the Chronicles of Bobo

Everything was fine until the man in the lime-green mask suddenly jumped up on the bank president's table.

"GIVE ME ALL YOUR TEDDY BEARS OR I BLOW THIS PLACE SKY-HIGH!!!" he screamed, holding aloft a hotdog with a string in it.

The rest of us customers and the tellers sort of blinked at each other, wondering whose job it would be to tell him that only a vegan would be alarmed at the sight of meat by-products.

"Sir," the bank president coolly replied, "the Last National Bank's teddy bear holdings are normally found in the vault, in the bank itself. This is a television show."

A blink. "Television show?"

"Yes. This is the set of a sitcom about the Madcap Antics of an Emotionally Interesting Teller and the Zany Screws-Loose with which she works, called 'One of the least vomit-inducing new shows of the 2001 season' (Post Herald Tribune Daily NewsTimes)."

The man with the hot dog pondered this a moment. "What network is it on?"

The actor who played the bank president started to sweat.

"Come on, tell me," the intruder said, "OR THE GIRL GETS IT!" gesturing at one of the actor/bankers, a man of about thirty-five.

The 'president' broke down sobbing. "....UPN...."

A scream rang out as the actor was beaten mercilessly with the meat.

Just then, there was a massive crash.

Everyone glanced aside for a moment, wondering what happened, in dead silence... completely silent except for the sound of the feet of a purple opossum clicking across the table. The opossum grabbed the hot dog, and ran for a small hole in the wall...

Just then, there was a great FWACKOOM! as a Patton tank smashed through the wall.

"Damn you!", shouted the director. "I said STUDIO B, not Studio C!!!"

A voice echoed from inside the tank. "Sorry! Oooh, what's this blinky button here?"

About half a dozen random extras were ZERT!ed into oblivion by a plasma cannon mounted under the front bumper. Bubbles emerged from a ventilation opening on the tank as it backed out of the hole in the wall it had created....

"Well, I guess I'll be going now," the would-be teddy bear thief said. Looking around at the scowling faces of the other actors, murder written in their glares, the show would probably be canceled after all that had happened.

As he nonchalantly headed for the exit a spectacled nerdy looking brunette with a pony tail ran towards him yelling "sir, sir, please sign these release forms before you go!"

"Ah, what if I don't sign them?" he said standoffishly.

The girls eyes seem to gleam, an evil grin crossed her face, and the glint of metal in her mouth sent chills down his spine. She peered over her glasses at him an said, "well, then the "studio execs" will be forced to ..."

"...get out THE COMFY CHAIR!" someone behind us shouted.

We all turned around, the fellow in the green mask included, to behold a man dressed in red robes. In one hand he held a dish-drying rack, in the other, a soft-looking pillow. Beside him stood the aforementioned chair.

"What, is this some kind of joke?" someone in the crowd asked in an annoyed tone.

"No!" cried the robed man, "This is -- THE SPANISH INQUISITION!!!"

A pantomime horse then rushed out from nowhere and began to beat him with a trout.

And a lovely trout it was. A moist, silver surface, lightly reflecting the unmanned spotlights. From what was once its eyes excreted unkown internals and a stench to bring tears to small children.

Though the smell was faint, it was enough to grab the attention of the kung fu eskimo and his polar bear on the set of Alaska the Legend Continues.

The Spanish Inquisition on one side and the polar bear and eskimo were advancing on the other. The director was leading a small army of bank clerks to try and plug up the whole in the wall that the tank made. And the purple armidillo ran away with his hot dog. But that wasn't even the worst part about the day. The worst part was he hadn't even found his teddy bear yet! It was all too much.

"Look! Over there!", the masked man yelled. In the split second that everyone looked, the man fled. He jumped through what was left of the hole in the wall. He looked around and he was, indeed, in a television studio. There were props, equipment, and actors everywhere. He decided he'd have to check each studio for his teddy bear before it was safe to leave.

The other actors looked around. "Where did he go?" they asked as they fruitlessly searched beneath the piles of stuffed animals that looked surprisingly like fuzzy, bipedal combinations of cats and dogs.

I was the only one who knew where our thief had went, so I wasn't searching. That was my mistake. They singled me out. "Him! He allowed the man to escape! RAAAAAAAHHH!!" They surrounded me, wielding improperly shaped Beanie Babies.

Surrounded and left with no options of escape or survival, what was I to do? Suddenly, my right pinky finger started glowing! I held it over my head, shouting out the name of the Purple beast that severed my body the day before!

