Yesterday I picked up my mail from my post office box and it was mainly books and bills and sweet letters and strange, lovely gifts but there was one box that sort of stood out because it was enormous and inside was a single piece of paper with the words “KNOCK KNOCK MOTHERFUCKER” written out of torn magazine letters like a ransom note:
And under it was an enormous sloth. Or maybe a sasquatch. Or a slothsquatch, which I’m not sure exists but totally should.
He had long poles coming out of his hands and his legs were long enough to wear as a scarf (not that you’d want to) and he looked at me with such longing. “Pick me up,” he seemed to say. Or maybe “Put me out of my misery.” It’s hard to tell.
And I realized that it was a very old, highly used, full-body puppet. The kind where you strap yourself to its feet so it walks when you walk and of course I put it on immediately and I was like, “VICTOR, DID YOU GET ME AN ANNIVERSARY SLOTH MONKEY? BECAUSE YOU TOTALLY NAILED IT” but he didn’t respond so I yelled “IT SMELLS WEIRD THOUGH. IS IT SUPPOSED TO SMELL LIKE A LIVE SLOTH? OR A DEAD ONE?” And then he said something from his office that I later found out something about being on a conference call but I couldn’t hear him because he was yell-whispering and my ears were too full of excitement so I was like, “I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE SAYING. I CAN’T COME TO YOU BECAUSE I’M STRAPPED TO THIS SLOTH AND HIS FEET ARE ALL SLIPPERY. ALSO, THE CATS FUCKING HATE THIS GUY.” Because they did and they were hiding under the couch and I was like, “I CAN’T TELL IF THIS A SLOTH OR A SASQUATCH? DID YOU BUY ME A USED ‘SQUATCH TO WEAR?” and he was walked out of his office and was like, “JESUS CHRIST I AM ON A CONFERENCE CALL SO COULD YOU PLEASE-” and then he stopped talking because he noticed I was wearing a sloth (or maybe a chimpanzee?) and I paused for a second to judge if he was mad that I’d opened my gift too early, but the stunned look on his face told me that he hadn’t bought the slothsquatch at all so I tried to dance some of the awkwardness out of the moment by making Mr. Noodles sing the Copacabana song. (I named the sloth/monkey Mr. Noodles because his appendages are so noodly. Also, spellcheck is telling me that “noodly” isn’t a word because apparently spellcheck has never seen this noodly motherfucker.)
Mr. Noodles is made of awesome. And possibly some horror and whimsy. And maybe some dead cats or skinned muppets. Hard to tell. He speaks in a high-pitched, kinda nasally british accent and when I dance with him it’s like if Weekend at Bernie’s replaced the dead guy with an anorexic sasquatch.
Then I spent most of the day posing Mr. Noodles in all the rooms of the house or jumping out of the bushes at the neighborhood kids so they could have a sasquatch sighting and then Victor got on a plane and left Texas. But he was already planning on leaving for work so it’s not like he was fleeing. Probably.
I still don’t know who sent it to me but I think it was my friend, Neurotic Owl. The return address is “BASEMENT UNDER THE OPERA”. I have a weird life. And a slothsquatch named Mr. Noodles. I feel like I’m winning at life today.
UPDATED: Video, as requested…CLICK HERE.