207 - Going Up
The Three Stooges: Larry, Doug, and Moe run a grain elevator in Illinois.
Scene I
Moe, Larry, and Doug, searching the Midwest for work, are guests in Steve's truck...
After stopping at a Hardly's hamburger joint in Washington, IL, Steve unlocks the trailer to let his guests out. He announces to his hitchhikers, "Well boys, this is as far as I go. I'll buy you lunch as a token of friendship."
Larry, "You can be our friends for life if you buy us a car."
Mad Moe doesn't like wise guys.
After a quick dismount, Steve quickly enters the restaurant and looks around, "They have changed this since I was in here last. I see it is self serve."
Doug, who is munching on sugar packets, is the first to order, "I'll have six burgers for dinner and two burgers for dessert and three burgers for an appetizer and..."
Frieda the cashier, "We are short-handed today. You..."
Larry, "Your hands look ok to me."
Doug walks back to the grill, grabs a handful of burger, ponders them a minute while he looks at all the complicated dials on the grill, "Forget this. I'm starving." He slaps together his meal using freshly-baked wheat buns, a nice Dijon mustard, Vidalia onions, pickles (which were picked by Peter Piper by the peck) and frozen hamburgers.
Moe spies Larry screwing up and grabs him by the collar, "What are you doing?"
Larry tilts his white toque in a defiant way, "I'm cooking my burgers."
"But you stacked them on top of each other."
"Yeah. That's how they came out of the freezer."
"You're supposed to separate them."
"It saves time."
"Well save this."
Moe glares at Doug, "You! What are you drinking?"
"A very dry coke."
"Lemme look." Moe uncaps the drink to see if he can solve the problem.
"There's nothing in here!"
"They told me it is a low-cal drink. Unfortunately, they charge twice as much as regular coke."
After a nice, relaxing lunch...
"Thanks for the vittles, Steve. We're going through a diaspora in our life."
Larry, "I thought we were going through Washington."
"Goodbye!" Steve jumps up in his black semi and waves as he rumbles away as fast as he can. "And good riddance!"
The Stooges are sitting outside Hardly's on the curb swatting the fat flies that bug them, when a red pickup truck pulls in and a farmer's farmer gets out.
"You boys look down and out."
Doug hangs his head low, "Yeah, mister. We are looking for work."
Larry turns to Moe, "I thought we were avoiding it."
Doug, "I'm allergic to work."
Cletus, "I have some farm work for you. Hop in."
Larry and Doug bounce along on one foot toward the back of the pickup while Moe walks over to the passenger side and gets in.
"Pretty stupid partners I have," remarks Moe as the cigarette lighter pops out from its holder. "What's this?" Moe seizes the moment.
"Oooo. The center is red. I love cherry candy."
Cletus shakes his head as he backs out and heads for home.
My favorite place on earth...
The grain elevator is the town. Railroad tracks bisect the few houses that remain from the storage bins but farm land surrounds everything. The highway runs parallel to the tracks for several miles until it takes a turn toward a different destination. The daily train has no fixed schedule - sometimes it is 2 AM, other times 2 PM. The grain cars are switched to the elevator siding. The other "hot" action is trucks bouncing over the train crossing on their way to drop off their goods for storage during harvest season and the occasional tractor ambling along the side of the road to tackle another field.
The sun has warmed the old house enough to turn off the furnace.
Cletus and the boys are sitting around the kitchen table, chewing the Oreo, Martha is baking vaunted cherry pies and David is in his room listening to Nirvana.
After neatly folding the local paper, Cletus offers a hot tip: "They have jobs over at the elevator, across the street."
"Elevator work?"
Doug, "Yeah. It has its ups and downs."
"I once rode an elevator sideways."
"You did? How?"
"I laid on the floor as it went up."
Larry, "We can apply next week." He glances at Moe tapping the family crowbar in his hand. "We can apply today."
