A Long Story of International Stupidity

From: BillDing42 
Subject: A Long Story of International Stupidity
Date: Sunday, September 17, 2000 4:28 PM

Alternate Title:  Bucketmouth Flies to the Other Side of the World
and All He Gets is a Stupid T-Shirt

Copyright 2000 by Bill Wilkinson (ahem!)


So Bucketmouth had let it be known that he was flying from Australia
to Lawrence, Kansas, U.S.A., to give talks at Kansas University on
some obscure subject.  Bill opens mouth (so to speak) and emails
Prof. Bucket that he'll drive to Lawrence that day to visit him.
For some reason, Bill thninks it's only a two-hour drive.

After the Bucket had landed and an exchange of a few long-distance
telephone calls, Bill finds out that Prof. Mouth is staying at the
Ramada in Room 215 and is scheduled to speak at 2 p.m. on Saturday,
16 Sep 2000.  Bill promises to be at the Ramada before noon.

At 3 a.m. on the day of the trip, people outside Bill's residence
are making lots of noise and wakes him up--causing him to oversleep
the next day.  Bill calls Bucketmouth and tells him he won't make it
by noon, but will meet him at K.U. to hear the talk.  They agree
and Bill hops into his car and takes off at about 11 a.m.

After about two hours of high-speed driving, Bill realizes that
he's only covered half the distance.  He also realizes that he
left behind the piece of paper with the Professer's room number and
also the building at K.U. where the talk will be given.  Then a
detour on I-70 West further slows progress.  Bill checks into the
Ramada at 3 p.m.

Being stoopit, Bill thinks Bucket's room number is 211 and so
leaves a phone message for him there.  Then he drives to K.U.
in order to catch the last part of the lecture, which was due to
be over at 3:30.  He then realizes that he doesn't remember the
name of the building.  Something with the word "Union" in it.
The large map outside of the Visitor Center (which was closed, btw)
shows at least two buildings that qualify.  Bill drives off to
find them.

The streets at K.U. are a twisty maze of little passages, all alike.

Around 4 p.m., Bill goes back to the Ramada to check for messages
and asks the people at the front desk to verify that Phil Graham
is indeed a guest there. They find no record of him.  Bill asks if
they have any information on anyone placing long-distance calls
to his home telephone number.  No joy.  Bill asks them to send
anybody up to his room (#340) if they ask for him and speaks with
an Australian accent.

Bill returns to his room, drinks a beer, and watches TV.  In a
Jungian sort of way, he picks a channel at random, and it's
showing "Crocodile Dundee."  After that's over, he clicks another
channel and it's about an Australian group that locates orphaned
kangaroos, raises them until they're old enough to survive in
the wild, then frees them.

Unrelated to the above paragraph, Bill suddenly decides to
scatter notes along the second floor hallway that simply state
"BUCKETMOUTH SEE THE FRONT DESK." That was around 8:30 p.m.
At about 10 p.m., Bucketmouth is pounding on the door.

They greet like long-lost brothers.

They exchange gifts in the interest of international
alt.stoopidity good will. Bill receives a new, improved bottle
rocket that runs off of compressed air and dihydrogenmonoxide.
Also, a weird glow-in-the-dark thingee that is crying out
to be included in an animation.  Bucketmouth receives a hand-crafted
alt.stupidity flag and a T-Shirt showing a picture of the Martian
protobacon with the words "alt.stupidity 2000 U.S.A. - Australia"
on it.

Bill had purchased a six-pack of Foster's (the bottles, not the
giant cans) for the occasion, but--since Bucketmouth doesn't
drink--he was forced to consume them himself.  Nonetheless,
they talked until midnight.  They then went to Bucketmouth's room
and posed for pictures that were taken by the Perfesser's
lovely and talented assistant, Naomi.  This includes some rudimentary
animations.

They also taped some audio.  Imagine walking down the hall at the
Ramada at midnight and passing a room where you can hear people on
the other side of the door repeatedly screaming "AND BACON!" 
and laughing hysterically.

(All this--and more--will be placed on a Web page once it's
digitized.  A link will be submitted to Per Harald Myrvang for
his Ophishul Alt.Stupidity Conference Page.)

At 2 a.m., the stoopitians all fell over, met again at the
breakfast table four hours later, then all crawled home.


The End


--Bill

-- 
"It is a Web page made by an Idiot.  Full sound of and fury, signifying
no content."  --Bill Shakespeare (Yazbeth:  Act 5, Scene 5)
Thnik otherwise?  Then check out:  http://members.aol.com:/wxwilki/index.htm