There has been a funny thing happening at the local Big Falcon for the past month. Not funny as in, something that is comical, that either intentionally or unintentionally makes you laugh or at the very least chuckle. But, funny in the sense that something is amiss with a person, place, action, or thing. Using funny in that way is pretty ambiguous. I should have just used strange. Let me start over.
There has been a strange thing happening at the local Big Falcon for the past month. Two well dressed men whom I believe to be Colombians, by virtue of the fact that a cashier once heard one of them mention being from Colombia, have been going to the store daily between 3 to 5 in the afternoon. They only buy four watermelons on each of their visits and nothing else. This of course, is quite odd. That’s why I was called in to investigate.
I started my investigation by googling Columbia. Columbia has an official website but I avoided it, knowing from experience with the US’s website that countries lie about themselves in order to make themselves seem more appealing. It’s like when I tell women that I regularly save orphans from pirates. I also avoided any professional looking or sounding sites, on the principle that those kinds of sites are always style and ads over substance. I did the only reasonable thing to do; I searched until I found a website about Columbia that was horribly designed, contained almost nothing but spelling errors, incoherently written, and had a five second midi continuous looping in the background. This website was perfect for finding the truth about Columbia. There was nothing standing in the way of presenting facts. What I learned on this site convinced me that there was something sinister going on.
One: Columbians’ prefer pomegranates and mangos. The site goes into extreme detail about the Columbians’ love for pomegranates. They eat them almost nonstop and only bathe in the fruit’s juice. They may have a lovely fragrance but one thing they don’t have is a love for watermelon. Apparently, the taste of watermelon causes them to walk uncontrollably like an Egyptian. I’m not an Egyptologist, so I’m not familiar with the way they walk but I’m guessing that it’s a very unflattering style, since they’re very adamant about not eating watermelon. So, these Columbian gentlemen could not have been buying those watermelons for personal consumption. Also in regards to watermelons, the author of the site theorizes that the reason the black population of America eats so much of the delicious fruit, is because they fear Columbians ever since they invaded Harlem in the late 60s.
Two: Columbia’s major exports are shoelaces, cocaine, and CIA agent killing ninjas. The cocaine-ninja complex poses some interesting questions but it lacks the relevance to this situation as shoelaces does. Now, most pairs of shoes have shoelaces. Of course, scandals, flip flops, high heels, and those other women’s shoes I don’t know the names for, lack shoelaces. The shoelace cartel doesn’t make any money off of those shoes. So, they want to either force shoelaces on to those shoes or get rid of them outright. These shoelace cartel people are the most dangerous criminals in all of Columbia and these men might be part of it.
Three: The last thing with a bearing on this situation that I learned from the website; their favorite TV show is an American Idol knock off called: Guess Who’s Fernando? At the beginning of the season, one random singing hopeful is designated Fernando by the producers. Each week the panel of judges (an over the hill soap star with big fake boobs, a general who has been president for life four times, and David Ogden Stiers) get a cryptic clue from the producers on to who Fernando is. They kick singers that they don’t think is Fernando off the show each week until there is only one singer left. If that singer isn’t Fernando, they are given a record contract. If the singer is indeed Fernando, they are beaten bloody with nightsticks by the judges, made to eat a living cat, and then are shipped off to America to try out for American Idol. Any country that would send us more shitty pop singers is just plain evil.
Knowing all that I know now, I know that I must stop these evil men before their evil plan can go any further. So, I wait in the Big Falcon parking lot at the appropriate time. Sure enough, two well-dressed men with dark complexions (probably Columbians) came out of the store with a shopping cart containing four watermelons and nothing else. As they’re putting the melons away in the truck I approach them. Fearing them having guns, knives, or really hard fists, I brought a local kid with me to use as a buffer. He will absorb the first wave of attacks, thus allowing me time to escape.
“Hello there. I couldn’t help but see you putting watermelons into your car. It’s just that you appear to be Columbians and I have it on a very good authority that you people hate that particular fruit. So, why did you purchase, not one but, four of them?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. We love watermelon.”
“Hey, why are you holding that kid towards us?”
“Now that you mention it, he looks to have a virtual death grip on the lad’s shoulders. And why is he holding him forcibly outward towards us.”
“Yes, like some sort of buffer, between him and us.”
Sensing that things were about to turn ugly, I ducked behind the brave child. When his body jerked from violence inflicted upon him, I would make my escape.
“Son, is this your father?”
“No. He lives on my block and paid me 20 dollars to stand in front of him.”
“We want to talk to your friend alone.”
“So, get going.”
The kid takes off and I realize that I shouldn’t have paid him in advance.
“Who are you and why do you care if we buy watermelons?”
“I’m Brandon Downard, special secret agent with the CASA.”
“What’s the CASA?”
“Crisis Assessment and Solution Authority. When there’s a problem that the cops can’t or won’t handle in New Kensington, the CASA is called in to solve it.”
“And someone called your organization because two Columbians are buying watermelons?”
“A better question is: why would a crummy little city like this have it’s own secret agency?”
“There is crime and threats here that the likes of you could never realize.”
“What do you mean by: the likes of you?”
“People that aren’t from around here.”
“Tell us, why you are looking into, two men buying watermelons?”
“You’ve been coming here everyday at around the same time for the past month, buying the exact same thing every time. That is odd behavior, don’t you think so?”
“Not at all. We buy the watermelon to make fruit salad.”
“Yes, we use the melon in fruit salad that we sell at our store, which I assure you, that you’ve never heard of.”
“We need fresh watermelon everyday because we always sell out.”
“Then shouldn’t you buy them in the morning instead of late afternoon. Also, there are multiple types of fruit in fruit salad. Why don’t you buy the other fruit here?”
“We get all our other fruit from a suppler but we don’t like their watermelons.”
“The lateness of our purchase is due to us catering exclusively to the dinner crowd.”
“Really. You two are makers of fruit salads and not say; agents of the shoelace cartel.”
“Shoelace cartel?”
“Don’t play dumb with me. I read on the Internet all about Columbia’s plot to put a pair of laces on every shoe or else. I don’t know what part you play in their insidious plan, but I won’t allow you to carry it out any longer.”
“That is as stupid, as saying that all Columbians hate watermelon.”
“Then I guess I’ve been horribly informed about your country.”
“You sure have been.”
“So, you two wouldn’t want this pomegranate I’m taking out of my pocket.”
“What, do you think that just because you have that piece of fruit, that we’ll have to eat it?”
I toss the pomegranate down the sloping parking lot and after a second, both men chase after it. They both lay claim to it and begin to fight for it. While they’re occupied, I check out the watermelons they purchased. The first melon I look at had a circle cut into the rind. I use my car keys to remove the circular piece. Inside was a hollowed out pocket containing a large bag of cocaine. Damn, it was the cocaine-ninja complex after all.
