Those Damned Dirty Apes

"Arrrrgh!"

Arrrrgh, indeed.

Those.  Damned.  Dirty.  Apes.

After all this time, it was almost unbelievable (see what I did there?) to conceive they'd been lying in wait all this time just to get back into the game and attempt even more monkey business than before.

But that was their plan.  Exactly.  The three of us knew them too well.  Having tussled with them previously, what nefarious shenanigans could they be up to this time?

The fact of the matter came down to this:  A diabolical plot by a bunch of simian ne'er-do-wells deserved an equally ingenious counter measure.

"I'll be right back," I told Clark and Jeff.  I grabbed my wallet and headed for the door.

"Where's he going?" Clark asked.  "Beats me" Jeff responded "... but I bet he's got a plan."

Of course I had a plan ...

Half an hour later, I returned with an envelope in hand.

"Whatcha got?" the guys asked.  

"The easiest solution to our little Bames Jond & Company problem.  Tickets to "The Monkey," that spiffy flick currently making the rounds in theaters near us.  You know ... the one based on the Stephen King short story from back in the day.  I'm going to offer up free tickets for an evening showing to that hairy brood!  We'll make nice, invite them on a group date, settle in for the show then << BAM! >>  The local boys in blue can nab them before they've even had the chance to open a box of Banana Runts candy."

 

Brilliant!

"Problem solved.  We'll barely need to lift a finger.  Plus, being the bunch of chimps they are, dollars to donuts says they'll have whatever villainous criminal plans they're purporting to conduct tucked neatly in their coat pockets.  Nothing like catching'em red-handed!"

I got on the phone and called our contacts at the local police station to arrange everything.

Long story short, Jond and his cohorts accepted our generous invitation (probably delighted at the notion we were walking right into their hands and being so nice about it), met us at the theater and - no sooner than the opening credits began to roll - the theater lights came on and they were surrounded by the authorities.  Clark, Jeff and I just sat there, munching popcorn and enjoying "the show." 

Apprehended, we waved goodbye to them as they were ceremoniously led out of the theater in cuffs.  "We'll tell you how it ends!" Jeff offered.  "No we won't!" Clark refuted.

"Man ... that was easy," I offered.  "So easy, it makes you wonder if we shouldn't come out of semi-retirement ..."

We collectively pondered that thought then relaxed as the lights dimmed, "The Monkey" coming back on the big screen once more for us to enjoy.

Yeah ... foiling Bames Jond and the rest was easy.  Much easier than the tale of the Meta messages.  Was it genius (probably) or sheer coincidence Jeff put two and two together and tied the original message, the anagram, the sneeze correlation, Jond, et al, together?  There were still missing pieces to the story, certainly ... not to mention that other virtually identical notification from "Det Herkules Poirot."  

But perhaps, just perhaps, that's a tale for another time ...

... possibly ...

 

Bad Animals? Or, What We Did While We Were Away

If you think the news of our revived activity after all this time was surprising to you, just imagine how we felt after 7 years, 3 months and 5 days of relative calm and semi-retirement!

That's right. I say relative calm  because the intervening years have not been without their trials and tribulations, no sirree Bob. Firstly, there's been the issue of the cliffhanger we left you on back in 2017. Clark ended by saying he saw Petit's booted appendage heading towards him followed by everything going black, leading some of our loyal fans to believe he had been rubbed out by the tiny terror - but think about it for a nanosecond, if he had been, he could hardly have written about the event, could he? Nope, as he explained on Monday, he merely sprained his ankle. After explaining this to Michael and I, he re-sprained it by attempting to dance, but he put some ice on it and all was well.

So what had we, the individual members of the Unbelievables, been doing with our valuable time for the last seven years?

