A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets but in a small flat on East Alberta Court, one man is still trying to find the answers to life’s persistent questions….. Why do I still listen to Prairie Home Companion?

Really, was it all falling apart? Holiday parties? Babysitting? Saving a failing sports franchise? These men were missing in action. Was it really going to take an unemployed detective like me to bring this story to a happy ending..? It was going to take a total change of venue. I needed new blood too. And some rain gear!

The farmer was easy to flush out. He’s consistent. Persistent. Above the law. He agreed to meet and the new locale and discuss the fate of the others. They would get theirs. I enlisted the help of a new father. My close friend and neighbor, Phil. He proved invaluable in flushing out at least two more on that cold and rainy evening. We were off…

We bombed to Vendetta though a downpour that was even more fierce then I could have predicted. At times, total bottom bracket immersion was seen. If the tools of my trade failed me, I would fail also. We arrived at the venue to find that all was not right. Things were different. Comic book fans, nerds, and wet hipsters were crowding our local watering hole. Geek Trivia Night! I thought it was bad already. Our sacred Tuesday night was falling apart. Rain, lack of peer support, and now this. But it gets worse…

She was tall and long-legged and her blonde hair hung down sort of like what Beethoven had in mind when he wrote the Moonlight Sonata. She wore a knit sweater and jeans so tight it looked as if she’d been poured into them and forgot to say when. When she moved, she seemed to undulate under her clothes in ways that took a man’s mind off the state of the economy. Oh wait, it’s just SA in his rain gear. After a awkward hello, he adjourned to the men’s room to wring out his sox. True story.

Even the main event was ruined. Imagine going Curling, shuffleboards ugly Northern uncle, at the beach. The wax was wet. The table was wet. We had to wipe off the bottom of the pucks before each throw. I considered throwing the pucks underhand horse shoe style. Only two games were played for good reason. SA collected stats but really…why.

She was tall, blonde, in jeans that looked sprayed on and a T-shirt so tight I could study her bone structure. I could see she wasn’t from Portland. There were no chinstrap marks on her neck, her hair hadn’t been deformed by a bike helmet, she didn’t have that roll of fat around her middle—her midriff was as tight as the cap on a pickle jar. Oh wait, it’s just Kong. He drove… He made new friends though. The first new friend was a struggling trivia team who he consistently fed correct answers too. His trivia prowess is becoming legendary. His second new fan was a friendly BBW that jumped into our conversation over a smoke. As soon as I fled the scene Kong was hit straight between the eyes with the, “So. Are you married?” True story.

Next stop Tiga. With four fathers now in attendance I felt like we had accomplished something. We could actually do this without The Statistician or our EBMB. They were sorely missed though.

But hark! Who was this rock and roll angel! She was tall and dark and so beautiful you wanted to just give her all your money right way and skip the preliminaries. Oh wait, it’s Leech…

We now had a father for every finger on your hand. What started out as as a seemingly total disregard to tradition had somehow overcome the odds and blossomed into a beautiful cornucopia of thirsty dads! To top it all off the DJ threw on the theme song to the final battle in the epic western The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. All was good except my wandering eyes as the ladies paraded to and from the water closet. We drank, we laughed, we made new friends, and we rode home in the rain.