Blind Prophecy

The year was 1999, the place, Denali National Park, Alaska. There was nothing especially unique about this can of Whirl (“a revolutionary healthier [non-freezing in sub-arctic temperatures] alternative to butter… Whirl is a liquid vegetable oil with a rich delicious buttery taste which can be used for shallow frying, grilling, roasting and as a recipe ingredient”), like many of his brothers, he had been used up indiscriminately in every single item of food available for employees of the Denali Princess Lodge.

But this can of Whirl was indeed special, because out of all the empty cans of Whirl in the world, this one was adopted by a group of theater nerds doing twice-nightly productions of the worst musical in the history of dinner theater. These actor-slash-waiters spirited the empty can of Whirl away and hid him in a hokey diorama of a mountain man cooking a pan of dust and paint (a clear ancestor of modern-day Whirl).

For weeks, the can of Whirl, along with his buddy the empty bottle of Alaskan Amber (the only beer your narrator continues to cherish the taste of to this day – you may send me a case for my birthday next month), watched the actors-slash-waiters grow slap-happy with boredom at tap-dancing their way to the top of North America’s tallest mountain as represented by three wooden boxes. It was a simple life, and certainly more pleasant than the trash-compacted-landfill option that befell most of his kind.

But then disaster struck. Early-to-mid September and the crushing snowfall that would kill the tourist season in central Alaska.

The can of Whirl watched helplessly as the cast of the show departed for parts unknown. But as he watched the final two theatre nerds (the stage manager and house manager) pack up the last of the theater, he saw his opportunity and took it. He would not end up in a landfill, he would see the world. He would discover Canada and the lower-48! So he stowed away in their fine German automobile.

At first, everything reminded him of home… tacky, folksy, “outdoorsy” art and decor made from junk was everywhere!

But soon he began to see amazing things like vast forests and populated towns not defined by their tourist kitsch value.

Places where the made food without any Whirl whatsoever added (if you can believe that!).

For days it traveled southward. There was a tense moment at the Canada-US border when a border patrol agent suspected Whirl might be hiding a bag of marijuana, but the sniffy dog decided the only thing left in the can was rancid Whirl bacteria in the crevices, so all was good.

So many states… Washington, Oregon… then in southern Oregon, the fine German automobile broke down in a little town that had never heard of a Saab (“how man ‘a’s do I gotta type in my computing thingee? It says the part you need will be here in time for Christmas!”). After 2 days of that quaint and boooooring little town, nobody noticed the signs of a stowaway can of Whirl so much. Still, it must have been hidden away somewhere when the two theatre nerds finally arrived in their destination of Reno, Nevada.

I assume Alicia threw the can away after that.

Filed under: Funny by Jere Keys