The (dubious) Return of Aesop's Fables

*originally published 7-20-96; first blog published in 2006*


..uh, not really.

Prompted by the July 19 blog of Miss Cellania, I have dug deep into the archives, and retrieved a rather peculiar column. A column that did run in the newspaper I wrote for back in the late 90s, but never bothered to post on either my website or blog.

Until now.

There might well have been a good reason heretofore; you be the judge as to the wisdom of changing that long-held decision:

The (dubious) Return of Aesop's Fables (mid 1990s-ish)

I doubt he'd be amused.

There once was a land where three rural mountain towns were born. Born at a time when a great gold rush was on. These towns prospered, as only towns having gold could.

But all good things must end. And 120 years later, it more than had. Fact is, life there had long settled firmly into the category of 'sucks'. Infrastructure crumbling. Little future. Less hope. At least the ghosts had it good.

Then came a promise of resurrection. Thanks to the people. The people and the ballot initiative. The people voted in a new gold rush: limited stakes gaming. And on a magic day in 1991, a new "gold rush fever" returned to those once crumbling, now rejuvenating towns.

In previous times, the original gold rush brought prospectors. Speculators. Dreamers. Schemers. Crooks. Saloons and whores. In 1991, it added tourists and gamblers to the mix. And not long afterward, came something else.

The truly weird.

This is a tale, albeit a true tale. A tale of one day. One atypical day in an average work week. I went to work expecting nothing out of the ordinary. But I failed to reckon that on that particular evening, a full moon would cast upon the land it's mystical version of blondethink, in the form of wrap, a half moon, a Polaroid, and an abused purple reptile.

Gawd knows what Aesop would have made of it.

It began as I started work, and learned of a most unusual happening: a driver of a bakery truck, making his early morning delivery of bread to a nearby casino, was in counting his buns and loaves as the new day dawned. 30 minutes later, he emerged to find a surreal sight: his bread truck had been completely saran wrapped. No note. No witnesses. No X Files music. Just a seal of disapproval. Was he the first, or Homer Simpson, to utter in dismay, "Doh!"?

But this was only the beginning.

As I pondered this oddity in the early afternoon of my shift, I was sought out by several employees. A crisis loomed: a threat to Mankind. Something akin to the Apocalypse. A crack in the universe. One big enough to swallow us all, if it'd been a black hole.

There, sitting at a slant top slot machine, was a patron of ponderous girth, blissfully doing what a patron does at said machine. But his jeans weren't doing what jeans generally do.

They'd sunk.

A patron noticed it first. She pointed it out with disgust to a couple employees. They pointed it out to other employees. They collectively stood around, first twittering amongst themselves. Then they surmised that this was not a good thing. They mused what should be done. It came to resemble a bad cereal commercial from the 1960s:

"You tell him".
"I'm not gonna tell him, YOU tell him".
"I'm not gonna tell him...."
"Let's get Mikey..."
"Yeah, he'll do it!"

I didn't like the commercial or the cereal. But with the memory of the bread truck story wearing on the delicate balance between my threadbare professionalism and my ornery sense of humor, I was moved to make the most of a rare opportunity, even as I pondered the potential End of Days, so to speak.

I called the shift manager over the radio, and notified her that we had an "unlicensed slot machine in play on the floor". I knew this would bring her otherwise indifferent self from wherever it was she liked to lurk out of sight and mind, in a big hurry. A gaming violation is a gaming violation, and on that shift, her responsibility.

It did. She responded promptly. As she arrived, I pointed. She looked. She gasped. Her face went beet red. The other employees made themselves scarce. After a moment of sputtering, she demanded to know what I was doing about "it". I lamely suggested that 'she' was the horsepower on the floor, not me. With a glare that would split atoms, she muttered a sharp "deal with it" and stalked off.

They got Mikey.

So I walked over, and rather politely suggested to this off-duty plumber* that if he'd shift his jeans up a tad, he might avoid having a far-sighted customer mistake his 'crack' for a slot machine. With a gruff "oh", a grunt and a ponderous shift, he made the universe safe for democracy and small flying birds again. Meantime, the shift manager spent the rest of the day sputtering to anyone who'd listen, "do you know what that SOB (aka, me) did to me?", not realizing they'd been laughing at her and about it all afternoon.

As evening wore on, I thought the full moon's half-approximation was the end of it, pun intended. I learned how wrong I was, as a shuttle bus driver presented to me a polaroid photo that'd been left on his bus. A photo of a woman. A rather attractive one. One we both recognized. One sans attire. Not even a thong.

I lost the tug of war for the picture.

Finally, the long evening was over. I boarded the bus for the ride home, thinking I'd seen and heard it all for the night.

Wrong again.

The story went 'round the bus of the casino down the hill, with a new parking lot. A parking lot blasted out of the mountainside. It was supposed to be a multi-level lot. The money ran out at a ground level. There'll be projects like that. So they decided to make do with their one-level parking lot.

Some marketing whiz for the casino cast about for something unique for the 'grand opening' of this mountain-gouged parking lot behind the casino. Something that would highlight the lot for customers. The story goes that she settled for a purple alligator. Don't ask me; but I'll bet she was cleaning toilets in the bus station downtown the next week.

At any rate, or so the story went, that day was Grand Opening. The Purple Alligator -- a young woman dressed in a purple alligator outfit -- was out flagging down cars, and with gleeful animation, meeting and greeting customers. A good time was had by all who weren't yet under the care of their casino pharmacist**. Save for two.

With the gouging out of the mountainside, loose rock was in abundance up and down the face of the now sheer cliff that marked the back wall of the parking lot. A few specimens heeded Newton's Law of Gravity, and fell. One landed right on top of the hood of one vehicle. When the owner of the vehicle went to retrieve his car, he found what the softball-sized rock had used in place of a cushion. He was not amused. As he returned toward the casino entrance, his amusement level apparently deteriorated rapidly. To the point that he couldn't wait to discuss the matter with the casino management. He wanted instant gratification.

He apparently got it by beating up the Purple Alligator.

I suppose his defense could always be that he'd been emotionally scarred by Barney as a child. Even I'd have to consider voting to acquit on that one, but I digress.

As the story-telling and laughter on the bus subsided, I sat back and pondered what ol' Aesop might have conjured up as a moral to this strange day. Perhaps it'd be something along the lines of "Comes the full moon, don't discount the half-assed". Or not. However more or less philosophical Aesop would have proven to be here, at least he wouldn't have to rant about what "that SOB (aka, moi)" did to him...unless he saw I'd used his name in conjunction with this column.

* dunno if he was a plumber or not...

** bartender