Dog, Robot

Last month you may remember me mentioning that my brah in Ontario, Troy Hurtubise, was designing a special suit for me. Well, the big day has finally arrived, the first test suit is here and I’m ready to try it out. When the giant box was delivered to our door I just figured Beth had ordered another load of bras from Costco but man was I all smiles when I pried it open and standing in front of me was a chunk of metal that vaguely resembled a human. I tried to get Youngblood over to check it out but robots and that kind of thing freak him out. It all started in the ‘80s when we watched “Short Circuit” on acid and he thought Johnny 5 was coming through the television to eat his ghetto blaster. He has also vowed to kill Steve Guttenberg on site.






Johnny 5 Is Alive and Hungry!










But I can’t play armchair psychologist to that fuzznuts today I’m too jazzed about my suit. It’s about 8 feet tall, I asked Troy to make the helmet a little taller to compensate for my hair and hair accessories and it looks like he came through on that promise. I decided to take the helmet off and try it on first though just to make sure. It fit perfect, I was so stoked I ran around the house with it scaring the cats. Then I decided to go outside with my guitar and jam a while just to mess with the neighbour’s heads.






Iron Man never sounded so good




I stopped after my neck got tired and three of my neighbours threatened to call the cops. I decided to go back in and check out the rest of the suit. When I got back inside I found little Gary boy eating the bubble wrap it came in. I think that stuff is non toxic but I distracted him with some pop-tarts covered in peanut butter to distract him just to be sure. The rest of the suit looked really good, the only low point were the boots. I had asked Troy to make them look like cowboy boots with spurs that could act like buzz saws but only if it was within budget. If it wasn’t he was able to scrap the spur-buzz saw thing and just go with plain old cowboy boots. What I got looks like a ski boot with steel tips welded to them. I was kind of bummed about this because I was pretty excited to be a robot cowboy like Yule Brynner in “Westworld”.






The Robot of 1973, Today!



I guess I shouldn’t complain though, I was gonna be the first bounty hunter cyborg in probably the history of Honolulu. Once I got in it I was reminded how scared I am of small spaces but luckily Troy had the brains to tape a postcard of a deserted island in the middle of the ocean on the inside of the helmet like I asked. I keep one of those in all of our SUV’s when I need to go to my “happy place” and I think it will work out fine here as well. I used to rely heavily on those “MagicEye” posters for serenity until I came home drunk one night and thought the new one Beth bought said “homosexual” in it. Since my drinking isn’t going away any time soon we thought it was best to just cleanse the house of all “MagicEye” posters.





It's a herd of unicorns playing Jenga




After Leland helped me into the suit I realized how heavy it was. I needed help getting into the SUV so we got the whole clan to lift me in. Of course I couldn’t sit down properly so they had to flatten the seats and put me on my stomach. It was then that Beth realized she needed to pick up one of the kids from soccer practice so I had to sit with my face to the floor while she did that and then got groceries. One thing I can say, this thing isn’t too accommodating when you’ve gotta itch that just won’t wait. I guess I’m just glad Troy didn’t go with his original design:













Sure it's big but where's the personality?

I had had just about enough of this pussy footin’ around so I demanded we try this out on the streets. Once we got myself set up on the sidewalk things went south once again. I realized that I couldn’t smoke in the damn thing. I had specifically asked for special air vents and a hole that a cigarette could be easily inserted but it looks like Troy dropped the ball on that one. Secondly, when Leland left me to go and buy some mustache wax a kid threw his gum into my helmet. I turned to chase the little rat but my boot got caught in a crack in the sidewalk and I fell into a mailbox. Trying to keep myself and the mailbox upright at the same time looked like I was in a fight with it. Then of course I fell on top of it and now Leland calls me “Don Juan DeMailo” which isn’t funny at all. Plus I chipped my tooth doing all of that crap.

I got all twisted up in the suit after this and we had to call some people with the Jaws of Life to get me out. The suit didn’t turn out too well and I’m pretty upset we didn’t even get to test it out on anything other than a mailbox. I hope Troy doesn’t expect his check any time soon for that deathtrap.