The Ever-Loving Virgin Prince
Monday, May 09, 2005
Tuesday Afternoon
Hey kids!
I’ve got something different for you today: a story with pictures. Don’t get used to it; this isn’t going to be a common thing. I still expect you all to make use of your imaginations.
So there I was last Tuesday, at home, freshly showered after my daily run and my head still reeling from taking in a viewing of Missy Elliot videos while my feet had been quickly pounding along the treadmill’s spinning surface. It was after 6:00 PM by the time Mr. Mystere had finally called me. He’d been having adventures at the library and in community service, and I was certain there’d be much he’d have to tell me. He decided, once more, that we should meet at the coffee shop he seems to like so much.
The old Chit-Chat Café, I’d known this place well. Years ago, before changes in the establishment’s management and the more pronounced changes of time and life occurring as they naturally do, the place had been a haven for many of my friends. I could walk in the Chit-Chat at any time of day and naturally bump into a friend or acquaintance. My friend Gutter Punk was a common sight at the Chit-Chat, either within, seated at a booth behind a chessboard, sipping coffee with noticeably shaking hands, or outside, chain-smoking, or occasionally scouring the area in front of the shop looking for salvageable cigarette-butts when his money had run out and his need for an angry fix had returned. Indeed, I and many of my friends had once commonly hung about at the old Chit-Chat, in fact, many of my friends ended up working at the Chit-Chat as well. Once the establishment’s ranks of employees was filled with many of my amigos, the Chit-Chat briefly became a sort of unofficial sister-establishment to the old theatre I ran, The Olde Ship Seavue, which I had similarly worked to include a great deal of my pals as the loyal staff. Our social circles connected and intertwined on many occasions.
Of course, time has passed, the old theatre has closed down, friends and acquaintances have gotten old and caught up in life, moving their separate ways, and the very section of the town in which the old theatre and the coffee shop reside has continued along the path of decay and ruination; everyday the loss of life in what had once been the heart of the town becomes more and more apparent. I don’t much like going to the coffee shop anymore, it’s a wasteland, empty and devoid of all the friendly faces I used to see within it. A tumbleweed rolling along would be more action than this seedy little part of town has seen in two years. To think that Rob Schneider used to come here to hang out in-between shooting new films in Tinseltown. I don’t recognize any of the kids working in the coffee shop anymore. Quite frankly, I find it uncomfortable and depressing to be here now. Mr. Mystere, on the other hand, still seems to like the old Chit-Chat very much.
Incidentally, back in my old ghost-hunting days, I discovered that the Chit-Chat was apparently haunted. This was back when my buddies and I used to trek into the supposedly-haunted hills by the beach looking for visions of spectres, and my Wiccan buddy Peanut Cornwhistle and I used to fool around with the Ouija board upstairs in the old theatre, never achieving results ourselves, though on at least one occasion loud banging noises started up in the empty projection room after we left, prompting my pals Immoral B and McSparkle to abandon their posts at the theatre and quickly head for home. As the story of the Chit-Chat was told, around the turn of the century a man and his new bride lived in a home built on the foundation of what is now the Chit-Chat. The wife, apparently, was not happy. She threw herself from the very cliff that the Chit-Chat still overlooks to this day. The man, upset by this, hung himself on the third floor of the building that once stood where the Chit-Chat now stands. Supposedly, he still makes his presence known at the Chit-Chat, even engaging in the occasional bit of poltergeist activity. I had the rare opportunity to view the portrait painted of this long-deceased gentleman. Not that any of this really has anything to do with Tuesday.
So there it was, Tuesday, and I was sitting at a table, sipping on a green tea I’d bought from the cute (but young) girl working at the shop. While I waited for Mystere to arrive (he’s always late it seems) the girl working the counter came over to me and engaged me in some quick conversation. I suppose the homeless person outside had been rude to her when she’d given him bananas, and she was now rather rightfully annoyed. I was just about to pull out my copy of What’s the Matter With Kansas and start reading again, when in walked Mr. Mystere, in his civilian guise.
Mystere offered to buy me a coffee, which I declined, then bought one for himself and sat down. We engaged in small-talk for a while, and he filled me in on the community service project he’d been involved with. I inquired as to the status of the local pirate shop. He hadn’t applied for employment there, as I’d figured he might, and this led to a lengthy discussion on lard, which the pirate shop carries in large amounts. The conversation petered out, and so Mystere retired to the restroom.
