Triumphant return to Europe’s shores
erik posted in Arrivals on July 24th, 2007
As an admin for the Flickr group I wake up screaming, I was aware of the existence of the BITWRATHPLOOB (see ‘This thing makes me sad’ for his first-ever appearance on the internet). I even believed Jane’s threats to tuck him (it?) into a shipment of odds and ends I had asked her to send over to me in Slovenia. But the opening of the package still managed to shock and amaze.
“It isn’t here!” I shouted in disbelief. “What isn’t here?” my wife Magda wanted to know. “It isn’t here!” I howled in outrage. Taking delivery of the rather large box in which the BITWRATHPLOOB had crossed the Atlantic had been a sizable frig, entailing driving to the capital an hour away on a workday, waiting for half an hour for no apparent reason, signing papers and doling out euros all to collect a box which had clearly been opened for customs inspection. The thought of those Slovenian customs officers coming face to face with the BITWRATHPLOOB had provided almost enough entertainment to make up for the hassle. But now I leaped to the obvious conclusion: these corrupt postal officials had taken the BITWRATHPLOOB for pure, baffled spite. “They’ve stolen it!” I screamed, pawing through the bubble wrap and finding all the requested items, stuffed animals for our boys, Altoids for Magda, and all sorts of wonders minus the BITWRATHPLOOB. “STOLEN WHAT?” Magda demanded. Clearly I had not adequately prepared her for the BITWRATHPLOOB’s arrival. “The BITWRATHPLOOB! It’s not here!”
If you plan to fly into a rage about a missing BITWRATHPLOOB, allow me to recommend that you adequately prepare your spouse for the existence of the BITWRATHPLOOB in the first place, before you begin to talk about its absence.
“Is it that horrible thing Adam’s playing with?” Magda calmly inquired. Using his ninja skills, our two-year-old had managed to liberate the BITWRATHPLOOB from his transatlantic shipping container and was idly removing its head.
It was a great day for science.
“He’s broken it! Whatever, uh, whatever it is. What IS it?” Magda wanted to know.
“It’s the BITWRATHPLOOB,” I told her. “I mentioned this to you, didn’t I?”
“Uh, no.”
“Oh. Well. Anyway. He hasn’t broken it. Jane warned me that its head comes off.”
“Well, why did she send it? What is it for? And what is going on with its arms?” Magda was suddenly terribly inquisitive about the BITWRATHPLOOB. It was at that moment that I knew someone was going to have to write a FABQ.
The BITWRATHPLOOB straddles an international boundary: Italy (left) and Slovenia
“Here’s how it works,” I told my bride. “You get the BITWRATHPLOOB in the mail, you recoil in horror, take its picture, blah blah blah, you mail it to someone else. It’s going to CIRCLE THE GLOBE!” I invented. “Just so long as I don’t have to look at it for very long,” Magda said. “It’s horrible. What is it FOR? It has no purpose.” But I wasn’t listening. “Clearly it’s going to need its own Flickr group,” I was saying to no one in particular. “Or! A BLOG!“
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July 23rd, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Damn! So soon?
July 23rd, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Okay, you won’t believe this, but…
Yesterday, Andrea, a loyal fan of the BITWRATHPLOOB, reminded me about the movie Dogma. Through the powers of the internet, I have since acquired and watched it again for the first time since it came out, 8 years ago. In it, there’s this corporation that is between Disney and McDonalds that is called….wait for it…. Mooby (the golden calf). In the movie, the board of directors of the Mooby corporation are executed by the angel, Loki, for having broken the first amendment: the worship of a false idol.
Obviously, the frequenters of this site wouldn’t really understand what idol worship is all about.
I swear on the BITWRATHPLOOB, that’s a true story!
July 24th, 2007 at 4:44 am
I broke the news to my bride the other day. I was fully expecting a, “You agreed to spend money on WHAT!!?!” But I was pleasantly surprised when she completely understood the Higher Purpose that we would be serving as temporary innkeepers for the Greater Good of humankind.
It’s my personal belief that all members of a household should be fully informed about the arrival of the BITWRATHPLOOB. May we all learn from your mistake.
July 24th, 2007 at 5:35 am
I love the picture of it with the Booby. The juxtaposition of those two disparate items is terrific.
And yeah, one should always prepare all members of the household about this thing.
July 24th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
I’m still imagining the discussion over in customs over the BITWRATHPLOOB. And knowing JAG, I have a feeling that there was a bit of head scratching over some of the other items as well.
July 24th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. I filled that box with only the classiest and most refined items.
July 25th, 2007 at 7:37 am
Erik: I think you might have just outed yourself as the silliest one of us in this enterprise.
July 25th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Disparate? That photo should be captioned: Booby and Plooby.
I think we should add a secondary goal to our mission statement of also obtaining photographs with Scooby, a ruby, and a doobie, although maybe not at the same time.
July 25th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
I was already pretty certain of it.