A large duck crashed through the ceiling. He landed rather painfully 3 feet in front of me.

"Yeah, what do you want?"

His head popped off to reveal that he was actually.... CAPTAIN SAMMICH! IN A COSTUME!

"Oops. Uh...I usually double-knot the laces."

"The duck" let out a sigh.

"Okay fine, now that you've insulted me by your poorly tied laces", he glances bitterly at my worn out L.A. Lights, "would you kindly tell me what you want?"

I searched my mind for the right words, knowing if I insulted him again, it would be quite difficult to call upon his spirit in the future.

"Well, you see, there seems to be a situation here, that er..."

I was cut of by the spit flying out of his rather large bill.

"HOW MANY TIMES MUST I TELL YOU! NEVER USE MORE THAN 10 E's IN A SENTANCE WHEN I AM PRESENT!"

And with that, my not-so-faithful companion clicked his little rubbery feet together three times and vanished, leaving only a strong smell of cabbage to comfort me. As much as I love a good cabbage, I knew now, that I had to face these confused, irate so-called actors and actresses on my own.

I suddenly wished that I had the powers of Keanu Reeves and Carrie Anne-Moss of The Matrix fame. Because if I did, the angry mob of thespians would not stand a chance against me. Too bad. Now I had to deal with them and their ever-closing cluster and the cold, ruthless Beanie Babie weaponry they held.

And I really didn't like the way that the wall kept getting closer to my back.

"He's the one who let the infernal one escape! The one who took all of our teddy bears!" The director said.

"But sir," one scrawny girl said from the back "We are holding teddy bears. Our beanie Babies."

"No, mine's a duck."

The duck winked at me, and I visibly gasped. The director saw this and glared, his eyes glowed red for a second.

Well, they argued for a bit about the kingdom, phylum, gender, and species of their various Beanies, and I was about to get away....

But that's when the Polar Bears and The Spanish Inquistion broke through the gates and joined the party.

Yeah, life really sucked right about now.

...And what a party it was! The Spanish Inquisition pulled out some Dr Pepper and started passing it around, the polar bears started playing some kickin' music, and the actors all started to dance and rejoice with thier beanie babies. I got some Dr Pepper and snuck out the back.

I quietly snuck past everyone and made a dash for the exit door. As it closed behind me I could make out a muffled sound of karaoke. It must have been the eskimo.

Ignoring immediate intentions of going back for a quick duo, I pressed on. I was in a strange hallway. The floor was green, with almost a crushed velvet texture. It seemed to go on forever, evenly lined on either side with similar paintings of unpeeled bananas dating can openers.

I made my way over to one of the paintings and examined the brush strokes. There was only one painter who used strokes like that.

Quasimodo... i thought to myself.

If his paintings were in this hall, that meant he musn't be to far off. I continued down the corridor, taking note of the unevenly numbered doors: Stage 3, Stage 8, Stae 26, Stage 925 and so on. I eventually came to the end of the hall, where it spilt off into two separate halls, one having a distinct odor of urine that had been sitting for quite some time with it's dark walls and bright pink floor, and the other, quite the opposite, smelling of fresh cut roses, and decorated in lavender shaded lamps clinging to the walla and recently vacuumed blue shag carpet. Don't ask me why, but i felt a stange force pushing me towards the not so pleasent hall way.

Suddenly I heard footsteps behind me. Glancing over the should, i saw a few dark figures making there was through the back entrance i had snuck out of. Clutching my Dr. Pepper, I looked back and forth from the two halls. Closing my eyes, i quickly whispered my Eenie, Meenie, Minie, Moes, then with the nearing footsteps ringing in my ears, I made my decision...

Since I absolutely despised the smell of both urine and freshly cut flowers, I started to run back down the hall. I noticed the dark figures approaching faster, so I decided I needed to do something drastic: I pulled some Pop rocks out of my pockets, put them into the dr pepper can, shook violently, and quickly threw the can at them. During the explosion this caused, I quickly headed back to stage 1742. As I arrived, I noticed an unusual picture of something that appeared to be an autodefenestration machine on the door.

My laces were knotted. I was having a bad day.

Confused at how my laces became so tight, I stumbled into the room marked Stage 1742. There was a flash of blinding green light. I fell to the floor. THUD. Not only were my eyes now stinging as if someone had poured bleach in them, but I was beginning to lose feeling in my feet AND my butt hurt. I peeked through a shower of tears at the room. However, it wasn't a room at all... I was on a dirt road, trees lining the edge. I sat cross-legged, and glanced around with half open eyes. Then I saw a sign which had "This is the 1742nd year" handpainted on it in white. I must have travelled back in time. A crow sat on atop the sign, laughing at me.