Michael had tried his hand at many things befitting a retired, independently wealthy man-about-town. Art, for example. Not painting or macrame or batik as you might imagine, but given his predilection for pantslessness he thought, "Why not go the whole hog and get naked? And why not let the wider community enjoy this fine Vitruvian physique, this Adonis-like specimen of a body?". So he immediately became a life model for a couple of years, shedding his garments for the benefit of budding artists in Stiletto Flats and beyond. Let me tell you, the life drawing classes of Nevada have never been so massively oversubscribed. 

"Hmm, need more charcoal."

He also got his realtor's license and opened a small office in nearby Winnemucca ""just as something to fall back on should the funds dry up", as he says. And dry up they almost did, as he developed a tiny, weeny, incy-wincy little Go Fish addiction after a trip to a casino in Washington State. 

"Do you have any threes?"

Fortunately he beat that addiction by using some of his remaining funds to kit himself out with some decent rods and tackle and took up actual fishing instead. 

All the gear, no idea.

Myself, I became an ultramarathon runner, a speedwalker and a dancehall DJ, specialising in dub reggae nights and Mantovani & Kostelanetz waltz weekends. I also got my realtor's license, but that was after I was dared to by one of my Irish drinking buddies, "just for the craic."

Clark was reticent about letting on what he'd been up to after being presumed dead, and only time will tell whether he'll reveal all (although I did see him whispering to Michael while I was brewing the tea, so maybe Michael knows something...?).

Anyway, back to the story of this mysterious Meta message. On Monday Clark told you that the lady's name was an anagram of SAINKLAIESWRU, the noise made by a person suppressing a sneeze, which got me thinking, mainly because of the book I'd recently reading.

The book was A House For Mr Biswas by V.S Naipaul, which involves a man with an "unlucky sneeze". It was published in 1961 and later adapted as a musical (although it was never produced). The musical compositions were written by Monty Norman, and one song "Bad Sign, Good Sign" had a melody that was later used by Mr. Norman in a piece of music for Dr.No. Yes, I'm talking about the iconic James Bond theme.

A lightbulb switched on in my head. It couldn't be, could it? Surely not after all this time?

Bames Jond, really? Mr. Shifter, Mr. B, and Bobo the Enforcer? 

Those fiendish chimps that tied Michael and I to a pole and written "poop" on the walls with their own poop? Those asshole apes that had violated Charley Chimp? Were they back on the loose? 

We don't know what they did to him, but he was never quite the same afterwards. That.. stare.  Chilling.

I'll let Michael tell you on Friday what happened after I shared my concerns with him and Clark, but not before I tell you the even more mysterious thing that happened - we received another Meta message. An exact duplicate of the one from Laura Wisniewska, only this time it was from a different person, and you're not gonna flippin' believe it.

Surely not, right?

We Didn't Plan This, But... We're Back

A bulletin from Clark:

The Unbelievables have been in a state of unofficially decommissioned hiatus imposed by the world’s governments due to us solving all the problems and everything being awesome now, a condition the United Nations General Assembly classifies as “hunky dory”. However, our social media resources remain intact, in case we are needed again and have to share our heroic exploits with you.

The other day, we received a communique from a Laura Wisniewska of Meta, informing us that due to some sort of copyright infringement issue, our Facebook page was slated to be permanently removed!

Us? Infringe? Or do anything illegal?? Impossible!

Suspecting that this was a fiendishly clever attempt to defraud us somehow, I immediately started analyzing the name “Laura Wisniewska”. After about 45 minutes, I had rearranged the letters to discover the phrase:

SAINKLAIESWRU

“Dear God,” I gasped. “That’s the noise someone makes when they hold their nose and sneeze.”

I knew Jeff and Michael had also received the communique but probably didn’t have time to descramble the name, so I called a meeting at our long-dormant secret headquarters. They were very surprised to hear from me, as it’s been widely assumed I was killed after being thrown through a window in our last adventure together years ago.

“Killed? Ha ha! No, I just sprained my ankle real bad. It’s fine now.” I then started tap dancing to demonstrate how well I had healed and almost immediately sprained the other ankle. I then sat down, put some ice on it and we began to discuss what we were going to do.