Tuesday, October 30, 2007

What do I care, I invented baseball anyway

I was once on a cross country flight back in the early 90's with former baseball player Wade Boggs. We were sharing the merits of our respective trades over a few choice drinks while settling in for the multi-hour flight. He was know for hitting a ball with a piece of wood, while I spent my time trying to rob people by willing myself invisible when I wasn't busy writing my future hit TV sitcom (it was the early 90's after all . . . remember Wings?).

Now good old Wade liked to toss back an MGD every now or then, and I was never the shy type when a bottle of Disaronno found its way under my lips. When we were well about an hour into our trip (I think Wade had polished off about 35 beers and I was far too deep into my third bottle of the D), things started to get heated. We figured a friendly wrestling match in the aisle was the only way to settle it, but good old Boggsy just couldn't play fair. The whole thing ended rather messy actually, as I got a plastic fork jabbed into my armpit and Boggs decided he wanted to strip off his clothes and fly the plane.


After 20 minutes jamming the plane into repeated nose-dives, Boggs decided to settle down and order another round of drinks (i.e. 30 beers) while the flight attendant proceeded to dress him. Now Wade wasn't much for conversation after having a couple more drinks, so I decided to tell him about my sitcom idea. I liked to think of it as a "classical hybrid." I told him the pitch would be something like "The Odd Couple meets Ichabod Crane." Of course, this idea was met with a slurring of words as Boggs grabbed my shirt and demanded a box of Slim Jims. After convincing him that I possessed no deliciously dehydrated meats on my person, I continued on with the plot line of the pilot:

A single, middle-aged man named Millard is driving his cream colored Toyota Prius down a deserted country road when all of a sudden a deer jumps in front of his car. Screaming in terror at the thought of scratching his beautiful motor coach, he slams on his breaks only to hear a loud thud and subsequent crash come from the back of his automobile. Whipping around suddenly in his bucket-seat, Millard spies none other than a flaming pumpkin head screaming, "Motherfucker you stopped SHORT!!!" Indeed, Millard had just been rearended by the Headless Horseman. Now, Millard wanted to avoid any confrontation since he was in fact only an accountant at the local H&R Block without secure financial standing. As he began to apologize and attempted to sort through insurance numbers and contact information, the Headless Horseman was having none of it, screaming at his horse, "JEROME!!! You believe this!?! Get your ass over here and come get my head. MY HEAD!!" At this juncture, Millard began to feel a bit of remorse for his headless acquaintance as Jerome galloped forward. Nevertheless, the Prius was a company car, so Millard began to inquire about insurance coverage and liability for the accident. Fruitlessly trying to put the Horseman's head back on his body, Jerome was having a difficult time when the flaming head shouted, "INSURANCE! I'm a FUCKING PUMPKIN!!" Needless to say there would be no sound solution to this dilemma, so Millard and the Horseman - who would later reveal his name to be Eugene - decided to move in together, with Eugene and Jerome performing odd jobs around Millard's duplex to pay for the damage to the car. THE END


Satisfied with my tale, I sat back in my chair to see what Boggs had to say. Apparently he had already passed out after finishing the remainder of his MGD's, but not before carving in his forearm, "That was an episode of Seinfeld." Completely disheartened by this revelation, I ditched the show idea once we made it out west. Luckily, I ran into my good friend Ted Jackson and we quickly went into business together selling used cars until a very unfortunate accident.

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