Meanwhile back at the ranch...

[Cherry Pneumatic]

I wander through PGA's little section of SJC and notice something. It's quiet. Too quiet. It's like a ghost town. The Elbonians have hidden themselves away (mainly because they're tired of babysitting Torque). Mac is still glued to the computer screen living in ebay-land. I think he comes up every now and then to eat. Marvin is gone. Oh well, at least the smell went with him. Boss, Mr. Boss, Luke, Rick, Darby, and Geoff are off BOTA-ing. Who knows where some of our new help went. It seems they've just disappeared (which could be a new Halloween mystery, actually).

I look around again to make sure nobody is watching. The place is mine. ALL MINE.

Torque and I unveil some materials that have been sitting behind the hangar for a very long time tarped over. We will now commence to build a "timely" idea. <<BWAAAHAAHAAA>>.

[Cherry Pneumatic]

CUE THE MUSIC...

"dum-dum...da,da,da, dum dum...da, da,da, dah."

Erected (please, no sexual harassment suits...) on the lawn beside the old caboose sits something gleaming in the sunlight. It appears to be a bicycle of some sort with wings. It's covered entirely with duct tape and aluminum foil so the glint from it in the sunlight is unfathomable. Where the speeds would normally be on the bike handles are gadgets with a clock that looks like an odometer in the middle of it. Cherry smiles brightly as she puts the "lo-jack" onto the bike wheels. "This thing's not going anywhere!" She states proudly to nobody in particular.

Looking on this invention, one might think the Wright brothers would have been proud...or...maybe not.

[Cherry Pneumatic]

I don't know what possessed me, but I had to see if the time machine really worked. But, as is always the case, it's no fun to go on an adventure alone. Not thinking I would get any volunteers for this one, I grabbed the closest living creature that I could get my hands on (which happened to be Gandalf) and strapped the unwitting bird to the make-shift handlebars of the "bicycle".

"#@$%!" Gandalf squawked. (And, he said a few other things that I had never heard come out of a bird before). He also squawked something about it being his birthday. I must admit that I wasn't really listening.

As I began to pedal, we rolled forward (much as on a regular bike) and I thought we might gain enough momentum to lift off the ground should our vehicle's wings hold together. But alas, before the flight could happen, one of the gages on the front began to smoke. Said gage then caught fire (which was unfortunately a little close to Gandalf's tail feathers).

I heard him distinctly squawk "BITCH...BITCH!" as I whacked his plumed end.
Needless to say, mission aborted.

Captain's log star-date 11/4/04: Must make adjustments to the instrument panel before the next mission. Also, remember to go grocery shopping. (For some strange reason I appear to be craving roasted chicken.)

[Cherry Pneumatic]

Time Machine: Trial #2

I decided since I didn't know how well this thing worked yet, it was best to ask for volunteers rather than be sued later. But, most were still flying around for BOTA and the rest were staying far away from me. Even Gandalf was ignoring me (and rightly so since I had been a pain in his tail feathers earlier).

So, I went to talk to the Elbonians. Using my English to Elbonian dictionary, I was able to translate a conversation that went something like this:
Cherry: "I have a unique flight opportunity to present to you."
Sergey: <translated loosely> "What does it pay?"
Cherry: "Hmmm, pay? I hadn't thought...well, doughnuts perhaps."
Alec: "And?"
Cherry: "And of course you'll need some coffee to go with those doughnuts."
(I seemed to have had them hooked already).
Sergey: "And?"
Cherry: "And you parents will be proud."
Alec and Sergey thought it over briefly and, looking at each other, say in unison something that loosely translates into "OK!"

Captain's log stardate 11/6/04: The Elbonians prepare for their flight. I give them bicycle helmets to wear in case of an accident. I beg them to skip the bicycle pants, but they show up in furry bike-shorts anyway. I cannot erase the view from my mind. Note to self: Get therapy later.

[Cherry Pneumatic]

The pre-flight checklist goes smoothly. The bicycle gears purr and hum on start up. As Sergey pedals, Alec holds onto him for dear life. The bicycle wings expand and the tires are spinning faster and faster. They are almost a blur now as they roll down the road. And roll...and roll...

