Episode 4: The Unhappy Couple on their Honeymoon

               Ewan and The Deer are walking back down the hallway towards the entrance to The Facility with Al in tow.  They walk through the opening into The Colonel’s office and pause for a minute so The Deer can say a few quick words to him, “Hey Colonel.  We’re taking Al for a walk.  We’ll bring him back in a little bit.”

               “Someone threw a bird at my window,” replies The Colonel.

               “Riiiight.  Anyways,” The Deer shakes his head for a second.  “We’ll bring him back in a little bit.  Come on, Al.”

               The Deer turns to exit the building with Ewan to his right and Al walking slowly behind, bobbing all the way.  “Are you sure Al should come with us?” asks Ewan.

               “Yeah, he’ll be fine.  We do this all the time.”

               “I know he’ll be fine, but what about everyone else?  Won’t they freak out when they see him?”

               “Who’s ‘everyone else’?  I guess you haven’t noticed but this is pretty much it for all the regulars in these parts.  And everyone else from around these parts already knows and loves Al.”  They all walk outside.

               “Fair enough.  Where to next?”

               “Let’s head back towards the campfire site and make sure we have everything we need there for tonight.”

               “K.  Are we prancing?  Or can we walk?”

               “We have to walk since we have Al with us.  Al doesn’t prance very well/at all.”

               “Really?  I figured he could at least bounce along on his butt like one of the Gummy Bears.  I mean, look at how rubbery and squishy he is.  He’s kind of like a green, Pillsbury Doughboy.”

               “Yeah, sorta, but without the hat.”

               “We should get him some sort of a hat.”

The three of them walk through the woods for quite some time before Ewan speaks up again, “So how do you order a pizza around here anyway?”

“Umm, you pick up the phone and call the pizza place?” replies The Deer rhetorically.

“Wow.  And they deliver all the way out here?”

“Well, not really.  We have to special order it in advance.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well the closest pizza place is at least a thousand miles from here.  I’m not sure how far exactly as I’ve never been there and I’ve never looked it up.  I just call the number, order about two-thousand pizzas and four thousand liters of cola, and it shows up in a couple of weeks.”

“Damn, that’s a lot of pizza.”

“Yeah, well they normally only deliver within twenty miles of the store and so to come all the way out of the way here we have to make it worth their while.  You can’t really blame them as after all they are just trying to run a profitable business.”

“Can you order some Mountain Dew next time?”

“We have Mountain Dew already.  We just call it ‘Dew’ though.”

“Really?  How?”

“We make our own brand of it here in the mountains.  We keep some for ourselves, and re-label the rest as Mountain Dew to sell to independent distributors.  That’s how we make some of the money we use to buy all the pizzas and other stuff you see around here.”

“Really?  Is it any good?”

“It tastes just like regular Mountain Dew.”

“Cool.  Can I try it sometime?”

“Sure.”

“Do you drink it?”

“Hell no!  I only drink the real stuff.”

“Why not?”

“Cause I know how we make it and what’s in it.”

“What’s in it?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Well in most sodas there’s water, high fructose corn syrup, polysorbanate-monofilo-whatchamacallits, and twenty-three other chemicals or ingredients I can’t pronounce.  Oh, and yellow number seven, of course.  So what’s the main ingredient in Deer Mountain Dew?”

“It’s not the main ingredient, it’s the only ingredient.  And sugar.”

“Yellow number seven, too?”

“Nope.”

“Really?  Why not?”

“Don’t need it.”

“Oh.  Ohhhhhhh…”

“Yeah…  I’m going to need you to come in on Sunday, too, riiight…”

“Let’s change the subject.”

“Yes, lets.”

“So some of the pizza money comes from that thing we’ll never speak of again—“

“What thing?”

“Exactly.  So where does the rest of the money come from?”

"Ever been to a crappy website that gets a million hits a week that you think is run by monkees?"

"Yeah, all the time.  That’s like, most of the Internet."

"Well they’re not run by monkees.  They're run by deer.  And sometimes squirrels if it's a tween site."

“What do you mean?”

“Ever heard of the Twilight series?”

