Part 7 by Mikeeeeeee
"This laptop has The Sims 2 on it! I didn't think that was out yet!"

After a few seconds, reality set back in and Anna had a bit of an epiphany, "Wait a minute, didn't you just arrest Stan at the bar a few minutes ago..."

Anna's head started to ache, either from the hard braking or confusion of seeing Stan arrested 2 times in the span of a few minutes in 2 different locations. How could he be chained to a tree after getting into another refrigerator, when he was just in a bar a few minutes ago?

"Ohhhh no no no, this isn't Stan, this is Sam. They're twins. One likes leather, the other likes blue suede... Like Elvis, see the shoes?" Sure enough, the king had left his mark on Sam's feet, a pair of very well kept blue suede shoes.

Shaken up and at her limit, Anna simply lost it. "What the hell kind of town is this? For Christ sake, murders, missing people, old women humping younger men... ok, that's not so bad... AND REFRIDGERATORS THAT HOUSE MAD MEN, TWINS NONE THE LESS, NOT ONE, 2 NUTBALL TWINS! What's next, nuns abusing alter boys instead of priests at the local church, Liberals cutting down surrounding forests?" There was no reply, just a dazed look in the lawman's face.

Anna continued, "Republicans that don't own guns?!"

The deputy replies with a well disguised grin, "You know about the Andersons already?"

Anna was not pleased with Kaelin's response, for the first 4 seconds anyway. She then broke out into laughter that seemed to cleanse her soul for the time being along side her companion.

In the midst of the chaos, a jogger approached, not saying a word. An interesting figure to say the least. Short, stocky, but making a pretty good pace. The hoody he or she was wearing was preventing any glimpse of the face, only a slight twinkle of what appeared to be glass could be seen from almost 100 yards away, that and all grey sweat clothes. The jogger came to a halt.

Anna gazed at the figure in the distance, seeing what she thought was a smear of some kind on the gray clothing in the moonlight that was breaking through the twilight darkness from behind her. She was only looking for about 15 seconds, or so she thought.

"anna....Anna... ANNA!"

She jumped a few inches as a hand touched her shoulder and the Deputy's voice was raised to a level she felt could wake the dead.

"OH MY GOD, DON'T DO THAT!"

Kaelin speaks as if he thinks she's acting a little too princess-like, "Well, Anna, I've been trying to get your attention for a couple minutes now..."

She whips around to make eye contact, "No, I looked at my watch as we left together and it was 6:30, we've been here about 5 minutes and it's now..." The watch wouldn't lie for her, it was now almost 7pm. Had she really been staring for more then 5 minutes at the figure that's right over...

No where. The jogger was gone.

"Who was that person?" she asks.

"Who, Sam?"

"NO, the jogger that was coming toward us from down the road." She was now feeling 2 things, Kaelin is an idiot, or she was the only real nutball here.

"Did you steal Sam or Stan's medication?"

Yeah, this was going to be a long night.

After another deputy came to unchain Sam and transport him to a cell next to his brother, Anna realized that she was really famished.

"Can we get some food before we go any further? I don't care where, just somewhere that I can sit down... and vomit in a decently clean women's room if I need to."


TBC by the next writer...

Drake Amore Ruby Pin

PTI Part 6 by Lora
"A sister pin?!?! Do you think it has some sort of engraving in it as well?"

"You mean something that includes the word "amor"? Deputy Kaelin asked?

He had a mischieveous smile on his face and started grinning at her.

"No." whispered Anna. "Something that includes the word "mori".

"Mori?!?!" asked Kaelin in disbelief.

"Watch out!!!!" Anna shouted. Deputy Kaeline turned his eyes back on the road

but it was too late. He lost control of the steering wheel and the car swirled out of control and crashed

into a giant Kenmore Refrigerator that was standing in the middle of the road.

Both Deputy Kaelin and Anna had hit the dashboard. Kaelin was the first to come back to his senses.

"Are you alright?" There was no reply. "Anna! Anna, are you OK?"

Anna opened her eyes slowly and saw the refrigerator in front them.

"What?" She looked confused.

"Are you hurt?"

"No...Yes...I mean what...what's this?" She asked frantically.

"A refrigerator." Answered Kaelin as a matter of fact.

"I can see that."

"Kenmore I might add..."

Kaelin stepped out the car. Anna followed.

"Don't open it." pleaded Anna

"I have to." Deputy Kaelin stepped closer and began pulling on the fridge door.

"Damn, it's heavy."

"Oh god." Anna took a few steps back.