"Hey, guys!" I call out as I notice they aren't taking flight nor are they stopping. "Stop!"

Heaven only knows where they'll end up. Note to self: Put their pictures on milk cartons.

[the editor]

How sad for the Elbonians. I guess their fathers wouldn't be proud after all.

[Cherry Pneumatic]

A couple of days later, Sergey and Alec had pedalled their way back to PGA on the time machine/flying machine/bicycle. They said (loosely translated, of course) that they had been back to what we English-speakers refer to as the dark ages. It was alot like the country that they grew up in. It made them home-sick, but there were no doughnuts. So, they tried to find their way back to modern times to have some breakfast. They took a wrong turn at the Salem trials. They said that I should be very afraid because people used to burn bitches.

I correct them angrily that the correct word is W-I-T-C-H.

They say it doesn't matter because alot of those bitches were nicer than I was and they don't understand how I could have escaped that one. Anyway, they eventually pedalled back to the year 2004.

I beg them to show me how they got the machine to work. They hand me a bike helmet and claim they need a shower due to chafing from the fuzzy-pants.

Captain's Log stardate 11/10/04: Find volunteers that speak English next time.

Personal note to self: Find some fuzzy pants.

[Cherry Pneumatic]

I thought that I had a volunteer lined up. I had the seductive bait (jelly-filled with powdered sugar and some thick pungent coffee to wash 'em down). I had the fast-talking sales pitch ("Junior, please...please...please..."). I almost had the 'yes' (Junior: "Hell no! You're a crazy girl. I'm staying as far away from you as possible!"). But in the end, I had to resort to my cunning wiles (Cherry: "You know, Junior, I have this very unflattering picture taken of you at last Spring's un-party. You know the one where you took off your shirt and danced "The Jelly Roll" on the top of the Boss' desk. Now, if she should ever see it...").

I have my next volunteer.

[Cherry Pneumatic]

Junior, trying to balance his doughnut-gut on the bicycle, teeters freqently and moans, "Are you sure this is going to work?"

"Of course it will!" I say enthusiastically. "Didn't you ever ride a bike as a kid? People never forget."

"It's not the forgetting part," laments Junior, "It's the balancing part."

"Well, if two Elbonians in fuzzy pants can ride, then you can..."

"Okay, okay!" he cuts off my ranting. "I'm on the bike."

"Now, start pedalling and soon you'll feel a lift as if you're being airborn. Set your control dial to a date and hold on tight."

Junior looks sceptical but he begins to pedal and soon he is pedalling the bike awkwardly away. "I'm doing it, I'm doing it!" Junior calls over his shoulder.

"Set the date dial!" I scream.

"It's done. I set the date dial and...OOOOF!" Junior goes flying off the bicycle which has now gained a momentum of its own. Without his counterweight, the bike lifts off the ground effortlessly and disappears in front of our eyes.

"D@mn it, Junior!" I screach as I run by and whack him in the back of the head. "We might never see it again."

Just then, we hear this rushing noise and we only have time to let out a brief scream as we scuttle along the ground trying to get out of the way of a runaway bike with wings.

<<WHAM>> The bike lands in the dirt wheels still spinning.

"But I don't get it!" I cry. "It didn't work!"

"Well," confesses Junior looking sheepish, "I only set the timer for about a minute into the past. I was hoping to meet myself and talk myself out of riding the bike."

I walk away angrily. "Dumb@ss!" I call over my shoulder."

"I fulfilled my part of the bargain," Junior grunts along after me. "Don't show those pictures to the boss, ok!"

[Cherry Pneumatic]

I drag Mac from out of his hiding spot at the computer where he has been plotting the ruin of the world's economic market through the use of ebay.

Mac (grumpily): "I was in the middle of something."

Cherry: "This won't take any time at all. As a matter of fact, we might never know you were gone."

Mac lifts an eyebrow. Time travel. He's very skeptical.

Cherry: "Would you at least get on the d@mn bike?"

Mac turns to Cherry and says...

