Mr. Polasky waddled down the front stoop, pushed his way through the white picket fence, and squeezed himself into his little Japanese car. He was already sweating profusely, patches of spreading wetness quite visible on his light blue work shirt. Breathing heavily, he inserted the key into the ignition and gave it a turn. Spark! The car started right up.
Mr. Polaski, "Stan" if you worked or bowled with him, shifted his weight to the right in order to reach the stick-shift which, as far as he was concerned, was located too close to the driver's seat for a motorist of his "stature".
Of course, he thought to himself, if he could have foreseen then in the span of one short year his "personality", as he liked to call it, would expand to such gregarious proportions, he might have purchased something more along the lines of a Van or Motor-home to accomodate the new him.
Mr. Polasky sighed at what might have been, gripped the stick shift with his stubby little fingers, and put the car into reverse. Upon stepping on the gas, Mr. Polasky got quite a surprise.
The entire car, along with Mr. Polasky, exploded.
Apparently, Mrs. Polasky, "Shirley" to the Milkman, was sick of living with a dull, disgustingly fat, pig of a husband, and had been going out at night with some of her girlfiends to a local bar to see male strippers.
It seemed she hit it off quite well with one of the dancers there, a guy named Mel, and they had a "thing" going. Shortly, this "thing" became serious and the two entertained themselves with the idea of running off to some paradise oceanside resort where they could frolic on the beach in ignorant bliss.
If only, thought Shirley - if only that fat pig of a husband wasn't standing in my way. If only that obese hog, that flatulent, lard-bellied oaf were DEAD!
And so Shirley began to plot. And as it happened, Mel had been a demolitions expert back in 'Nam. Well, it was child's play for him to rig poor Stan's car to explode. It only took him seven or eight minutes (seven, I think).
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With the car all rigged to go, Shirl and Mel fled to a paradise oceanside resort (in New Jersey). Shirley left strict instructions with her sister, Tahlula, to take care of any and all inquiries (especially insurance, yes?) until the heat wore off.
But Tahlula was a woman of conscience and also she hated her sister's guts. As soon as she received news of Shirley's foul plans, she told her husband Norbert, who played cards with this guy Tony, who was a cop.
The thing is, Norbert and Tony and the guys only get together once a week, every Thursday night. Tahlula got word of her hated sister's foul plans on Friday, so Norbert didn't get around to mentioning it to Tony until the next week at the Thursday night game.
Stan Polasky had already been dead for three days.
Eventually, however, Shirl and Mel were arrested, which is probably just as well - - they were getting on each other's nerves. Shirley testified that Mel had forced her to "do all that stuff you said I done, ya Honah...". They believed her.
Mel was put away for a long, long time. But a long, long time went by and one day, when Shirley was on line in a Toys-R-Us buying a wagon-load of Cabbage Patch Pampers, Mel suddenly appeared and blew her brains out with a service revolver.
Mel fled... and got away with murder, but it was a small consolation to him. Finding himself now too old to perform as he once had, and lacking any formal or trade education, Mel took to living off the streets. A bum, a vagabond, a vagrant.
And if you should find yourself on the boardwalk in Ocean City, New Jersey, and you happen across a smelly old man wearing a silk shirt open to the navel and gaudy fake gold chains around his neck... well, that'll be Mel. And he'll tell you this very same story for fifty cents... maybe for a quarter.
THE END?...
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