that make no sense... but the acting was spot on. And I'm not just patting myself on the back, everybody did a great job. SHANNON and PHIL "DARYL RIDLE" really shine the brightest.

Bridesmaids & Car fires & Bar Fights, Oh My!

I just spent most of the weekend driving to and from San Francisco so I could see my friends Josh and Laura get hitched. It was beautiful. Congratulations to them and their families.

Besides the wedding, the most noteworthy things that happened were we saw what I think was an old Impala on the side of the road with two-foot high flames leaping out of the open hood. It was strange because nobody was standing near it. I mean there was no frantic driver calling for help on a cell phone, there were no emergency vehicles and even the passersby on foot seemed to think acknowledging it was a complete waste of their time. Crazy.

The other noteworthy event was one of those life lessons that you learn. Some of these lessons you can learn vicariously through others' advice based on their own experience because it's kind of common sense anyway, but then some of these lessons have to be learned first hand.
I don't know why, but they just do.

I learned one of those common sense ones on Saturday, but I kind of did it the first hand way.

That lesson being never chew on a married woman when her husband is less than six feet away.

To be totally accurate and fair they are married in name only. They have been separated for some time, and are filing divorce papers on Thursday. The reason they even came to the wedding together is they paid for airfare and hotel rooms long before the split-up and it was kind of a sunk cost that they didn't want to just drop down the drain.

But still, I knew the situation. I knew she had gotten over it and he had not, and I should have been a bit more sensitive. Unfortunately, I succumbed to hormones and alcohal and did what I wanted to do.

After the reception was over a bunch of us moved across the street to a bar that I think was called Easy 5. The wife... or ex-wife... whatever had been flirting with Meg and I and Brian all night. Eventually she was seated between Brian and I. We both checked to see if the husband was looking. He was not, so we each took an ear and nibbled. Apparently this is when the guy turned around. He saw me and stood up and pulled my head back by my hair. I calmly looked up into his rage-filled eyes and waited for what he was going to do next. Part of me was practically praying that he would throw a punch. I have been itching to get into a fight for months, but I'm not the first punch kinda guy. I actually liked the guy, but if he hit me, it was on.

After a moment of staring, his angry front crumbled into a lot of simpering and clutching of his face. He apologized about a hundred times saying "there's no excuse" and stuff like that.

I assured him we were cool. Nothing happened. I'm not so much of a hothead that I can't take an over-emotional drunk pulling on my hair a little. No big deal.

Still, I learned something that day. I learned to make sure that the husband can't see you when you chew on his wife. Or maybe it was just don't chew on her in the first place...? Nah, couldn't be.

Because of sleeping arrangements for so many of us being all over town, Meg and I went home to Ed's alone. I hope for Brian's sake and for the wife/ex-wife's sake they at least got lucky. It would make me feel like the hair pulling was taking one for the team. Like I was the wingman getting shot down over enemy lines so that my boy could land safely in the lands of the neighboring ally.

Word.

COMMMENTS

When I first read this, I thought it had set "If he had hit on me, then it was on". I started thinking, I've been in for a lot of ass whoopings by Joey then. Thank goodness he has restrained himself in the past. But, that wasn't what you wrote. I know I can drunkenly hit on you knowing I'll only make you slightly creeped out instead of ready for some ass whoopin'.
Ben Siemon 06.13.05 - 9:14 pm

Why were you itching to get into a fight for months?
While you have a regular exercise schedule, you haven't done a single lick of fight training. Unless you were doing one of those awesome 80's fight training montages that take only 3 minutes a la Rocky IV, your ass would have been toast if you got into a real fight. Especially when up against a drunk and jealous soon to be ex-husband who just caught you nibbling on the ear of a woman he's still very much attached to.
In that situation your saving grace would've been a beer bottle and of course your posse of equally drunk friends willing to help you out.
I for one am happy that nothing serious went down and the night was not spoiled by violent drunk people. Minus that little tiff, the wedding reception was totally awesome.
David Dobell 06.14.05 - 3:08 pm

Excellent post, Joe. Although, I should mention that when Drunk Husband grabbed your hair, I jumped up from my seat right behind you and peeled his hand off of your head. It all happened quickly and I know I was out of your line of sight, but I wouldn't want you to think that we all stood by and did nothing.
Guillermo 06.14.05 - 5:10 pm

