|
|
Too Much Crunch In The Wheaties
by Ronn Venable Quintin lost his smile and became serious. He looked square into Maxwell’s eyes, “Are you ready to do this, Max?” “Of course I am, man. What are friends for?” and he smiled at Quintin. “Then it’s settled Private Nivens. We’ll meet at sunrise on Sunday.” Stiff muscles outlined the cut of his jaw and Maxwell rolled his eyes but knew better than to question him. “Besides,” Quintin continued, “I ran out of Cheerios this morning and the operation has become a necessity. With our two-man team to initiate and execute the mission, it’ll work great.” “Cool, sunrise Sunday it is, Quint,” Maxwell said. “Damn it Max, you’re supposed to take this serious,” Quintin barked. “Oh, sorry…Captain Kirk.” Maxwell whipped off an exaggerated salute, backed to the door, turned and clicked his heels together, then grabbed his middle and guffawed to the floor. “Screw you, Max,” Quintin said. He walked to the door and kicked Max’s feet out of the way so he could slam it. “Goddamn hillbilly,” he yelled through the door. Friday afternoon, before the ‘assault,’ they met at Maxwell’s. Quintin had a map of the target and a list of ‘essentials’ to retrieve. “Okay, Private Nivens…” “Will you quit calling me that,” Max said, “I’ve never even been in the military, and you got discharged twenty-five years ago.” “Shut up, Max. Someone might hear you,” Quintin whispered, then pulled back a corner of the drapes to peer out. “Here. Take this,” and he pushed an orange, plastic box into Max’s hand. Maxwell rolled his eyes and grinned. “A Scooby Doo walkie-talkie? Man, you’re way over the top. We’re just going to the damn grocery store.” Quintin ignored Max’s comments, “I found them in my kid’s toy box, and they’re perfect.” Max shook his head, “Whatever you say, Patton.” “Just sit down and listen,” Quintin spread a few sheets of paper across the table. “Here’s the objective. I made a map for each of us. Your assault area is marked in blue. Mine is marked in yellow.” “Helloooo, Quintin. Don’t you think you’re taking this a little too far?” Max asked. “Listen Max, I’ve thought this through and this’ll work,” he said, then sat back in his chair, folded his hands on his chest, smirked at Max and added, “We gotta be quick, or it will just be waste of time because we’ll never break the record, and don’t forget the bag with your camouflage gear in it.” “Seig heil, mein fuehrer!” Max yelled as he flattened his hand and stretched it out in front of him, “I have zee bag of zee gear in mine hot little hands.” Quintin glared at him, “Shut the hell up and just be here at oh-eight-hundred hours dressed for the assault. I don’t care what you think, this is going to work. We’re going to hold the record for the fastest three-hundred-dollar grocery trip ever.” Max patted him on the shoulder, “Yeah, yeah, what ever you say Colonel Klink. If it will make you happy I’ll dress up and be here about eightish.” Quintin dropped his chin and sulked into his chest. “Good.” *** It was seven AM when Maxwell woke up on Sunday morning. He rolled over, lifting one eyebrow at the alarm clock and grumbled, “Damn, the things I do for my idiot friends.” Before he finished the thought, the phone rang from the living room and Max leapt from his bed. “Hello?” “Hi Max, it’s me, Wildebeest.” “Sorry bud, you got the wrong number, I don’t know any Wildebeest. Bye,” and he started to hang up. “Maxwell! Hey, Max! It’s me,” Quintin yelled into the phone. “Quint?” Max asked, and then sighed, “What’s with the wildebeest shit?” “You know what today is, don’t you?” And before Max could answer he continued, “It’s D-Day, man! I thought we should use code names, and I chose Wildebeest. Are you ready?” Max sighed, “I could be if some moron named Wildebeest would stop calling to remind me what day it is.” “I’m pumped, Max. We’re ready to pull this off better than we ever have before. What do you want your code name to be?” Quintin asked, full of excitement. “Ummm, let’s see… Gee, you already have the good name.” “Hurry up man, you gotta get ready.” “OK, I’ve got it. Call me Aardvark. That’s my code name for the mission. Aardvark.” He rolled his eyes and cupped the phone’s receiver in his hand to muffle his giggles. “That’s kickin’! Okay Aardvark, this is Wildebeest signing off. We have zero-T-minus fifty-six minute and counting before we attack. Oh! Call me on your communicator before you get to my house. ” Max shook his head and grinned as he hung up. “Scooby Doo’s a communicator now. That guy’s a basket case.” He opened the bag that Quintin had given him on Friday, pulled out the camouflaged body suit and held it in front of him. “This is worse than I thought. I’m going to look like an idiot, too.” He shrugged his shoulders and smiled, “Oh, well, it could be fun.” Max struggled with the Spandex-like jumpsuit and finally got his pudgy body into it. He pulled his jacket on over the outfit and walked to the car, hoping that he didn’t get pulled over on the way to Quintin’s. Quintin met him at the door, “These walkie-talkies work great, man. I could hear you loud and clear.” He stood in the doorway in his own camouflaged jumpsuit, and it was only then