Martha makes an offer: "How would you like to stay for lunch before your interview?"
Doug: "Soitenly."
"I'll help. I'll go pick the salad greens." Doug heads for the garden with a garbage bag for his pickins.
Cletus reminds everyone, "I don't like chicken."
"Why not?"
"It is too fowl."
Martha puts the last pie in the oven, "Lunch will be ready as soon as Dog comes back."
After about half an hour, Doug barges in the mudroom, slamming the aluminum door, with a bag of greens. He washes the leaves and makes himself a big salad. Just about when he is done...
"Hmmm. This is good, especially the soft yellow vegetables."
Martha shakes her head in disbelief, "I don't know why. You are eating weeds and dandelions."
Doug, in a most polite way, picks up a steak knife and saws off an inch of corn on the cob. He proceeds to eat the corn.
"This corn must be old. It is too tough."
Again, Martha shakes her head: "It is easier if you took the corn off the cob."
"Oh."
Doug scrapes the corn off the cob then tries again. "Still stale."
"You're supposed to eat the corn, not the cob."
Cletus passes a bowl of fun, "Want some beans?"
Doug, "Sure." He goes into the cupboard and finds a can of Sam's smoked beans - grown in the USA.
Doug tries to saw through the bean with his knife. "Ugg. This is one tough bean."
"You're supposed to take them out of the can."
"Oh. I thought this was a bean pod."
Cletus, "Are you sure you know how to farm?"
"We're the best farmers that ever farmed a farm - from Farmington to Framington via Bartonville."
Cletus, "What are you doing?"
Larry is busy mopping up the table, "I can't get my drink in the glass. Do these glasses come with directions?"
Moe, "You have the glass upside down, you moron. Rectify it."
Lunch is over...
Moe stands up and pushes in his chair, "Let's go get a job."
Larry stomps his feet like a two-year old, "I don't wanna go!"
Moe points behind Larry, "He says you have to go."
Larry turns around to see who 'he' is.
Across the street and inside the elevator office...
Clem spends several minutes straightening up some papers marked 'confidential' then tosses them in the garbage, "Sooo, you boys wanna job?"
Doug, "NO" He feels hate waves - he looks at Moe..."YES"
Larry admonishes Doug, "Your reticence toward work is incomprehensible."
"What do we do? Bring people to the penthouse?"
"No, you bring corn and beans to the penthouse. They nap until it is time to go. Then they get dried and loaded on a railroad hopper where they get shoved in a can and sent to the supermarket. Then you pay ten times as much for the food you just harvested."
"Where do these corns and beans come from?"
"From previous corns and beans."
"So, what will we be doing?"
"Weighing trucks as they bring in the crops. Cleaning out the storage bins. Blah blah blah."
Larry leans over to Moe and whispers, "I like the job except the blah blah blah part."
Scene II
First day on the job...
Clem, "Ok, Larry. Go weigh the truck that pulled in."
"Ok"
After about five minutes, Larry runs into the office holding a pile of springs and things, "Hey Moe. I tried to weigh a truck but it smashed the scale."
Clem inspects the damage, "Idiot! You used a bathroom scale. ïŒ"
Moe mashes the scale on Larry's head. "Well don't just stand there. Go buy another."
Larry heads off to Elevator Supply, in the company tractor, with a spring hanging from his ear.
Scene III
Customer service desk at Elevator Supply.
Larry, "I need to buy a scale to weigh something."
Dirk the clerk at work picks up a small bathroom scale, "Whatcha gonna weigh?"
"A truck."
"A truck? You're funny. Laugh this off."
First day of work is over. Back home...
Moe announces to everyone, "Larry has to go to 'Fleece the Farm' to pick up a spare tire"
"I do?" Larry nervously eyes Moe picking up a lead pipe.
"I do."
After a forty minute haitus...
Larry walks in the kitchen the same way as he left - empty handed.
"Well. Where is the spare tire?"
