“Ohhhhhhhh, Coach, they had to amputate this morning. Then my back feels like somebody stuck a sword up my coccyx. I have cancer of the retina and can barely read the eye chart even when it’s highlighted. I have leukocytes running all around my spleen and blood is running all over my ulna and radius. I am puking up six ways to Sunday. I’m getting my rabies shot in an hour. Oh God, Coach, ya gotta help me get delivered from distemper!!!!!!!!!”
“I feel ya, Rodney. But you’re still not getting my Bud Light.”
Surely you remember that Budweiser Light commercial from the ‘80’s when some smarmy bleeding-heart jerk is fishing with his daddy somewhere at Fish & Wildlife USA and this jerk is pouring out a river ululating that he really is enamored with his dad.
“Sorry, Johnny, you’re not getting my Bud Light.”
Unsuccessful, Mr. Jerk leans the other way towards his brother
“Joe-“
“Forget it, Johnny.”
This whole shebang arose when I saw the bottles being dumped in the room and my imagination started running wilder than Luke’s preening of himself. Since when do people cart bottles of Dad’s Root Beer up the elevator and sneak it past the nurse’s desk? Oh, don’t mind us, Nurse Ratched. We know he’s afflicted with malaria but we thought the sugar rush would at least keep him awake.
And it’s not like I haven’t witnessed this first hand. When my nephew played high school baseball his senior year, he violently collided with the center fielder(he played right field) on a tweener fly ball. It was scary and something I don’t ever want to go through again. Riding in the ambulance and watching him babbling incoherently was not a pleasant experience. Thankfully, many prayers and notes of encouragement and a great medical staff got him back on his feet. It was bittersweet because his high school career was over but he would live and live very well. I’m very proud of him for what he accomplished.
So again, I can relate to Rodney. Why Thorpiverse has to turn this into Miller Time is the $64,000 question. Like what are you going to tell the cashier at Milford Beverage Warehouse?
“Wow!!!!!!! Two cases of Michelob, two bags of Cheetos, four bags of Lay’s Sour Cream & Onion, and some Totino’s Supreme Reduced Fat Pizzas!!!!!!!!! Must be some party.”
“Nah, Rodney got blitzed when Luke backed up the wrong way in the parking lot. He’s day-to-day but the EEG tests were hopeful.”
This is absurd. A few weeks ago, Kareem was running the team into the ground because the team was not in tip-top condition. I remember reading about one major league manager who, after a gut-wrenching loss one night, had everybody line up along one of the foul lines. He had everybody run from there to the outfield fence and back. Many players came back hacking and wheezing and puking up dinner that afternoon.
He made his point.
Moreover, Buddy Ryan, when he started coaching the Philadelphia Eagles after his acrimonious split with Mike Ditka, conducted a fitness test to weed out the ones who’d been snarfing one Twinkie too many. This one player who had been released from another club went through Ryan’s grueling, grueling challenge. And he was barfing in every direction on the football turf. This prompted Ryan to say
“I knew I shouldn’t have taken a chance on a loser who got claimed off of waivers. He thinks 8-8 is a Super Bowl season.”
And it’d be like the Mudlarks going through one of Ryan’s Road to Glory Goes Through Hell workouts only to watch the game get won on an errant slam dunk that won the Valley Conference Slam Dunk Contest after Rodney got smacked with a chairback from Jerry Lawler. God, T-verse thinks mediocre plots are Classic Literature. Nathaniel Hawthorne writing Richie Rich. You want anti-climactic, you’ll get plenty of it in Mudlarkland. Oh, thanks, Kareem, we appreciate your heading the President’s Physical Fitness Program. Now run along and let Rodney get run over by a Union Pacific; we’ll win it filing a protest or question the refs on a correctable error, whichever will get us to baseball faster.
In Dr. Pearl’s office one afternoon, her 1905 Close ‘n’ Play churning out Grateful Dead’s “American Beauty”
“Look, I’ll file all your Hospital Visits-Basketball Injury Reports-Boys and Girls Summaries-2015; I don’t have a lot to do anyway.”
