My Custom Van

by Michael Ian Black

  Even so, I found myself with nothing to do one recent weekend, and so I decided to give the Infinite Monkey Probability Theorem a fair shake. How to do it? It seemed to me there were three required ingredients: an infinite amount of time, an infinite amount of monkeys, and an infinite amount of typewriters. (To say nothing of an infinite amount of paper, typewriter ribbons, food and water, and chairs for the monkeys to sit on.)

  That’s a lot of stuff, and I immediately recognized that testing this theorem was going to be harder than I initially thought. As I said, I didn’t have an infinite amount of time, and I certainly didn’t have an infinite number of monkeys. I only had four monkeys. Where did I get them? The answer to that is probably best left to the imagination, but suffice it to say that I made a couple of discreet phone calls and quietly arranged for the delivery of four loaner monkeys for the weekend (three chimpanzees and one very horny bonobo).

  Actually, the hardest part of setting up the experiment was finding all the typewriters. Again, an infinite number was out of the question, so I ended up purchasing five (four for the monkeys and an extra in case one was damaged by careless monkey play or corroded by monkey poop).

  A confession: I also purchased several bottles of Wite-Out brand correction fluid. Purists will no doubt grouse that the theorem dictates that the monkeys create a flawless Hamlet, and thus there would be no need for Wite-Out, but my feeling is that if the monkeys drop a few semicolons or occasionally misspell “Polonius,” I’m not going to be a stickler about it. I’m sure even Shakespeare made spelling mistakes, and he wasn’t even a primate.

  The next step was setting up an appropriate “laboratory.” I debated with myself about the most conducive environment for monkey creativity. An artificial jungle was out of the question. It was too expensive, and there would be too many distractions. Then I thought about just giving them free reign of my living room, where I do a lot of my writing, but I became concerned that my extensive collection of Hummel figurines might prove too tempting for curious monkey fingers, endangering both the experiment and my figurines. I could have just used the small lab I have set up in my house where I do my counterbioterrorism work for the government, but I didn’t want to have to go through the hassle of sterilizing the room after the monkeys left. In the end, I decided to rent a small office, furnish the space with some houseplants and squeaky toys, plug in a humidifier, and let the monkeys have at it.

  Finally the big day arrived. I went to the office about an hour early to set up the typewriters and make sure everything was ready for the monkeys. Was I nervous? Yes and no. Yes, because I have no training in dealing with wild animals. No, because I was pretty drunk.

  The monkeys were bigger and stronger than I expected, and they explored the area with great gusto. Then they had to establish dominance, which took forever. By the time I finally got them seated at their typewriters, two hours were gone. Quickly, I attempted to explain what I was looking for. I gave them each a copy of the play, and read several of the juicier parts out loud. To be honest, the monkeys seemed nonplussed, except for the bonobo who began masturbating when I read the “Alas, Poor Yorick, I knew him well” speech. Whether or not this was in reaction to my reading (which I honestly thought was excellent) I do not know.

  Finally, after a quick tutorial on how to use the typewriter and a largely futile lesson on the QWERTY touch typing method, I was able to go behind the two-way mirror and watch the monkeys get to work.

  SATURDAY

  10:00 A.M.: Two of the chimps, Binky and Wally, are grooming each other. Tiny, the third chimp, did sniff the typewriter, but has made no move to actually type. Charlie, the bonobo, continues to masturbate.

  10:25 A.M.: No typing.

  11:43 A.M.: I have decided that the reason they are not typing is because there is no paper in the typewriters. The theorem dictates that they will type Hamlet. It says nothing about inserting or changing the paper, so I have decided to load the typewriters with paper myself.

  11:48 A.M.: Typewriters are loaded. No typing. Binky is turning somersaults. Despite my being annoyed that she is not typing, it is adorable.

  12:12 P.M.: Still no typing. Charlie is napping under his desk. Reminds me of a lot of some people I know!!! LOL!

