227 - Telephonies

Moe, Hairy, and Doug (the 3 Flaws) get a job in a Texas factory making telephone equipment.

Scene I

8:00 AM. Apr 1. MrAndMrs is interviewing the Flaws for positions in a large factory that makes electronic telephone equipment. The back of the single story red brick building has over twenty freight docks most are occupied by older semi trailers backed up in a domino fashion while the front is a verdant, neatly mowed expanse with the name of the company emblazoned on a stone edifice set squarely in front of the only entrance. The boys are inside a small spartan interview room trying their best to impress their interviewer...

Hairy blurts out, "We’re the best assemblers that ever assembled an ensemble."

MrAndMrs scratches her tattoo as she ruffles some papers then continues with the standard questions, "Did you graduate with a degree?"

Doug, "Yeah. 98.6 of them."

"Moron. Do you have a resume?"

"No. We have Omay." Doug points to Moe. "And Arrylay." He points to Hairy. "And me, Ugday."

"Dolt. We have an opening for a supervisor and..."

Doug pipes up from a daydream, "I have one of those in my car. It keeps the sun..."

"Quiet brainiac." Doug gets an eye poke from Moe.

"And a clerk and tester."

Moe conks Doug and Hairy’s heads together. "I’m the boss so I’ll be the boss, right boss?"

A frustrated Doug stammers around the desk, "I wanna be the boss!"

"Until you can outthink me, I’m the boss. How many fingers am I holding up?"

Doug points as he counts, "One. Two?"

"No. Both of them." .

Moe finishes the assignments, "Hairy, you’re the clerk."

Hairy looks at MrAndMrs and shrugs his shoulders, "What does a clerk do?"

"Well." MrAndMrs thinks a minute… "He clerks."

A flip of the coin: "Heads. You’re hired. You start rat now."

Scene II

8:33 AM – Greenwich Mean Time (Hairy forgot to set his PDA’s time zone). Apr 1. First day on the job. The Flaws are in the lobby, waiting for their assignments.

MrsAndMr, the manly "sister" of MrAndMrs, escorts Doug to his new home.

"This is a workstation designed by our testing faction. It has two monitors, a keyboard, and a testbed where you place the boards to be tested. All the electronics are in the cabinets underneath the bench."

"It sure is big!" Doug checks his Hard Rock Hotel watch. "Can I watch the ballgame? The Cubs are on in fifteen minutes."

"The Cubs? The Cubs???? Why, they’re in Chicago! That’s a Yankee team!"

Pillows, the sidekick of MrsAndMr, stands up and points his large finger to the perpetrator, "Youz a Yankee." Pillows bounces Doug several feet with his stomach into a stack of boxes.

Doug surrenders. "I’z a Yankee."

"Tex will be over soon with some boards to test. Meanwhile, read the manual in the top drawer. It explains everything."

"I hafta read?" Doug sighs, "These jobs are getting tougher every year."

Scene III

8:55 AM. The factory floor. Camera pans slowly on the shipping area showing pallets full of boxes abound with workers nearly running into each other trying to load and unload them onto waiting trucks.

Hairy, the new shipping jerk (sic), is busy getting a big order ready for AB&C in Villanova Junction, Indiana. MrMr is showing Hairy the ropes.

"...now this rope is used to tie up heavy boxes. And this rope, called twine, is used to wrap smaller packages. And this rope, called string, is used to fly kites at lunchtime."

Hairy is bobbing his head up and down like a jack-in-the-box, as he munches a candy bar.

A pallet full of boxes is ready to send addressed to Ed Fritzenheimen.

Phil, Will, and Bill are ready to go. "Load these on the truck – boss’s orders. Fred will drive them to Villanova Junction."

"Ok porcupine."

Phil bends over and picks up something. "I found your brother on the floor."

"What?" Hairy inspects the small item. "This is a nut...oh."

"Hairy." MrMr lays down the law. "We have to ship 30 boxes a day or else..."

"Or else what?"

"This." Hairy gets an eyepoke, a punch in the stomach, hair ripped out, and pounded in the head with a mallet.

Will walks over, "I didn’t hear. What happens if we don’t make shipment?"

"This." . Hairy gets it again.

Bill comes over, holding a small box. "What happens if shipments aren’t made this month?"

"This." . Hairy gets it again.

Phil trundles by on a forklift and calls out, "We may not make shipment for the month. What’s gonna happen?"

"Oh no."

MrMr delivers on schedule. "This." . Hairy gets it again.

A woozy Hairy picks up his ex-hair and hurries back to his desk to make sure this month’s shipments are on time.