No, G, I was not accusing anybody of bailing on me. To be honest I was so fixed on his eyes that I was completely unaware of anybody else or anything else, even time. I'm sure it was a matter of a less than a second, but it felt like an agonizingly long time. Just waiting to see if he was going to actually do something.
And D; whether or not I would have lost the fight is totally irrelevent to the fact that I wanted to fight. When you are drunk, horny and have had an aggressive streak waiting for an opportunity ot bust out for months things like your chances of winning and/or logic don't seem to enter the picture. But thanks for the vote of confidence. Ass. :-)
Joey 06.15.05 - 11:27 pm

So, my parter in crime on the fairytale has apparently lost interest in the continuing adventures of her princess alter ago. I wish I could say she's just busy, but I've seen her constantly lately, and that is not the case. More later hopefully.

In lighter news (sarcasm), I'm having very little patience with a good friend at the moment. It's one of those misunderstandings where I didn't say what she thought she heard and she wouldn't let me clarify my meaning and instead stormed off after making what seemed like a veiled threat.

At first I cried. I cried a lot. I wouldn't say that I deal with conflict well, but generally speaking I get angry and raise my voice, not sob openly. With this woman it's different. She somehow manages to get under my skin in such a way that whatever defense mechanisms usually kick in (angry yelling for example) just seem to take a short vacation.

After she left I was also worried about our friendship. But the more I thought about it, the less and less I cared. I realized that if this is how she treats me when we disagree then what kind of friendship do we really have? I mean, when I disagree with some guy off the street it may get ugly, especially if he is republican. But if I disagree with a friend I make damn sure we understand each other before we're done. Even if we still disagree I make sure at the very least I understand. That is respectful, and just plain productive. She didn't even try. She knee-jerked and took off. That is a counter-productive and potentially dangerous reaction, and one that won't always be as painless for her or for those around her as this one was.

So, I decided I'm going to get over it and continue business as usual. My inital impulse was to go to her and try to fix it, try to get her to see what I was actually saying. But then it occurs to me that she won't really listen if I go to her. Afterall, I tried once and she flew off the handle. If she had really wanted to listen she would've taken that first opportunity. So I won't bother. If she really wants to know, she will come to me. She'll ask.

We'll see.

Part VII

Then I wrote...

"AAAAIIGGGHH" screamed the vampire mess guy in what Noel guessed was the voice of yet another personality. This one sounded a little effeminate and had a sibilint "s".
"Oh my god, we're all gonna die!" he yelped.
"You're a vampire, you're UNdead. You can't die." Noel pointed out, trying not to sound irritated.
"How dare you!" exclaimed the vampire. He slapped her neatly across the face and leaped off Noel's stomach over the side of the web and vanished from sight.

