SERIALIZATION OF “the Zany Time Travels of Warble McGorkle” – Chapter 9 of 61
WARBLE PLANS A PREEMPTIVE STRIKE
CHAPTER 9
Warble Plans a Preemptive Strike
Now you may wonder, ‘Why?’ Why Cooperstown, New York? And why 1992? Warble has chosen Cooperstown because that’s where he thinks people had a barrel of fun inventing baseball. But why 1992, when the Cooperstownians had (again, as Warble thinks*) invented the sport away back in the 1800s? Warble saw no need to go back any further than necessary, at least for this first trip. He didn’t know if it would cause him to get motion sickness, so he decided to play it safe at first and see how things would go just going back a few years in time.
* Baseball is in reality a derivation of the British game “Rounders,” which is similar to the game of Cricket, rather than being something created “new” from whole cowhide
At any rate, Warble’s convoluted reasoning can’t really be logically explained, so let’s just accept that he picked April 1st, 1992 as the most efficacious time of arrival at that destination. He didn’t pick April 1st because of any acknowledged affinity with fools or pranks, but because that is opening day of the new baseball season, and he wants to enact a new rule that will save not only baseball, but by extension the world (as Warble will explain).
On arriving in the town, Warble heads for a corn field and then presses the “Land” button. Directly after touchdown, he climbs out of the Arodnap, walks out onto its hood (or cowling), turns around, and addresses his fellow travelers:
“Ladies and Gentile men, we are about to save our great society by means of an end-around, a nipping in the butt, as it were. As everybody knows, baseball is a microcosm of life, especially American life. And as America is beloved by all peoples and nations, whatever is done in America will be obsequiously imitated by all everywhere. The lesser nations and peoples of the world will trip over themselves scrambling to follow our lead.
“So, our motto will be: today baseball, tomorrow America, and the rest of the world the day after tomorrow (true, it might take a little bit longer than that for backwards third-world countries who only get wind of our innovations when the llamas and water buffalo and what-not come straggling into their remote villages bearing news of our latest innovations).
“The future of our culture and way of life...”
“Warble, I get all my culture from yogurt,” Jacques objects. “Is that the kind of whey you’re talking about?”
“No, LaRue, I’m talking about the American way of life. Our freedom, our lifestyle that everyone is jealous of, making them green with envy, and which we must maintain regardless of the cost or consequences. It is our patriotic duty to see to it that it is never altered, interrupted, or otherwise messed around with.”
Marianne agrees that the American way is the best, and declares herself ready to fight all foes, foreign and domesticated foreigners, who try to stick a finger in her pie.
“Yes, American whey is the best,” Warble concurs. “And so are American curds.”
“American Kurds?” Marianne asks.
“Sure,” Warble answers. “If Little Miss Muffett—a pretty good friend of Jimmy Buffett, buy the whey (that’s a subliminal advertisement, in case you didn’t notice)--had been eating American curds and whey (which give strength, promote courage, and taste really wonderful to boot), she wouldn’t have been frightened away by a silly old spider.
Soundtrack Note: Jimmy Buffett’s “Little Miss Magic”
Even if it were a Tarantula straight from the Costa Rican rain forest, W. Somersault Milkshake’s epic poem about her would’ve been altogether different: The diminutive maiden would’ve fought the scary arachnid tooth and nail to keep her curds and whey.”
“You don’t say!” Jacques replies.
“No more rhymes, and I mean it!” Warble says, reddening with anger.
“Anybody wanna...play a game of basketball?” Jacques asks, pretending to dribble an imaginary ball in the air.
“Getting back to the point,” Ward says, “It may be that we need to do something about preserving our way of life, Warble, but how do you intend to do that, and from here in 1992 of all times?”
“This is the day the preemptive strike must be initiated,” Warble answers. “The timing is perfect for it.”
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Blackbird Crow Raven’s “the Zany Time Travels of Warble McGorkle” is being serialized in this space each Sunday and Thursday; it is also available in its entirety from here.
You can listen to the recording of this excerpt, by the author, here: