Mumble Hum

Frax the armadillo and I took the red eye to Paris. We arrived early in the morning. We hadn’t slept on the flight because we played Monopoly the whole way and still hadn’t finished. We were tired and distracted. We attempted to carry the Monopoly board and all the pieces intact through the airport and in the cab. When we got out, we walked around the city in an attempt to find a place to set the board down and finish the game. We found an outdoor cafe with plenty of tables. We sat at one and continued to play.

The waiter came up and we think he asked what we would like to order. Neither of us speak French, so we ignored him. But if you ignore people in France, they get upset, because it’s what they are supposed to be good at. The waiter kept talking, so we mumble hummed and kept playing. Mumble humming is a great way to cover for not being able to speak a person’s language because they feel embarrassed that they don’t know what you are saying and they leave you alone. This waiter though must have known what we were doing and kept trying to get our order. We figured this was because he’d read our book, The Power of Mumble Humming: Bmbmdombm Mmmmemm Wmmommmom, (There’s a French translation.)

The waiter continued asking for our order, while we ignored him, mumble hummed, and played for another two hours. By this time, sleep deprivation collided with my manic need to defeat Frax the Armadillo, and I began to hallucinate. I thought the game pieces were candy pieces on a cake. I ate Frax’s top hat, and he reacted by starting to spit chew. Spit chewing is an armadillo’s precursor expression of anger. Once they begin, you better start running, because they’re about to unfurl their claws, and make you their scratching post.

I picked up the game board and began to sprint down Avenue Victor Hugo. Mere steps away were the waiter still asking, and Frax with the spitting. My hallucinations had now become characters from Lewis Carroll’s poem, The Hunting of the Snark. There were the nine tradesmen and the beaver, cheering me on, “Boojum, boojum, boojum, hiding, hid, found!!” And then I fell into a mound of whipped cream, which was real. I had run into a bakery, and then into a vat of crème fraiche.

The game and all the pieces rested properly boat like on the whipped buttermilk sea. I was saved a tearing from Frax due to his phobia of any form of cream. Meanwhile the waiter continued with the asking as I rolled the dice. I moved the boot and landed on Broadway and Frax’s two hotels. Frax let out a holler since I only had $50 and no more property’s to mortgage.

I got out of the vat, put myself through a cycle in the bakery’s dishwasher, folded up the game, and put away the pieces. I ended up unscathed from Frax because he’d forgiven me since I’d lost. We went to our hotel and room. We lay in the bed, wearing matching eye pillows, as the waiter continued. When I awoke that night, the waiter lay sleeping between us, still holding his order pad, pencil point on the paper.