[Mac The Wrench]

Mac turns to Cherry and says...


grumbling: I have 17 minutes left on that WACO winter-front auction for a W-670. I need to get back to it...

Cherry goes on expounding on how although there were gears, levers, wings, and dials mounted on this bicycle that Wilbur and Orville would not have dreamed of for neither bike nor plane, they all had something to do with time... spending it, or saving it, or maybe it was wasting it... Mac never was much for listening skills. Anyway she got the point across that she was not going to let him back to his Ebay ventures without taking a ride on this thing. The only other thing he seemed to get out of the conversation is that she had no idea how it worked.

Stay tuned for our next episode: “Re-cycled Mac” or “On a spoke and a prayer”

Mac grumbles something about millions of dinosaurs dying just so they wouldn’t HAVE to pedal things, and then jumped aboard.

“This had better only take a sec----“ WHOMP! and Mac disappeared audibly in a direction they could not understand.

[Cherry Pneumatic]

I hope that he remembered to take the trash out before he left. Oh, well.

[Mac The Wrench]

"This had better only take a sec----" WHOMP! and Mac disappeared audibly in a direction they could not understand..

It should be noted here that the audible “WHOMP!” was not created by any mechanical or ethereal means, but rather the sudden change of pressure, direction and subsequent confusion of the air molecules that were happily bouncing about. It would seem that, much to their dismay, they suddenly had to fill a hole where Mac and the Frankensteinian device wasn’t.

16 minutes and 32 seconds pass….

WHIF!“---ond, because I really need to be getting back to that UPF7 winter-front on Ebay… I don’t want some idiot sniping it to make a barbecue or some damn thing…”

returning the contraption to his wife…

“OK Cherry, I rode it. It rides almost entirely unlike a bicycle. So can I please get back to what I was doing?”

It should be further noted that the audible “WHIF!” was caused by the inverse effect of the “WHOMP!” noted previously. When all the sudden Mac, along with his wife’s madness, returned, there wasn’t sufficient room for him between the already confused air molecules. Therefore a volume of atmosphere equal to Mac, a bicycle, a medium sized condor wing, and what appeared to be a not so small assortment of parts from Pima air and space museum’s dumpster all bound together with bailing wire and duct tape, had to immediately vacate and disperse. This actually bounced the molecules together past the speed of their own electrons. This only confused the little guys even more, with the majority of them using the heat of momentary compression to rise above this whole unfortunate situation and just give it up as a bad day.

Exactly 18 minutes has passed between the audible “WHOMP!” and the end of his ride.

Stay tuned for our next riveting episode:

“A stitch in time saves none” - or - “Cherry gets in a jam”

:mac:

[Cherry Pneumatic]

I get to have jam? SWEEEEEEEEET.

[the editor]

Little did Cherry know that being in a jam and eating jam weren't necessarily the same thing.

[Cherry Pneumatic]

Quite honestly, I had run out of recruits. Here was the score so far:
1. Gandalf and the time machine were NOT compatible. I think he won't be shaking a tail feather anytime soon.
2. The Elbonians made the time machine work, but they can't explain how they made it work.
3. Junior isn't aware if, when, or how he works (much less a time machine).
4. Mac made the time machine work, he just went in the wrong blinking direction.

So, after a tightened bolt here and some more duct tape there I surmised that I was ready for my maiden voyage. I called to leave the boss a message in case I didn't return. I thought I was leaving a message on her answering machine, but after a couple of maniacal squawks I realized that I was talking to Gandalf.

"Please give this message to the boss", I plead.

"BITCH-BITCH!" Gandalf squawks.

Oh well, an angry bird on the phone is worth...two Tylenol in the hand.

[Cherry Pneumatic]

THWUNK!

The flying bike and Cherry land in a field in a gnarled mass of gears and limbs. Cherry looks around..."Huh? This doesn't look like the forum that I left from? I wonder how long I've been gone? Holy heck, there's a green dot by my name!"

Cherry dusts herself off and leaves the bicycle in a lump on the ground. Apparently, whatever she was looking for she had found it; and she wasn't in need of the bike any longer. Now she was off to find out what had happened in her absence.