Deputy Kaelin gave it one more pull and suddenly the door gave away and out jumped Stan all screaming like a maniac. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa." Stan was hitting himself on the head.

Both Kato and Anna began screaming as well. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah."

"I need my Xanax and Seroqel! Xanax and Seroqel! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!" Stan continued screaming.

Then suddenly out of nowhere he swung his left arm towards them, ready to stab them with what looked like a ball point pen.

Anna screamed "Oh my god, watch out!"

Kato jumped onto Stan to disarm him of the dangerous weapon. A few minutes later Stan was handcuffed and tied to a tree. "You must chill!" said Kato.

Anna in the meantime had found a laptop computer in the fridge, which she decided to power up.

"Look! Look what I found." She exclaimed excitedly.

(to be continued)

Part 5 by JCanuck
A feeling that quickly turned from mere intellectual curiosity into something more urgent as she pulled up to her new home and stepped out of her car. Anna looked in disbelief at the grisly sight waiting on her doorstep. A circle of carefully placed tiny bones and in the center, what appeared to be a blood-soaked pile of feathers. Anna's eyes followed the smear of blood leading up her door to a grainy black and white blowup of the very treasure safely nestled in her pocket. On the door above it written in paintbrush strokes of blood were the words "Memento mori".

Careful not to touch anything, Anna looked more closely at the photo. Yes, it was her treasure. Yet in the photo, the pin, her pin, appeared to be embedded in the flesh of whoever it was in the picture. She could feel the hair on the back of her neck start to rise, her anger too. She turned on her heel and jumped into her car, determined to find Deputy Kaelin.

Driving down Main Street, she spotted the police car parked in front of the donut shop and the Deputy and Buzz in the midst of loudly wrestling a screeching crazed monkey out of the bar next door. She parked her car next to the police cruiser and waited until they had managed to get Stan under control, something which seemed to consist of waving a bottle of V.O. under his nose and humming Bob Dylan tunes. Stan seemed to be mesmerized by the rye whisky and lost somewhere in his thoughts with the Dylan songs and soon started rocking himself and keening to the music.

"Deputy Kaelin", Anna called. "I need to talk to you, and I don't think this can wait until this evening". "What's up?" he replied with a grin. "Not that I mind seeing you earlier, you're a breath of fresh air in this town". His grin faded as Anna quickly described what she had found on her doorstep. He opened the door to his car and said "Get in, we're going out there to take a look, and I'll fill you in on the story on the way."

Eyes on the road, he started "As I mentioned earlier, both the husband and wife were found dead and the daughter Sara disappeared at the same time. The young man who was working for them was named Anthony and it was he who found the bodies of Rose and Clyde. It was a poorly kept secret at the time that he and Rose were having an affair, and that he had been begging Rose to run away with him back to New Orleans where he came from. "

"New Orleans?" Anne interrupted, "That's odd, that's where I come from, and visibly whoever left their message on my doorstep must have spent some time in those parts too."

"After hearing your description, that thought occurred to me too" said the Deputy. "Anthony was brought in for questioning, but the police didn't have enough evidence to charge him with anything. He was released and shortly thereafter disappeared, leaving behind everything he owned. The police went through his belongings and found the receipt for the pin that you bought today. On the same receipt was another item, a sister piece if you will. No trace of that was ever found."

(to be continued)

Pardon the Interruption Part 4 by Nicole
Anna listened intently having so many questions swirling in her mind.

"What was so unusual?" she asked.

"Well, Rose and her husband Clyde had a daughter, Sara. It was said she was a beautiful girl, always under the watchful eyes of her father. But she always would find a way to venture out and cause a stir with her parents and the locals. After her parents were found dead, she was never found. It has always been a mystery." The deputy gave a slight shrug reaching for his coffee.

Puzzled, Anna asked, "What about the young man, was he involved with her disappearance?"

With a smirk the deputy answered, "It depends on who you ask."

About that time a voice came from the walkie talkie, "Deputy Kaelin.."

"Yes", he replied.

"Sir, well, Stan is gone sir."

"But Buzz, you were supposed to pick him up here at the auction house." the deputy said with a squint in his eyes.

"Well sir, I did but I stopped at the donut shoppe and, well, he must have...."

The deputy quickly inserted, "Listen, we will continue this conversation later, now go look for him."

"Yes sir, I'm on it."

Seemingly embarrassed, the deputy said, "As the saying goes, if you want a job done right...I would like to continue our conversation, say later this evening, there is a great little diner in town."

Anna felt slightly unprepared for this invitation, but she knew the story that she had just heard had just scratched the surface...I have so many questions she thought..who was the young man, what was his relationship with Rose, what about the pin and Sara?