At this point Noel wasn't sure if she should feel relieved to be rid of a vampire, or even more frightended that she was now alone against the giant spider. She again tried to struggle but found that just got her tangled up worse. The spider continued to crawl slowly towards her, drool running down it's sharp mandibles and an eerie glow coming from it's many eyes. Closer and closer it came. Noel had no clue how she was getting out of this one. All her bathroom tools had long since been expended, and even if she had anything else hidden in her tattered rags it wouldn't do her any good as her arms and legs were pinned to sticky webbing. She let out a sigh and closed her eyes, newly resigned to her gruesome fate. She supposed every fair ninja princess
chick had to go some time. It was a good run. The spider was nearly on her now, she could feel the heat of it's nasty spider breath on her face. The bottom of a spider leg landed on her arm and she heard a most puzzling thing:
"Tag, your it." said the spider in a voice that sounded like a five-year-old human boy.
"Excuse me?" she asked reeling from hearing a spider talk. She had seen dragons, and ogres, and magic, but never a talking spider.
"I said: tag, your it." he repeated as he sliced Noel free of her sticky bonds and stood her up on the nearest tree branch.
"You're... you're just a kid?"
"Yup. my mommy isn't here right now, but she'll be back. Until then we can play."
"What happens when she gets back?"
"We eat you, silly."
"Right."
Ok, great. The spider boy had bought her some time, and freed her. She didn't have any idea how much time, and she knew she couldn't out-run or out-fight the spider and she didn't know how much time she had, so she'd have to out-smart him, and she'd have to do it fast. Her keen mind was whipping through several different scenarios to find the best one when suddenly her vampire friend came leaping back over the side of the web.
"Don't worry at all, ma'am. I'm here to send this spider a' packin'. So, how about it partner, you wanna fight?" said the vampire in yet another new voice... Was that, John Wayne?
"No, wait, he's--" she was about to say he's just a boy, but then remembered that he just informed her she was dinner.
"He's what, ma'am?"
"Nevermind."
The vampire nodded a polite nod to our heroine, and tipped the brim of an imaginary hat, and turned back to his prey. With the unnatural grace of a vampire he leaped onto the spider's back and began raining blows down on the back of the spider's head. There was much grunting
and screaming coming from the two. Noel used this as her oppotunity to vamoose out of there. She ran down several long branches until she found a very tall, very solid wall of dead twigs and whatnot and climbed over to the other side. From here she watched the fight from safety. By the time she started watching again it wasn't pretty. Our vampire friend had one arm pinned to his side by a large glob of webbing, and the spider had several eyes swollen shut from being punched. They were circling each other, wary of the other's next move. Taunts and jibes were tossed back and forth between the two, some were barely audible and others were shouted with great volume. Because of the fight it took Noel a bit to notice that the wall of twigs she was sitting on began to rythmically vibrate. It was a rythmic thumping that reminded her of that movie Jurassic Park that she watched on the magic mirror last week. Thud! Thud! Thud!
It was getting louder... and closer. And it was behind her! She turned around just in time to see a giant bird coming towards her, but it was looking over her at the fight on the spider web. It was a very large and very ridiculous looking bird. When I say large, I actually mean tall, but it was very skinny. It's plummage on it's head was in a very old fashion hairstyle, and it was wearing glasses. Luckily it hadn't seen Noel yet. As it got nearer to where Noel was hiding behind her twig wall, Noel looked just below the bird and made a horrifying realization. The wall of twigs was in a complete circle, all around her and contained several giant eggs.
Sigh. Out of a giant spider's nest and into a giant bird's nest. Great.
The giant bird towering over her opened it's silly looking beak and bellowed down at the vampire and spider's fight:
"CALM IT THE HELL DOWN OR TAKE IT THE HELL OUT OF MY TREE!!!"
Noel took her chance while the bird was distracted and jumped back over the side of the nest and into the air again. Again our nimble heroine found herself plummeting towards the earth at break-neck speed. She figured she was safer this way. I mean, she had in fact just managed to survive just such a trip only minutes before. She figured she'd take her chances with gravity over giant animals in a giant forrest any day. Lucky for her this is where the lost boys re-enter our story. Three of them swooped by, and saw our princess on her way down. Thank goodness
they always carry a bit of extra fairy dust for just such an occasion. As soon as the dust hit her Noel knew exactly what to do. Think of a happy thought. Kicking their asses for shooting her leapt to mind and she abruptly stopped falling.
"Sorry about the arrow, eh? You alright?"
Princess Noel grumbled something at them and sped off. They had saved her, so they would be spared an ass-whooping, but they did still shoot her, so manners were not called for either.
She found herself a nice quiet corner of the forrest where there were no giant animals to bother her and landed a moment for a rest. She only intended on sitting for a moment, but exhaustion got the better of her and she drifted off to sleep on a bed of leaves. After the day Noel had been having she knew she couldn't fight off this bout of sleepiness, she just hoped that nothing bothered her while she was out cold.

TO BE CONTINUED...

COMMENTS

way to work real life in there...:D
Meg 06.06.05 - 5:46 pm

Note to our readers:

Every piece of this so far has had at least a few (sometines more) pieces of thinly-veiled real life in them...

some not veiled at all, like this one.
Joey & Noel 06.07.05 - 6:53 am

Part VI

...then Noel wrote...