Moments later, Mr. Mystere burst out from the bathroom, in cape and mask, surely a shock to all others in the coffee house, many of whom must have forgotten that only minutes earlier a mild-mannered, ordinary-to-the-eye civilian had disappeared within the restroom.
“Never fear! Tis I, Mr. Mystere!” my friend loudly cried out in the middle of the coffee house, “and you, Virgin Prince, just how virginal are you?”
“Mystere?! What the hell, man? That’s not how a superhero talks!” I said to my none-too-discreet buddy.
And so we went back and forth with superheroic banter, everyone else in the Chit-Chat Café quickly taking notice.
“I hope you two are benevolent masked men,” an older female customer said to us as she stepped inside the shop and up to the register.
“But of course!” I replied, “we are merely two well-mannered, aspiring mystery men! We’re just trying to make our way in the world.”
The lady grabbed her coffee and took her seat.
“Uh, are you guys working on some sort of project?” the cute girl working the counter asked me.
“Eh. Yes, you could say that,” I replied.
A project indeed. The finest project known to man. The project of JUSTICE!
So the girl commented that this was probably the strangest thing she’d ever seen and then asked us if we wanted some free espresso, I assume as a reward for our efforts. It seems to me that this is indeed a strange world when something as simple as men dressed in capes and masks, fighting for justice, seems a strange sight.
“Why certainly, thank you,” I said to the barista in response to her offer. I’ve never been a coffee enthusiast, but then, I’ve never turned down anything offered to me by a random female either. I’m always flattered by such things, and quite gracious in return. I wasn’t doing that badly for a mystery-man too broke to tip (I HATE not tipping).
“Would you like any sugar? Milk or cream?” she asked.
“No, really your happiness is my reward,” I told her in as humble a manner as possible.
“I think these guys have had too much coffee,” the older female patron commented.
So there we were, sitting at our table along the wall, talking in hero-speak, and Mr. Mystere madly guzzling down the cup of espresso placed before us. I’d arranged for Mystere to meet me at this location so I could obtain further information about him for use in the extensive files of my Virgincomputer, and he wasn’t being very forthcoming. He does love the camera however, and it was all too easy to obtain further photographic evidence of his existence. Perhaps the spectro-analyzers of my Virgincomputer would be able to unearth more secrets about Mr. Mystere from the scans of my photographs than would his tongue from behind his tightly-sealed lips. As things stand, Mr. Mystere is generally best described by a large question mark. Or a series of several small question marks.
It wasn’t long before Mystere picked up on the distinct smell of villainy wafting within the Chit-Chat Café. There was an invisible menace somewhere among us.
“Virgin Prince! There’s a problem!” my mysterious chum cried, “The ice cream is in danger! Save the ice cream!”
I leapt towards the ice cream freezer, my reflexes quick as the electrical pulses firing from the synapses in my brain.
“Never fear, rainbow sherbert!” I proclaimed while fanning the delicious desert with a Chinese fold-out fan, “You’ll not melt today!”
“Worry not, mint chip!” I cried as I shoveled this delicious bit of dairy into my pockets, “Room temperature will oppress you no further!”
“Virgin Prince!” Mystere hollered, “The coffee! The coffee is in danger of falling over!”
“Must… save… dark… French… roast! Noooooooooooooo!” I gasped as I thrust myself in the direction of the coffee, barely catching the canister before it had toppled completely and fallen to the floor.
All sorts of havoc ensued as the two of us ran around the coffee shop.
We’d done our job well; we’d saved the day, and how we laughed and laughed. We’d helped to make the community a better place and had a fine time doing it. Mr. Mystere was now tired, however, and decided it was time for him to be off. He excused himself to the restroom, and a few minutes later, a perfectly normal looking man finally emerged from the lavatory, grabbing his things and leaving. As for myself, I gathered up our trash, throwing it out and thanking the girl working at the counter shortly before I left the coffee shop. My, it’s good to be young.
Anyway, sorry about the lack of posts but I’ve been a bit busy this past week, and I’ve been entertaining family over the weekend. Also, I now have some of the Virgincomputer’s entries on Bobo the Virgin Chimp, Mr. Mystere, and Foxy Valentino available to the public. Feel free to check them out.