that Max realized how truly ridiculous he must also look. The Lycra fit like a glove, and Quintin’s body was one that should never be in a glove. His beer belly hung over the expandable waistband and his boxer shorts bunched up around his ample butt cheeks like a cheap diaper. The shoes he picked out were more like ballet slippers (keeps us stealth, he explained to Max when questioned) and the long sleeve, stretch-top made his arms look skinny, except under the biceps, where the bag of flesh still wobbled back and forth when he moved. “Cool, man! You look great,” Quintin beamed when Max took off his coat. “I have something else for you. I didn’t tell you about it because I wanted to surprise ya. Here it is! Your own Ninja mask!” and he handed one to Max while slipping one over his own head. Max fell back into the overstuffed chair and laughed hard. “Do you really think all this is necessary, Qui… errr Wildebeest?” Spit sprayed from between his lips when he tried to hold his giggles. He grabbed Scooby Doo by the head and mocked, “Wildebeest, this is Aardvark. The coast is clear.” Quintin pouted on his way out the door, “Let’s just go. Our window of opportunity is about to open.” Max watched as Quintin marched to the car in his unflattering body suit with Cheerios, Quaker Oats and Wheaties box cutouts pasted all over the front of it and a bunched-up pair of boxers following. Max caught a reflected glimpse of his own suit, covered with Campbell Soup labels and made to look like cans on the shelves. He moaned and shook his head. Quintin turned and Max found himself looking Captain Crunch right in the eyes. “With these suits, we can become damn near invisible in the aisles,” Quintin explained. “All we have to do is get passed the security guard and our grocery shopping is all but done.” He held up a palm for Max to ‘high-five’, but Max ignored it and just walked to the car shaking his head. Quintin hurried, stiff-legged, and Max watched him count the box fronts on his leotards. “Don’t want any to fall off and ruin the perfect camouflage,” Quintin explained. The soup can labels rustled as Max climbed into the drivers seat. The parking lot was almost empty. Quintin looked around and Max pulled his car between the yellow lines. “This is gonna be so cool! We’ll be in and out of there in a flash,” Quintin said. He re-stuck two of the boxes and got out. Maxwell climbed from the drivers seat and a mother steered her stroller, in a wide circle, around him. Max smiled and tried to act as normal as possible. Dressed like a shelf display of Campbell’s Soup cans, he walked to the front entrance as Quintin ducked behind a car’s fender and scurried to a trashcan, keeping a ‘safe distance’ between he and Aardvark. He spied from behind a light pole and then somersaulted from the pole to a row of carts sitting in front of the store. Max begged, “Geez, Quint! Please stop that. You’re embarrassing me.” “Sorry soldier, we have no other choice but to go in undercover. It’s the best way to get this done fast.” Quintin replied, as he stooped beside a wire cart and pulled it along with him while the guard sipped coffee. “Hey! You! Soup Boy! Come over here,” the guard yelled, almost dumping the coffee down his shirt. Quintin whispered to Scooby Doo, “Sorry Aardvark. You’re on your own, the mission has to continue,” and he pulled the cart through the front door, still crouched beside it. The security guard circled Max with his hands clasped behind his back. “Why the hell are you dressed like that, Soup Boy?” “It’s a long story, sir.” “I have time.” “Well,” Max began, “my friend likes to make a challenge out of everything. Today we’re… ummm, assaulting the grocery store and hoping to break our old time-record for a shopping trip.” The guard looked at the pasted on labels and at the familiar, smiling Campbell’s Soup Kid glued to the front of a ski mask. “You gotta be kidding me.” “I’m afraid not,” Max confessed. In the store, Quintin silently placed two boxes of Cheerios in his cart and then splayed himself against the display case when a wheel squeaked in the distance. A frail old lady, pushing a cart, turned onto the cereal aisle, followed by a stock boy with a pallet of shredded wheat. The boy looked at Quintin and laughed. The old lady tried to ignore the man in the cereal-box jumpsuit flattened against the shelves. She glanced over at him and pushed her cart a little faster when he spoke into Scooby Doo’s belly. “Aardvark, there’s too much crunch in the Wheaties. Wildebeest repeats, too much crunch in the Wheaties. Abort mission and return to rendezvous site.” Max sighed and pulled Scooby out of his pocket, “I’d better go get him.” The guard shook his head and said, “You’d better take off that mask first, Soup Boy.” He smiled, “Go on. It looks like you have enough problems. I won’t call the boys at the funny farm if you just get him out of here.” The walkie-talkie chirped as the automatic doors slid open with Max’s approach. “Aardvark, do you copy? Do you understand what I mean, man? There - Is - Too - Much - Crunch - In - The - Wheaties. Get it? Hey Max…uhh Aardvark, do you copy? This is Wildebeest. Acknowledge, Aardvark…?” |
|