"Hey, where am..."

And with that, the crow flew off. He must know why and how I got here, I had to follow him. But first I had to find some scissors, my feet were killing me, and these damned knotted laces weren't coming undone.

I couldn't find anything in sight to slice my laces so I simply removed my shoes and dashed after the bird. I searched my mind trying to rememer somthing about the year 1742. The only thing I could remember was that my desk in history class made a bad, but servicable pillow.

I saw no signs of civilization anywhere. The road was dirt and being overgrown with weeds. The trees were surrounding me. The bird was flying away from me. The square root of 144 is 12.

I came upon a clearing. The bird flew away, off the road to the left. To the right there was a herd of cows grazing. Then I saw the duck. The duck came crashing down from the air and landed on a cow. In a matter of seconds the cow was reduced to a skeleton. It was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. With manners like that I instantly knew the duck was Captain Steak Sammich.

I was torn...follow the crow or seek the aid of the Captain...

I was interuppted by my shoes as they suddenly tackled me from behind. Apparently they didn't like being left, and they forced themselves back on to my feet, laces even tighter this time. As the feeling in my feet decreased, I started stumbling twords the raven, ignoring the cow killing captain.

My feet were killing me. Memories of the circus surfaced.. clowns! I flipped into a handstand and walked on my hands instead. I pursued the crow for a few miles before I realized that my line of vision was restricted to backwards to the ground.

I sat down and focused on the air pressure below me to attempt levetation.

It wasn't working.

...the Eskimos were catching up, and now the Polar Bear squadron that was with them had Soda Machines with them, not the kind that spit out canned soda but the kind that gives you bottled soda....

...my shoes grew needle-tooth filled mouths....

...then the crow landed right infront of me, two feet bigger this time. "The duck says you need to get the hey out of here. Follow me into the Duck Dimension and safety. We must find the teddy bear. It is now in the Wild Boar Dimension. We are in the Human Dimension as of no-"

"Alright!" I said, ducking a flying soda of death.

As the Crow sang the Row, Row, Row, Your Boat song, I saw a watery world open before my very eyes.... and we stepped in...

...my attention was redirected to a cold splash of water in my face. I stopped to look around me. This watery world was nothing more than a giant infladable swimming pool supporting the hyperactiveness of seven little children. I quickly singled one out.

"Is this the Duck Dimension? Where's the ducks?"

"Quack," She responded, instantly joined by the other children in a chorus of chanting, "Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack."

They slowly came towards me until they formed a circle around me, flapping their arms and quacking. I wasn't sure what to do so I began quacking in sync. After a few minutes of quacking, I seemed to meet their approval.

"Follow me. I will take you to the duck." The oldest one grabbed my hand and pulled me under...

Just then I decided to check my watch. Midnight... Midnight... Something from my past nagged at me. I looked up, and saw the golden spork, flying through the air. Unfortunately, It flew into the human dimension just as I stepped through the portal... Better luck next time I guess.

"Did I leave the garage door open?" I thought to myself. This line of thought continued for about 5 minutes, until...

The first thing I noticed when they brang me into the auditorium were all the Halloween decorations. The room was full of ducks, big ones, small ones, letharig ones. My right shoe leapt at one of them, but I quickly pulled it back, almost forgetting that my shoes had grown teeth. The next thing I noticed were the rows of armored ducks, equipped with sporks and froons alike, that made up the front of the auditorium. Their leader was a giant Ape.

"He was a reject from auditions of the new Planet of the Apes movie. He was subsequently outcast from the Ape dimension. He's our best general. Thats Those are The Black Rubber Duckies, the squad in charge of keeping us safe from the other dimensions." Surprised, I was. I could understand the duck-speaking child now. My shoes still tried to eat him.

I was underwater, and yet I could breathe. And talk, and move normally.

A Jack-o-Lantern floated by my head and went to the microphone onstage. It turned around to face everyone in the room.

"Ducklings," it said "My name is Bill, I am the new Seasonal Ambassador of Stuff, and I am hear to answer any questions you have. The Duck will be here shortly."

My hand shot up.

"Where's my teddy bear?"

Everything in the entire auditorium turned towards me, with expressions of rage on their faces. I blinked.

This is what the pumpkin said it me as it left at my shoes, ready to do battle.

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