Being that the dragon had flown very very very high, Princess
Noel had more time to think than she had anticipated. As she rapidly
began to pick up speed, she started to panic and couldn't think of
anything else to do but spread out her arms and pretend that she was
flying. Now, since Noel's clothes had become rather torn and tattered
in the battle with the Wicked Witch of Ohio, the shredded pieces hung
off her and whipped violently around her, making her seem to be just a
speeding ball of color. Some Lost Boys, who happened to be out hunting
Injuns, spotted her and thought her to be a great bird. Thinking that
this large, exotic bird would be an impressive sacrifice to their
fearless leader, Peter Pan, they immediatly pulled out their bows and
slingshots and began to fire at the Princess. Noel was startled out of
her resigned state by an arrow that ripped its way through her
shoulder. Gasping from the shock and pain, she looked around wildly for
what was attacking her and spotted the pack of boys. "I always heard
that those Lost Boys were nothing but trouble. Ugh! If I live through
this, I'm going to kick their asses!" she thought.
But alas, it didn't look as if there was any way that Princess
Noel was going to make it after this extremely long and ghastly fall.
As she neared the ground, she braced herself for the impact, closing
her eye's tightly and holding her bleeding shoulder hard. Fifteen
second's later she realized that she was, in fact, not *splat* on the
ground. Extremely perplexed, Princess Noel looked around her and found
that she was trapped in what appeared to be an enormous spider web.
Thinking that this was almost worse than being *splat* on the ground,
she groaned and layed very still, trying not to make too much movement
that might attract whatever had woven this elaborate web, and also,
resting to regain her strength and think of a plan to get out of this
mess. Trying to ignore the pain in her shoulder, Noel tried to pull her
leg loose from the sticky thread, but it seemed to be useless. Now,
this Princess was not one for giving up unless there was absolutely and
positively no hope whatsoever, but since tumbling out of the dragon's
mouth, she had began to lose her optimism.
It was starting to get dark and she still hadn't thought of any
way to escape the web and she was fighting hard to stay awake, afraid
of what might happen if she were to fall into unconsciousness.
Suddenly, she heard flapping wings and squeaking noises. "Birds? What
the hell are birds doing awake now?" she wondered. Just then, a bat
flew out of the trees and hit her in the head, bouncing off her skull
and landing on her stomach. She stared at the winged furball that sat
on her stomach and it stared back. The two stayed like this for a good
five minutes until the bat worked up enough nerve to say, "Excuse me,
but do you know which way it is to the giant pomagranate tree?"
Princess Noel was surprised that this bat seemed to be talking to her
and she quickly noticed the glowing red eyes of the little beast and
recognized what this was. She had heard of vampires before, but never
imagined that they actually existed. She was amazed at this realization
until she remembered what she had heard about vampires. This sent her
into a sudden internal panic, but seeing as the bat was still staring
at her, looking kind of cute even, she thought it best not to show her
fear. So she tossed her hair defiantly and said, "No, I do not. And
anyway, what is a vampire doing going to a fruit tree?"
"Oh...you can tell, huh?"
"That you're a vampire? Yes. But that still doesn't answer my
question."
"Right. Well, see, I'm sort of a vegetarian."
"A vegetarian vampire?" she asked as she started laughing, only to
be quickly reminded of the pain in shoulder and groan.
"Yeah...so?" but smelling the blood leaking off of her shoulder, the
bat's eyes began to glow and Noel cursed herself for having laughed and
reopened the wound. At this point, the bat disappeared into an
explosion of flame and smoke and Princess Noel found herself underfoot
of a young, and very attractive looking man. She yelped in surprise and
then began to writhe, as soon as she saw his fangs, in an attempt to
throw him off balance so that he fell into the web as well, but it was
no use. He stood there, perfectly alighted on her stomach, and not at
all heavy, she noticed. Just then, his glowing blood red eyes faded and
she heard him struggling to speak until suddenly he shouted in a deep
booming voice, "Oh, shut up! I can hardly think with the two of you
bickering like this!"
The Princess was wondering what the hell he was talking about when
he continued to speak, this time, in a small batty voice, as before
when he was the furry little creature. "Well, we can't eat her. We said
we'd stop all of this bloody insanity and just stick to the pomegranate
substitute. Do you remember what happened last time we bit someone?"
"YES! It was delicious!" said another voice, the one which matched
the young man she had seen, she supposed.
"No, no, no...he's right. We can't eat her," came the booming voice
again.
Then the man/bat/whatever began to convulse until Noel shouted,
"What the hell is going on?!"
"Oh," said the bat voice, "we've been told we're schitzophrenic."
"I see," said the Princess, pondering this. Upon consideration, she
had decided that it was better to get rid of him or them or whatever
and not take any chances, and so began to wiggle again. All of a
sudden, on the opposite side of the web, eight great yellow eyes lit up
and a pair of large white fangs glinted in the moonlight, and the web
began to shake as the eyes and teeth grew closer. The
bat/man/vampire/whatever aka: schitzophrenic mess, and the Princess
both gaped at this massive monster that grew closer and closer with
each passing second.

