< 70 >

He flipped around in my lap until his head rested on my knees. His feet did a little tap dance on my chest. "Instead of driving yourself crazy about things laughter and love." He paused a moment. "Make them laugh Uncle Tom. If they cannot...all is lost."

"He has asked me to tell you that there is an imbalence in our strategy that puts us all at risk. A fatal flaw in our cerebral logic...a fly in the primordial soup!" I was stretching it a bit too far for Jesse and Variety. They had seen this type of routine before. I could see their eyes narrow in suspicion. I had the rest of the crowd in the palm of my hand however and I wasn't about to modify my routine to satisfy the Philistines. Dusty and Sam Glennon were getting impatient.

In my bedroom, I have a collection of lethal instruments of comedic torture. My wife has long accused me of being terminally unserious. I have the goods to prove it. I grabbed my box of hats, hesitated over the straw explorer shoes. I grabbed the box of hats, my sack full of jug band instruments, my blue sunglasses with attached nose and handlebar mustache and dashed back to the top of the stairs. I couldn't have been gone more than 45 seconds.

I could hear the concerned buzz from the room below. "Quiet!" I bellowed. "I require your upmost attention for this communication from the highest council of the imaginary friends!" The voices stopped so fast I thought the windows would implode from the vacuum. I put a trumpet shaped kazoo to my lips and tooted the classic entrance fanfare "ta ta ta tat...ta taaaa", then stepped onto the landing in full sight of everyone in the room. They looked at me in shock and disbelief. Variety let out a sputter then clapped her hand over her mouth.