Be seeing you,
The Virgin Prince
I’ve got something different for you today: a story with pictures. Don’t get used to it; this isn’t going to be a common thing. I still expect you all to make use of your imaginations.
So there I was last Tuesday, at home, freshly showered after my daily run and my head still reeling from taking in a viewing of Missy Elliot videos while my feet had been quickly pounding along the treadmill’s spinning surface. It was after 6:00 PM by the time Mr. Mystere had finally called me. He’d been having adventures at the library and in community service, and I was certain there’d be much he’d have to tell me. He decided, once more, that we should meet at the coffee shop he seems to like so much.
The old Chit-Chat Café, I’d known this place well. Years ago, before changes in the establishment’s management and the more pronounced changes of time and life occurring as they naturally do, the place had been a haven for many of my friends. I could walk in the Chit-Chat at any time of day and naturally bump into a friend or acquaintance. My friend Gutter Punk was a common sight at the Chit-Chat, either within, seated at a booth behind a chessboard, sipping coffee with noticeably shaking hands, or outside, chain-smoking, or occasionally scouring the area in front of the shop looking for salvageable cigarette-butts when his money had run out and his need for an angry fix had returned. Indeed, I and many of my friends had once commonly hung about at the old Chit-Chat, in fact, many of my friends ended up working at the Chit-Chat as well. Once the establishment’s ranks of employees was filled with many of my amigos, the Chit-Chat briefly became a sort of unofficial sister-establishment to the old theatre I ran, The Olde Ship Seavue, which I had similarly worked to include a great deal of my pals as the loyal staff. Our social circles connected and intertwined on many occasions.
Of course, time has passed, the old theatre has closed down, friends and acquaintances have gotten old and caught up in life, moving their separate ways, and the very section of the town in which the old theatre and the coffee shop reside has continued along the path of decay and ruination; everyday the loss of life in what had once been the heart of the town becomes more and more apparent. I don’t much like going to the coffee shop anymore, it’s a wasteland, empty and devoid of all the friendly faces I used to see within it. A tumbleweed rolling along would be more action than this seedy little part of town has seen in two years. To think that Rob Schneider used to come here to hang out in-between shooting new films in Tinseltown. I don’t recognize any of the kids working in the coffee shop anymore. Quite frankly, I find it uncomfortable and depressing to be here now. Mr. Mystere, on the other hand, still seems to like the old Chit-Chat very much.
Incidentally, back in my old ghost-hunting days, I discovered that the Chit-Chat was apparently haunted. This was back when my buddies and I used to trek into the supposedly-haunted hills by the beach looking for visions of spectres, and my Wiccan buddy Peanut Cornwhistle and I used to fool around with the Ouija board upstairs in the old theatre, never achieving results ourselves, though on at least one occasion loud banging noises started up in the empty projection room after we left, prompting my pals Immoral B and McSparkle to abandon their posts at the theatre and quickly head for home. As the story of the Chit-Chat was told, around the turn of the century a man and his new bride lived in a home built on the foundation of what is now the Chit-Chat. The wife, apparently, was not happy. She threw herself from the very cliff that the Chit-Chat still overlooks to this day. The man, upset by this, hung himself on the third floor of the building that once stood where the Chit-Chat now stands. Supposedly, he still makes his presence known at the Chit-Chat, even engaging in the occasional bit of poltergeist activity. I had the rare opportunity to view the portrait painted of this long-deceased gentleman. Not that any of this really has anything to do with Tuesday.
So there it was, Tuesday, and I was sitting at a table, sipping on a green tea I’d bought from the cute (but young) girl working at the shop. While I waited for Mystere to arrive (he’s always late it seems) the girl working the counter came over to me and engaged me in some quick conversation. I suppose the homeless person outside had been rude to her when she’d given him bananas, and she was now rather rightfully annoyed. I was just about to pull out my copy of What’s the Matter With Kansas and start reading again, when in walked Mr. Mystere, in his civilian guise.
Mystere offered to buy me a coffee, which I declined, then bought one for himself and sat down. We engaged in small-talk for a while, and he filled me in on the community service project he’d been involved with. I inquired as to the status of the local pirate shop. He hadn’t applied for employment there, as I’d figured he might, and this led to a lengthy discussion on lard, which the pirate shop carries in large amounts. The conversation petered out, and so Mystere retired to the restroom.