Camera pans back to Doug’s work area…

Moe walks up to Doug’s workstation and finds him playing ostrich – he is bent over with his head stuffed in the top drawer of a gray filing cabinet. Moe promptly kicks him in the pants.

"What are you doing?"

"Ooouch! My head! Look at this lump - Now my hat won’t fit."

A muffled answer emanates from the cabinet, "Don’t disturb me. I’m reading the workstation manual. Ooouch! I burned myself again."

Moe pulls Doug by the hair. "You moron! Take the manual out of the cabinet to read it."

"Ohhhhh!" Doug emerges from the A-D cabinet with the manual. "This is much easier! It was dark in there – besides, I ran out of matches."

Moe randomly opens up the training manual. "Look at this schematic diagram on page 57."

"Hmmm. Looks like a Steinmetz oscillator. If you rewire the capacitor..." As Doug leans over to investigate further, Moe slams the book on Doug’s nose. "Get back to testing, you slug!"

Moe scurries over to shipping, looking for some help.

Moe, "Hairy. Can you help us test? We are a shorthanded."

"Your hands look fine to me."

Moe waves his hand over a sea of bins, "We need to test these telephones."

"Hmpf" Hairy eenie meenie minee moes a telephone from a bin as Moe continues making his rounds.

-- Camera zooms in on a conference at Doug’s workstation…

Tex, the senior technician, is explaining how to test circuit boards. "Ok Doug. Y’all test these boards at this workstation."

"How will I know they are good?"

"Lay the board on the fixture." Tex points to an amber light. "If the light blinks, then it is bad. I gotta git back to mah workstation."

As soon as Tex leaves, Doug opens up a package of M&Ms for a snack. After downing a few he lays them next to his soldering iron then starts testing a tub full of boards.

Doug mumbles to himself, "What an easy job. Just plop the board on the test fixture and see if a stupid light blinks."

He props his feet on the workstation and tosses another board on the fire.

After a half an hour of testing he picks up his M&Ms package to have a snack…

"Hmm. My candy is gone. I swear I had a few left." After a few seconds of pondering what happened, he shrugs his shoulders then goes over to the vending machine in the cafeteria and buys another bag.

Moe sneaks up on Hairy, who is testing telephones.

"Why are you always tearing out my hair?"

"What are you doing? All I’ve seen you do is stare at the phone."

"I’m testing the part where the phone waits for a ring - and it hasn’t rung."

Moe, "I’ll fix that." He picks up the phone and conks Hairy on the head with it.

"Ooohh. Now it’s ringing."

"The phone?"

"No, my head."

After his roundabout trip back, Doug frantically searches the workstation drawers and filing cabinet, "I wonder where I laid my soldering iron?"

A few workbenches down: "OWWWWW!"

Doug blushes, "Heehee. Looks like Az found it."

Everyone stops working and holds on to their seats.

"What’s happening? An earthquake?"
"Oh it’s Pillows running across the factory floor. He is mad at someone."

Pillows stops at Hairy’s testing area.

"I just got a phone bill for sixty thousand dollars!!! Why are you calling all these foreign places?"

Hairy, "I wanted to make sure the telephone is localized, that is, that it can understand foreign languages so I called all over the world. All I found is a lot of gibberish at the other end."

Scene IV

11:45 AM. Lunch time for group 3.

The lunchroom entrance is next to the door marked ‘dipping’ – the place where circuit boards are cleaned and dipped in a waterproof coating.

Doug, Moe, Hairy, Tex, Ark, and Gator are seated around a square table, shootin’ the bull.

"Why are you called Gator?" wonders Hairy.
Ark,"Cause he’s a crock of ..."

"Phewww." Doug spews out his first sip. "This tea is awful."

Tex picks up Doug’s tea and smells it. "You moron! This is paint. Where did you get this?"

"In the T room, next door."

"Ohhhh. The T room is for testing the waterproof boards, not for five o’clock tea."

"hrmlkjklj" Doug jumps up and leaves.

Ark, "Wonder where he’s going?"

Moe and Hairy are standing in the cafeteria line loading up their trays with goodies. Hairy holds his drink up to the light, "This coffee looks weak."

Moe upends the steaming fluid on Hairy’s head. "Yeeoww!"

"That is hot water, not coffee."

Moe reluctantly pokes the "food" with a fork. "Hmmmm. What’s the special?"

"Grits with fatback, possum pancakes, and scrapple on the side."

Moe crinkles his face. "No thanks, Jethro."

Moe inspects the next offering. "What’s in these hot dogs?"

