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I said I would post this a bajillion decades ago. I'm posting it now. Tough.


Operation V


Exactly 25 hours and 19 minutes past midnight, I realized this was a shitty way to keep time. Yet another part of Operation V that just wasn’t what we planned.

00:00 Hours

We started at midnight the day before because we had some . . . pre-planning to do. Nick and Jimmy had to make a beer run, again. That might have been our first mistake. No, letting Nick and Jimmy come over had been mistakes one and two. There’s no point counting past that.

01:30 Hours

“Guys, we could do this. We could go down in world-fucking-history!”

“Nick, that’s the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard.” I was three drinks behind everyone else.

Nick looked at me. He handed me another MGD.

Jimmy took over persuasion for the moment. “Alan, dude, you always said it was a stupid fucking marketing ploy. You said you thought they were total assholes. That it was capitalizing on the joy and excitement of small children in a way that would make Mussolini cry.”

Amazing that Jimmy, completely shit-faced at this point, could remember almost verbatim what I had said months ago. A testament to my eloquence, or his determination to do something incredibly stupid. I had to say it, “Jimmy, it’s not even –”

“You guys remember how in The Lion King Simba falls down and all the seeds spell out ‘sex.’ That was way cool.”

I looked at Kevin. Not too bright, and not helping at all.

Nick laughed. “You were watching The Lion King for sex? No wonder you’re not getting any.” He did the loser cough.

I couldn’t condone that.

“Oh, ‘cause the loser cough is cool. You aren’t even doing it right.”

“Like you can do it better.”

01:47 Hours

“Loser!”

“No, like this. Loser!”

“Loser!” Hack, hack, hack. “I need another beer. So do you, Alan. Loosen up, man, or this plan isn’t going to work.”

“We’re not doing it.”

Kevin finally joined the dark side. “Come on, Alan, it could be pretty cool.”

“Kevin, it doesn’t even –”

“Here. Drink. Now.”

06:10 Hours

“This could totally work. But we gotta do it right.” I gestured emphatically with my beer. Which didn’t spill because it was empty. Stupid fucking half-full beer bottles, yet another marketing ploy.

“Definitely.”

“We wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“We gotta have a plan. We don’t even have a fucking plan.” This was the saddest thing I’d ever heard in my life. So I repeated it. “We don’t even have a fucking plan!”

“We do have a plan. That’s what we’re saying. Focus, A, we go in wearing the Disney costumes,” Jimmy started.

“Who’s going to be Mickey?”

“Kevin, who the fuck cares who’s going to be Mickey?”

“Well, I’m not going to be Goofy.”

“Of course, you’re going to be Goofy,” Jimmy told him.

“Why?” Kevin whined.

“Because you’re the tallest. And because you got all gay on us over The Lion King.”

“I did not! I was just saying that it was cool!” Kevin protested.

“Whatever. Focus, dipshit, I’m talking about the plan.”

“Fine.” Now, Kevin sulked. He has many talents.

“So point one, Disney costumes. Point two, bathroom. Point three, ditch the costumes and climb into the ventilation system. It can’t fail.”

“But, man, we don’t have the costumes,” I said. Inexplicably, this was even sadder than not having a plan. “We have the plan, but no costumes.”

Nick punched my shoulder. “No worries. We’ll get the costumes, A. Have another beer.”

“Nicky, man, you’re awesome. You should be Mickey. Guys, Nicky should be Mickey.” I laughed. “Nicky, Mickey, Nicky, Mickey. Hey, where’d the beer go?”

24:47 Hours

“Jesus, I feel like shit.” I groaned. “I feel like there’s fucking hamster using my stomach as an exercise wheel. I feel like my brain liquefied and is draining into my throat. I feel like I just saw my parents having a threesome with our math teacher, Mrs. Ennis.”

“Dude, shut the fuck up. We’re laying in wait.” For some reason, Jimmy sounded like the voice of doom.

Something was wrong. “Lying in wait,” I corrected. But something was still wrong. “Guys, I feel like I’m in a square metal tunnel.”

“You are. We’re in the ventilation shaft. It’s all part of the plan.”

Well, as long as it was part of the plan, that was fine.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Twenty-four hours and forty-seven minutes into Operation V,” Kevin said.

“Regular pair of double-O-fucking-sevens you two are. Shut the fuck up.” I was getting the doom vibe from Nick, too. Odd.

“Operation V. Operation V,” I repeated, trying to remember something.

25:15 Hours

“Oh, holy fuck! We have got to get out of here, guys!” I remembered.

“Dude, be quiet! You want the security guard to make another round this way?”

“Don’t you understand? It’s not a real place! It’s not a real place!”

Jimmy made calming gestures with his arms that made the metal sides of the ventilation ducts vibrate. “You can’t freak out on us now. We’ve just gotta get the job done.”

“No, you moron, you don’t get it. There is no Disney vault! They made it up. We can’t storm the Disney vault and break out 101 Dalmatians and The Great Mouse Detective because there is no Disney vault.”

Nick, Jimmy, and Kevin looked at each other.

“Oh, well, fuck.”

“Hey, who’s up there? Where’re you at?” The security guard.

“Yeah, fuck.”