Wine Coolers, Jello Shots and reluctant repeat sips from your 1st can of Budweiser help melt teen shyness away. But pet Snapping Turtles aren’t 9th graders in junior high, who haven’t got into the puberty party yet either. At this point, Matilda a 12-year-old entrepreneur and inventor of a suction sticking party ball strobe light machine called Party Magic, was willing to blow some of her Kickstarter startup money on a Past Life Regression consultation with an Animal Communicator at a nearby Crystal Shop in Ridgefield, CT to get her new pet Snapping Turtle Snappy to come out of his shell already because changing his name from Waxy to Snappy wasn’t helping. More than anything, Matilda wanted to boogie board in Australia, her mama’s home country, along Mother’s Beach, 30 minutes north of Melbourne for her parents 10 year anniversary yet she didn’t feel safe in those Jelly Fish infested waters without a trustworthy, Snapping Turtle to ward off attacks by her side, knowing their preference for scarfing up electric, purple haze stingers.
The 70 something, bushy haired, frumpy, shawl strangled, Sedona sun wrinkled transplant, Animal Communicator, Talks With Toads, lounged out in her cubby size room office within a crystal shop in nearby Ridgefield, CT, and takes of her bi focal glasses to examine Snappy The Turtle more closely. Who Matilda reveals hiding in her old beat up backpack, knowing his tendency to fart uncontrollably, especially around strangers, which she considered a reason for why Snappy The Turtle’s head was hid in perpetual shame so often. Talks With Toads says, “Matilda, over the phone you said, Snappy won’t come out of his shell around strangers.” Matilda says, “I’ve offered him Lobster Rolls from Stew Leonard’s, smoked Nova from Russ and Daughters, bought him the Tony Robbins audiobook boxset, which wasn’t cheap either, so I’m running out of options hêre. Our first Kornbluth family vacation to Australia is tomorrow and I don’t know what to do, because Snappy is my 2nd line of defense against all those Jelly Fish in Australia after the Jelly Fish nets which aren’t even available in the beaches in Bondi, and that’s where all the serious boogie board action happens anyway. My parents wanted to get married in Australia, where my mom is from originally yet my Grandma shot it down. She calls my dad and says, “Australia is a long trip from New York Scoops and your dad doesn’t love you that much.” Then, my dad made a compromise with my mom and says, “If we have boy one day, will hire Crocodile Dundee for the circumcision, just to hear a room of Jews say, “Now that’s a knife. You can chop it all off with that thing.”
Talks With Toads spits out a deep, weighty laugh, opening up her throat chakra more than any downward dog pose ever could and says, “Does Snappy ever come out of his shell around your daddy or does he get intimidated by larger-than-life comedians to? I saw his performance at the Montreal Comedy Festival on YouTube and coughed up a lung in he process. He made such a strong, funny man impression the last time your family dropped by the crystal shop. And I don’t care for most stand-up comedy these days. Plus, how creepy is the comic Anthony Jeselnik, knowing that he considers psychic surveys on how many missing children they’ve seen through their Carrot Cards as being the height of God loving hilarity today?” Matilda says, “In Anthony Jeselnik’s defense, God commands his chosen people to forsake the counsel of psychics in Deuteronomy, but my dad told me is was Kosher to make an exception in Snappy The Turtle’s defense.”
Talks With Toads does her best to shrug off a smart-ass Jewess rubbing God’s law in her face with such effortless fluency and decides to plow forward with her Past Life Regression reading for Snappy The Turtle, so she can get back to watching some bestiality horse on man porn on her lunch break, which now can’t come soon enough. Talks With Toads grabs a sapphire crystal from a cramped, unorganized drawer, representing the entire kitchen sink of healing, past life reading gemstones known to mankind and places it on Snappy The Turtle’s shell. Talks With Toads says, “I see a Deadhead at Giant Stadium in a Soup Truck RV called Terrapin Soup, blowing high grade, 75 dollar an eighth weed into Snappy The Turtle’s face again and again as the live version of Scarlet Begonia’s from Cornell 77 blasts on the tape deck in the background. I stopped going to shows after I stopped smoking weed myself.”
Matilda says, “After my 2nd birthday, my Dad took me to a Dead Show in Bethel Woods, in upstate New York. I pointed at a dinged up looking Deadhead sucking down a Nitrous balloon and said, “Birthday.” And my dad says, “No, Burn Out Day.” Talks With Toads unleashes another full throaty laugh again and says, “Wait a minute. No, he can’t be.” Matilda’s interest in Talks With Toad’s Past Life Regression Reading has reached peak interest and says, “What do you see now? Is the Deadhead owner feeding Snappy The Turtle’s head with a sheet of acid or what?” Talks With Toads takes a deep breath, doing her best to conceal her startled state as she pulls back her long, tangly grey hair and utters in a whispery, barely audible tone, “The Deadhead owner is serving Snappy The Turtle’s family for dinner.”
Matilda jumps out of her chair in a bewildered state of dígust and yells, “I thought Deadheads ate Grilleđ Cheese Sandwiches after Dead shows when they got the munchies.” Talks With Toads says, “Munchies don’t happen when you’re on 4 tabs of acid dear. Hold on, I see a line of Deadheads around the parking lot in Giant Stadium waiting for this Terrapin Turtle Soup Truck to serve bowls of Turtle Soup to cure more endless bad trips on Hêrculean amounts of acid. The Merry Pranksters used to spike garbage cans full of fruit punch with Acid during 3-hour Dead jam sessions back in the day before you tripped over shit throughout the Cable Car lined streets of San Francisco. Eventually, the college dropout hippies who weren’t banking on replacing Santana anytime soon, became howling, starved lunatics, left with no other choice but to eat stray cats behind the dumpster at Mu Shu York’s. Soon after, a famed chef from New Orleans, Gumbo Greg, who went on to become the executive chef at the Philly Club for years before opening his own restaurant in North Beach, Chowder Panisse, gave Jerry Garcia the idea of serving one of his freaked out tripping groupies some Turtle Soup in their house on Haight Ashbury to cure her bad trip, after doing the same for Dr. John during Jazz Fest once after he crawled himself up into ball on stage, thinking, he’d turned into psychedelic, night tripping crawfish. Crawfish, you know Shrimp with more personality, similar to John Mayer teaming up with Grateful Dead and Company, injecting scruffy smooth with a dose of much needed personality.” Snappy The Turtle finally snaps out of his shell and yells, “Thanks for the flashback bitch.”
The End
Michael Kornbluth
Do It All Dad Year Podcast Blog 