We’ve been blessed with the presence of our grandsons this week; and as is customary, they got to choose the “Happy Friday!!!” topic for tonight.
During an elegant dinner of frozen pizza (DiGiorno’s, of course) I posed the question, “what should I write about tonight?” Responses were pretty much instantaneous. “Fribble knockers from Neptune and their odyssey to France!” Ollie declared. Then Gabe chimed in with, “random fruit!!” After Ollie whispered something into Gabe’s ear, Gabe exclaimed, “and wild businessmen!!” Pretty sure my face looked a bit puzzled as I acknowledged both with, “OK…”
So here goes…
Random Fruit, Wild Businessmen, Fribble Knockers, And Their Odyssey To France
by Ken Hansen (I think)
In the before times, businessmen ran wild in the jungles of Yooglania. They led a rather ordinary life, bonking out messages between 9 AM and 5 PM on hollow logs with their ceremonial message bonkers. Since there were no electronic communications in those days, all business had to be conducted either by long distance bonking or cave to cave visiting. In those days, there were known to be two types of businessmen: Tame Ones and Wild Ones. The Tame Ones were kind of boring really. They just walked around trying to sell stone tools and animal skins to people who already had all that stuff. They didn’t make much money but they were OK with just lying around and eating ants and beetles. It’s possible they watched a little too much TV, because they really loved to watch reruns of The Flintsones.
The Wild Ones were much more fun to watch. They would send out the message bonkings, then run to the nearest cave with a big bag of stuff to sell. When the homeowner would come to the opening of the cave, the Wild Ones would just start saying really weird things like:
“Hey!! Your toes are dirty!! Wouldn’t you like to buy a banana??” Or…
“Oh No!! That spider doesn’t know its name!! I bet you need to purchase some cherries!!” And…
“Holy Moly!! My cat can yodel!! Wanna by some grapes??”
These strange offerings of random fruit would often get the cave owner so confused, they would buy mangoes and kiwi fruits… just because!!
Ancient Yooglania was a small part of what is now called France. In those days, both The Tame Ones and The Wild Ones would have a business convention every year. This took place in a town they called “Cool Tower River Town;” which has since been renamed Paris. It was a rather unusual event, because The Wild Ones would have random fruit tossing parties while The Tame Ones just sat around and watched The Flintstones on TV.
During the year that Bliffy the Great T. Rex was in town, everything was very festive until something very unexpected happened. The sky became dark (because the sun went down), and out of the night sky came strange yellow orbs with really fancy flashing lights. As they drew near, it was obvious to everyone that these were some sort of space ships; so when one landed in the middle of Cool Tower River Town people gasped in fear and hid in the bushes.
As the door of the big yellow orb opened, a stairway was lowered to the ground. The businessmen could see the form of a strange being walking down the stairway. As its feet touched the earth, the being was surrounded with a foggy green haze that spread over the land and smelled like burnt pancakes. Very soon after the green haze floated away, the being spoke:
“Hello People Of What Will Soon Be France! Please excuse the green haze, I farted!!” The businessmen giggled and covered their mouths to hide the laughter. “We are Fribble Knockers from the planet Neptune. We have come in search of Fribbles so we may knock on them. Please direct us to your nearest Fribble Forest!!”
The Tame Ones were scared out of their minds, so they just pretended not to be afraid. They sat motionless in front of their TVs while yet another Flintstones rerun was on their screens. The Wild Ones looked at the Neptunian Fribble Knocker and then huddled to discuss how to respond. Then Chorp stepped away from the group and up to the Fribble Knocker. He seemed to know exactly what to say:
“Hey!! Your green fart fumes have really annoyed the T. Rex!! Wanna buy some apricots?? We have no idea what Fribbles are!! Wouldn’t you love to purchase some lingonberries?? Maybe you should try your luck on Mars… they might have some Fribbles you can knock. Here, try a free sample of grapefruit!! You’ll really need to buy some pineapples!!”
The Fribble Knocker looked rather confused. Not only was it annoyed that there were no Fribbles, but it was entirely confused at all these random fruit sales ideas. “No thank you, I guess we’ll be going. Please have a nice… um… whatever it is you’re having.” And with that, the Fribble Knocker got back into the yellow orb. It soon made what sounded like a thunderous sneeze, and with a great “AH-CHOO!!” it launched back into the sky and flew out of sight.
And that, my friends, is why you should never eat salami and pudding at the same time during a snow storm.
The End
(I think…)