Tales of the Incredible Hoke Robertson

 

Some things are so important they must be recorded for posterity. This allows those who follow us to study, learn and improve. By writing down significant events we make sure that accuracy is ensured so that future historians are confident of the specific facts surrounding monumental occurrences.

The year was 1991; no I think it was 1990. I don’t remember the exact year but that doesn’t matter. I was living in Lockeford, California on a large estate I’d inherited from my grandfather Perturbius Schmeckpepper of THE Schmeckpeepers. The estate contained about 400 acres of fertile farmland and another 200 acres of one of the last grand Oak Groves of the Central Valley. Nope, nope; that’s not right. I had just purchased my first home in some deteriorating tract home subdivision. Now that I think of it neither of my grandfathers had a surname of Schmeckpepper, though I think there was someone named that on my mother’s side of the family. Huh; wonder where that came from?

Anyway, on returning to my home after 7 hours of neurosurgery in which I had performed the first ever successful append-dicktomy whereby I re-attached a recently severed member back onto some guy who had “streaked” a bit too close to a wood chipper … No, wait. I think that was a movie I saw at the drive-in back in 1974. Maybe it came from that dream last week where I was in “Edward Scissorhands” but also late for class and not wearing any clothes. Damn, not sure; anyway that is not correct.

I was returning home from working at the law firm I founded, er was employed by. One of the very rare tornados in California had just split a large oak tree and wreaked havoc on two mobile home trailers in a park. No, no. There was a rare tornado in Lockeford sometime around then but it is irrelevant to this story. I was coming home and it had rained most of the day so everything was pretty rubbery, er wet.

I pulled into the garage, being careful not to scratch my brand new Resistance is Futile model Tesla recently purchased with my Publishers’ Clearinghouse winnings. Whoa, that was well before Elon Musk was ever bailed out with taxpayer money and maybe even before he cheated millions out of their own money via PayPal. I think I was driving a pickup truck and had only 73 monthly payments before I could call it mine. I don’t think I ever won Publishers’ Clearinghouse but I did find that sticky $5 bill once on the floor at the “Come Again” Adult Book store. Regardless.

For some reason I cannot now remember, after parking the truck I went out to the side yard instead of entering the Bat-Cave, er going inside my home. I think maybe I did this because I heard my pet emus “scrorking” in the back yard. Stop; Allison and Tom had emus I had a fish pond, so maybe I heard the fish yelling or something but definitely there was no “scrorking.” Anyway, once in the side yard I suddenly noticed that the place was literally covered with Portuguese Men-O-War, all gasping for water. Okay, that’s just silly; there were no jellyfish of any type. What there were (is that well grammar?) were oodles of pulmonate gastropod mollusks. Yes “Opilio crabs! No, no, opilio crabs are epitaunal crustacean chinonecetes oipilio and there is little likelihood they had traversed so many miles of temperate zone land to congregate in my backyard.

Pulmonate gastropod mollusks are of course snails as in slimy, trail-leaving, slugs with clothes. Yes there were nails, er, snails all over the place. I started throwing them over the fence into the back yard of my jerk neighbor with the dog that barks every friggin night. Well that’s not entirely correct. I definitely wanted to do that (and still do). I started tossing them into the street just to hear the soft crack of their shells as they hit the pavement and were doomed to a slow excruciating death by dehydration. The staccato of “cracks” was reminiscent of short bursts from an MG-42 machine gun of World War II and just as enjoyable to the ears. Son of a gun, that can’t be so. I think I did hear each “crack” as they softly impacted, but soon I realized the sheer number of snails I might so murder would clog the normally quiet street bordering my house in Clements; er Lockeford.

Instead of tossing them into the street, I began shoving them down my pants, enjoying the cool feel of their flesh as they wiggled in slo-motion … Yikes! Sorry; I must have drifted off back to that very first Boy Scout camp out that others now swear never happened. Where was I? I started putting the snails in an old plastic bucket; “plunk, plunk, plunk’ like the sound of a rabbit pooping on a cookie pan. Again and again I picked up another and another snail. Eventually my back gave out and I lay in the yard, immobile for three days. Naw, pretty sure I didn’t hurt myself though I think all that slime permanently removed my fingerprints.

Suddenly Department of Fish and Game wardens appeared and arrested me for bothering the rare Valley Scroking Snail, an endangered species of some renown. No, no one came by except maybe that hot Jehovah’s Witness girl named Heidi who frequented Ione, er Lockeford most Sundays. I never invited her in for fear of being drawn into the awful world of devout religion with its strict morality, mandatory niceness and charitable requirements (God, that would be a horrible life) I kinda figured “hitting” on her might constitute some sort of original sin or something of the like. Hmmm, I seemed to have strayed.

After some time I began to automatically eat, I mean count each snail as I chased it down and dropped it into the jar of acid, I mean the bucket. I was surprised at the huge size of the snails, some being as large as my head; NOPE; I was surprised as the number of the count increased. 237, 238, 239 … More and more of the deadly garden denizens were gathered and added to the prison-like bucket.

532, 533, 534 … I began to hallucinate as the psychogenic chemicals from the snail shells was absorbed by my skin. When the ambulance arrived I was barley coherent, requiring a large dose of Naloxene to shock my system back into … Gosh darn I’m sure that did not happen. Anyway, everywhere I looked I saw more of the Men-o-War, er emus, er snails and I could not stop my task.

785, 786, 767 … This was getting ridiculous. Not only was the bucket filling up but the creepy-crawly mass of these backbone-less bastards were starting to scream in agony, er getting pretty darn heavy. I had moved into the areas around the riding stables, I mean near the unworking hot tub following the never-ending spore of the slimy slinkers slithering sporadically in skewed supination surreptitiously seeking seclusion from my sordid snatching. Pardon that.

Near exhaustion, miles from any source of potable water, and with the starving coyotes fast approaching, Well, I was a bit thirsty but the faucets in my house were only a few feet away and I’m fairly sure no local squirrels were stalking me as food. Anyway, when I reached 4,782,315, well, 976 anyway I gave up even though there were still literally hundreds more within my gun-sight, er view.

I dumped the pail-o-snail (coincidentally the French term for “food truck”) into the incinerator. No, it was a garbage bin and went inside, exhausted - oh I already said that. I lay down on the couch and dreamed of slowly quivering eye stalks giving me stern, unblinking, disappointed looks.

Now some people may doubt some of this story, but I swear it is absolutely true. It was only years later that I learned of the rare but impressive migrations of snails from Peru to Saskatchewan which postulated a possible explanation for the Lockeford gathering. That is my story; really. I once picked up over 900 snails in my back yard. Really, over 900. I’m not kidding. Pretty interesting, huh? HOKE