There was a crooked man...who was also a very stinky man.

Top of the morning gents,

Nursing a fat lip.

Nobody swatted me across the puss, I smacked myself
with my own damn shovel. Dumb asses do things like
this, when we're playing tunnel rat.

Did I ever tell you boys I'm a dumb ass? I am.

Drifting snow, 24 below zero, wind chill warnings; 46
below. Colder'n shit, windier'n shit too soldiers,
but dead calm and quiet 30 feet underground.

Oh yeah, my fat lip.

Following divine providence, I found myself playing
tunnel rat. I volunteered to help my browner bro
clean out his sigluk (underground cellar) and haul up
a couple tons of whale meat, blubber, and muktuk.

Did I mention that it's a cultural faux pau to call
Eskimo food "stinky"? It is.

My hard breeding, drinking, hunting partner was
delegated to expand his clan's ice cellar, and he knew
this defective piece of shit couldn't refuse his
request for help. Like I said, I'm a dumb ass.

Only North of 70 lat will you find a time traveling
murderer who is now able to travel more than mere
decades, this weekend he traveled multiple millennia
back in time. Back to when Eskimos were subterranean
and snacked on good foods other cultures call rotten.

Good stuff Maynard, but I is done fucked.

I'm snacking on road kill, beach kill, and now even
long dead and buried sea mammal rancid kill.

I consulted my lunatic operator's manual and failed to
find the chapter addressing these berserker
transformations, but did discover that everything dead
and eaten by this habitually bipedal Nordic moron soon
reappears in this universe as one foul and offensive
turd. Egads, my shit even stinks like a retarded
river rat's Selawik butt pie.

We lugged tons of aging and fermenting whale candy up
the ladder to the surface, then with ice pick and
shovel we groomed the floor and far recesses. We then
dumped mucho buckets of hot water all over smoothing
the surfaces and walls much like pouring quickly
hardening candle wax.

After all the chipping and scraping, the instantly
freezing water created a perfectly smooth and
beautiful floor. I used an old mop to slurry the
rapidly freezing water around leaving a pert near
perfect finish.

I ain't fucking native, but I sure felt like one after
a whole day 30 feet under frozen tundra. With whale
muk and rancid crust scrapings in my beard and hair,
the Mrs. is accurate in stating that I 'stink native'
too.

Farm yard implements of destruction are like
extensions of my personality. Shovels and pitchforks
work the same underground as they do in the horse
pasture, and at the dinner table.

I do my best thinking when I'm toiling and soiling,
alongside peasants. All day yesterday while I was
lifting and hauling, shoveling and raking, mopping and
slurrying 30 feet down and 10,000 years ago, I
retrieved this non-fictional vignette.

Four and thirty years ago, Cully and I were delegated
the chore of burying a giant of a Billy goat,
Marmaduke. A big ol' goat that'd chowed down
everything in it's path, including poisonous branches
and leaves other intelligent farm animals avoided.

Typical of all kid Finns, we neglected this chore for
over a week, whereupon our paps discovered an even
larger dead Billy goat in the garage. He angrily
lectured that gastric contents of all mammals ferment
and literally inflate corpses like behemoth balloons.

Ya see, he exercised parental discretion via loud and
quite clear lectures instead of backhanded techniques.

In my old age, it's also the avenue of grandchild
rearing I use to this day. Just like bad shit, good
shit runs in the family and down through the
generations.

He wasn't happy with the 7 day delicacy lying bloated
in his garage, and was rather emphatic in his
instructions to get the fly buzzing flavor cell
buried, and pronto.

Being a Saturday, and on a farm that attracted
children better'n a pie eyed piper, benevolent soldier
boys ranging in ages seven to eleven marched in from
"way far away" to help me and Cully dig a hole in the
back corner of the horse pasture.

Ultimately digging 2 holes. I'll get back to this
later.

This crew of dirty diggers did do a bang of job of
digging a hole with their first valiant endeavor
yielding pay dirt to the tune of large pieces of
rusting sheet metal about 4 feet down.

We consulted the dad, and showed him our find. He
praised the good digging, and asked what we were
waiting for. I jammed my shovel into the rusty metal
and displayed our metal barrier. Dad jumped into our
goat grave and banged about looking for clues.

He found some; windshield auto glass. Pre-float glass
with anomalies and trace gas bubbles, shards not
cubes. The shape of the rusty metal and the presence
of auto glass determined we standing on top of a Model
A Ford.

My dad got fucking pissed.

He went next door and pounded on grandpas door, then
stormed in. Gramps originally owned most of Maplewood
Hill, even the property Maplewood Elementary was built
on including the old house he sold to Art Waite and
Ivy Joe. Serious redneck farmers we'll discuss when
you're in dire need of an expectorant.

Dad came back a few minutes later. His locked jaw and
red face even scared me, and I ain't ascared o'
nothing. He told us we had to put all the dirt back
and refill our super neato monster Billy goat grave
and pointed to another location for us to start
digging hole #2.

By the time those dirty boys finished digging a
handsomely deep grave, for the second time, they were
too pooped to poop. Our little arms and backs were
rubber.

It took all us boys and all our strength to drag and
slide this horrid Shetland sized goat up onto our
largest wheel barrow, and wheel it out to goat grave
number two.

Callahan and Tom Girvan were forward stabilizers and
power train, me and Cully were rear stabilizers with a
barrow handle for each digger.

I now understanding my father's devious methods. He
and mom nearly passed out gagging, yet laughing as us
four mukes wheeled this giant odiferous delicacy to
its foul resting place. I didn't chuke up, but I
chewed on bitter spit.

With noses plugged and eyes closed, we strategically
tipped and poured out Marmaduke the hugely bloated
stink monster we all used to ride and play with.

Fuck. Our hole wasn't deep enough.

None of wanted to pull him back out and dig deeper.
So we just sat in our dirt and pert near cried.

Until Cully had an idea.

We all stepped way back while Tom and Cully got in
their best stab and run positions.

Yup, they were gonna blow a goat.

These two brilliant and brave lads gave it their best
2-man jab and shoved the pointed spade into their
inflated pet's belly. Their stab and run technique
worked excellent, except for the coating of gastric
spattering that textured and covered them.

That goat exploded with a loud boom. Like popping a
grocery produce bag, with all the pieces in yer face.

The odds of regurgitation were 4 out of 4. We all
cheaved.

Cully was crying and Callahan was cussing; through
their own vomit. Me and Tom were laughing our asses
off, puking too.

That goat bomb did a remarkable job of reducing the
size and mass of Marmaduke, but weighed down our hair
and garments. All we had to do was shovel everything
back into the hole. Including an assortment of horror
movie slime.

Needless to say, the inventory of material in that
grave was of a mixed composite.

Oh, back to why we had to dig 2 holes.

My Dad had been duped by his own father into buying
the farm. And with the sworn oath that he'd buried a
bullet ridden truck in the property across the dirt
road where the new elementary school now sat and not
the farm where 4 boys were digging graves on.

Oops. Simple mistake.

Strange families do strange things. If my gramps
wants to bury old vehicles that have been shot up,
then dad burn it, he'll do just that.

If misfit boys want to wear fermented muck all over
themselves, then they'll do just that.

4 and 30 years later, seems we never outgrow bad habits.

I gotta get all this foul smelling laundry deodorized
and disinfected before my Siberian beauty comes home.

Besides hating a stinky man, she hates a stinky house.

She don't mind the bullet ridden truck.

Dudes, go native.

Karl.