"Everything but the oink."

Hairy spoons a large portion of meat onto his plate but something falls on his plate. He picks up a horseshoe, dripping with barbeque sauce, with his fork. All of a sudden bells go off and several lunch servers gather around.

"Since you found the lucky horseshoe, you win a free lunch. It’s like cutting the King cake during Mardis Gras."

The master lunch server hands Hairy a card which he accepts graciously. He cautiously probes the ‘meat’ then leans over and whispers to Moe, "I wonder what this meat is?"

"Probably Mr. Ed[1]."

Doug finally comes back to finish lunch.

"Where did you go, Doug?"

"I drank some paint remover."

"Ohhh."

Hairy cleans out his ears with his pinkie, "Hey Moe. I can’t work anymore. I hear bells in my head."

"That is the time signal for end of lunch."

Scene V

12:22 PM. Camera pans over to Moe at his desk on the factory floor pondering a pile of papers that Peter Piper, who picked a pallet of pickled peppers, passed out.

"I wonder what I do with all these inventory reports? Hmmm. I’m the boss and the boss says they are full of numbers – useless numbers. Goodbye." Moe picks up the inventory reports and throws them out.

Moe props his feet on his desk and opens the local newspaper, The Daily Double, to Opinions and Onions section but is having a problem – the desk is shaking too much; and no wonder - John Bulk, the biiigggg floor manager, is waddling over, huffing and puffing, stopping every few steps to catch his breath. He finally arrives and seats himself next to Moe’s desk. The aluminum legs of the chair bow slightly as they struggle to support John.

"Hellp" squeaks the chair.

There are slight indents in the concrete under each leg. He adjusts his chair so it is sitting on a scale which spits out a fortune: "Please – one at a time."

"I’m John Bulk, the building manager."

"More like John Bulk, the building."

"What?"

"Nothing. I’m Moe the new supervisor."

"Is Moe short for moron? Haahahaha" John always laughs at his own jokes.

"Look, Moby Dick. I…"

John interrupts and wheezes, "Did you review the inventory numbers?"

Moe fumbles through some papers. "Umm. Yes. They were numbers alright."

"Good. The last supervisor would throw them away. He didn’t last long. Haa! Can you imagine a supervisor throwing away inventory sheets? HAAAHAHAHA" John gets up to leave.

"whooaa" whispers the chair, sweat beading on its legs.

Moe nervously laughs along with John, glancing at the garbage can every few seconds.

After the slight altercation with JB, Moe visits Hairy in the shipping area.

Moe, holding a hammer and tapping it in his hand, asks Hairy, "We may not make shipments. Do you know what happens to clerks that don’t make shipment?"

A weary Hairy pokes himself in the eyes, hits himself in the stomach, pulls out a tuft of his hair, and grabs the hammer from Moe and bonks himself in the head.

Moe, "I didn’t know that! I’m glad I’m not a clerk."

-- Doug’s workstation

Doug stands proudly over the bins of boards and announces to no one: "I tested them and they all pass. No blinking lights."

Out of nowhere, Earl the Whirl, the speedy bin mover-abouter, wheels up a dolly and loads several bins of boards. "Thhhhhhat is amazing. Tiiiiiiime for these babies to go to fiiiiiiiinal assembly."

Earl spies Doug’s snack, "Yoooooou shouldn’t ought a not leave M&Ms out. The mmmmmmice like them."

"Mice?"

"Yeeeaaaaah. You know. Mickey and Minnie."

"Hmmmm." Doug casts an evil eye on his workstation.

Earl leans on his hand cart and starts reminiscing, "I use to be quarterback for the Sssssssan Diego Chargers."

Doug leans on his workstation, "I use to be hunchback for Notre Dame."

Moe picks up a clipboard and walks over to the assembly line to watch the team stuff electronic parts into printed circuit boards. Susie Latte, the red-faced, boisterous line supervisor accosts Moe, "WhatAreYouDoingHere?EveryoneGetsNervousAndThinksTheyWillGetFiredWheneverASupervisorIsAroundNowGetLostCreep."

"But I’m the boss!"

"GetOuttaHereBeforeIGetMad"

Suzie kicks Moe in the shin with her neubucks, stomps on his foot then storms away mumbling a mile a minute in between large slugs of coffee.

"I’ll have to report her to the SPCA."

"Ok mouse. No more M&Ms."

Doug waits by the mouse entrance to the computer with a mallet in the ‘whack a mole’ position.

"C’mon mousy. Come out and get your treat!"

The phone rings. Doug spies two squinty green reflective eyes in the dark depths of the workstation then the phone. The mouse hole. The phone.