“Yeah, with all the vampires and stuff.  It looks pretty cool.”

“Well about half of the high traffic Twilight fan sites out there are created by squirrels as they have a permanent tween mentality.”

“I’m not following you.”

“You see, the language spoken by squirrels is actually very close to tween speak.  Like when squirrels laugh they don't actually laugh like we do, rather they say the squirrel equivalent letters of l-o-l-o-l-o-l together very quickly.  And they pretty much begin and end every sentence with ‘so totally lol omg’, and they’ll say it once or twice in mid sentence, too.”

“So they talk like how kids and teens write when they text message each other?”

“Yep. U got it.”

“OIC.  That’s rly rly kewl.”  They both laugh.  “Heh heh heh.  Thank goodness for tweens and squirrels; they’re an endless source of amusement!” laughs Ewan.

“You should read some of the squirrels’ Forestbook pages.  It’s hilarious,” says The Deer.

“Wait, what?  Forestbook?  Don’t you mean Facebook?”

"No, I mean Forestbook.  We use Forestbook out here."

"Why don't you just use Facebook like everyone else?"

"Do you see a lot of faces out here?  No.  So we use Forestbook instead."

"Well, what's it like?"

"Come here and I'll show you on my iPhone.”  The Deer reaches behind his back and pulls out a very shiny piece of hardware.  Ewan comes around one side of it and huddles next to The Deer for a better view.  “It's basically like Facebook, but with life in the forest in mind.  For example, instead of writing on someone's wall you piss on their tree.  Instead of poking them you throw an acorn at them.  Instead of playing 'Farmville' you play 'Beaver Dam'.  Instead of being a fan of The Black Eyed Peas you can be a fan of that rock over there.  And so on."

"That is a pretty cool looking rock.  Oh, and The Black Eyed Peas are pretty awesome, too,” remarks Ewan.  “I be up in the gym just working on my fitness; I’m delicious," sings Ewan in his best Fergie voice.

"Yeah, I'm a fan of them, too."

"Cool.  How many Forestbook friends do you have?"

"Here, take a look at my profile.  624."

"Wow, that's a lot."

"Nah, not really.  Probably about 400 of them are squirrels.  I can't tell those guys apart, so when one of them sends me a friend request I just accept it.  I have no idea who they are."

"Sounds like the regular Facebook."

“Ha!”

“Well 624 is still a lot."

"Not really.  Check out Al's page.  He has over twenty-seven thousand."

"Holy crap."

"I know, right?  We set up a profile for him to help find more people to play ping pong with him.  Apparently there's a lot of people in Asia who love the sport.  Take a look at these pictures in his bushes."

"Is that--"

"Yup.  That's Al playing Jackie Chan in a sixteen hour grudge match."

"Jackie’s not even holding paddles."

"Yeah, he used his hands and bare feet as paddles.  The match was part of his training for an upcoming martial arts movie he was filming."

"What about that picture.  Is that--"

"Yup, that's Chuck Norris."

"Wow.  Who won that match?"

"Al did, but only because Chuck was holding back."

"Really?  How come?"

"Chuck Norris has to hold back when he plays ping pong otherwise he would destroy the Earth with tornados and tsunamis from his hurricane swings."

"Ahhh, yes.  I think I read that somewhere on the Internet back in college."

“So here, let’s pick a random squirrel on my friends list and look at the status updates.  They’re all pretty much the same.”  The Deer navigates the Forestbook app to a squirrel’s profile page.  “Here’s what it says:

Sammy Squirrel is out gathering nuts.

Suzie Squirrel and 357 other squirrels like this.

Ben Squirrel has commented on the profile status of Sammy Squirrel: “Gimme dat, dat, dat nut!”

Sammy Squirrel replied to Ben Squirrel’s comment, “lol omg”.

Tera Squirrel thinks winter is coming and winter sucks!

Ben Squirrel replied to the profile status of Tera Squirrel: "Winter is coming?  Oh crap!  I haven't started gathering nuts yet!"

Tera Squirrel replied: "You oughta get that other guy to help you catch up."