Anna looked at the cup of coffee realizing she hadn't even took a drink, cleared her throat and said, "Sure."

"Good", he said with a smile. "It's Joe's diner, in the middle of town, you can't miss it. Meet you there, say, seven."

"Sure, I will see you then." she answered.

As they stood up saying their goodbyes, Anna noticed the locals staring, if not gawking at them. Feeling uncomfortable with the scrutiny she was looking forward to getting in her car and heading to her new found home.

Driving along the country road, Anna observed the breeze blowing through the orchard trees and children riding their bicycles on the newly cemented sidewalk. Peace and tranquility seemed to encompass her as she drove through this small town. But how she pondered...a murder/suicide, a mystery of a lost girl that was never solved. She was looking forward to learning more...

(to be continued...)

PTI Part III by Annie
"Oh no. Not again." said the deputy. He then pulled a walkie talkie from his back pocket and radioed the station. "This is Deputy Kaelin. Who's turn is it to come down to the auction house and pick up Stan?"

A female voice on the radio crackled "Buzz is on his way."

The deputy looked at Anna and laughed. "Well miss, as you can see, Stan here is a bit of a monkey. This is not the first nor the last time you will see him like this. If you will allow me to take him off your hands, we'll just let him rest comfortably until Buzz gets here."

"Will he be allright?" she asked.

"Oh, no worries my dear. This is nothing out of the ordinary for him. Now, where were we?" he asked.

Anna extended her hand and replied "My name is Annabella Montoya but my friends call me Anna. I was just about to thank you for helping me out with that family. It appears that I may have made a poor first impression upon the folks around here."

"Well they're not too keen on outsiders coming in but you'll give them plenty to gossip about now. There's a story behind the pin that I think you should hear. Do you have time for a cup of coffee?" asked the deputy.

Anna was intrigued. "Sure," she replied.

The deputy asked a burly young man to look after Stan and then the two made their way back to the concession stand amid stares from the locals. The deputy ordered two cups of coffee - both black - and placed one on either side of a picnic table that was located nearby. As Anna and the deputy took their places, she noticed that the other tables around them quickly filled up as well.

"So let me guess," said Anna, "I either took away someone's livlihood on eBay or else I have purchased an item belonging to some sort of local legend."

The deputy grinned. "You could say that. You see, about 60 years ago, there was a murder suicide here involving Rose, the original owner of the pin. Rose and her husband owned a place not too far outside of town and they had a young man working for them. There was an affair and things ended badly. Now, why a 19 year old boy would be attracted to such an older woman is beyond me but that wasn't what was so unusual."

To be continued...

"Pardon the Interruption Part 2 and a Half" by Bingo the Monkey
I had no idea how long I had been inside that Kenmore Refrigerator when I woke up, my drool completely stuck to an ice cube tray. It could have been a week, but was probably more like six hours. I had spent the night before dying in the humid summer swelter of whatever crapbox town this was. I can't even remember what band I rode in here with. Was it the Goo Goo Dolls? No, those guys are posers. Was it Alice Cooper? I wish, but he won't answer my calls anymore since I told his wife I'd like to stroke her with my golf club. Maybe it was Journey...yeah, that's it. Journey.

Anyway, after the show I decided to head down into the labyrinth of a state fair that Journey had just rocked with their sweet early eighties power ballads. I had made it as far as the Pamida parking lot when I realized that I was completely sober for the first time in seven months. And that just isn't right. The last time I'd been sober was when I was touring with Jars of Clay, and all I could do was get drunk off of cooking wine. I couldn't drink again for a week. That crap is so salty it sank my eyes into my head making even scary old men with similarly sunken eyes run from me in fear. During that week I toured with Slipknot. That was fun.

Back to being sober in the parking lot: I was pissed off, how dare I let myself be normal?? I looked around and for some reason there was a fridge sitting next to a truck by the Casey's gas station next door. This confused me. "Maybe I'm not sober, maybe I'm so drunk that I'm thinking that I'm sober which in turn is causing me to then ponder if I am in fact drunk." I said this out loud, and when hearing the words and completely complex sentences that had past through my lips and soaked into my ear drums, I quickly freaked out. I was sober, and this was scary. I took a few minutes to lie crying softly in the fetal position right there in the Pamida parking lot. Then I got up, ran across the street and climbed inside that fridge. I figured, if it's not full of anything that can kill me, then at least it's like my mom, cold and unusually pale.

