Breakfast in Milford

Random thoughts today:

It appears Rubin is doubling down on making one of the plot lines this spring “What is The Mayor eating for breakfast, and what kind of container is he eating it from?” How he plans to make this relevant is beyond me this morning. Are Knappe’s chronic lateness and need to talk to everybody in the halls symptoms of ADHD? If so, did B/Robby Howry leave some Adderalls stashed in the Mudlarks’ equipment room that could help?

What’s going on with the Milford baseball jerseys? Baseball uniform numbers aren’t usually centered below the team name. Maybe these are leftovers from Milford’s aborted lacrosse program. And what’s with dude whose number ends in “2” behind gesturing speaker guy’s uni? Is he wearing his jersey tucked into a skirt like in A League of their Own or into shorts like the ’76 White Sox?

Finally, poor Hiawatha James, the Pete DeWindt of his class. ‘Watha looks like he wants to be anywhere but in the Milford locker room. Maybe it’s the prospect of catching only one pitcher all season (Gil didn’t mention any others besides Godleski). Maybe it’s the hairdo he’s been saddled with. Maybe he cares as much about The Mayor’s breakfast choices as the rest of us do.

“Tune Into The Next Bullwinkle Episode For ‘She Came In Through The Bathroom Window’ Or ‘Optimism Sprouts Like Turnips’.”

I don’t know y’all, but I get this sneaking suspicion that Marjie Ducey is getting the Marty Moon treatment. Now over a number of years, when Moon Pie would interrogate with a shovel in his hands, Gil would respond with a snow shovel of his own. As Gil once said, based upon a true story “It’s a game. He asks me stupid questions. I give him stupid answers.”

But whaddup with Marjie, Gil? Coach, you better tread lightly. It wasn’t too long ago that she broke out of her Coach Shaw mold and actually CONTRIBUTED to the story. Remember that expose she did on Chet Ballard? That story saved your bacon. Another one in a long line of people wanting your head, all standing around in a circle like those old martial arts movies where you’re taking on one at a time utilizing your martial arts moves when if that circle all collapsed on you, you’d be roadkill in a B.C. comic, next to that anthill (“Pop, what’s that skull doing out there?” “I dunno, but Grog will eat it later on.”) .

And Milford High School tore down the old Room 222 structure and evidently borrowed ideas from the Mormon Tabernacle to construct a Neo-Modernistic marvel of the Valley Conference. Marjie and Gil couldn’t be seen walking out of Little Rock High. That was a historical site, not a high school. And coming out of Hickory High was gauche as well. Yeah, I guess it’d look kind of tacky if Marjie went Moon on us while Gil is eviscerating her in return with that “Hickory-State Champ 1954” water tower in the background.

Hey, I can see the concept. Gil acting like a piss ant to Marjie’s honest questions with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir blasting “Onward Christian Soldiers” somewhere on the Milford High School grounds. They may be singing from the chipped beef compartment in the cafeteria line at the high school but as long as it creates proper effect, who’s counting? When you draw majestic structures that are plotted smack dab in the middle of podunktown next to Pop’s Choklit Shoppe, there’s a little wiggle room involved.

 

Gang, I swear, while watching the 1960 World Series on Youtube, the score, 9-9, between the Pirates and the Yankees, bottom of the 9th inning with Bill Mazeroski at the plate with a 1-0 count, I heard somebody softly cheer from the stands “Just get on, Bill”.

I think everybody knows what happened next.

 

Today’s headline in the Milford Enquirer

“O.J. Scores 99-Yard TD Run To Win The Milford Parks & Recreation Adult Flag Football League Championship!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

sub headline

“I heard somebody from the stands call me ‘Rhino Legs’ and that motivated me.”

 

If you’re getting your eyes adjusted after Gil and Marjie walked out of Gil’s office after Gil downed another shot of Jack out of his Gil mug (or does he use the Gil mug for a chaser?) and they are in the process of leaving the Milford World Trade Center, you can focus on the conversation at hand.

And the Name Parade continues. We are already familar with Tom Muench as we know he can drive cars on consignment and I think he contributed to the basketball cause. Maybe he didn’t score the game-winning dunk but his name sounded sexy to anybody from Deutschland reading Gil while Chris was learning how to be unselfish. Hey, anything to help the story along. Throw Ivan Putski and Baron Von Raschke in there while Hiawatha contributes 27 points, 19 boards and nobody’s going to notice. The caption is just going to focus on the hero, not the names drawn from the ping pong ball chute. Unless you watch pro wrestling, the appelations will go right over your head.

In the Milford Scenic Sights Trailer Park in plot #67

“Chris Schuring fed Jerry Lawler the winning lay-up? I didn’t know The King played basketball.”