To be continued...

Part V

...then I wrote...

Now, it seems important to mention that the escape plan here was
two-pronged. One prong of Princess Noel's two-pronged plan of escape
had FINALLY come to pass, so now it seemed she needed to work on the
slightly more important second prong. Prong one, of course, being the
actually freeing herself of the Witch's evil clutches, and prong two
being NOT getting eaten by a dragon. She previously thought that the
second prong was just silly paranoia, and needn't be bothered with,
but a princess in this day and age (especially one who is tied for the
title of fairest) can't be too careful, seeing as how they are a
dragon's favorite food.

So, prong two of Noel's carefully plotted escape now came into effect.
Being the highly trained and nimble ninja that she is, she managed to
cling to that dangly thingy at the back of the dragon's throat, rather
than be swallowed whole. Now, she pulled out the only other object she
managed to secret away from the tower bathroom: a bar of Ivory soap.
She jumped down onto the dragon's massive tongue and began to work up
a god lather. It seems appropriate here to mention that it's a little
known fact that dragon's are violently alergic to Ivory soap, but then
Noel had a knack for knowing little known facts.

Almost immediately the soap began to do the trick. The large pink slab
under Noel's feet began to heave and twitch. She could hear the low
rumblings in the back of the dragon's throat telling her that a sneeze
was imminent. Noel braced herself for what was bound to be a bumpy
ride. Just then something aweful occured to our plucky heroine. In her
plan she had two very good prongs indeed, but she was sadly lacking a
third, and equally important prong. As we aready discussed, prong one
was escaping the Witch, and prong two was to NOT get eaten by a
dragon. Having the soap handy accomplishes that one quite nicely, but
the third prong she was missing was what to do after being spat out in
mid flight over God-knows-where. She almost had time to say to herself
"Gotta think fast" but unfortunately the imminent sneeze became an
actual sneeze, neatly throwing her from the dragon's gullet and
cutting her thought off at "Gotta think--"

TO BE CONTINUED ...

Part IV

...Then a VERY drunk and tired Noel wrote...

The witch carelessly lunged at Princess Noel and dragged her down into
a mud pit. The two of them wrestled and clawed at each other in the
mud. Now Noel, had cleverly thought ahead and created a Plan B in case
something should go a little wonky, as was presently the case. Having
been locked in a tower, high up in the air, she had befriended many
creatures of the sky.

(OOKAY! Sooo, when I started writing this thingy I was bout to go to
this one wedding reception BUT! I had to stop writing to go, obviously,
cuz its rood to write on your laptop at a wedding reception, cuz they
think you're being all antisocial and bleh, just so you know. AAAnyhoo,
now I am back at the hotel room rather drunk and completely exhausted
from dancing all night long and boogying and such...lots of fun was
had...yeah. So, OFF WITH HER HEAD! Or on with the story, whatever floats
your buoy. Just know that I'm not quite of my right mind, though I
guess I never really am so what IS my right mind? Holy shit, I just
keep rambling. Ok, best be rambling about me being a princess and all
and fighting some stupid witch instead of all of this bullshit and I'm
doing it again. Ok. Done. Really.) (MOOO!) ::giggles::

So this Princess Noel chick (::sings:: her name is my name too!) is has
been locke ed up in this high tower and all and makes friends with all
the winged things that happen to pass by on their way to bowling
or…whatever. Thinking that she might need a backup plan in case the
witch figured out she was going to escape, which she probably would,
because this Witchy Wench Woman of Ohio was no dummy, she began to ask
these winged friends for help (she can talk to aminals. Its really
cool.) One of them seemed to recognize her but she had no idea who she
was though she felt a strong pull between their auras. Anyhoo, this
smoldering lady agreed to hang around near the castle just in case
anything should go wrong. YAAAY help! Right, so she also befriends a
very curious and large winged bird (? No, that's not it. Hmmm,
something strange about that guy. ::shrug:: He's going to help me, who
cares?) that agrees to bring some sort of help that will emerge when
the Princess Noel whistles. (You know, like that really loud whistle
where ppl stick their fingers in their mouth and blow really hard and
noise comes out? I can never figure out how to do that...good thing she
knows how.) Hence, plan C was created. Which brings us to where we are
now.