The next thing I knew, I was stuck to the ice cube tray, and for some reason there was a guy talking really fast, banging a gavel every minute. I thought I was back in court. The last time I was in court was for stealing Snoop Dogg's car and writing "Murder was the case that they framed me, bitch" on the hood. This would have been funny to Snoop, but I accidentally drove the car into the porch of the L.A. district attorney's mistress's house.

Thinking that I was back in court I completely lost it, and decided to try and make a get away.

I pounced out of the fridge screaming, "You can't keep me in a cage!! Axis of Evil! Evil Nixon Grin!! Attica Attica!!! No new taxes, no new taxes!! Michael's nose isn't real!!" It seemed that sobriety had gotten the worst of me, and I was just letting out all the things that bugged me in life. But everything I said just sounded like I was a psycho lunatic, because of the brick of ice sticking to my tongue. I had climbed into the arms of a very nice looking woman who was talking to a guy with the face of Karl Malden. The last thing I remember before passing out right there in her arms was her saying "You're first name isn't Kato is it?" One last scream came from me, "THE GLOVES DIDN'T FIT, THE GLOVES DIDN'T FIT!!" And then I passed out....

Announcement by the A.R.
As of today, all future essayists will submit their essay to me via email, instead of posting it here. I will then send it in to be put up on the site. My email addy is below, in the pretty pink letters. If you have a problem with this I apologize, but this is the only way to keep things organized and rolling along.

A side note: Bingo, I'm sure you're familiar with the term "spanking the monkey", but let me assure you when I catch up with you that phrase will have a whole new meaning...

Rubber Duckie
Associate Rance
E-Mail: rubberdeeduckie@yahoo.com

Fill-In for Bingo the Monkey
Rance here. If I had a buck for every time I've heard the argument, I could buy a controlling interest in Halliburton (and thus, the election), but for some reason, psycho_lunatic's comment (printed below) the other day shot my piss and vinegar levels into the high double digits. I think I may just have been insufficiently caffeinated or something like that at the time. It doesn't bother me as much now--partly because several dozen commenters piled on in the interim with arguments better than any I could make, partly because some of the responses not posted were pure vitriol which, though not as well-stated, served me like a tall glass of whiskey, and partly because I realized that the original comment was written by a self-proclaimed psycho lunatic.

I've written previously in an effort to make the case that working in Hollywood does not preclude one from political insight and involvement, and don't want to do it over again (also, I'm again insufficiently caffeinated (note: must change brands)). Also, I'm largely retired (Associate Rance Rubber Duckie may weigh in she chooses). I'd like to add two words though: Ronald Reagan. And one more: Arnold. Now, psycho, you might say, "But they're in fact not very swell politicians." I might agree. But what about actress Helen G. Douglas? She went to the Hill straight off a sound stage and did a very swell job (before Nixon took her seat with one of the great (if you like that sort of thing) smear campaigns). So it can be done.

Here's the comment to 9 September 2004 post:
from psycho_lunatic@yahoo.com

"Legislation passed? Subvert the government? Goodness, does someone have politics on their mind?
Dearest Rance, perhaps you should spend your time blogging, acting, working out, partying, gambling, doing whatever it is a person such as you is good at rather than diddling in politics as you possibly might be! Please allow me to vent about this, as a 'fan' of yours, it's bothering me.
It's quite obvious from this blog, as entertaining as it is, that you have no clue about the day to day life of the average American and many of us take great offense at attempts by celebrities to influence voters(maybe I should say citizens as those who are inspired by celebrity endorsement are clearly not informed consistent voters). Those who are swayed have no idea whatsoever about the issues but think some 'coolness' will rub off on them if they cast a ballot similar to that of some Hollywood hottie who plays the hero and has sexy girlfriends.
Not that you are doing any such thing...I mean, I don't really know who you are. I just know I have a short list of celebrities who will never again partake in my hard earned dollars as a result of their nasty political bullshit and hope to goodness you are smart enough to steer clear of that arena.
Whew..I feel better. Hope to read lots from you soon!"

One more thing: (This is Rance typing again) As it happens, an Administrative Staffer of this blog has far greater expertise in the political arena than that average American George W. Bush did upon throwing his eight-gallon hat (bad math on his part at the hat shop) into the ring. I know, that's not saying much. The point is, this Administrative Staffer knows shit, and is planning to share some of it in the coming weeks.

Later,

R

News Item: Rubber DuckiePromoted to A.R.
Although unwilling to serve as the New Rance, Rubber Duckie has been offered and accepted the title of Associate Rance. RDD's duties consist of administering our "Pardon the Interruption." Participants, do what the A.R. tells you and when.