“Gil, for the last time, you’re not getting my Bud Light.”
Today’s Headline in the Milford Enquirer
“Coach Thorp Found Regurgitating On Random City Block!!!!!!!!!”
sub headline
“Milford Lounge owner: ‘I knew we shouldn’t have served Jalapeños Black Eyed Peas for appetizers during Happy Hour.’”
And over on the Glenwood Across The Month Of March And April In One Package Deal, Fred & Wilma decide to stay after three weeks of deliberating, even though Mud Mountain Murphy got religion. They will go ahead and use the Time Share Cabin and therefore Gil and Mimi will have to sleep in the laundry next to Heehaw’s cot. Fred & Wilma will not discuss Denying The Consequent in logic, pointing out they’ve wasted enough time wondering if Ravi Shankar is really Red Sovine. They will take a stroll and MAYBE (Wilma’s words) go to the bedroom. Wilma, there’s no McDonald’s Drive-Thru smack dab in the middle of the Bay of Bengal. Working on your free throw percentage on the ship’s asphalt basketball courts can wait. WILL THEY FINALLY COPULATE???? WILL IT TAKE FRED THREE WEEKS TO DISPLAY HIS WARD CLEAVER BOXER SHORTS TO WILMA????? Don’t lose sleep on this one is all I ask.
Whoever did Tobe’s hair also more than likely did the floral arrangement in the background. You can never have too many rose petals in blue hair. It is indeed nice that Rodney received a plethora of get well cards and I wouldn’t be surprised that none of them belong to Luke. That’s too classy. I couldn’t see Dick Dastardly sending a Be Of Good Cheer singing telegram and the FTD florist to Penelope Pitstop when she’s undergoing breast cancer treatments.
“Pheeeewwwwwiieeeeee!!!!!!! Who threw a stink bomb in Rodney’s room?”
“Oh, I forgot to mention, Luke informed me he was FedEx’ing a sympathy message.”
The only thing missing in this Budweiser Moment are the Clydesdales. Don’t put it past T-verse. If they could finagle Radar’s Grape Nehi’s past the Pinkertons, shoot, just use the service elevator and bring a shovel in case any Clydesdale’s got the runs, close the curtain once they sidle into Rodney’s room, voila!!!!!! Talking about the upcoming baseball season, sipping on a Nehi and stroking a Clydesdale on his chest? It don’t get no better than this. Okay, that’s an Old Milwaukee slogan, not a Bud slogan but don’t rain on my parade. Don’t ruin this moment. Let Gil snuggle with Mr. Ed with a Gerst on n his hand and shut up.
Special Edition to the Milford Enquirer
“Valley Tech Prospect Vomits All Over Luke Lunkhead’s Wrestling Outfit!!!!!!!!! Subsequently Cut From Team!!!!!!!!!”
sub headline
“I knew he couldn’t cut it once he climbed the third floor of the bank tower. Everybody over at New Thayer thought scaling a kiddie slide was like conquering Mt. Everest.”
In Gil’s office
“Oh Kaz, please don’t leave us. I never thought I’d say this but I loved you as our assistant. So did our kids. Don’t take that job at Milford Boys Club as the maintenance technician, our plots will come to a screeching halt.”
“Forget it, Gil, you’re not getting my Bud Light.”
I am not getting a good feeling when Gil in P2 is ripping the bottle cap right off the Bud bottle. I can well imagine the ensuing conversation
“Rodney (hiccup) , I just want to let you know (burrrrrppppp) that we were thinking (belllccchhhhhhhh) of you and anything (hiccup) we can do to make it better (retch) , let us know. You want us to order (snorrrrtttttttt) your hospital food now? Do you want one or two pieces of (hiccup) fried zucchini?”
I mean, I’m sorry. When Fred is about to shake that thang in front of Wilma and cause a minor tremor on the cruise ship, do you think Fred is going to slurp a Grape Nehi FIRST?????I’ve heard of mating rituals but they usually left Radar O’Reilly out of the closet. Why we have to have Gil with a Lowenbrau while Rodney is under sedation after surgery to remove his tonsils is beyond my sanity. Oh, and marigolds Gil dug up out of Mimi’s garden that were overrun with millworms anyway.