"Ooooo." Doug scoots his chair across the work area running over his own foot in the process and grabs the phone, nearly knocking it over.

"WHAT?"

No answer.

He glances over to the M&Ms just in time to see the mouse take a few of Doug’s favorite: the blue ones. Doug jumps up and swats at the mouse with his favorite hammer – not only does he miss the mouse but M&Ms fly all over the workstation. Some roll back into the large dent the maul made.

A picture of smilin’ Doug reeling in the mouse nibbling on an M&M appears over Doug’s head, "I know."

Doug baits a string with cheese, ties it to his big toe and tosses his ‘fishing line’ into the workstation and waits.

Moe looks up from his work and sees Doug biding his time, feet up on the desk, chewing on a fern, adjusting his straw hat, and reading the latest issue of ‘Grit’. That does it.

Moe slams down his 1998 inventory report and marches over to reprimand his lazy, good-for-nothing worker bee. "What are you doing?"

"I’m fishing for mice. They keep eating my M&Ms."

Moe picks up the maul. "Where you gonna hit him with this?"

"Yes."

Moe pounds Doug in the head then tosses the hammer aside. "Get back to work!"

Doug gently rubs his new lump, "You always give me a headache!"

-- Final Testing. Several testers are busy twiddling knobs and flipping switches trying to get circuit boards to pass testing.

Jumbo slams down another circuit board. "Hey! These boards don’t work. Who tested them?"

"Doug, the one that looks like John Fogarty[2]."

‘Jumbo’ Jim Bulk, twin of John, wobbles straight over to Doug’s area, knocking down everything in his path.

"Boy am I tired."

Jim sits down.

"get off of me!"

Jumbo glances around then goes back to gasping.

"let me out!"

Jumbo stands up and looks around – he finds flattened Doug on the flattened floor next to his flattened chair.

Jumbo kicks Doug, "Get up possum puss."

"I’m innocent! I tested them and no blinking light ever came on."

Ark, friend of Tex and cousin of Okla, comes over to investigate. His face turns red. "You dope! The workstation is not powered on!"

"You didn’t tell me that."

"Do I have to tell you your shoe is untied?"

"It is? Thanks."

Doug starts tying his left shoe.

"Moe! Moe! Someone stole my shoelaces!"

Moe knocks some sense into Doug. "You knickerknackerknocker. You’re wearing loafers."

Hairy, "That’s appropriate."

Moe tears out a souvenir from Hairy’s head. "You stay outta this, porcupine."

There is a tug on the fishing line.

Doug is excited, "Ooo. A bite!"

Moe, Hairy, and Jumbo intensely watch as Doug tries to reel in his quarry. Hmmmm. "Must be a snag on a crag."

He crawls underneath the workstation and follows the line which disappears into the bowels of electronic equipment. He reaches in blindly trying to feel where the snag is.

"Here it is!"

"Owww!" Doug yanks his hand out and shows everyone his new glove.

"Get this thing off!"

Okla rescues Doug. "Those human traps are vicious."

"Human traps?"

"Yeah. The mice set them."

MrsMrs, the supervisor of testingtesting, hands Moe, Hairy, and Doug some pink papers, "You three bozos are assigned as assembly line workers."

"Oh boy! A demotion!"

Scene V

4:44 PM. Sixteen minutes before the end of the day one.

Jumbo finally makes it to Dross’s office with the morning report and plops down in the guest chair. "Huhhh. Huhhhhh. Hey boss. We have not had one item off the assembly line today. Is it down?"

"No. It is running at full speed." Hmmmmm. "Those new workers."

Boss slams down his stack of papers, spilling an ashtray in the process, and then trots over to the end of the assembly line - much to his chagrin, he finds a dumpster full of printed circuit boards with MLD filling it up as fast as the assembly line produces them.

Dross throws up his hands in exasperation, "What are you doing?"
"We are being good citizens – we’re recycling! WasteNotWantNot, Inc. just hauled off a whole dump truck full of boards and rewarded our good citizenship with a $300 check." Moe proudly gives Boss Dross the reward.

Dross looks at it in disgust and as he tears it up into a million pieces, "YOU’RRRRRRRRRE FIRED!" echoes throughout the building.

The entire factory goes silent except for the footsteps of the Flaws echoing off the walls running toward the closest exit door and several company men, led by a huffing and puffing, wrench-bearing, red-faced Dross, making sure they never come back.

[1] Talking horse show in the ‘60s

[2] Lead Guitarist of Creedence Clearwater Revival

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