There's One, Only!

Filthy Lie: Evil Glenn's Fourth of July

I jumped out of the lawn chair I had been sitting in as soon as I saw the truck turn the corner onto my street. He was late. I had been sitting there for almost three hours, and the UPS delivery was usually there by 10. I checked my watch. It was almost 10:15!

I tried to walk nonchalantly out to the big brown delivery vehicle, but I think my enthusiasm might have been showing just a little. It was probably the Dukes of Hazzard slide across the hood of my Grandfather's Caddy that gave me away. The delivery guy grinned at me while I signed his little computer and said, "Hmm, excited to get this?"

Of course I was. I'd been checking the tracking on the shipment every two hours since I ordered it the week before from an online store out of Wisconsin, and every hour since it had been shipped the day before. I was as giddy as a small child on Christmas morning!

"Not really," I lied. Then I snatched the package out of his hands and ran back to my house. I think I giggled a little bit, but I'm sure he couldn't hear me.

It was murder waiting for darkness. But eventually ...finally, night fell. And at last, I was able to set it up. The SUPERNOVA 5000. This baby was guaranteed to blind everyone looking at it in a five mile radius! For at least 3 hours! The fireball from one of these was once seen by astronauts in the International Space Station.

I could hardly wait.

First, I set up the launch pad in the back yard with the rocket/firework/bomb all prepped up and ready to go. Then I put on a heat reflective suit, asbestos gloves, and a welding helmet as I got ready to light it off.

Then I fell in the pool.

Well, at least this should make me a little less flammable, I thought after I had climbed out of the pool. Unfortunately the welding helmet had sunk to the bottom of the deep end, and was for the moment irretrievable. I figured that I would just have to make do without it.

Finally, the moment I had been waiting for arrived. I lit the fuse and dove behind a table I had sitting on edge across the yard from the pad. I covered my head and waited for the sound of the rocket launching.

*FSSSSssssssss.....*

What? I couldn't believe it, the firework was a dud! Then it made a little *POP* sound and a single sheet of paper fluttered out of the top.

With a morbid sense of doom, I picked it up and read:

Agent GEBIV, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find out what Evil Glenn will be doing for the Fourth of July this year. If you are discovered or captured, don't worry. I've heard that Glenn has been mellowing a little bit lately. You'll probably even survive.

This message will self destruct in 10 seconds..."

I angrily crumpled up the paper and threw it away. What a rip-off! I knew I shouldn't have ordered something from a site called Bad Explosions.com, I thought to myself. And now I have to go on a...

*KAAAAABOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!*

-Three hours later, when my vision returned, I realized that it was once again, time for another...

MISSION: IMPLAUSIBLE!
(Cue Theme Music)

Since by now, it was well after midnight, I decided that a stealth mission was called for. I donned all black clothing to be able to merge with the shadows,(very slimming too) and headed for Evil Glenn's lair.

In accordance with the way my life had generally been going, I was captured almost the moment my foot touched his property. Within minutes, I was dragged by his lackeys into what looked like a large kennel. Evil Glenn was there. His gloating started immediately.

"Ah, my young apprentice. I see you have finally come over to the Dark Side." he said in a sinister voice.

"NEVER!" I rebuffed him. "Besides, you know I can't afford the union dues."

"Ah yes. I've noticed that recruiting has been down a bit since I allowed them to unionize. Perhaps I should re-think that policy..." He drifted off into his thoughts for a moment, and then with a smirk asked me, "But if you aren't coming here to join me, why the black clothing? Other than it being very slimming."

"Ninja suit." I replied, a little testily. "It was supposed to make it harder for you to catch me."

"You'd have been better off wearing dark grey then. Black actually stands out more at night than a nice dark grey." For a moment, I was afraid that he was going to launch into a lecture. But then he returned to questioning me. "Then why are you here, my young friend?"

"Harvey sent me." Now I was a little sullen at having made such a stupid mistake about my clothes. "I'm supposed to find out what you were going to be doing for the Fourth of July this year.

"And I'm not your 'young friend' you filthy monster." I added.

"Lawyer."

"Whatever."

He paused to think again, and for a moment I wasn't sure what he was going to do. Then he smiled. Now I was worried.

"Actually, I don't mind telling you at all since I don't think that there is anything you can do about it. Unfortunately, my original plans were disrupted, so I have had to fall back to plan B."

"What's that?" I asked, immediately regretting it.

"Observe." he commanded. He reached into a cage along one side of the kennel and pulled a small dog out by it's scruff. "We have here a common mutt that has been force fed a special diet for the last 24 hours."

I didn't like the way this was going, but I asked, "What 'special diet'?"

"Oh, a little mixture I worked up on my own. It has everything a puppy needs: charcoal, sulfur, salt-peter..."

The realization suddenly hit me. "But that's-"

"Hush!" he said, cutting me off. "Watch!" He pulled a Zippo out of his pocket. Then, with a deft flick of his wrist, he lit it and held the flame to the tail of the dog in his other hand.

He dropped the dog to the ground as soon as the tail started burning, showering sparks everywhere. It ran back and forth across the lawn, until it's yelping was cut short by a small explosion.

I was nauseated. There was bits of puppy all over the lawn. "That's horrible!" All I could think about was that poor little dog. "What a waste..." I said thinking about how it's life had been cut so tragically short.

"Oh, nothing is wasted," said Evil Glenn. "I have drains placed all over the lawn to funnel everything down to the processing vats. I assure you that I am not giving up my smoothies just for the sake of some fireworks. Actually," he added, "this gives them a certain zing that makes for a nice change of pace."

He clapped his hands together with satisfaction. "Now let's get some of the bigger dogs out and really have a fireworks display!"

"NO! I can't take any more of that." I cried.

"Very well. Insta-henchmen, take him and throw him off the property."

"You're letting me go?" I was stunned. I had expected torture. In fact looked forward to it if it meant not having to watch dogs explode. But this was much better.

"Why not? You're an American, and this is our Nation's birthday. Consider it a one-time gift."

As his Insta-henchmen started to drag me away, I remembered something he had said earlier. "You said that this was plan B." I said. "What was plan A?"

"Oh that? I was planning to take over the International Space Station and then I was going to crash it into the Statue of Liberty during the Fourth of July celebrations. But just before my team of agents got to the station, there was a bright flash from somewhere near Buffalo that blinded them..."

"Um. Gotta Go!" I said as I wrenched myself from his lackey's grasp and ran off into the night.

I may not have been able to stop his puppy-fireworks, but at least, indadvertantly at least, I stopped his planned destruction of the ISS!

Posted by GEBIV at July 1, 2005 11:51 PM | TrackBack