PORFLE VS. THE BEE GEES

(This was written back when Robin was still with us, so it is dedicated to Robin.)



You know those old-fashioned go-carts with lawnmower motors on them that kids used to ride up and down your street, making such a nerve-wracking racket? Well, the Bee Gees are riding them around inside my house right now.



See, I went to EZ-Mart today to buy some wheat bread. I loved white bread when I was a kid, but now it just tastes all gummy and bland. Wheat bread, on the other hand--now that's tasty stuff. Thank goodness my adult palate can appreciate things like wheat bread, Brussels sprouts, and artichokes.



And if you ever make me a sandwich, leave the crusts on, please. In fact, I even eat the heels on a loaf of bread, and they're ALL crust. On one side, anyway. I wait for the rest of the bread to run out and then make a special, celebratory "heel sandwich." Sometimes it's baloney and cheese, sometimes it's smoked turkey. My goal is to make a heel sandwich out of every kind of sliced lunch meat there is.



Now when I was a kid, of course, things were different. I hated the heels. To me they were something you threw out in the front yard so you could watch birds and squirrels eat them. Or you gave them to your dog if it was the kind of dog that will eat anything. But the thought of actually eating those concentrated slabs of crust myself was unthinkable.



"That's the best part," Mom and Dad would always say, but they always said stuff like that. Come to think of it, they always said the worst part of anything was the best part. If you told them that you loved camping out in the woods except for when grizzly bears attacked, ripped you to pieces, and then ate you alive, they would've said, "That's the best part."



Sorry for rambling. I'm just trying to think of anything else besides the skull-splitting din of go-cart motors attacking my eardrums as the Bee Gees continue to tear through my house like wild animals.



What I meant to say while ago when I mentioned going to EZ-Mart was that I neglected to lock the front door when I left. So when I got back home I discovered that the surviving Bee Gees--Robin and Barry Gibb, as you probably well know (Maurice having passed away in 2003)--had just let themselves in like they owned the place.



At least they had the decency to open the door instead of just breaking it down with their go-carts. But that's small compensation for the outrage of having them rip-roaring their way into my house and using it as some kind of insane go-cart speedway. My carpet has tire tracks all over it now, especially where they've skidded out around the corners, and my cat is terrified. It'll be at least a week now before she comes out from behind the refrigerator.



"Why MY house?" I keep screaming as they zoom by, but they just ignore me. It looks and sounds as though they're having the time of their lives. I'd think that guys with their kind of money could find other ways to have fun, or at least find somewhere else to do it. I don't know if they chose my house for a particular reason or not.



It's probably just random--but then again, it wasn't that long ago that I went outside to find Phil Collins running around my house in his underwear, screaming "ZOOOOOM!!! I'M A ROCKETSHIP!!!" until he collapesed from exhaustion and was carried away by two guys in a van with the words "Phil Collins Rocketship Retrieval Service" printed on the sides. But at least he wasn't on some kind of motorized vehicle, and he stayed outside, so Phil Collins wasn't anywhere near the nuisance that these Bee Gees are.



Sheesh, how old are these guys now? They should be doing dignified stuff at their age. Don't they have a formal dinner party or sophisticated club to go to like other celebrities? Why are they racing around my livingroom and kitchen area and up and down my hallway on go-carts, laughing their heads off and screaming like banshees?



Robin just crashed into my dinette set--it's kindling. Looks like I'll be eating all my meals on a TV tray from now on. "Smashing!" he exclaimed as he zoomed out of the kitchen--ha ha, very funny, Robin. Meanwhile, Barry just did a two-wheeler into the bathroom, and there's a racket coming out of there that I shudder to think about.



Oh, here he comes again--now he's wearing my best bath towels, one as a Superman cape, another as a turban, screaming "I'm Swami Man!", and his go-cart is decorated with toilet-paper streamers. It's the expensive kind, too...double-ply. And he's unrolling two mega-rolls of it as he goes, trailing them all over the house.



I'd call the police, but what would I tell them? "Help, the Bee Gees are riding go-carts in my house."



Well, while my attention was diverted by Barry, I see that Robin Gibb just hopped off his go-cart and used my coffee table and an overturned recliner to form a makeshift ramp, and it's pointed right at the front livingroom window. Apparently, the Bee Gees are planning to top off their evening's frivolity with a thrilling stunt.



And here they go--Robin, evidently the most reckless and thrill-hungry of the two, is in the lead with Barry crowding his rear bumper, and they're thundering up my hallway at full speed, gaining incredible momentum as they bear down inexorably upon the ramp, and now Robin charges up the 45-degree angled surface with mindless abandon and plunges through the window with a blood-curdling crash amidst a shower of broken glass.



Barry flies through the air right behind him and they both land on my front lawn at full speed and sail off into the night, singing "Nights On Broadway." I used to sorta like that song, but now I'll never be able to listen to it again without thinking of this night, and how the people singing it are totally insane whackos.



I just went into the kitchen to make a sandwich and found out that the Bee Gees raided my refrigerator, too. After scarfing down all my baloney and cheese, they ate all my Brussels sprouts and artichokes as well. And the wheat-bread heels I was saving for tonight? Gone.



Thank you, Barry and Maurice Gibb, for not only totally wrecking my house with your go-carts, but also using the last of my baloney and cheese and wheat-bread heels to make heel sandwiches to fuel your irrational, terrorizing behavior. If it was your intention to make me dislike you as much as Space Ghost does, then mission accomplished, Bee Gees...mission accomplished.