On Glenwood Cruise Across The Universe tourlines
“Got to scrap that doggie doody off your shoes, Wilma.”
“Oh Fred, you say the dirtiest things. What else from ‘Exile on Main Street’ can you quote?”
Late Edition to the Milford Enquirer
“Final Cuts Will Be Announced Today By Coach Ochoa At Baseball Tryouts!!!!!!!!!”
sub headline
“Those that can eat a Mud Mountain Murphy Cheesecake and run a 6-minute mile without choking it up will be our A Team.”
P2 also reminds me of a movie with Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda called “Yours, Mine, and Ours”. Both played widowed parents with large families, Fonda playing Frank Beardsley, with ten kids and Ball, playing Helen North, with eight kids. It’s a semi-regimented bunch, given Frank’s job as an officer in the U.S. Navy and Helen working as a civilian on Frank’s naval base.
As they’re getting to know each other, one night Frank invites Helen over for dinner, to the minor resentment of the kids (eighteen of them, remember) . The older Beardsley boys play a prank on Helen by spiking her iced tea with gin, vodka, and scotch. Helen is so stone drunk by the time dinner commences that when the family says Grace, Helen is uncontrollably hiccuping as the words are reverently spoken. The coup de grace was when Helen, attempting unsuccessfully to scoop mashed potatoes out of a bowl because she’s too inebriated to lift a toothpick, finally musters a glop but when she then tries to place them on one of the children’s plate, the glop plops down in that child’s lap. Frank is not surprisingly upset. Speaking as a naval officer, he bellows out to the culprits “The court of inquiry is now in session!” The boys finally admit their guilt and apologize.
I’d laugh if Gil got so buzzed off of Hoodad’s, he plops the hospital mashed potatoes into the roses.
“Here, have some peach cobbler, Rodney, whoopsy daisy. Nurse, can we get a dish rag and a mop?”
“It’s okay, Coach. I have to change my gown in a few minutes anyway. And don’t worry about the roses. They clip them every hour and the meat loaf scraps should all be gone by then.”
“Honey Love Dove Baby Buggy Bumpers Sweetie Tweetie, Lily Lollipop Candy Andy Raggedy Ann Doll of Fortune With a Plump Cherry on a Chocolate Dream Pie in Never Never Land with Peter Pan’s Prized Possession-“
“Mr. Dr. Pearl, you can not have the last Bud Light. I’m saving it for my tea party tomorrow.”
“Fred, are you sure that Ravi Shankar isn’t in this room?”
“Wilma, would I boldly go where no man has gone before and expose the sexy hair follicles on my chest? When foreplay is at its acme when I put on a Harold Stassen toupee?”
Yeah, let’s drink to the christening of the Titanic over some bottles of Hoodad’s. Makes perfect sense to me. When Lou Gehrig gave his Luckiest Man Alive speech, somebody slipped a Hoodad’s in his back pocket in case his speech caused parched vocal cords. Washington crossed the Delaware after his troops had breakfast comprised of eggs, grits, bacon, and Hoodad’s. Breakfast of Champions. Rodney will set the world on fire and break Aaron Judge’s home run record one day and it was all because the Resident Nurse allowed to drink a Hoodad’s when he was ingesting Carvedilol. I just hope I’m alive when he is making history. I wouldn’t want to be left out of the Hoodad’s Hoopla.
In other news…
On the Glenwood Cruise Across Ravi Shankar’s Estate Behind The Taj Mahal And The Agra 7-11
“Fred, that moonlight is so romantic. I am in estrus. Shall we go to more intimate quarters?”
“Uhhhhhhh, Wilma, I hear The Police are doing the midnight show. They’re playing all of ‘Zenyatta Mondatta’.
“Can’t that wait? They’re doing an afternoon show tomorrow with Chet Atkins. We’ll have time to enjoy our musical pursuits even if Mud Mountain Murphy took sabbatical at an ashram in Bangladesh.”