 

So my next question is WHO THE HELL IS ELDRICK BOSTON??????? Okay, we know he’s big and plays 1st base, according to Gilspeak. Oh, THAT’S a lot to go on. For all we know, he’s on a work-release program from Milford Minimum Security Facility playing high school baseball to relieve the tension. He lives in the same trailer park as mentioned above on plot #108, 2 months behind on the rent. He did pay the gas and electric this week after mowing Coach Kaz’s lawn. He is not on welfare because he believes if you don’t work, you don’t eat. And don’t feed him after midnight. You saw what happened to the Gremlins.

“Eldrick, what happened to you?”

“Coach, I don’t know. I went in The Bucket 24-Hour Drive-Thru and ordered Bucket Full o’ Spaghetti. The parmesan cheese did taste funny, it was really chewy.”

 

If ya build a Tower of Babel next ta yore trailer park after savin’ up from the money left over from the rent and utilities ya paid and ya sleep the first night on the floor in the so-called Tower until they build a bunk bed in the den, ya might be a redneck.

 

She came in through the prairie window

Armored with her pen and pad

And how she sucks up and she flounders

By Gil’s desk, interview is sad

 

Didn’t anybody tell her?

She had time to kill

Sunday’s on the phone to Marty

Tuesday’s on the phone to Gil

 

Boy, I just love Macy’s Annual Spring Time Parade. Is that a float of Marty Moon?  God, that goatee looks nasty when it’s flying along in the Goodyear Blimp. And the Mudlark Mean Machine Marching Band is playing “Abbey Road”. Is that “Octopus’ Garden” or “Here Comes The Sun”? It’s “She Came in through the Bathroom Window”? I never would have guessed the way they’re doing the funky chicken and the “Disco Inferno”-oh, crap, we’re parading NAMES. Silly me.

Well, we HOPE Chet Ballard has learned his lesson and sits in the bleachers and lets Charlie play ball. No more getting on your computer and seeing if Eldrick Boston did his General Math homework and stayed academically eligible. Yes, Chet, Eldrick turned in his homework on improper fractions. No more raiding the Milford School Corporation Building Annex to check the files to see if the home plate umpire is an illegal alien. Naturally, knowing Thorpiverse, if T-verse ran out of toilet paper and/or plot ideas, I would to see what happened if he attempted to recycle either. I’M NOT going to separate the bodies and get germs on my hands. Mama didn’t raise a fool.

Then there’s Freddy Maloof. I don’t THINK he’s related to Eldrick Boston since we have no clue who either one is. We know they will form the right side of the infield and beyond that, it’s gonna be anyone’s guess. Par for the course when the plot is doing its usual stabbing in the dark.

Maybe Maloof is Boston in Arabic. They were separated at birth and wound up on Gil’s playground. I’ll have Chet look into that. Well, come to think of it, that might not be a great idea, even with the best intentions. We can eventually get to the heart of the matter and finding out they are twins without Chet engaging in The Great Train Robbery to obtain the info. Really, if Thorpiverse has Chet and Jesse James and his gang hijack an Amtrak to confirm the issue, I think we better instill the golf plot 2 months earlier. There’s stupid, then there’s Fred using a condom with Wilma because they both want to stop at Pebbles.

 

“Just get on, Gil”

“Shoot, he’s going to shoot it out of the handicapped lot if he wants to get on the green.”

 

She said she’d always been a reporter

She typed 15 words a day

And though she knew Gil was out of order

Well, she knew what she could not say

 

And so I quit this plot already

And got myself a steady job

She tried her best to keep things lively

But it sunk down to Spongebob

 

Didn’t anybody stop her

This was just a gap to fill

Sunday’s on the phone to Marty

Tuesday’s on the phone to Gil

Oh yeah

 

And I am no horticulturist by any stretch of the imagination but I do a lot of hiking, having  hiked part of The Appalachian Trail, The Long Trail, The Santa Fe Trail, Knobstone Trail (longest hiking trail in Indiana) , The River to River Trail in Illinois and I have yet to locate one tree growing on top of another tree like the one in P2. I guess if you brought your wheelbarrow, mulch, humus, peat moss, a couple of shovels, one of them a spade shovel, a trowel or two, some seeds and if you borrowed somebody’s elevator, you could perhaps grow an apple tree or a redwood on top of an elm tree or hackberry tree. I’ll let you explore the possibilities.

 

P3-“The trunk on that turnip tree growing from that row of generic trees behind me grew THIS wide.”

 

Gang, Gil is being a smartass, plain and simple. And again, even if Marjie rips her slacks climbing through Gil’s water closet window for a close-up on the team before she goes back into hibernation, Gil, she spared you a crucifixion. Chet easily could have been Judas Iscariot. He hung himself on his own computer, thanks to Marjie. He didn’t need a tree, either one standing by itself or piggy-backed on a sugar maple.

