| By: Room 336 Productions, Inc. A subdivision of Disney Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, on a dark and stormy night, there was a gopher named George. But he preferred to be called Jorge because he was born in Mexico City and had burrowed his way to the US by accident on his way to Tijuana. He enjoyed reading, long walks on the beach, and collecting traffic cones. One day he ran into Hernando Santiago de la Vega Raphael Machiavelli Smith. He was a young purple lizard from Scandinavia with a flair for 80s fashion. The two took an instant liking to each other and although Jorge felt slightly inadequate due to his 2 syllable name (had Hernando been descended from Freud rather than Machiavelli he would have put an interesting spin on this) he couldn't help but admire the lizard's keen fashion sense. "What the hell is that thing?" asked Jorge one day as the two scurried along Santa Monica Boulevard. "I believe that would be a--" began Hernando, but alas it was too late. That "thing" turned out to be a pink '78 Cadillac that ran right over Hernando... instant road kill. "AAAHHH!!! Hernando got hit by the Mary Kay lady!" screamed Jorge. "Oh well I guess this means I get to take his Michael Jackson outfit now," he added, quickly taking the sequinned glove off the lizard before too much blood seeped in. So Jorge aka Rubber Scraper went on his merry way, proudly sporting his new glove. That night, after a quick nap, he went to bed and slept peacefully, still wearing the glove. The next morning, he awakened and walked over to the mirror. "AHHHHHHH!!!!!!" he screamed. He grasped his face, which now looked remarkably like that of a redneck alcoholic turtle who frequents the Armenian opera. Come to think of it, he thought, that Armenian opera was damn good. He reminisced fondly of a brief fling he'd had with a fat squirrel opera singer who was later kicked by Leslie ..."but this is no time for passive remembrance, this is a time for action!" he cried out loud. "Shut up!" yelled the old Slavic beaver who lived downstairs. "Make me, ya ugly piece of horse sh*t!" screamed Jorge. "Now where was I again? Oh yes. This is a time for action!" He hurried to his kitchen and looked around, smirking ever so slightly as the object of his desire gleamed from the cabinet. Jorge raced over, pulled it out, and held it up to the light. "Ah," he sighed. "The new box of Wheaties." Brandishing this orange fiber-abundant treasure, he proceeded to do his daily morning ritual. "Abu ramma gali brap!" he chanted as he did the Roger Rabbit around his kitchen table 3 and a half times. Then, removing 17 Wheaties squares, he carefully placed then one by one between his 2nd and 45th toes. "TAKE THAT, PEE WEE HERMAN!" he bellowed triumphantly. Well, he thought, now that's a relief. He cautiously removed the Wheaties from between his toes and tucked them behind his ears for safe keeping. Later that day he checked the mail and was surprised by a letter from his mother. It read: My dearest Georgie-porgie-poo, Your real name is George Cornucopia Ellinoski Krycekovski Priamnon Nietzche Doeadeer Afemaledeer. love, mom Damn, Jorge thought, guess I didn't have to kill Hernando. Then he thought a little bit more. "Nah, nevermind, it was all the for best," he said out loud, admiring the sparkly accessory he so proudly displayed on his hand and bowing to Mecca. But Jorge couldn't help thinking that he was forgetting something that day. What was it?? "Hmm...wash gophermobile with orange juice, check...sew up the flies of my boxers, check...recite Mary Had A Little Gopher backwards, check...what could it be then?" he panicked. Then it hit him from behind, like the Mary Kay lady had hit Hernando (only not as hard or messy). Actually it was the paper boy with his Sunday edition of the Jefferson County Enquirer. Glancing down at Linda Tripp's facial reconstruction on the cover, Jorge remembered. With a cry of "Cucaracha!" and a moonwalk to the living room, he yelled, "It's Howdy Doody time!!" At that, he began to pluck his elbow hairs. "Ahhh! That's better!" Jorge exclaimed as he plopped his bare elbows into a pile of homemade ladybugs. As he sat there, thinking of a plot for his new movie, "When the Lightbulbs Will Crumble Yesterday” (so far he had a love story between a Post-it and a cupcake wrapper with a Pokemon style fight scene involving LOTS of cottonballs and LOTS of guitar strings). There came a ring at the door. Jorge sprang up and rushed to the door. He opened it and there stood a peculiar