Hmmm. I lost my duct tape. That's deplorable. Texans are virtually worthless without duct tape. It's in our State Constitution or something. High school government class was too long ago to actually remember but I'm really quite certain that there have been numerous bond issues on the subject in the last few decades and for adhesive-haters everywhere, sorry, but you're stuck with it. We demand that our duct tape be returned to all Texan-based scenarios.
But I'm happy I'm no longer in a submarine 20,000 leagues under the sea. I never had a calculator in either scenario so I have no idea if 20K leagues is equal to 2500m and I don't care because I'm not there and I never had one anyway. I'm happy to start in Texas since I'm already there so I needn't worry about travel arrangements to begin my adventures with a non-modified 2013 Volkswagon Bug, a bag of Cheetos, a BIG bag of cash, and three cars behind me.
You never mentioned whether or not the police are chasing me, I'm chasing them, or if I myself am a member of the police, so I'm going with my gut here and declaring that I am a regular citizen who's been temporarily deputized by the State Troopers Association (it's really a card I got in a Cracker Jack box but I trust that you'll keep my secret safe as I have nothing but good intentions!). So, the secenario is almost complete:
I am in hot pursuit (from ahead) of a gang of Mom-and-Pop grocery store robbers - known as Ice Houses in these parts - who've left a trail of candy wrappers, zippered bank bags, unrecycled pop bottles, and Cheet-Oh dust from one end of Texas to another. Clearly they're not from around here or they'd know that "Don't Mess With Texas" is ever so much more than an anti-littering slogan for us; it's a way of life.
The bandits had spent many hours, days, and weeks circling both San Antonio and then Bexar County on Loop 410 and 1604 respectively, they've become desperate to escape the record-breaking heat, the construction, and the distant sound of Mariachi players tuning up for their next set. They've broken free through a sheer stroke of dumb luck in the downtown area having found a map vendor selling something worth more than it's weight in gold: A Rand-McNalley map of the Greater San Antonio Area. Upon realizing that the very underpass under which they cowered was in fact not just the Robert McDermott Freeway but was locally referred to as the George Chavez boulevard! (No wonder they got stuck on both Loop 410 and Loop 1604!) They gleefully spent the last of the ill-gotten gains to purchase petrol cans from a local bodega and to canvas the neighborhood in search of not one, not two, but THREE get-a-way vehicles! They'd heard that everything is done bigger in Texas and they wouldn't let a few lousy road signs and an outdated GPS foil their attempts at freedom and a good bowl of shrimp jambalaya. Yes, they'd planned their escape deep into the bayous of Louisiana to frolic away the rest of their lives on anything but sweets and Cheet-Ohs. They truly believed they'd found redemption on the blazing tarmacs of the Texas Highway System and intended to lay low in cooler and less-hostile landscape. (One would suppose they'd never actually heard of just how big bugs are in a Louisiana bayou but they weren't the brightest crayons in the box by any means as it was).
Just as I became convinced that my plans to thwart their escape and bring them to justice had dwindled, I spotted them via my rearview mirror racing through an intersection, like three little jackrabbits, hooting and hollering and waving straw hats outside of their opened windows. Three cars! How bold! How stupid! Did they think all Texans looked and acted like that?? Unfortunately, I was two interestections ahead of them and only had about 452 miles to figure out a way to get my trusty unmodified Volkswagon Bug to get behind three 8-bangers much less keep up with them and do my civic duty to apprehend and waylay such desperados. Maybe they would run out of fuel. One could always hope.
My hopes of going unnoticed were dashed as the trio began to close the gap between us on the lonesome highway. I hadn't even had time to refuel but fortunately for me and the innocent citizens of all points East between San Antonio and Houston, I could get my Bug to Dallas and back on a half of a tank. Surely even racing desperados wouldn't leave me stranded near a shopping mall or worse, a housing subdivision with no office! Urban sprawl can hinder nearly any high-speed chase as I'm sure y'all all know.
I suspected that they're probably hoping to gain access to the swamps and bayous of the coastlines near Galveston. What they probably don't know is that virtually all of the Eastern borders in Texas are in fact quite dry at this time of year and moreover are chock-full of pine-tree farms. There isn't a 'gator, a bullfrog in, or a pontoon boat in sight!
What's gone unnoticed is that I've kept the cardboard tube that was inside of my recently dispactched duct-tape and have cleverly fashioned a swiveling, over-sized funnel through the floorboard of my trusty Bug using the removable shoulder harnesses from the seat belts along with the bungee cords that were so handy for holding my hot and cold beverages in place in a tiny little car with a stick-shift, freeing my hands from pesky gear shifts. (I had to use my car keys to saw out an appropriate-sized hole in the floorboard as my "creator" didn't see fit to provide me with a single hand-held power tool or even outfit me in a decent pair of high heels to gouge out the floor. How unfortunate).