 

 

“And that wraps up the roll call on the Mudlark Baseball team. Thank God we had reams of teletype. We’ll be back for Gil’s final thoughts on the team after these messages. This is Marty Moon and you’re listening to WDIG, a division of Learfield Sports.”

 

“Did someone run over your Doberman? Was your pet goldfish accidentally flushed down the toilet? Was Morris the Cat involved in a hit-and-run?

These and other nagging questions occur to us when we least expect it and when we are hit with a whopping funeral bill that takes a chunk out of the grocery budget, it leads to disaster. Skipping the Welch’s Grape Juice aisle for a month is no fun.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Hello, this is Dr. Pearl for Milford Funeral Solutions. The grand people here have engineered affordable pet insurance solutions so you can have peace of mind while they’re lowering the casket 6 feet under.

For only $60 dollars a year, you can cover the cost of the burial box, burial plot, and a funeral service performed by the Salvation Army Band, they’ll even throw in the Wurlitzer. Isn’t it nice when Fido is lying in state that “When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder” is softly and tenderly performed by said musicians and they’re not on commission and the preacher is reading from an article written by Doctor Norman Vincent Peale in Guideposts about the Sanctity of the Spirit that your wallet won’t take a hit from lack of insurance.

Perhaps you would like to up the ante. Sometimes we have to go for broke like my husband as a colonel under General Burnside did at Antietem. He saved a lot of Union soldiers that way. And for $88 dollars a year, you can splurge and bring in a Christian Contemporary band from Milford Interdenominational Outreach. Selections from Andre Crouch’s sets include “Power in the Blood of the Lamb” and “I Just Want to Take a Little Time Right Now and Thank The Lord”. Perfect when you’re sniveling over your pet turtle that lived to be 245 years old. I was starting to wear braces then. And for an extra $10, they’ll throw in Menard’s Premium Crabgrass Preventer. There is really no logic in letting bad seed grow over your pet’s remains.

Do you want the premium? Yes, for $145 a year, Milford Funeral Solutions will call the preacher that runs the Milford Nightly Tent Meetings to perform the service while your Siamese cat is entering the Elysian Fields. And with two dozen white roses adorning the casket, you are most assuredly celebrating the life of your kitty. Milford Funeral Solutions is able to cut costs because they received them from “The Bachelor”, which was set to throw the roses in the dumpster after the show ordered too many. Fortune meeting Opportunity while marching to Zion.

Your pet deserves the best. With excellent insurance premiums that are less than renter’s insurance at Milford Condominium Golden Estates, you can set your mind at ease watching Rover or Rivets requiescat in pacem while the Doxology is being played. Come talk to the friendly staff at Milford Funeral Solutions and let your pet get a viewing and a funeral at an affordable cost so that you’re standing only when the Salvation Army Band is playing ‘Handel’s Messiah’.”

 

Thanks, Gang, for all your support, it means a lot-wait a minute, I hear somebody climbing through my window. Be right back.

 

“Just get on, Kaz.”

“My goodness, I’ve already climbed one tree. I gotta climb that dead bag of branches TOO?”

 

SHE CAME IN THROUGH THE BATHROOM WINDOW

Gil temporarily suspending “Abbey Road” on his Close ‘n’ Play

“Mimi, you could have used the front door. It was unlocked.”

 

 

 

I’ve Seen Prairie Style Windows From Both Sides Now

Forecast of snow? A lot of speed? Did I just walk in on a drug deal here? Of course not. There’s no room for that kind of excitement here. What do you think this is, Mary Worth? No, it’s time for Gil to go down the roster with Marjie in a little segment we like to call Gil Goes Down The Roster With Marjie Ducey.

We just met the pitcher, Mark Godleski, who carpools with one of the outfielders, Mark Knappe (aka The Mayor), a wiseass who chugs milk and cereal from a sports bottle. This makes him interesting.

The remaining two outfielders are well known to us here at TWIM. We have Chance Macy who was stealing carries from Charlie Roh last fall, much to the chagrin of Chet Ballard. Then we have Tiki Jansen, who Chet Ballard was trying to get kicked out of Milford High for not meeting residency requirements in the summer. Wow, we had a lot of Chet Ballard face planting last year.

Always last, of course, is catcher Hiawatha James. Hiawatha James never gets a story line. We’ve seen him scoring points on the field and taking part in some locker room banter, but so far we haven’t seen him run afoul of Chet Ballard or do any of the other two or three things that bring you into the foreground of Gil Thorp “action”.

Short Seasons Mean Less Coaching

“Winter is over.

We’re playing outside. Any-

thing is possible.”

 

Oh the irony

Of Gil’s haiku when we all

Must shelter in place

 

Meanwhile in Milford

Marjie Ducey waves her pen

Ready for roll call

 

But first a softball

Question for the Gilmeister:

Best opening day?