spectacle. It had green, rough skin, a shell on it's back, a bottle of vodka in one hand and a pitchfork in the other. It was wearing overalls and smelled of cow dung. The strangest thing of all was, his head was nowhere in sight. The thing's hand flung out, grabbed Jorge's head, and twisted it off in one deft motion. Once it had screwed the head on his body, he sang in a rich, powerful voice (remarkably characteristic of the Armenian opera), "You dumb goooooooohhhpher! You stole my HEEEEAAAD!!" With that, he crawled away. After contemplating which of the Ninja Turtles it was that had gone astray and started taking heads, and then wondering whether Disney or Washington Irving would sue him first for copying the Headless Horseman thing, Jorge realized that he didn't have a head and couldn't contemplate anything. Of course he couldn't realize this because he didn't have a head, so really it was just a stupid paradox that frustrated him almost as much as the time he ran three miles after a Yugoslavian water buffalo upon which he had set his keys. In desperation he picked up a pair of neon green speedos, placed them where his head used to be, and danced around the room to "Walk Like an Egyptian". Just then the phone rang. Of course Jorge couldn't really hear it being that his head just walked off with a new body (which reminded him of the time he thought he had misplaced his head but then he remembered he had left it on top of his neck), but for the sake of the story he could. He picked up the phone. "Hello?" he said, which actually came out as "Muffin?" being that he had a pair of Speedos for a head. "Senator Greenburg smells like a pinata!" the person on the other end screamed in agony. "Oh that's nice," Jorge replied, which actually sounded like, "Tuna flavored gum is cool and my printer has a hairy backside, but that's ok because I waxed it the other day. And then I walked to town on my knees and dug a hole in the salsa bar at Baja Fresh with a cow." There was a pause on the other end. "Mr. Potatohead is that you?" asked the voice finally. "Lila?" inquired the blond curly-haired girl with wide blue eyes. "Yeah," came an irritated, nasal male voice from the other end of the potato. "Uh, I have an order for 2 large snail and sawdust pizzas for a Mr. Ba. First name Jojo. Well, we ran out of paperclips so that delivery will be four minutes instead of 40. I apologize. Hope you have a Happy Kwanza." "PUHAHAHAHA!!!" laughed Jorge, as he watched his favorite program. "That Humphrey always knows how to make little blond curly-haired girls with wide blue eyes named Linda spit green tomato juice!" "Oh shoot!" he cried. He just remembered he still had that guy on the other end looking for Mr. Potatohead. "Hello?" said Jorge. "Heh?!" came the voice. "Yeah, uh, you called 123-4568. Mr. Potatohead's phone number is 123-4567." explained Jorge. "You can dooo it!" cried the other voice with great flourish. Then *click*, the phone went dead. Now that he had watched his favorite program, Jorge decided he better do something about his missing head. After all, he thought, green speedos are all well and nice, but without his head he would have to get rid of his favorite pompous purple porcupine hair brush. "And we can't have that, can we Jorge my pet," Jorge said to himself. So he stepped outside of his apartment spun three times to the left, 7 times to the right and did the running man backwards (Jorge was quite skilled at odd dance steps. it was a gift). With a final flourish and a cry of "My feet are too big!" Jorge stepped back to observe his work. "You know what I need now?" Jorge screamed to the passing family of German-Chinese anteaters. "A coaster for my mug of owl juice!" he concluded triumphantly, completely forgetting about his missing head quandary. With a cry of, "There's a snake in my boots!" he raced down to the local RiteAid. "Scuse me sir, but where do you keep your cups?" inquired Jorge to the peg-legged pirate named Penguin Steve behind the counter. "Argh, me matey," Penguin Steve snarled. "Whatcha be needing a jock strap for? Gonna be playing a little football are we?" "Er, no," stuttered Jorge, "not that kind of cup. Like the kind you drink out of?" Penguin Steve was horrified. "Now what need would ye have for drinking out of someone's jock strap?" he queried as he slapped his forehead with a piece of baloney and then smeared butter in his ears. "What kinda freak are ye anyway?" Befuddled, Jorge walked away to look for cups. But as he was walking down the