(Pause the story, I'm hungry.)
(OK, I'm feeling a little less out of whack now so the story should
resume somewhat normally... hopefully.)

Princess Noel looks to the sky to see if her winged friend had kept
her promise and had stuck around to make sure Noel's escape plan went
as planned (what?!). To her dismay she found no such savior and
returned to the battle at hand with the Witch. She was about to resort
to plan C and blow the loud whistle thingy for whatever reinforcements
the griffin had promised her would come when a wave of heat struck and
made both competitors look to the sky to see from whence it came. The
Wicked Witch of Ohio's was more than surprised to see a fierce and
fiery bird swooping down from the sky carrying some great force with
her. The Witch could not figure out what this mysterious force was but
thought little of it because of the task at hand. She noticed Princess
Noel off guard and staring at the sky, entranced by this gracefully
burning comet, and took the opportunity to attack. At that moment the
Princess's head flew back and white light shot out of her mouth and
eyes, sending beams into the sky. At the point the Wicked Witch of Ohio
had nearly shit her pants having never seen anything of this nature
occur before in her life, which was saying something for she was 183
(and surprisingly still looked quite good for her age) and had seen
many strange and magical things.
The lights went out and Princess Noel fell to her hands and knees
panting. The Phoenix had vanished and the Witch was feeling a bit more
self assured by the fact that Noel was literally sizzling, steam rising
off of her body, and looked like she had been pretty badly bruised and
scraped up in their cat fight in the mud. At that moment the Wicked
Witch of Ohio thought she should finish the Princess off before
anything else extraordinary had a chance to happen and leapt onto the
Princess' back. She yowled and hissed and drew back as fast as she
could get away. Wondering what the hell had just happened, she went
over and poked Noel, finding the spot where she touched explode into
flame for a few seconds. She jerked her finger away and put it into her
mouth (despite the dirt) to quell the burning and wondered what the
hell she was supposed to do now.
The Wicked Witch of Ohio heard the shouts of her guards coming down
the steps to her rescue. Since she was about finished dealing with this
unusual Princess, she thought she'd let the guards handle it, since
they had metal armor and furs and such to protect themselves with.
Princess Noel had gained a little bit of her strength back by now and
shakily stood up. She saw the mob of guards running toward her and fear
shot through her. She frantically tried to remember what the signal was
for the promised reinforcements (the strange intervention seemed to
have effected her memory), but could not remember. She glanced over at
the Wicked Witch, who, at this point, was looking disgruntled, annoyed,
perplexed, and smug (about the reinforcements and Noel’s lack of
ability to escape the stampeding horde) and Princess Noel stuck out her
tongue at the Witch, turned around and, with her last ounce of
strength, began to run away.
Noel knew that she could not run for much longer and there was no way
she could fight off thirty guards. She was beginning to despair and
lose hope when something clicked inside her head and she remembered the
signal. She did the loud whistle thingy and out of the nearby forest
leapt a Rent-A-Dragon (much like the one in Revenge of the Sith, only
with wings.) It ran directly at Princess Noel, the Wicked Witch of
Ohio, and the mob, and Noel suddenly wondered if this ginormous lizard
was actually coming to rescue her or it was just fucking hungry. She
decided to stake it out, since there wasn't much else she could do,
seeing as she was running out of strength and the only other direction
in which to run had a Witch and a Horde of angry minions waiting for
her. So the dragon ran faster and faster and grew larger and larger,
until it was close enough to hit with an egg, and the dragon's head
lowered to the Princess and the yellow eyes, cracked with purple slits
and one long black line down the center, stared at her, and Noel just
stood there and stared back. And then it snapped her up in it's mouth,
turned tail and flew off.
The witch had no clue what to make of this and so decided to call it a
day and go home.

To be continued...