  1:55 P.M.: Back from lunch. Wally is gone. When I inspect the lab, I see that somebody (Wally?) did type a little in my absence. I withdraw the paper from the typewriter and read “8fWWWLlgkaabagijo.” Definitely not Hamlet. Looking around, I cannot figure out how Wally escaped. The doors and windows are locked. Nothing seems out of place. I am going to get into a lot of trouble for losing one of the monkeys.

  2:17 P.M.: Bored. Very little typing. Tiny wrote a couple of haikus, but they were terrible.

  4:09 P.M.: The lab is starting to smell distinctly simian. Wish I’d brought my iPod.

  6:32 P.M.: The remaining monkeys are starting to go a little stir-crazy. Twice I’ve had to separate Binky and Tiny from Charlie, who, as a bonobo, is much smaller and seems terrified of the larger monkeys. I give them each some fruit, which seems to calm them down. Because I don’t know what monkeys like to drink, I also gave them each a can of Red Bull, which I figured might get them excited about typing. It definitely got them excited, but not about typing.

  7:09 P.M.: Back from dinner. As I thought might happen eventually, the walls are now officially smeared with monkey poop. Mental pat on the back for renting an office space: let the staff deal with the mess—I’m conducting science. Some typing, but again, it’s incomprehensible. Still no sign of Wally.

  8:30 P.M.: I’m meeting a friend for dinner and a movie, so I head out for the night.

  SUNDAY

  10:15 A.M.: Dinner went long last night, so I got a late start this morning. When I arrived at the office, Charlie the bonobo was dead and in the process of being dismembered and eaten by the chimps. Very, very bad. I guess I was under the impression that monkeys were strictly vegetarian. I certainly didn’t think they would eat another monkey. Apparently, I was wrong on both counts. I look at their work from the previous night. As best as I can tell, the only worthwhile thing any of them wrote was a mildly funny Hemingway parody. Again, nothing to jump up and down about, and certainly a far cry from Hamlet. Down to two monkeys and not at all optimistic that I’m even going to get a single act of the play written before the weekend expires.

  10:23 A.M.: When I am sure nobody is looking, I sneak into the lab and try a tiny piece of monkey meat. Gamy.

  11:33 A.M.: I hear on the news that a chimpanzee was spotted in the park last night. Could this be Wally?

  12:01 P.M.: Finally the monkeys are typing. They’ve been at it about forty-five minutes and seem to be concentrating pretty hard. I don’t want to interrupt their work, of course, but I’m dying to see what they’re writing. Think I’ll head out to lunch.

  2:58 P.M.: Long lunch. When I got back, the chimps were napping. I tiptoed into the lab and looked at what they were writing. It certainly looked like Hamlet. Upon closer examination, however, I realized that what I was reading was not Hamlet at all, but the second act of Your Five Gallants, by the lesser Elizabethan playwright Thomas Middleton. So frustrating!!! I yell at the chimps to get back to work. They are surly from being awoken and bare their teeth at me. Too bad! We have work to do!

  3:12 P.M.: They are typing again, but when I look at it, it’s just more gibberish. I don’t know if they are doing this to punish me for waking them, or if they really don’t know the difference between random typewritten characters and iambic pentameter.

  5:09 P.M.: Bored.

  6:22 P.M.: Dinner. I go to Subway and bring back extra sandwiches for the monkeys, which they greedily devour. As for me, I can’t even choke mine down, as the stench of monkey is now overpowering. No more work has been accomplished in my absence. I hear on the radio that animal control has captured the chimpanzee and is trying to determine where it came from. I think about calling, but decide against it. These monkeys were not obtained through official channels, an
d I think there are pretty strict laws about that sort of thing.

  7:00 P.M.: The monkeys are at work again, and I am afraid to interrupt.

  9:02 P.M.: Binky and Tiny are wrestling (adorable). I sneak a look at their work. Binky has written a dirty limerick and what appears to be a passable translation of Cicero’s In Vaticinium. While I am impressed with the quality of the translation, this gets us nowhere closer to having a completed copy of Hamlet. The only thing Tiny wrote is an incredibly tedious description of a solid brass locking mechanism. It is riddled with typographical errors, however, and B-O-R-I-N-G. We are quickly running out of time. The guys will be here to pick up their monkeys in less than three hours. I think about springing for more Red Bulls, but decide against it.