"At the store."
"And why did you leave it at the store?"
"I drove there and picked it up like you said. Then I set it down and came back."
"It's a good thing you have to go back there."
"I do?"
The TV is blasting out the current event: "The Corn Report is in five minutes."
Second day at work...
Homer addresses his new workers with a concern, "Judy is gone today. Would one of you do the Corn Report at noon?"
Doug volunteers, "Sure. What is the Corn Report?"
"You tell the public the price of corn."
"I can do that." Doug sets himself in the driver's seat, puts on oversize headphones, and begins broadcasting, "Today corn is 39 cents a can at IGA, next to the kumquats."
Ed the eloquent editor leans over and whispers, "No, you moron. The price of corn by the bushel!"
Doug, "Today corn is 39 cents a bushel at IGA, next to the kumquats."
"No idiot! A bushel is $2.44"
A nervous Doug corrects the announcement, "No idiot, a bushel is $2.44"
Ed shakes his head as he sees himself in the unemployment line.
Cletus has the boys do a little farm work...
The Stooges, "We plowed the north forty today. It was tough, but worth it."
"Tough? How can plowing be tough?"
"The field had a crust on it that was hard to plow through, but we made it."
"Crust?" Cletus ponders 'crust' for a minute or so then dismisses it as frost on the ground, though it is 78 degrees outside.
"Did you can those tomatoes like I told you?"
"Yes." Doug brings Martha a sample - a chow mien can.
"You turnip! Where did you get that can?"
"I bought it at the store. It was clogged up with stuff but I cleaned it out. There is a whole grocery bag full of empty cans in the other room."
Cletus starts to drive his farmer's Cadillac, the Yugo, up the road to feed some cows..."Oooo! Those morons!" He u-turns and speeds back home.
"Hey, was the crust you plowed black?"
Moe, "Why, yes it was."
"You idiots! The 'crust' was the road! How are we gonna drive into town?"
Martha throws out another empty carton of coke.
"I've noticed you've mowed the lawn several times but no grass has been in the garbage."
"Oh, we're making compost."
"That's nice."
Meanwhile, a thousand miles away...
Fred Fricklehoff, of Maine, Wyoming, a sister city of Wyoming, Maine, opens a can of beans for breakfast.
"Say, darlin', these beans have grass in them."
"Grass?"
Meanwhile, not a thousand miles away...
Martha, "I didn't know we had a place to make compost."
"Yeah, see the big compost bins across the street. We'll have more compost than a post that coms a post that posts compost."
Martha is taken aback. "What? What compost bins?"
Curly points to the grain elevator. "Those bins."
"Oh no! Those are for storing corn and beans, not compost."
"Homer is in for a surprise."
Cletus, "Better than a dumb ass."
Everyone, except Doug, is going to the store for food.
As she's leaving, Martha reminds Doug, "Don't forget, I'll bring the bagels for lunch."
"Ok. I wanna finish my project." Doug is busy trying to design a scarecrow using Microsoft Scarecrow Design with a scare factor of 8.
Doug spends an hour rummaging through old boxes in the garage gathering up parts for the terror of the field and another hour building his masterpiece. "Wow. That is one ugly scarecrow. That will fix those vacuous crows."
The grocery store gang come into the house loaded with groceries under each arm. Doug has the table set for lunch.
Cletus, "Why is there places for seven? There are only five of us."
Doug adjusts one of the chairs, "Martha said she'd bring the bagels over for lunch. I can hardly wait to meet them."
David shakes his head, "You dork."
Doug is eyeing over the Fleece the Farm receipt. "Hey, Larry. You got charged twice for batteries."
"I bought a package of batteries but they weren't included. So I bought them again."
David emerges from his room after spending most of the day in it.
He announces to everyone, "I'm opening a radiator repair shop."
Martha, "Really?"
David holds up his masterpiece. "Yeah. Here's the sign for the front of the store. I painted it myself."
