Last week Norm finally bought his first iPod. He retired his lovingly-cared-for Sony Walkman, giving it to Maynard. Norm even threw in a few tapes. Big mistake. For the last three days, Maynard has been sitting at his desk with headphones, listening to Bruce Springsteen, rocking in his chair like a catatonic idiot and singing along. Don’t get us wrong. We love Springsteen. But not when it is passed through the Maynard Filter and sung aloud in a monotone voice. “…Bawwwwn in da U-S-A, I was bawwwwn in da U-S-A…”

You get the idea.

It became painfully obvious: Maynard needed to get out for a while. Moreover, we needed Maynard to get out for a while. Before we strangle him with his headphone cord.

Norm handed a couple twenties to Maynard and tossed him the keys to the old AITS utility truck parked out front. “Go find something cool at Fleet Farm. Take your time,” said Norm.

[For those of you who don't reside in the north-central part of the U.S., Fleet Farm is a chain of huge variety stores, selling everything from tools to lumber to work clothes to sporting goods. They have a snack aisle that is unrivaled anywhere in this region. Pure testosterone.]

Sending a slightly mentally-impaired 21 year-old to this store with free money is like handing a Super-Soaker CPS 2000 to a group of drunken lemurs. Pure chaos will ensue, and it won’t be pretty. But at least it won’t happen here. Maynard bolted out the door and was gone in minutes. He didn’t come back for 4 hours. It was grand.

Just before Maynard made his triumphant return, we received a phone call from (you guessed it) a Fleet Farm store manager. Did this guy ever have a tale to tell! The nervous fellow was babbling frantically into the phone and it sounded like he was out of breath. Something about Maynard causing a commotion in the sporting goods section, rigging badger traps in the aisles while blowing on a duck call. Really annoyed the shit out of the customers. Fortunately, the police weren’t involved. The hapless manager asked us - urged us - to “never let this pinhead back into his store.”

Sensing a great AITS story there for the picking, we asked the manager if he’d like to stay on the line and do an interview with us. The next thing we heard was a dial tone. Drat.

Maynard rolled in to AITS headquarters late that afternoon, carrying a large brown bag of something. Norm burst out of his office with only one concern on his mind: “Hand over the duck call.” Maynard forked it over it with a sheepish grin on his face. Norm had just mercifully spared us all the agony of listening to a feeble-minded idiot honkin’ on a duck call for the next week.

But Maynard made our day when he whipped out the 5 pound bag of Beer Nuts he bought and shared it with the crew. He also bought a laser pointer to give us all endless hours of fun screwing with Bug the Cat.

We’ve created a monster.