tin drum aisle, he spotted an attractive female gopher who was apparently deciding between The Tin Drum, The Tin Drum Deluxe, and The Really Really Tin Drum. Trying to be helpful and perhaps get a good rapport with her, Jorge swam over. "Excuse me, your fur is a bit nappy. Potato salad works WONDERS!" he suggested enthusiastically. He winked, gave an "OK" sign with his paw, and strutted proudly away. Once he was out of her sight, he leaped in the air and whispered loudly, "SCORE!" He had just kicked a lemon right into his goal where it got lodged in a gorilla's right nostril. Completely forgetting about the cups Jorge ran through the aisles grabbing whatever his paws could reach. Minutes later standing in the checkout line he noticed the female gopher in line in front of him (he also noticed the overuse of prepositions in that sentence). In order to impress her with his virility he began striking body builder poses and making kissy faces while drawing hearts on the floor with "traffic cone orange" lipstick. His efforts seemed to be working because as she stared at him, the female gopher's eyes grew wider and wider and wider until they finally rolled back in her head. Jorge was highly pleased with himself since his manly display of testosterone had obviously overcome the fragile creature. It was then that he turned around and noticed that his old friend Mr. Head Stealer was standing behind him grasping a tube of Preparation H. At this, Jorge promptly passed out. He finally came to when the female gopher slapped him in the liver with the Really Really Tin Drum she had decided on. "Gee thanks I needed that," Jorge said shakily. "How many fingers am I holding up?" she asked anxiously. Jorge squinted up at the saintly figure in the harsh light of aisle 4. "No thanks, I already had my peanut butter and horse radish milkshake today. One's enough for me!" he said, disgusted that she would even think about asking him if he'd seen Sir Waterfountainpenstein. Glancing back at Mr. Head Stealer who was fascinated by the Mentos on the counter, Jorge quickly pulled out his jackhammer from his pocket (it was the travel version) and drilled a hole in the floor. Jumping in he said, "Eggnog might be good at Christmas but for Heaven's sake, it's July!!" Jorge then proceeded to burrow deep into the center of the Earth, hoping to reach his friend Yankee Bobo Pepe Van Damme who had been living there since 1974. "If I hurry I can reach him before he returns Jingle All the Way to Hollywood Video!" he thought excitedly. "Arrr!" grumbled Penguin Steve. "Ye fergot ye jock strap, me matey!" With that, he flung the jock strap down the hole after Jorge. It struck the poor gopher on the head and knocked him out cold... again. When he came to and his eyes were able to focus again, he was surrounded by white fluffy clouds and angelic music. An ancient looking man in a white robe was standing in front of an immense Golden Gate (no, not that bridge in San Francisco). "Umm…am I dead? Is this heaven? Are you...God?" asked Jorge meekly. "And Number 42 is coming up alongside the track! It's going to be a tight race! Black Sugar is closing in on Lucky Charm! They're approaching the finish line... MY WHAT A FINISH! And Cherries Jubilee is our winner!" the man screamed into Jorge's ear in a rapid-fire announcer's voice. Jorge followed the man's gaze to the floor where 4 popsicle sticks were being blown by the wind across a piece of floss. "Excuse me, sir…" began Jorge. "Yes, yes, the answers to your questions," the man said irritably. "Only on weekends, x= 82.5, and tootsie roll pops." "WHAT?!" gasped Jorge. "This is... this is... NOOOOOOOO!!!!" He screamed in anguish. "Not the set of my least favorite show, 'Ancient Guy in White Robe Standing at Golden Gate Announcing Popsicle Stick Races My Calendar Was a Fourth Grade Rock Star'! Jorge stared in horror at the man who in turn stared back at him with great interest. "My goodness, sir, your pores are just toooooo cute", said the announcer. At this Jorge ran from the set, shrieking "Sunday's child is full of grace, or is it Monday's child? I CAN'T REMEMBER!!!" Once he escaped, Jorge breathed a sigh of relief, paused, smelled his breath, popped a tic tac, and then breathed another sigh of relief. It was only then that he noticed the jock strap hanging from his ear. Remembering the Wheaties he had placed behind his ears, Jorge proceeded to use the jockstrap as a catapult and mercilessly pounded the one doctor who didn't prefer Tylenol with Wheaties. The