From the Journals....

From the Journals.

I'm still fighting that cold from last week. It's stuck in my throat...I think it rented the condo in my larynx I saw advertised in the paper last week. All weekend, I've been doing the very best Harvey Fierstein impression that you've ever heard. The very best.

I wasn't in the mood to do much of anything last night. This creeping crud. It has me feeling run down. Not sick, really. Just tired.

I got to looking in one of my old journals, to pass the time. I got to looking at a few Christmas memories.

I looked at 1984, the first year of my journaling activities. I got to remember one of the trips to New Jersey, where my sister and I fought most of the way through Virginia about whether Santa Claus knew whether to bring our gifts to our grandparents' house in Cape May, or to our house in Tennessee. When the argument entered its fifth hour (by this point, we'd crossed over into Maryland), my Dad went insane and killed both me and my sister. With his shoes!

He dumped our bodies in a river, and he and my mother ran away to the wilds of Canada. There they live today, feared by the natives in that arctic cold...

And then there was the Christmas where I first got Nintendo! I got Super Mario Brothers, and I was playing, and playing and playing. After several minutes I was inspired to crawl down into the big, open pipes that ran all through the house we lived in at the time. The real surprise was that one of the large pipes was a warp zone, to the sixth level. I was fortunate to make it to the castle, but I was killed (savagely, I might add) by one of Bowser's minions. Flying hammers, yo. I'd lost my fireballs earlier in the level, and got smashed.

But I was paging through the journals, and was reminded of one of my strongest Christmas memories. I was reminded of the time family friends came to the house bearing gifts. It came time to open my gift, and beneath the wrapping was a G.I. Joe Motorcycle!!!!! And I nearly pooped my pants in joy.

And then I opened the box, intending fully to play with use the motorcycle to destroy the Cobra enclave located somewhere in my bedroom. It was not to be, however. Instead of a G.I. Joe motorcycle, there were six pairs of socks in the box.

I was not killed that Christmas. I was taken prisoner by Cobra. I was used, at first, for my value as a hostage. And later, as slave labor.

As we know, in February of the next year, Cobra launched a full scale assault on the house from their base in my bedroom. The operation was successful. It proved to be the first step in a much larger mission.

History shows that in 1988, COBRA managed to stake a claim to the southeastern quadrant of the United States, and by 1990 had Conquered the North American Continent.

I died in 1997, overworked and sickly.

It was three months later that a strike team comprised of Snake Eyes, Shipwreck and Recondo broke through to my house (prison) to liberate my family. It was in the year 2000 (around Christmas) that Cobra was finally vanquished (at the Battle of RFK Stadium), and America came to be once again.

Yo Joe!