 

Football means the most

To Gil; it gives him more time

To play Mary Worth

 

Then a reminder:

Sometimes it snows in April

Yeah, we miss Prince too

 

What’s in the Bottle? Probably a Plot Device

Ah the heady days of a new season, when anything is possible. In the Thorpiverse, the anticipation of a coherent, realistic plot that manages to deftly incorporate sports as an integral element is always tinged with the lingering dread that Rubin will almost invariably send that plot into a death spiral away from reality in the most convoluted way possible while somehow sticking to the same tired half-dozen or so tropes about teens and adults.

But let’s not kill that buzz too soon, shall we?

Speaking of buzz, whaddaya think’s in The Mayor’s sport bottle?

a. Yogurt and OJ, chia seeds, and a raw egg

2. Vodka and OJ, to bribe Gil into giving him a starting spot on the baseball team

iii. Hand sanitizer (look how far ahead of the curve Rubin’s thinking!)

(d) Straight Everclear, to kill birds 2. and iii. with one stone

 

Talk amongst yourselves.

Siriously?

Four months’ setup for this. One of the lamest intros since “Oprah, Uma. Uma, Oprah.” Alexa is left with a deer-in-the-headlights look the likes of which we haven’t seen since Boo Radley had an unfortunate run-in with Del Bader and a pickup truck.

Although some sources say it’s legit, I have never heard anyone named Serena given the nickname “Siri.” In all the years I’ve followed tennis I’ve never heard it used on the greatest female player in recent times. I never heard called Samantha Stevens’ evil cousin called “Siri.” I never heard Sifl and Olly’s fantasy girl referred to as “Siri” either, but supposedly it’s of Scandinavian origin and that’s her mother’s given name. Okay, fine.

There are still a couple months left in most school years. Many of them will be completed via distance learning, which starts on Monday where I live. Another plot should be starting on Monday in the Thorpiverse as well. Newspaper syndicate lead times being what they are, it will probably not involve distance learning. Some elements of this plot may continue over into the spring. Chris and Alexa may still duke it out for valedictorian.  We may find out Siri’s parents are named Cortana and Mercedes.

Siri and Alexa have nice boots on. Maybe they’ll go ride horses together at the afterparty.

Chris gives this plot the finger. So do I.

In Which Chris Schuring Indicates How Much We Still Care About This Plot

That, or he’s just finished watching a Get Smart marathon.

I’ll admit I’m not much of a TV watcher anymore. Outside of baseball season, it’s mostly nature shows on BBC America or an oldie on Turner Classic Movies for me.  So I’ve gotta hand it to astute TWIMer franku2016 who noted in yesterday’s comments:

This entire plot was on a Modern Family episode a few years ago with a GPA tie between Alex and her academic rival Sanje, and yes, they started dating, much to the dismay of Sanje’s old-world parents.

Despite being on the air for over a decade, Modern Family has flown completely under my radar, so I had to look it up. For those of you who were as clueless about it as me, this show features Ed O’Neill (better known to some of us as would-be patriarch Al Bundy in the 1990s sitcom Married with Children) as would-be patriarch Jay Pritchett. Part of Pritchett’s extended family includes son-in-law Phil Dunphy. A real estate agent, Phil often finds himself losing business to his arch-rival… Gil Thorpe.

Gentle readers, this cannot be mere coincidence, can it? All I know is I’m gonna start checking Modern Family plot summaries for comparison from now on.

+++

Now that that another installment of “teenchy Is Old and Out of Touch” is out of the way, let’s focus on what’s happening here. It looks like basketball season will be coming to a blessed end this weekend. Chris seems to think the school year will be, too, or at least the spring will do nothing to change the current academic rankings. Alexa’s dislike for him still holds true regardless of the sensitivity of his sarcasm detector. Chris’ altruism comes off to her as condescension if not something even less benign. I don’t think these two are becoming a couple anytime soon, but if this part of the plot continues into the next arc (think True/Boo from a few years back) it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

 

 

 

 

The Bad Touch

What is it about Alexa Watson that makes Milford High female faculty and staff want to touch her? First it was Mimi smacking her backside in practice; now it’s brown haired guidance counselor type lady making goo goo eyes while reaching in to caress the back of Alexa’s (much larger) hand. Is this her way of helping Alexa land her coveted valedictory prize? Not sure what’s odder: that Alexa appears to lack nail beds, or that Rubin finds all this touching of students appropriate in this day and age. (That’d be true even given these strips were submitted to the syndicate well in advance. Too soon for jokes on our current situation, and the toilet paper memes ceased being funny after about the 450th one.)

On to our usual underwhelming little Saturday cliffhanger. This is gonna end up like that old Warner Brothers cartoon The Dover Boys at Pimento University where the goofy running gag background character ends up with the girl, isn’t it? Phoebe will be your valedictorian without ever having to go upside anyone’s noggin.