Previous Episode
On my fourth birthday, we went to a giant McDonalds in a white bulding next to a smaller, regular looking McDonalds. The white building had an indoor playroom and it was fun. I got a Star Wars Y-Wing toy, which, when you pushed a button, would drop a bomb. What a fun toy! At the end of my birthday party, my Dad informed me that now I was old enough to get a job and stop being such a leech off of him. I wondered what a leech was.
When school started up again, my older brother went on to Kindergarten thus leaving me all alone in the preschool. Gangs were rampant in Alaskan preschools, and I was in constant fear of ambush. I also got to learn about Indians and eat corn nuts. Yummy! Mom still didn’t let me have Kool-Aid, though.
Dad came home really angry one day. It ends up that where he worked was having some nasty thing called an “audit” and that some even more nasty thing called a “union” was afraid of being caught doing bad things. Thus to take focus away from them, they said that my poor daddy had falsified documents, committed bribery, and murdered hookers… even though most of it wasn’t true at all! It was such a big deal, he ended up being on the news. I didn’t watch, though, because news is boring.
One day on my way to school, two mean men named Vito and Lou grabbed me drove me away in a car. “Where are we going?” I asked.
“You just be quiet?” Vito told me, “Capeesh?”
“My name is Frankie and I’m four years old,” I answered.
They took me to a building where the union boss was. He was a big fat man who smoked smelly cigars. They made a phone call to my daddy and told him that he needed to give them $50,000 if he wanted me back. That sounded like a lot! My dad must have agreed, because he tried to negotiate them down to $20,000. My dad is good at negotiating.
I then got to talk to my daddy to prove I was alive. “Hello daddy,” I said.
“Hey, I don’t want to pay these idiots so you have to escape. You hear me? I’ll come pick you up if you make it out of the building. It shouldn’t be too hard; they wouldn’t send the cream of the crop of the mob to Anchorage.”
“Okay daddy.”
After the phone was hung up, I told everyone, “Hey look over there.”
They all turned around. “What am I looking at over here?” Vito asked.
My plan worked, so I ran for their exit. They took out guns and shot at me. That was scary. But then my dad pulled up in his truck and drove off with me. Hooray! Dad said I was such a big boy for escaping from the mob, that he let me shift some of the gears when he drove. He also bought me a videogame on the condition I wouldn’t tell mom about any of this. I wanted Q-Bert, but they were out, so I got Pac-Man instead.
When we got home, dad told mom that I had been at a friend’s house and he forgot to tell her. Mom looked suspicious, but she still made me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I’d need the energy if I was going to beat Pac-Man.
Not too long after, I came home one day to find our house was empty. The only thing there was a note left for me. I was just learning to read, so I was happy to have a note all to myself. The note said: “We’ve decided to leave Alaska, but we don’t have enough money to bring you with us. You’ll have to stay here and earn your own living. Good luck. -Dad”.
I cried and cried. I’d miss my mommy and my daddy and my brother and even my little sister somewhat. But then I turned over the note and saw: “Just kidding! Here’s some money to get a cab and meet us at the airport.” That’s my dad – always playing silly jokes.
Taking a cab was fun… at least until I saw something out the window. It was the Alaskan snow monkey! The cab driver wouldn’t believe me, but the monkey clawed his way in and started trying to bite me. To make things worse, the sirens started sounding; the Soviets were invading again! I looked to the cab driver for help, but he had stopped the car and left. It ends up their was a tank aiming right for the car. Oh no!
I kicked that mean monkey and then got out of the car just before it exploded. Hopefully that bad monkey was dead. I had to run quickly, though, as the mean old Soviets were now shooting at me. Eventually I got the airport where my family was waiting.
“You almost made us late!” my dad said angrily.
Mom thought it was good of me to escape the Soviets, though, and she bought me a candy bar. As we walked to the plane, there was a giant bear standing on two legs in the middle of the airport. He looked at big as a building. Luckily, someone had shot him dead or otherwise he might eat me.
On the plane I got pilot wings and a bag of peanuts. We flew south and it looked like we were heading back to California. Oh no! But we stopped just short and landed in Oregon.