Ben Squirrel: "Who??"

Tera Squirrel: "Deez nutz!!"

Ben Squirrel: "lol omg.  You so totally got me with that one lol!"

Ewan turns to The Deer and says, "Man, squirrels are idiots."

“I know, right?  They’re fun to hang out with for a little bit, but then it starts getting old.  Here’s a little tip: if you ever go to a party and there’s a group of annoying squirrels there, do a cherry bomb, espresso vodka, or some other kind of shot like that with them and they’ll go into overdrive and then crash and pass out.  Make sure you tuck your pants into your socks beforehand though as for the next twenty minutes they’re awake they go ballistic.”

“Good to know.”  Ewan is about to start a new sentence when he sees The Deer’s ears perk up, “What’s up?  Do you hear something?”

“Yeah, it’s coming from the top of that hill over there to the left.  Let’s go check it out.  Come on, Al.”

The Deer and Ewan turn to the left and start walking up a dirt path on the hill with Al bopping along as usual behind them.  After about fifty yards the ground levels off and there’s a small log cabin atop the hill.  A large wall of firewood is neatly stacked between two trees off to the right of the house.  There’s also an old, canvas hammock between two other trees overlooking the bottom of the hill and a large, flat rock just to the left of the dirt path as it reaches the door to the cabin.  Large, overgrown shrubs block part of the front windows, and there’s another small, tilt-out window on the left side of the cabin.

The tilt-out window is open and they can hear two people arguing from inside of the cabin.  The Deer, Ewan, and Al walk up along that side of the cabin, but not in view of the window.  “I’m going to get a better look.  Stay put,” says The Deer.  He slowly inches over a few feet, hops up on his hind legs, and peers in the tilt-out window.

Looking in The Deer sees a young couple in their early thirties having an argument in the one room cabin.  The woman is sitting on the edge of the queen-sized bed, the man is sitting in one of a pair of old rocking chairs positioned on either side of a large bear skin rug in front of a roaring fire.  There are old, thick curtains drawn over all the windows, and the only other light source besides the fireplace seems to be an old, oil burning lantern resting on one of the solid wood night stands.  There’s no sign of a TV or other modern appliance.  In fact, there doesn’t even seem to be electricity at all.

The woman is visibly upset, and appears to be on the verge of crying.  The man is sitting in the rocking chair to the right of the fire with his back facing the tilt-out window, hovering over his iPhone.

The woman shakes her hands in front of her as she pleads with her husband, “Come on, honey.  Please stop watching TV for just a minute so that we can talk.  Remember how I said that I wanted this weekend to be a romantic weekend away for just the two of us so that we can reconnect?  And we’re very lucky that our friend offered to lend us his cabin for free.”

“Yes, I remember.  But remember how I told you that was fine but I wanted to watch the big game this weekend?  Well the game just started, and it won't be over for a few hours, and that's only if it doesn't go into overtime, which it might.  So as soon as it’s over we can start our ‘romantic’ weekend together.”

“But the romantic weekend has already started!  It was such a pretty and relaxing drive out here.  And we’re here now.  Together.”

“Yes, and we made it just in time to watch the game.  I almost had a heart attack when I realized there was no TV, or electricity for that matter, in this cabin.  Luckily I can stream live TV to this bad boy right here,” says the husband tapping the side of his iPhone affectionately.

“Well can’t you watch the game later?  You’re recording it at home, right?”

“I am recording it at home, but that’s just a failsafe.  So no, I can’t watch it later.”

“Well why not?”

“It’s just not the same as watching it live.  The guys will have already seen it by then, and they’ll want to talk about it, and it will spoil everything.”

“Well can’t you miss one game just this once?”

“Can’t you just let it go and not nag me about this just this once?  You’re starting to sound like my mother.”

The Deer looks back at Ewan, “That’s never a wise thing to say to a woman.”

“Well maybe I wouldn’t act like your mom if you didn’t treat me like your mom!” yells the wife.  “Try paying attention to me some time other than when you’re hungry, sleepy, or need a diaper change.”

“That’s not true!” protests the husband.