“Gee, look at Ted Turner!!!!! Is he still competing as a yachtsman? Somebody throw him a life raft if he collides with this ship. I wouldn’t want another Titanic incident. Hey, Ted, you still have sex with Jane????”
“Speaking of which, Fred-“
“And look!!!!!! The captain told me that the sharks and porpoises come out at 11:00!!!!!! They stage a simulated battle to the delight of the kiddies. It’s like Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, only in the ocean. I think the sharks are the cowboys and the porpoises are the Indians. Moby Dick is Buffalo Bill himself.”
“Speaking of Moby Dick, is yours sufficiently pumped for our honey-“
“Why don’t we get a bite to eat first? All that waiting for three weeks to see if Mud was going to play like Wet Willie or Lawrence Welk really worked up an appetite. I heard there’s a Burger King on the third deck. The Wild-Caught Speckled Tuna Fish Whopper is to die for.”
“Your motives smell like tuna fish, I’ll concede that. Now why don’t we go hand-in-hand and go to Never Never Land and find treasure when we get there.”
“Wilma, I like Todd Rundgren too but I can’t rise to the occasion until we first play a game of Air Hockey in the Recreation Hall. I’ll be ramming it into your net and loving every minute of it.”
“You can still do that without the hockey stick.”
“But I’m scoring points!!!!!! And the trophy is going to look swell next to the possum head trophy on the wall in my den.”
“Fred, are you ashamed to admit that the possum head is BIGGER than your prized possession?”
“Are you talking about my dad’s art?”
“Not really.”
Later
“I’m afraid Wilma scored some points herself. And when my prized possession rivaled Coach Thorp’s, we went as a team down to Milford Men’s Clinic. They gave us the EREC-3405 Comfortably Numb and Hard injections and Gil got immediate results. Let’s just say Cami will be running baseball practice for a while because Gil is having too much fun. And I grab Wilma even during the cruiseline’s Ice Cream Break. We make our own hot fudge sundae and brownies never tasted better. I throw the cherry they stick on top out the porthole in the ocean but Wilma doesn’t mind. We still have the icing on the cake and that’s with the Milford Men’s Clinic Discount Card I use all the time. Come get your own Betty Crocker and lay down with her after you’ve eaten her carrot cake only at Milford Men’s Clinic.”
Gang, Fred was not with Aerosmith at one time. Did you ever see his picture on “Get Your Wings” or “Toys in the Attic” or Night in the Ruts”? Rest my case.
“Oh, Wilma, we shall spend forever wrapped in each other’s embrace and I shall cherish the luscious mess of your lips in a moment of El Dorado with your sensuous body an elixir for my sexual ardor and ever able to more than satisfy my libido until the Twelfth of Never.”
“Fred, you better do better than that if you really want my Bud Light.”
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This Week in Milford 
Everybody Wants Out
The basketball arc has gotten so random that the characters have started to have enough. Cami Ochoa didn’t sign on for this when she was promoted from super soph to coach, so she’s calling an Uber to get her the hell out of here. Even Rod has had enough and is faking his own death after the block (or was it a charge? Come on, ref, do your job!).
Credit where credit is due as Barajas pulls this twist out of an actual sporting event. Didn’t expect it to be last season’s Bengals-Bills MNF game* with Rod in the Damar Hamlin role, though.
Whatever the opposite of credit where credit is due for having Tobe attempt to come to Rod’s rescue. He’s already been Mary Sued** into a multi-sport star; now he knows CPR? One PE class lesson doesn’t make you an expert. Gil – or, more likely, Trainer Rick Scott*** – would have pulled Tobe off Rod like a tick.
The EMT (Gil, in a Marine flashback, calls him a medic) can tell Rod’s faking it and is taking his sweet time getting to the kid.
Tomorrow, a meteor hurtles toward the Jefferson gym.
*And no, I’m not linking to it. We’ve seen it enough.
**Mary Sued, that is, if Barajas had been an athlete.
***Anyone seen Trainer Rick Scott lately? Another victim of budget cuts?