Friday, June 30, 2017

This week's conclusion to the adventure that began last week

We scrambled to the rooftop, wondering how we could seal it shut. Rope? Glue? Our own bodies, if necessary? Whatever it takes!

There, we were met by an elderly man with three buckets of hot tar, three mops... and three pairs of slacks. Well, pants.
"Here you go, boys. You'll be needing all of these", he said.
"You... have slacks for us?", Jeff asked.
"A-yup. This is hot messy work. To try to do it without some sort of pants would be downright irresponsible."
Without time to waste, we leapt enthusiastically into the slacks (well, Michael wasn't that enthusiastic) and got right to work sealing that roof up.
Within mere minutes, thanks to our patented precision teamwork, we had pretty much finished. "Good luck opening now, eh?", I exclaimed. "Darn fine work, I must say", said the old man. Michael asked, "Who are you anyway?"
"I'm Charlie, the building custodian. And this leaky ol' roof has been a problem for years. Doc said he'd get it taken care of and I guess he did. He's an odd duck but he is effective."
"Wait a minute," Jeff said. "This whole thing was a scheme to get us to do roof work?!?"
"A-yup", said Charlie.
Michael said, "What about the moon beam ray? And those guys wired to boxes?"
"That 'beam ray is something the doctor built in his spare time out of old model airplane parts. Most difficult thing was finding the green light bulbs. It don't actually do nothing but light up and buzz, like pretty much all the 'equipment' down there. And those fellers are working with the doc on his new side project to develop really big i-Pods."
Jeff asked, "Why did they look so uncomfortable?" Charlie answered, "They're trying to figure out how to scrub out that free U2 album from a couple of years ago."

Michael pointed out, "But now the roof is sealed. You can't even open it for telescopes any more."
"Ah, the observatory business ain't what it used to be. We're going to make a go of it as a microbrewery. Craft beers and all that. Very trendy."
That's when I blew up. "What an incredibly stupid, unnecessarily elaborate scheme! What's the point?" Charlie looked at me sideways and asked, "How much did we pay you to do it?"

"I can't believe it", Jeff said. "We've been fooled by Dr. Oldschool!" Suddenly Dr. Oldschool appeared, hovering just off the edge of the roof on some kind of home-made hovering device. "You've been fooled by Dr. Oldschool! Ha ha ha!". I went to lunge at him; "You dirty sonova..." but Jeff and Michael held me back.

"Yes, I imagine right now is when you'd like to kick me through some kind of window, and as much as that would complete this immersive Unbelieavables experience, I think I will escape instead. But this has truly been a pleasure. You did top notch work on this roof and it was pure delight watching you work on a case the way you used to." The three of us looked at each other sheepishly; we had to admit that it had been pretty fun. "So listen, I'm going to leave. Charlie will show you out. We should be open in a couple of weeks. Once you aren't mad at me anymore, come back and I'll treat you to my specialty microbrew. I call it 'Moon River'." He looked at Michael and said, "And in your honor we're planning on having a pants-optional section! Bring dates! Later!". With that, I caught Michael smiling as Dr. Oldschool flew off into the Swiss distance.

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