Moments later, Mr. Mystere burst out from the bathroom, in cape and mask, surely a shock to all others in the coffee house, many of whom must have forgotten that only minutes earlier a mild-mannered, ordinary-to-the-eye civilian had disappeared within the restroom.
“Never fear! Tis I, Mr. Mystere!” my friend loudly cried out in the middle of the coffee house, “and you, Virgin Prince, just how virginal are you?”
“Mystere?! What the hell, man? That’s not how a superhero talks!” I said to my none-too-discreet buddy.
And so we went back and forth with superheroic banter, everyone else in the Chit-Chat Café quickly taking notice.
“I hope you two are benevolent masked men,” an older female customer said to us as she stepped inside the shop and up to the register.
“But of course!” I replied, “we are merely two well-mannered, aspiring mystery men! We’re just trying to make our way in the world.”
The lady grabbed her coffee and took her seat.
“Uh, are you guys working on some sort of project?” the cute girl working the counter asked me.
“Eh. Yes, you could say that,” I replied.
A project indeed. The finest project known to man. The project of JUSTICE!
So the girl commented that this was probably the strangest thing she’d ever seen and then asked us if we wanted some free espresso, I assume as a reward for our efforts. It seems to me that this is indeed a strange world when something as simple as men dressed in capes and masks, fighting for justice, seems a strange sight.
“Why certainly, thank you,” I said to the barista in response to her offer. I’ve never been a coffee enthusiast, but then, I’ve never turned down anything offered to me by a random female either. I’m always flattered by such things, and quite gracious in return. I wasn’t doing that badly for a mystery-man too broke to tip (I HATE not tipping).
“Would you like any sugar? Milk or cream?” she asked.
“No, really your happiness is my reward,” I told her in as humble a manner as possible.
“I think these guys have had too much coffee,” the older female patron commented.
So there we were, sitting at our table along the wall, talking in hero-speak, and Mr. Mystere madly guzzling down the cup of espresso placed before us. I’d arranged for Mystere to meet me at this location so I could obtain further information about him for use in the extensive files of my Virgincomputer, and he wasn’t being very forthcoming. He does love the camera however, and it was all too easy to obtain further photographic evidence of his existence. Perhaps the spectro-analyzers of my Virgincomputer would be able to unearth more secrets about Mr. Mystere from the scans of my photographs than would his tongue from behind his tightly-sealed lips. As things stand, Mr. Mystere is generally best described by a large question mark. Or a series of several small question marks.
It wasn’t long before Mystere picked up on the distinct smell of villainy wafting within the Chit-Chat Café. There was an invisible menace somewhere among us.
“Virgin Prince! There’s a problem!” my mysterious chum cried, “The ice cream is in danger! Save the ice cream!”
I leapt towards the ice cream freezer, my reflexes quick as the electrical pulses firing from the synapses in my brain.
“Never fear, rainbow sherbert!” I proclaimed while fanning the delicious desert with a Chinese fold-out fan, “You’ll not melt today!”
“Worry not, mint chip!” I cried as I shoveled this delicious bit of dairy into my pockets, “Room temperature will oppress you no further!”
“Virgin Prince!” Mystere hollered, “The coffee! The coffee is in danger of falling over!”
“Must… save… dark… French… roast! Noooooooooooooo!” I gasped as I thrust myself in the direction of the coffee, barely catching the canister before it had toppled completely and fallen to the floor.
All sorts of havoc ensued as the two of us ran around the coffee shop.
We’d done our job well; we’d saved the day, and how we laughed and laughed. We’d helped to make the community a better place and had a fine time doing it. Mr. Mystere was now tired, however, and decided it was time for him to be off. He excused himself to the restroom, and a few minutes later, a perfectly normal looking man finally emerged from the lavatory, grabbing his things and leaving. As for myself, I gathered up our trash, throwing it out and thanking the girl working at the counter shortly before I left the coffee shop. My, it’s good to be young.
Anyway, sorry about the lack of posts but I’ve been a bit busy this past week, and I’ve been entertaining family over the weekend. Also, I now have some of the Virgincomputer’s entries on Bobo the Virgin Chimp, Mr. Mystere, and Foxy Valentino available to the public. Feel free to check them out.
The Virgin Prince