"Hmmmm." Larry studies it carefully and reads it out loud: 'Davids Radiator Repair: A good place to take a leak'. "I'm not sure that will bring in a lot of business."
"Oh, I forgot. I hafta go on a field trip for a few days. We're going to Tampa. I'll be leaving tomorrow."
"Are you flying?"
"No. I don't have any feathers."
Martha looks up from her cryptoquotes, "David, what happened on your date last night?"
"She was nice. I took her to Peoria for dinner and dancing. As we're driving home she surprises me and says she doesn't go all the way on the first date. So I dropped her off four miles from home."
Tomorrow...
Cletus finishes his Maxwell House coffee then announces, "Who wants to go to the airport?"
David, "Not me."
"What? You're the reason I'm going to the airport. Remember? You're going to Tampa."
"Oh yeah. Don't I need a ticket or something?"
Martha, "Don't you have a ticket?"
David fumbles through his backpack, "Yeah. Three speeding tickets, a parking ticket, and a ticket to Korn."
Cletus grabs his coat, "Maybe the teacher has them at the airport. Let's go."
Bouncing along on Illinois roads in a 1980 SUV by International Harvester...
Martha, "I'm worried about osteoporosis"
"Is she out late again?"
"No. Bone loss."
Larry, "You look like all your bones are present."
"Why don't you see a bone specialist?" Doug thumbs quickly through the phonebook he found under the front seat . Here's one. 'Arthur Itis'"
"No. He sounds like a real pain."
Martha is reading the weddings page of the newspaper. "Look at this marriage. Sandy Duncan is marrying Robert Donat."
"I always liked weddings."
Doug, "Their kids will be Duncan Donats"
"Here's the airport."
David, "I see the parking lot is full. Pull up to the front and open your hood like the car is not working. I'll unload the suitcase."
David scurries out of the SUV and into the airport.
"When is he supposed to get back?"
"I dunno. He never tells us anything."
Scene IV
A big pile of dirt lies next to a hole near the house. Mud tracks lie in the grass from the hole to the front entrance.
Doug and Larry run into the house, very excited.
"Hey, we found a treasure chest."
Elmet, "Is Dolly Parton here?"
"No. We were digging in the garden and found a treasure chest. Maybe Captain Kidd buried it. Or his kid. Or his kid's kid."
"No kidding?"
Martha, "Have you opened it?"
"No, the cover is too hard to get through."
Doug, "The ground around it is uliginous but that won't stop us!"
Doug rubs his hands in anticipation of sipping Long Island Ice Teas by the beach, "Wow! A treasure chest. I wanna alert channel 10 news. Even channels 1-9. This is national news."
A few days later...
A van drives up and lets out a haggard passenger. David walks in, throws his suitcase in his bedroom, and comes to the kitchen to eat Cherrios.
Martha, "How was your field trip to Tampa?"
"I got in trouble."
"Why?"
"My teacher was lying down in the sand, taking a nap and I disturbed her."
"What happened?"
"I thought she was beached so I tried to drag her back to the ocean."
Cletus walks in with a sour look on his face.
"Hey! What is all that corn doing in the field? I thought you picked it and brought it to the elevator."
Doug, "The new scarecrow is sooo scary, the crows are bringing back the corn they stole last year."
Scene Last
4:00 PM sharp. Doesn't matter what day. Local farmers gather around the pot belly stove which resides in the sitting room at the elevator's office. Most have a rocking chair, made a long time ago...Several ash trays are cleaned and sit on the haggard coffee table.
Lem's chair squeaks every time it goes forward, "Hey Cletus. I heard your helpers dug up a treasure chest on your property. Must be pretty excitin."
"Their contretemps got them in trouble."
"I thought you'd be spending your days wallowing in riches."
"I thought so, too, but I ran them out of town after they opened it on national TV."
"Why?"
"It was the septic tank."
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© 2001, Doug DePrenger