Choc Full Of Nutty Happenings

Naturally, we stayed on in Switzerland for a few days after we'd inadvertently done Dr. Oldschool's D.I.Y. for him, wishing him the best of luck in his microbrewery venture.

It just seemed appropriate. We love Switzerland anyways. I love clocks, Michael loves pantsless snow activities and Clark, well...

Clark loves chocolate. Especially the handmade Swiss kind. Clark is as happy in Switzerland as a pig in muck. We just let him loose in downtown Geneva and said, "take your time, buddy."

But it was on Sunday when Michael and I were in the hotel that things took a turn.

Michael had heard about the Large Hadron Collider and wanted to know more about it. I was trying to explain the science of accelerated particles and it was clear I was not breaking through. Michael's a great guy, very smart, you understand, but sometimes it's like he's wearing glasses made from pure snot while trying to critique an oil painting. It wasn't until he'd made some sexual reference, giggling like a schoolboy, that I realized why I wasn't making any headway.

"No, no," I said. "Large Hadron. HADRON, H-A-D-R-O-N, not H-A-R--"

Suddenly the door burst open and in waddled a clearly chocolate-engorged Clark, near enough bouncing off the walls.

"Guys, guys! You will never believe it!"

"What, that you have eaten your own weight in chocolate?" I said cynically.

"Like you didn't buy fifteen cuckoo clocks?" retorted Michael.

"OK, OK, so I like them," I replied, and then, returning to Clark, I I asked what was up.

"You will never believe who's opened a chocolate shop here! You'll never guess. When I tell you, you're gonna flip your flippin' lid!"

We stared at Clark for what seemed like an age.

"Guinney Pepper!"

"--"

"Yes, the Guinney Pepper! You know, of Lick The Chalice fame!"

The penny dropped.

We're all big fans of reggae superstar Guinney Pepper. On fishing trips and long car journeys, he's practically all we listen to.




He's also one of our international network of moles and informants from the world of celebrity.

"What!? What is he doing in bloomin' Switzerland?" I asked.

"Well, not only does he love chocolate and timepieces, he's onto something big! He thinks it's something to do with - (ahem) - Petit!"

"Good gravy!" cried Michael. "I thought after last time, that little dingbat troll monkey would have hung up his pipe for good!"

"We need to get down to the shop where he's having his grand opening and see what he knows. There's no time to waste!"

We sped off, pronto.

Tune in later this week for the next part later this week! For, like, the next part!

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.

Oldschool: The Confrontation (sort of)

At the Observatorium we happened on one of its docents.

"Excuse me," I chimed. "You wouldn't happen to know if a certain Dr. Oldschool is about, would you?"

The docent looked at me curiously, then at Jeff and Clark. Back to me he asked "Would you three happen to be The Unbelievables?"

"Why, yes ... yes we are," I replied.

"Can I see your passports for proof?" The docent held out his hand expectantly.

"Well ... erm ... you see, we don't exactly ..." Jeff muttered.

"What Jeff is trying to say" I offered "is that were not exactly sporting anything in the way of proof if you know what I mean ..." Outside our snowboots we were still doffed in nothing but our pantsless snowboard training attire. 

Not much pocket room for passports, even if they were current and we had'em.

But ... we look good.

"I've noticed" the docent sneered. "Still, I need a little proof. Answer me this: Where, exactly, in the state of Wyoming is this Wendigo Flats from which you hail?"

"Stiletto Flats. And it's in Nevada, not Wyoming," Clark corrected.

"Proof enough" he responded. "There's a room at the top floor of the observatorium that leads to the rotating dome. It's marked. You'll find it when you take the elevator down the hall," he pointed.

Exiting the elevator, we found the room without a problem. And it was marked.

"Caution: Giant moon-pulling ray beam thingamujig inside" it stated.

"Well isn't this quaint," I commented. I gripped the doorknob. "It's unlocked. This seems a little too convenient." I opened the door.

Sinister!

In the room three bulky, rather plain looking steel contraptions sat with men stuffed inside, only their heads exposed. They looked uncomfortable and they couldn't talk; they could only look at us, pleadingly. A note was on the floor addressed "Unbelievables: Read" in block letters.

"Another damned note," Clark huffed as he picked it up to see what it said. It was, of course, from Oldschool.

"Unbelievables: Attached to these men is my beam ray of which I spoke previously. You'll find it in another room adjacent to this one. The poor men before you are an integral part of the ray's workings. Try and free them and they die. Try and dismantle my beam ray and they die. The moon has precious little time left before it is brought down once and for all into the river. It's almost Moon River time! You have but one chance to save it, save these men and redeem yourselves as the protectors you claim to be ... but I'm not telling you how. I told you you're going to have to get your slacks dirty yourselves - no one else can take your place! It's almost Friday! Let's see what you can do ..."

Thrills, Spills and Chills

"The first thing we need to do," I said to the lads on Monday over lunch, "is to figure out exactly where this 'Dr. Oldschool' -  if indeed that is his name - is going to fire this supposed 'beam ray' from. If it's as cataclysmic as he makes it sound, it's gotta be pretty huge, and therefore a bit difficult to hide, surely?"

"Not necessarily," warned Clark. "It could be easily hidden in a mountain, or a volcano, or a very large building like the White House, for example. A building with a dome like that'd be ideal."