“Oh, that’s right, I forgot; and when you’re horny.  Or at least when you used to be.  You haven’t looked at me or touched me since you got that iPhone of yours.”

“Well maybe I would if you spent less time nagging me and more time on the treadmill.  If nagging burned as many calories as jogging you would win a marathon.”

“Don’t put this all on me!  I’ve gained a little weight since we got married, but I’m still sexy!”  She pulls open the top of her robe revealing a lacy bra.

“Damn, she pretty fine,” says The Deer to Ewan.

“And besides, you’re not mister captain of the football team either.  You’ve put on quite the beer belly since college.  So don’t try to make me feel bad about my body,” fires back the woman.  “And another thing—“ she stops herself in mid sentence and looks out the window at The Deer peering in.  “Honey, there’s a deer at the window.”

The man doesn’t respond and stays focused on his phone.

“Honey, there’s a deer at the window.”

“I know.  I heard you the first time.”

“Well take a look at it.  I think it’s watching us.”

“I don’t want to take a look at it.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m watching the game!  And because it’s just a stupid deer!  Who cares if it’s looking.  Now quit bugging me during the game.”

“Well at least the stupid deer is paying attention to me.  That’s more than I can say about my so-called husband at the moment who doesn’t even want to get tender with his wife.  Maybe I should invite the deer in and let it take care of business.”

"Maybe you should!  Although he probably only likes deer and not elk, so maybe you better spend some more time on the treadmill first."

“Why are you being like this?  This is supposed to be a romantic weekend away for just the two of us!”

“And I told you I just want to watch the game first!!  That’s it!!!  I’m out of here!!!  I’m going for a walk so that I can watch the game in peace.”  The man stands up and storms out the front door of the log cabin with his iPhone.  “I’ll be back when it’s over.”  He gets halfway into the tree line when there is a bright flash of light.

"No you won't; I've seen that light before," says Ewan.

The wife is crying.  Still listening intently Ewan says, "She sounds pretty bent out of shape.  Maybe we should go and talk to her or something?"

"Yeah, you're right.  Wait.  You should probably let me handle this one.  You may not be very sensitive to her situation seeing as how you yourself were just recently liberated from the crushing clutches of your girlfriend's talons."

"Yeah, you're right.  Alright, good luck man."

Ewan gives The Deer a pat on the back.  The Deer rolls his shoulders a few times and takes a couple deep breaths.  “Alright, I’m going in,” says The Deer.

The Deer walks in to the cabin and sits down on the bed next to the crying woman.  Ewan takes The Deer’s spot next to the tilt-out window and looks in, describing the situation to Al who is just off to the side of the window, not visible from the inside.  "Okay, he's sitting beside her on the bed.  She’s crying.  Now he's comforting her in his arms.  She's crying harder.  It looks like she's really letting it all out.  They’re talking.  They’re talking some more.  It seems like they’re negotiating some sort of a deal.  She’s nodding her head in agreement and wiping away her tears.  Okay, he reached behind his back and pulled out a small ziploc bag and a record.  He's putting the record on the old, wind-up record player.” 

Bob Marley can faintly be heard from inside the cabin:

Don’t let’em fool ya-- oh no!

Or even try to screw ya-- oh yeah!

Could you be loved?

Then be loved…

Ewan continues to describe the scene to Al, “Okay, he's made some sort of fat cigar from what was in the bag and they're smoking it together.  He just pulled out a big bag of Doritos from behind his back... Cool Ranch flavor, I believe.  She's looking a lot more relaxed now…  He’s pulling out another record from behind his back and putting it on the record player.”

The low baritone of Barry White can be heard from within the cabin.

“He's sitting beside her on the bed rubbing her shoulders.  He's getting up and walking over to the lamp on the night stand.  He blew out the lamp.  He’s walking over to the window.  He just shut the window in my face and drew a curtain over it.  It's much darker in there now.  I can't see anything through the curtain.  Hmmm.  I guess they were sleepy and decided to take a nap."

"Beedoo-beedoo-boop?"

"Yeah, sure.  That will kill some time.  Do you have an extra paddle?"

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