  10:22 P.M.: I beg the monkeys to get back to work, but they have discovered the light switch and are going crazy with it.

  10:39 P.M.: I place some bananas near the typewriters in the hopes that this will lure them back to work. Nope. They eat the bananas and then return to the light switch.

  11:28 P.M.: A last flurry of activity. Binky and Tiny are hard at work, and I am not going to move a muscle until they are done. Hopefully, they will at least get some of Hamlet written before the weekend is over. A partial victory is better than none at all.

  12:02 A.M.: The monkey guys just left. They were not at all happy when I told them about the dead bonobo (they already knew about Wally and he is back in their custody). They gave me a pretty good tongue-lashing, but my feeling is, if they didn’t want the monkeys to kill and eat each other, they probably should have told me that was a possibility before entrusting them to my care. Needless to say, I lost my entire deposit. Great—there goes the money for my trip to Foxwoods.

  After they left, I collected the monkey’s final work. Most of it was, as usual, gibberish, but somebody made a very nice picture of a rose using only slash marks and ampersands. Also, they left me a gracious note thanking me for the sandwiches and for getting them out of the lab for the weekend. Whether or not they understood what they were writing or it was all just random typewriter marks is, again, a total mystery. But I have to believe that even if they didn’t know exactly what they were saying, there was at least some sort of primitive attempt to communicate.

  What did I learn? When I started this experiment, I had my doubts. Could an infinite number of monkeys, given an infinite amount of time, produce Hamlet? If my abbreviated attempt to find out is any clue, I would have to say no. Cicero? Yes. Thomas Middleton? Without a doubt. But Shakespeare is widely considered to be the greatest writer in history, and Hamlet is one of his greatest works. To expect a monkey, even an infinite number of monkeys, to be able to reproduce that level of genius is probably asking a bit much. Perhaps one of his minor works like The Winter’s Tale, or a couple of sonnets, but Hamlet, with its themes about the complexity of action, and even the nature of existence itself?

  I doubt it.

  Next weekend: I’ll see how long I can hold my breath.

  Job Orientation

  HI, have a seat. I’m Debbie. I’m the manager here, and I will be conducting your orientation today. On your application, you wrote that you’re looking for a challenging position in retail sales. Well, I think we can guarantee you that. “Challenging” is pretty much our modus operandi around here. Even in our busy season, we sometimes have a difficult time moving merchandise, but I suppose that’s to be expected in a store that sells nothing but dead fetuses preserved in decorative jars.

  You’re probably asking yourself when exactly it is I’m referring to when I say our “busy season.” You got me. We don’t have one. Although we do notice a slight uptick in sales right before Halloween.

  Okay, so. The job is pretty straightforward. All new associates start out as greeters. That means you stand at the front of the store and when people come in, you say, “Hi, welcome to Baby in a Jar.” That’s it. Our more senior associates will take it from there.

  During downtime, and believe me, there’s a lot of downtime, I ask that you keep all the display jars dusted. We’ve also got an aromatherapy cartridge that needs to be changed twice a day. For some reason, our research department has concluded that the scent of fresh-baked apple pie makes people more inclined to buy babies in jars. Why that is, we don’t know, and frankly we don’t care. It’s definitely an improvement over the way the store used to smell.

  When it comes to sales, our basic philosophy is “Let the product sell itself.” The thing is, when you’re selling pickled fetuses in glass jars, people pretty much know up front whether they’re interested in purchasing or not. This is not the kind of store that gets a lot of “impulse buyers,” so mostly we’re just there to expedite their decision-making process. We don’t do a lot of “hard selling.” We tried it in the past, and frankly, people felt it was in bad taste.

  Maybe you want to know why in the world anybody would want to buy what we have to sell. The truth is, people will buy anything for the right price. And through exhaustive market research, we’ve learned that the right price is $49.95.