My innate sense of the inner-mechanical workings of a Cheet-Oh bag might be a bit rusty but if there's one thing we all know to be an inveterate truth: chip bags are full of air. This is true. It MUST be true. Justice and the American way depend on it being true! (And of course, a happy ending with the nefarious bandits behind bars would also be a very nice Texan-American ending!)
I've managed to get the Cheet-Oh bag stuffed into the BIG money bag so that I may more easily direct my weapon at the trio. Or am I trying to distract them? Ah! Pine trees! We are nearing the border and my plan gels in an instant. I stuff the bag with money (and Cheet-Ohs) into the cardboard tube, use my trusty work boots as a rudder to guide the direction of the funnel and STOMP DOWN HARD on the bags nearly giving myself a heart-attack when the Cheet-Oh bag literally EXPLODES with a huge bang and the speed, velocity, and general absence of precipitation pulverize the Cheet-Ohs into a fine, slippery dust that coats the road enabling me to skid completely past the three ne'er-do-wells and come out behind them! Like the Cheet-Ohs, the money is flung into the air with the speed of compressed air bursting from a punctured aerosol can - but fortunately for all of the lumberjacks taking a lunch break near the pine trees, it's not pulverized. They goggle in amazement at this explosion of orange dust and watch in wonder as money - real money - maybe more cash than any one of them has seen in a year comes floating down from the sky as if it were manna from Heaven itself. Or like leaves from a non-deciduous tree. Mayhem ensues as lumberjacks leap and cavort to capture this unexpected and most welcome surprise!
Meanwhile, my 10-year old steel-belted radials are desperately trying to grip the road and I want them to behave the way they have for over 9 years! I want to SKID! Who thought ABS on a standard transmission was a smart idea!? Double-pumping my clutch, I finally sent my poor Bug into a tailspin. Finally! My unmodified Bug pulls a Herbie and starts spinning around and around, nearly out of control, caroming off of pine trees, barbed-wire fences, and more pine trees but most fortunately for me and them, not into the lumberjacks. The little fenders on my now not-so-trusty bug are now gouging into innocent tree bark (no live trees were damaged, hurt, or lost life due to this scenario). Luckily for all of us, my trusty Bug has come to rest against a row of port-a-potties sitting atop a flat-bed trailer causing them to tip and sway in the whirlwind of cheese dust, money, lost or abandoned lumberjack hats, and flailing hands attached to flinging bodies (the lumberjacks - they're grabbing money like it really does grow on trees!).
With an almost silent sigh, the last support on the flat-bed trailer gives way due to a bad weld and the porta-a-potties tip over into each other like dominoes. Bang! Crash! Boom! One by one, they fall into the next one until the last one finally tips over - seeming to be suspended in mid-air - as the not-quite quiet mass-inhale of breathe exits the lumberjacks lungs in a collective sigh as they watch one after another tip over until the last one came to rest, ever so gently, onto an almost sawed-through pine tree. Creaks and groans came from the tall thin trunk as the canopy began to tremble under the weight of ten port-o-potties. Nature was never meant to withstand such force. The tree went over.
CRASH! BOOM! BANG!
Trees began to topple and then to topple each other. Lumberjacks scattered, stuffing wads of bills into their pockets, retrieved lunch-buckets, and even the saggy-topped rims of their definitely dissapproved by OSHA footware and RAN. Forrest Gump had nothing on these guys. No one knew better than they what happens when a pine tree forrest gives up the ghost as it were. This was their raison-d'etre but never had they been so giddy with newfound wealth nor had the Dukes of Hazzard or even Alamo Speedway ever prepared them for the sight they were about to witness. (That was for the ones interested enough in staying to explain scads of orange-powdered money poking out of every pocket they owned - the rest just tucked tail and ran). The desperados' cars were wheeling in and out of falling debris - tree trunks, pine needles, the occasional pine cone, and even a small worm or two. (No flora or fauna was actually damaged during the making of this story of the Texas Cheet-Oh Bandits, may their names lives forever in infamy).
Before the dust (and pine needles) had begun to truly settle, there the three were - sitting in their contraband vehicles - peering out at the gathering crowds and peering 'through' the newly-constructed 'bars' of their temporary prison: the trunks had fallen in such a way it created a pine tree barricade an entire bayou of beavers would be pround to claim as their own!
And thus ends the two-year reign of terror and sudden weight loss by suburban housewives throughout the state by three lost desperados known only as the Texas Cheet-Oh Bandits. Texans could now safely resume their pursuit of crunchy snacks without fear of having gotten there only one step behind the dasterdly crew. Texas was once again safe and justice was served.
