City - Shantytown State - MN Country - United States
About
Sixth in a series,
Chip “Dutch” Duschenberger and Randall “Buzz” Bombingford III, were bored with their routine. Undergraduate students at North by Northwest Illinois State, located in Slagford, IL, (The Home of the Industrial Strength Slaggers, or as the student body like to refer to themselves as the Sex Starved Slagsters) they sought to broaden their horizons and audience.
N by NW Illinois St or NNWIS for short, (not to be confused with the Naughty Nurses of Wisconsin Chapter) had been a modest industrial arts and state reform college since the turn of the last century; their most famous alum, Al Capone attended briefly in the 1910’s. To broaden its base and revenue, NNWIS started a Liberal Arts college and Business School in the late 90’s with coursework based on real life situations and less on theoretical concepts. Several examples of their most popular courses would include: Insider Trading, Lessons to be learned by Martha’s mistakes, Exploring Trump: Big hair, Big money and young wives with Big breasts, what’s not to like! or the hugely popular and practical: Brown Nosing, learning to love your inner Eddie Haskell.
Chip and Randall were part of the elite SOB program, Sons of the Boss. Rather hush-hush, it was a free ride for academically challenged sons of CEOs who had the choice to contribute high six figures to get their prodigy into elite Ivy League schools ( does the letter “W” come to mind) or send them to community college and suffer ridicule at the country club. Well, actually, NNWIS paid these parents handsomely for their sons to attend and bolster the image of lowly Slagsters.
Chip and Randall took fairly well to NNWIS. They were top of their class (out of seven) and started the Chess club, Young Log Cabin Republicans local chapter, and were well-known to kick posterior in World of Warcraft. Totally proud and aware they were geeks in every way and one of the few not to see what was funny about the 40 Year Old Virgin movie character; Dutch and Buzz were nerds of a feather. When Dutch saw a story on the Art Shanty project in Minnesota, he shared his idea with Buzz who immediately saw the potential of Dutch’s idea.
Killing several birds with one cow chip, Chip/Dutch saw the way to temporarily escape Slagford, yet have NNWIS pay for the entire trip, spread the gospel of the Young Log Cabin Republicans and see what really went on at an artistic event. Their first thought was to honor Dutch’s nickname sake, Ronald Reagan but didn’t think a horse shaped shanty would be practical. They decided to go with honoring Illinois legend and Republican extraordinaire Abraham Lincoln.
They arrived on erection Saturday and built their log cabin with precision, speed and engineering not often seen in Art Shanty land. Their attire also made them stick out, with wool overcoats and stovepipe hats in honor of Honest Abe. Chip drew the line at wearing fake beards and adding prominent moles to their faces.
Chip and Randall were shy and kept to themselves the first days of the Art Shanty exhibit. They filled their cabin with Lincoln quotes, archival photos, and sold spare firewood and waxed figurines to visitors and Shanty inhabitants. Then one day two young ladies, Amanda “Viva la Revolution” Vandalia and Layla “Laylo” Lopez stopped by and let it be known that this coming Friday there was a social gathering at The Shanty of Misfit Toys with a Go Fish card tournament. The boys were thrilled to be venturing in the bohemian world and meeting girls; though NNWIS was coed, most females who attended were on the basketball and shot put squads and kept primarily to themselves.
Friday night came and the shanty was filled with many artists and shanty supporters. Chip and Randall where quiet at first and but when the card games began, the boys quickly learned that losing meant taking a shot of Jagermeister and removing a layer of clothing. Randy and several others were primarily on the losing end and in his anxiety of clothes shedding. Buzz started to eat homemade brownies from the Shanty of InFERNal Delights, built by a couple of brothers whose last name was McCrackin.
Down to his white Fruit of the Looms and black socks; Buzz, not really realizing the growing buzz from the Jager and the herbal treats, started a long rant about gun control, the Patriotic Act, and Flying Imams which most of the semi wasted crowd though was brilliant satire and performance art. Buzz taking the laughter as insult, slurred “Go Fish yourselves” and ripped off his remaining garments and screamed “the last one in the fishing hole is a rotten Commie!” More laughter and mass stripping occurred, (Chip noting he never seen so much body hair on females before).
Buzz streaked wildly and in a non-linear fashion to the community ice-fishing hole and barely noticed the orange fireball and explosion behind him. Just before he was to do his best cannonball dive into the hole, the speeding body of Pierre Johansson knocked him off his feet and rendered him flat on the ice. Buzz was seeing spinning stars and other astronomical phenomenon, and spent much the remaining evening tossing chow behind the cabin. Feeling they let President Lincoln down with their poor example, Dutch and Buzz returned to NNWIS saying they had a swell time in Minnesota and playing World of Warcraft for the next three days.