  A quick word about dress. Although we don’t have a uniform, we do ask all of our associates to dress “business casual,” and we prefer women to wear skirts that extend to the knee. This is because a significant percentage of our clientele describe themselves as “Fundamentalist Christians,” who I’m told use our products in certain kinds of protests, and also as gifts.

  I should stress that Baby in a Jar does not subscribe to any particular religious or ideological agenda. The only thing that unites all of our customers is their desire to purchase a baby in a jar.

  Actually, although we will continue to sell our product just the way it is, we are increasingly finding that our jars are just as popular, or even more popular, than the fetuses. Some of our customers buy the baby in a jar, and then get rid of the baby. We call it “throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” but that’s just a joke between us. Please don’t share that one with our customers.

  FYI, if anybody asks, it’s not bathwater; it’s formaldehyde.

  People often ask us about our history. In 1994, our founder noticed that he could not find a one-stop source for fetuses in handblown crystal jars and goblets. Rather than complain about the situation, he saw it as an opportunity. One year later, our first (and to date only) Baby in a Jar location opened.

  Maybe you’re wondering why we don’t sell any other products. It’s a good question, and one we get a lot. Our founder believes that our mission is to do one thing and to do it better than anybody else. It might surprise you to learn that since we opened for business, Baby in a Jar has been the unequivocal leader in the recycled fetus category every single year. That’s a distinction we wear with honor.

  Listen to me running off at the mouth. Please forgive me. Like all of our associates, I take a lot of pride in what we do here at Baby in a Jar. Because at the end of the day, I believe that even though it’s the babies in jars that get people into the store, it’s the people outside the jars who keep them coming back.

  Anyway, welcome. The benefits here are great and all of our associates get a 10 percent discount on store merchandise, which may not sound like a lot, but believe me, it really adds up over time.

  This Is How I Party

  YOU know that song “Everybody’s Working for the Weekend”? That’s my theme song.

  All week I’ve got my nose to the grindstone, but from Friday at 5:01 P.M. until Monday at 8:59 A.M., I am officially “on swerve.” Nobody parties with more intensity or focus than me. For some people, partying is what you do to unwind. Not me. For me, parties are my creative outlet. Parties, for me, are serious fun.

  How do I party?

  With exuberance.

  With ferocity.

  With a fierce desire to win.

  What does it mean to “win” at a party? It means having the BEST time, eating the MOST canapés, throwing up the MOST throw-up. It means showing up alone, but going home with the HOTTEST girl who is the LEAST
conscious. That’s how you win.

  This was my weekend:

  After work on Friday, I put on my Axe body spray and headed out to begin my warm-up foray into the dark heart of party. I started at T.G.I.F.’s.

  “Party of one?” the hostess asked.

  “Not for long,” I responded.

  Within minutes, the hostess and her two smokin’ friends were sharing a heapin’ plate of potato skins with me and alternately downing copious amounts of peach liqueur. Potato skins and peach liqueur? Maybe it’s not a combination you’re familiar with. That’s because it’s expert-level partying. The kind they do on the Greek island of Mykonos. And trust me, once you’ve gone Greek, there’s no lookin’ back. Unless it’s her back you’re looking at while you’re drilling her and her two friends in the employee’s break room at T.G.I.F.’s, which is what I was doing about twenty minutes after I arrived.

  The night was still young when I finished, so I drove over to Applebee’s to see what was cooking over there. Turns out A LOT! The game was on, and I’m not talking about the football game on TV. I met a couple of honeys who had a taste for the finer things in life. Like nachos and my dick.

  After Applebee’s, it was over to Bennigan’s for some late-night shenanigans. At this point, I was no longer hungry, but my whistle needed some wetting. I ordered a couple of shots of Jägey, and then did my thing with a divorcée who was looking for a little do-re-mi. We hit the dance floor HARD. Creed was on the stereo, and I got a little crazy when lead singer Scott Stapp told me to take it higher. I did. Higher, longer, and harder. It was all I could do to keep it in my pants. So I didn’t. I twirled it around like a baton and let the majorettes fight over it. Which they did. ALL. NIGHT. LONG. T’wasome! (Shorthand word I invented for “It was awesome.”)