"It's not gonna be in the White House!" hissed Michael.

"I didn't say it was," retorted Clark. "I just said, LIKE the White House."

"Don't forget, it's gotta be near a river. Moon River, remember?"

Well, this went on for some time.

Meanwhile, I had a thought. I went to the bin and pulled an envelope out of the trash. Marching over to the table, I hollered at the guys, "Who's the idiot that forgot to put this in the recycle bin?!"

They stopped and stared. "That's brilliant, Jeff!"

"It is?"

"Yes," said Clark, "that's the envelope the letter came in. Check to see if there's a postmark!"

There was. In no time we were headed to Switzerland. Dr. Oldschool had mentioned skiing in his letter, so we were packed accordingly. 

Here's Michael in his usual ski attire.

And here's the three of us at one of Michael's "Pantsless Snowboarding" training weekends.

Naturally, along our journey to Switzerland we'd been studying all we could about the country and where a a giant moon-pulling ray beam thingumajig could be hidden.

"It'd have to be high ground," said Michael.

"Hence Switzerland. Hence skiing. Mountains. The Alps." Clark replied.

"Good job we're prepared for that" I added.

The others nodded in agreement.

As we parachuted down from our Unbelieva-Jet towards our secret safe house on the outskirts of Bern, I looked over at Clark and shouted, "This is so cool! Who needs airports, eh?"

"Yeah!" he replied. "I haven't even renewed my passport in twenty years! HAHAHAHAHA!!"

"HAHAHA!! Me either!"

We opened the hidden underground garage at our secret safe house and discovered the battery flat on our souped-up mountain-ready Yugo.

Two hot cylinders of throbbing power!

"I guess we DO need airports after all. We're gonna have to rent a car." said Michael.

We strapped on our snowshoes and lumbered into town to rendezvous with our pointman, Hertz Van Rentl, to see if he couldn't rustle us up a set of wheels, with big knobbly tires and some snow chains, and preferably some of those nice beaded sheepskin seat covers that give you a back massage.

Where were we headed? To the most obvious place, really. A place on high ground - at the top of a mountain, actually. And the perfect place for looking up at the heavens - an observatory, no less.

That's right, I'm talking about the Sphinx Observatorium, not far from the Eiger.

Like something straight outta James Bond.

Clark will let you know how we got on tomorrow (even though you know we succeeded, because the Moon didn't fall in a river on Friday, but what the hey...)

Sometimes It's About Where We Aren't ...

The thing is this:

Clark and Jeff and I haven't seen each other in some time. None of us have been in the same room in over a week.

While Jeff has confessed "we lied," I can confidently state - without reservation - that I have not.

I have indeed been in Sweden ... partaking of all I've said.

While I applaud Jeff for his revelation to you, the public, about snagging ne'er-do-wells, I haven't the faintest idea what Clark was been up to. (Or ... if he was even in Switzerland ...)

So there.

Indeed, I've been knee-deep in cuckoo clocks. Navigating plate-fulls of Swedish meatballs. And munching almost non-stop on knäckebröd. At least I was truthful about those things.

I can't always account for the whatfors and whereabouts of my two Unbelievable colleagues. (Clark will certainly detail what his involvement was last week ... stay tuned.)

Me? I'm recovering from fonduery ...

Raising Hell-Vetica

Yes, that's right folks. This week we are in Switzerland, the most peace-loving country on the planet. Being peaceful guys ourselves, we love it here. So much so, we like to take weekend breaks up to Leavenworth, WA, which looks like an Alpine resort.

 There are lots of wonderful things here in la Suisse and we each have our favourites. Michael loves the Swiss' skill in making timepieces and has amassed an impressive collection of cool watches.

With this model "The Spaceman" he liked to sit there and talk into it like it was a communicator, saying "Houston, we have a problem" and "That's one small step for Michael, one giant leap for a kangaroo", etc.

With this one he kept making robot noises. "Shut up!" we cried. "Robots don't really keep telling people that they're robots!"

I seem to recall the day he got this one. He kept trying to impress us with the funny words he could make by typing in numbers and the showing them to us upside-down. He derived great mirth from typing "0.7734", "71077345" and of course, "5318008". We wouldn't have minded but we were in the Unbelieva-mobile on a stakeout at the time.

The downside to his love of timepieces is his similarly large collection of cuckoo clocks.

Repellent things. I can't stand them, personally, and Clark is a wee bit scared of them.

As to the things that Clark likes about Switzerland, he's got a soft spot about chocolate, in all its forms.

He's got all their LP's.

He's also a big fan of Swiss Cheese. In fact, any cheese.

Nope... we've already covered that kind of cheese.

Ain't no party like a fondue party, as Clark and Michael demonstrate here.

As for myself, there are two things I think of when I think Switzerland. The first is alpine pursuits.

Skiing with the gals...

and more skiing. With the gals.

The second is the lovely smiling air hostesses we met on Swissair.

Nope, she's not happy. Not with that man twisting her body into that pose. He doesn't even look like he's been to dental college.

More like it. This is what we mean.

Now sadly, Swissair is no more. It's been replaced by Swiss International Airlines. I hope their flight attendants are of a similar ilk.

Not bad.

More like it!

Now, I'm off to show my new Swiss Army knife to that showoff Clark. Beat this, buddy!