35 – Harrison Leaves Tyler Holding the Bag

RUBBERY SHRUBBERY Post 35

This is the Rubbery Shrubbery (RS) blog, telling you about Yachats (YAH-hots), Oregon, and its inhabitants—called Yachatians (yah-HAY-shuns)—as they go about getting a Major League Baseball franchise. To learn more about Yachats (“On the Cutting Edge of the Continent”), please go to this page or go to GoYachats.

In this post, veteran sportswriter Harrison Grutch continues to describe how non-Yachatian communities react to being impacted by the Smelt. As you might recall, Harrison reported from Migraine Springs, Texas, in the last post. This time he takes us to the sleepy but progressive little town of Lāna’i City (see Fig. 1) on the Hawaiian island of Lāna’i.

Harrison Leaves Tyler Holding the Bag
by Tyler Macaroon (and a little by Harrison Grutch)

My assistant, Harrison Grutch, has done it again! He wrote the introduction above, and then took my plane ticket and sneaked off to Hawai’i. Just last week he swiped my train ticket and zipped down to Migraine Springs to my chagrin. I’d fire him, but he works cheap.

Figure 1. The island of Lāna’i. Where that rat Harrison is sitting in the shade of a monkey pod tree, sipping a mai tai.*

This time he tried to appease me by sending a photo and a few words about Lāna’i City’s plans to lure the Smelt to the island for spring training. Here’s what he sent me.

Hoo, boy! Tyler, you are one lucky dude I didn’t bring you on this trip. It turns out Lāna’i is completely isolated—separated from all the other Hawaiian islands by ocean. I spent the whole afternoon yesterday rowing an outrigger in the sweltering heat to get here.

On top of that, Lāna’i is haunted—I almost saw the famed Pineapple Poltergeist last night. I watched her trying to materialize in a mixed company of tourists on the front lawn of our hotel for nearly an hour. Never quite made it.

Now, about spring training. Lāna’i has Menehune Municipal Stadium, which is very like Rubbery Shrubbery was before we started to fix it up. Here’s a photo of it (see Fig. 2). In it, PP is trying to be seen by standing directly in front of the camera. And that yellow car is just a local shapeshifter having a bit of fun.

Figure 2. Menehune Municipal Stadium, probably soon to be renamed Ellison Stadium.**

By the way, Lāna’i recently came into a lot of money so they should be able to make Menehune Municipal look pretty spiffy. The biggest Smelt problem would be in finding other teams to play during spring training, but perhaps rowing outriggers would be all the conditioning they would need.

I still ache all over from yesterday, but I’ve decided to row to Maui this afternoon. I still haven’t gone to Shipwreck Beach to see Lāna’i’s biggest tourist attraction—the crash site of an alien spaceship—but I’m going to skip it. Once you’ve seen one, the thrill is gone.

So, with no help forthcoming from the Great Harrison Grutch, I went looking for a story for this post. Grumble!

Naturally, the place to look was Rubbery Shrubbery Stadium to see how far the toddling engineers had gotten with their LEGO® block construction. To my astonishment, not far. Blocks, tykes and moppets were in disarray. A few were almost in tears.

Then, to my surprise, Dzunukwa, the mysterious Sasquatch witch, showed up. Concern was written all over her wizened face (though hard to read due to the wizenry). Dressed in raggedy black cape and gloves, she hunched over her walking stick like a nine-foot tsunami.

She addressed the boss tot.

Dzunukwa I got your message, Tot. Sorry it took me so long to get here—I couldn’t get the cat started. Now, what seems to be the problem?

Boss Tot It’s that gang of untethered teenagers over there. They’ve been harassing us. Kibitzing. Offering unsolicited advice.

Second Tot One of them patted condescension on my hard hat.

Third Tot And that big one called me a publishable but patronizing name.

Boss Tot This is brain vandalism, that’s what this is!

Dzunukwa Oh, my! Well, this is a common problem.

Boss Tot We want you to make them disappear permanently.

Dzunukwa Perhaps you should think this over. Are you sure there isn’t a better way to handle this problem?

Boss Tot Ha! We know a stalling tactic when we hear it. You might as well let us have our way. No one can resist pouts and whines for more than a few minutes.

Dzunukwa Oh, very well. I can get them out of your hair, but nothing good lasts forever. The best I can do is provide an expiration date.

Boss Tot Then make it so, please.

Untethered Teenagers POOOFFF!

Boss Tot Good! Perhaps that will last long enough for their brains to become fully myelinated.

Dzunukwa We can hope.

* Landsat satellite image (NASA). From Wikipedia.
** Photo by Eric Sallee.

Next time: Constance Hinge will be interviewing Yahottie nightingale Margarita O’Brien regarding the Smelt’s impact on the local fine arts scene.

NOTE: Blog management hopes that no poltergeist, Menehune, or shapeshifter was offended or disillusioned by this post. We point out, however, that we have an impressive team of Sasquatch lawyers ready to deal with any class action suit.

NOTE AGAIN: Eric Sallee and Dave Baldwin are hoping for inputs regarding casting for the screen version of Rubbery Shrubbery. Thus far, here is the cumulative tally:
Helena Bonham-Carter —– to play Brassica Chin (1 vote)
Sir Anthony Hopkins ——— to play Wumpy Mugwump (1 vote)

These numbers are very similar to our tally at the end of last week’s voting. We realize that Helena and Sir Anthony are feeling pretty good about this, but Eric and Dave are beginning to wonder if some nefarious force is at work here, although they aren’t sure what that means. At the bottom of this post, please give Eric and Dave your suggestions for actors, such as Meg Ryan or Fred Willard, to play any or all of the various RS characters.