other 3 out of 4 doctors who did prefer Tylenol breathed a sigh of relief which prompted Jorge to break out the tic tacs again. Suddenly Jorge gave a gasp of horror. "I'm going to miss Dawson's Creek!!!!" he sobbed. "It's the one where he finally falls out of that damn boat and I'm gonna miss it." Quick as an old lady pushing a shopping cart up Mt. Everest wearing roller skates and singing How Much is That Doggie in the Window?, Jorge raced back to his apartment and turned on the TV just in time to see the end credits. "NNNOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" he howled and kicked the wall where it said KICK HERE. "If only I had smelled the pizza man instead of the bottle of CK One I might have made it in time!" Jorge pouted and took out his pogostick (he was very good at hiding big objects in his pockets) and proceeded to jump around the room singing Locomotion. Of course, all these events that took place weren't really possible because Jorge had but a speedo of the lime-colored persuasion atop his short fat neck. So let's consider now how to fix this small, *ahem*, CONUNDRUM. "AHHHHH!" screamed all the furniture in Pee-Wee's playhouse. "That's the secret word! Ha-ha!" laughed Pee-Wee in that nasal chuckle of his. Anyways... Jorge had gone through so much craziness and so many ritual dances trying to get his head back but had failed miserably. He was desperate. So he turned to the only person who could help. That person was Mr. Mein. First name Chow. "Young grasshopper," Mr. Mein began. "Gopher," corrected Jorge. "Shhh!!" scolded Mr. Mein. "You must be still like the waters and as swift as the sunlight and as wise as the pumpkin." "Then I'll get my head back?" asked Jorge. Mr. Mein paused. "No, you will get 50% off Prisma colored pencils at Sav-on." Jorge departed with these last words of wisdom ringing in his ears (of course he didn't really have ears so... well, you know). So Jorge departed on his quest secure in the knowledge that he could be as still as sunlight and that Leslie thought he was good at hiding big things in his pockets. .Anyway, so Jorge exited stage left, yelled at his agent, screamed "What's my motivation?!" at the cue card boy, drank some Perrier and then set off on his merry way. Conveniently enough he stumbled (literally) upon his head lying in a box with some string attached to the box. As he approached he heard a voice whispering, "Here gopher gopher gopher," and then, "I think I need a bigger box." Sensing a cheesy Taco Bell rip off and worried about the impending "yo quiero mi cabeza" comment, Jorge retreated to rethink his strategy. Interestingly enough he retreated right into an Iranian turkey wearing a turban. "So, my friend, you want your head back, do you?" the turkey queried. "Well first you must answer me this question...who would you rather, an irritable Tasmanian devil wearing nothing but a pink bikini...or...a warthog that hasn't bathed...ever, wearing lilac purple taffeta?" Jorge's eyes grew as wide as mini Snickers bars. His teacher Miss Cellaneous had asked him if he knew how to get to the Ukraine by way of the Ostrich Express (of course back then the Ukraine was still part of the USSR and he would have needed a time-travelling ostrich, but he still got the question wrong anyway). But this time Jorge knew it was a trick question. He grinned menacingly. "I have your answer for you, you Saddam Hussein loving Thanksgiving feast!" (well so Jorge wasn't very good at geography but what's the difference in a story like this?) ...(Pause for dramatic effect)... "The answer is, neither A) the Tazmanian Devil nor B) the warthog... but C) Marissa!!" he shouted giving a hop-skip-and a jump. The turkey looked slightly perplexed, as all turkeys do from time to time. "Is that your final answer?" he questioned. "Or perhaps you'd like to call a friend, use the 50/50, or ask the audience?" "Nah, I think I'm good. The answer is definitely C) Marissa. I'm as sure as the day I was born. I'm as sure as the fact that I have a pair of neon green Speedos for a head!!" Jorge began to eat brick dust as he waited in anticipation to see if his answer was correct and if he could finally get his head back... "INDEED!" cried the turkey. "That is correct! Would you like to keep the fondue set and matching earmuffs or go for The Really Really Tin Drum?" |
| I want to read more! |
| A Gopher's Tail (The Incredible, Unbelievable, and Yet Totally Absolutely True Story of a Gopher's Journey to Test His Inner Strength) |
 |
 |
| Story |