Today's Rant brought to you by the makers of Jeez-It brand snack crackers! Greetings & welcome back to Rants-R-Us! We here at Jiggle Your Box Airlines know you have a choice when you fly and would like to thank you for choosing to fly with us! Please be sure your seatbacks are in the full upright and locked position and your tray tables and carry on luggage are securely stowed in your derriere. Mind you, we have gone through months of cranial restructuring both laborious and tumultuous all with the goal of delivering you fresh new rants starting today. So, down in front and no bitching about the last five rantless months. It isn't easy being a mental case. One has to work at it every day. Right! So, off to a lighthearted start. Since the fan letter below arrived this very night whilst your first freshly-killed rant was broiling nicely in the oven of my skull, and since I was compelled by its pure simple genius to respond at once, I have decided to post the resultant dialogue herein for yourst firstest ranteth. Enchoy! Fan Letter From A Trucker Hey there Mr. Duke! Saw you travelling across New Mexico and had to write. You see, I am a truck driver and travel cross the country, day-in and day-out. Nothing but long boring stretches of road before me. And suddenly, right there outside of Albuquerque - there you were! I couldn't stop, I'm on a pretty tight time schedule (and turning around wasn't really a very safe option). But I was truly in awe. I have never seen anybody pack that many trunks on top of each other on their roof! You guys must really need a lot of clothing when you travel. And all those toys on the car. You must have lots of children. I did see you pulled over at a hotel later and I looked inside (I took a picture too, but I didn't have a dollar to leave for you so I left an extra large Hershey bar in the box there for you - did you find it?) I couldn't figure out where all your kids sit in there. Do you keep some of them in the trunks on top? I was just wondering. I won't tell anybody if you do. I know how stressful family vacations can be. So since the only information that immediately caught my eye was your website address that led me to your email address, I have decided to start up a fan club for you. I'm currently out on an East coast run and have added some advertising to my rig with your picture and email address on it. People will write me and tell me how great you are and I'll forward their letters on to you. You have the most wonderful website and have had the most interesting adventures. I was kind of wondering why you never mention all those kids though. And what about this poor woman (or women) who had all these kids with you? You don't ever mention her (or them) either. If someone wanted to send you a token of their appreciation, where would they send it? Don't you worry, I won't send any girly panties or anything like that - what with you and all those kids. Well, I won't send that kind of stuff unless you want me to, that is. Well, hope you guys got to your vacation destination safely and I hope to see you on the road again. I was wondering too, is it easier or harder for you to pick up women with all those kids? Talk soon, Big Belly Bad Ass Brad Dear Big Belly Bad Ass, Hello Brad. Thanks for taking time out of your busy road-running schedule to write. I was just telling my friend Grizelda how nice it is to get mail, especially from strangers-turned-fans. And hell, half the mail I get from Grizelda is addressed from who-the-hell-knows who. She keeps my life interesting. Well now Brad, I did get that chocolate bar and man, was it gooey. Damn, boy, donchoo know chocolate melts? It was wicked melty and I'm sticky-phobic, see, so I just left it alone until a few days down the road when we hit a freak ice storm crossing the Continental Divide. All that ice making the hair on all my dolls stand up and the ice in my lap from the overheating engine melting ice and it leaking down through Duke's windshield and into my lap and then freezing there again and the girls having to blow on it. I'll get to the girls shortly. Well, it made me think of growing up in Massatwoshits under 387 feet of snow and how mom used to keep candy bars in the freezer for us on account of her being kinda special in the head, and well, that's when I pulled over to get your gift. And wouldn't you know it just yanked outa there in one big piece, one big deformed chocolate pancake all sprinkled full of dimes, nickels and pennies (from all those poor low-income postcard buyers in New Mexico). Anyway, Big Belly, what I was trying to say before the A.D.D. got a hold of me and my mind drifted off to visions of Grizelda all covered in chocolate syrup and money, well, uh, oh yeah, was that your gift of chocolate and all that money came in real handy in that ice storm. You see I long ago tore all the vents and shit outa Duke's dash, so I got no defogger. So after sating my monstrous hunger with the Hershey's and spitting out the coins, I took a buncha still-sticky nickels, tied a bare wire around each one and used the stickiness to stick em in a spherical pattern on the glass around where I look out of the windshield. Then I took the wire harness and hooked it up to my spare battery in the car and voila! Your sticky nickels, Brad, made one Bad Ass defrosted porthole through which I was able to see the road and get off that frikken Divide! And they say genius is hereditary! Well, it's too bad we didn't meet up. You could have met the centuplits, my ten twin wives. That's right, we're from Utah. The twins and I are probably the only Mormon glue-sniffing circus clown act and mobile massage parlor in the world! Yessir, there's more to that car than meets the eye. And there's more than enough love to go around between ten women. I would have gladly shared. You see, Big Belly, I learned long ago that's it's far better to baby a crying sweetheart than to sweetheart a crying baby, if you know what I mean. That's why I snapped up the centuplits. You see, when you stretch the genetics of a zygote that far, you lose a few things, like fertility for instance. All ten girls are sterile. I know, you're thinking "I thought those Mormons liked having children?" Well, we do want children. Someday. And for that we're going to have to get an eleventh wife. I was thinking about asking Grizelda. What do you think? But for now the girls and I get to travel and sing and dance and play doctor and have Chinese fire drills all night without any concern for, um, accidents. Sure, it's a little crowded in the car sometimes and YES! those girls ARE clotheshorses! But whenever any of us gets stressed out or uppity, we just whip out the 100% silicone, throw it in a brown bag, pass the bag around and everybody takes a nice, deep HUFF! An old Latter Day trick. Works like a charm. (Actually, Mazzy, one of the twins, saw Laura Dern do it in a movie) Now that you know I ain't got kids, you go ahead and send anything you like, Brad. Oh, wait. The girls are yelling something to me. Oh, ha ha, girls. They said to send Popsicle sticks and rubber bands. Very funny. But seriously, could you send Viagra? Or maybe some of that Spanish Fly stuff from Mexico? Thanks, Bad Ass. The girls asked me to send along a photo for you. Thanks for the promo on the side of your truck. Be sure to tell em we do massage. We get mail at: Purrfect Box #10, Chinese Fire Drill, CA 99999. Don't let the address fool you. It's a cover. We have a very discreet contact in California who forwards our mail to us in Utah. Oh, and don't send a check! Money orders only. I'm talking, a guy with ten wives has to keep a real low profile if you know what I mean. The neighbors think I'm a drill team instructor. Via con Gringos! MORE RANTS! Write Me! ©2003 Rick McKinney ALL RIGHTS RESERVED