The CreepShow presents… A salute to Caps.

Do they still make caps?

When I was a kid I LOVED caps.

Let me start off by explaining something to all of you that don’t live in Canada. Here in the great white north firecrackers are illegal. You can get fireworks, sparklers, snakes and maybe smoke bombs. But you can usually only get them around Victoria Day and Canada day. As a kid those days were like Christmas to me. A friend and I were so obsessed with firework days that we couldn’t wait. We’d grab plastic shopping bags, fill them with anything small and colorful and then go out in the yard and throw what we gathered up in the air one at a time and pretend they were fireworks. That’s the childhood equivalent of a crackhead lying on the ground, endlessly picking up gravel thinking it’s crack rocks.

This:

Plus this:

Equals this:

I’ve seen it and it’s sad. Even after firework day was over I’d comb the neighborhood, picking up spent fireworks and putting them in my wagon. Then I’d take them under my deck and line them all up and look at them, smell them, maybe break them in half and see what’s inside.

God that suddenly sounds so creepy!

But come summer that was it. No more fireworks. Here I am with nearly 2 months of warm unsupervised days with nothing to do and not a Roman Candel, Fluer De Lis or Bakers Dozen in sight. Thanks god for caps! When buying caps there were two basic varieties to choose from; paper or plastic. And from there you had two more choices. Let me break it down for you.

Plastic Caps:

Here’s a pack of you basic 8 shot plastic caps.

These are the ones that were designed to go in the classic cowboy cap guns. You know the ones that came with those brown plastic holsters and if you were lucky, some silver plastic bullets and a sheriff’s badge?

I never wore the sheriff’s badge because I could never figure out how to put the fucking thing on. There was no pin, just that weird plastic hook/slot thing. I guess they didn’t use a pin because they were worried some baby Einstein would stick it in his eye or something. They did realize that the guns it came with were ment to detonate small explosives didn’t they? Yeah and a pin is dangerous. I’ll tell you what. That hard plastic holster hurt more kids than caps and pins combined. Those mold lines were like razor blades. How many of you out there are nodding and holding your hip as you read this? But I digress. We’re here to talk about caps. And putting them in the gun was just the beginning. If you were low on caps you could break the rings into individual caps but it you had a good supply, the best thing to do with 8 ring caps was to put them on the floor of the garage, line it up just right and hit the whole god damn thing with a hammer…

Then you’ve got your plastic strip caps.

These were designed to go into your higher end cap guns. Your Lugers, your Walter PPKs, your Colt 45s.

James Bond kind of stuff.

Now you could break these caps off into singles and hit them with a hammer too but it was best to use them with a gun. Because the guns that used these caps would cut off and eject the spent cap out the side like a real shell casing. Kids, if your parents weren’t so uptight and lame and let you play with cap guns today, you could draw little chalk outlines around the spent caps and pick them up with a pen and shit just like on lame mommy and daddy’s favorite shit show CSI.

Get this spent cap to the lab. If it matches the one’s they sell at Becker’s call the Chief and tell them I think we’ve found our puppy killer. And then play my Who tape.

Paper Caps:

The rolled caps were the best. They may not have had the same je nous se qua as their plastic brothers but what they lacked in style they made up for in price and sheer quantity. For 25 cents I could get a box containing 5 rolls of 50 caps each. That’s 250 caps! Ans not only could these caps be loaded in cap guns, they could be hit with a hammer or scratched with a nail. Hell, in desperate times you could even set them off with your finger nail.

Sure if you did too many at recess you might get those burnt black fingernails but having your fingers smell like caps for the rest of the day was a worthwhile distraction.

They also made great dress material to outfit the teacher doll that went in your Burning Schoolhouse on firework nights.

Hint: You’ve got to cut one of the windows out and slide her halfway in with her arms sticking out and a pack of matches makes great hair.

The only thing that sucked about paper caps was when you’d come out of the creek or your mom would put your rugby pants through the wash and there was a roll in your pocket. Ruined! A whole roll ruined.!If you were naive you might have tried to roll them out and dry them but deep down you knew they’d never work again. Oh wait, there’s one more thing that sucked about paper caps, the other kind.

Those stupid round one shot paper caps! What was up with those? You could put them in some cap guns but you had to reload after each shot. Sometimes it was fun stacking them to make a bigger bang but really that was just a waste of caps. The only thing they were good for was putting in cap bombs.

Remember these things?! They were awesome. You put a cap in them, threw them up in the air and they came down and…

They also took both plastic and paper caps. Cap bombs were a true engineering marvel of simplicity and versatility. The only pocket sized caps accessory that came close to matching cap bombs was those little cap gun key chains.

Yes! These school yard derringers could be preloaded with a single cap and stuffed in a sweatshirt pocket until the moment was right then…

Right in some dumb jerk kid’s ear!

Yeeeep. It’s cap gun ear. Let me ask you something Mrs. Williams. Has your son been a jerk lately?

But perhaps the best caps accessory of all was the line of Robocop action figures that took caps.

Your move creeps!

Sigh… I love caps.

Garage Sale! 69 Creepshow Ave. Cordless Drill, Weights, Samantha Fox Poster, Scud Mags, Used Coffin and much, much more!

Hot enough for ya?

It’s like 30 degrees Celsius outside! And you know what all this hot weather means? Summer time and garage sale season kicking into gear!

Now I don’t hit the garage sales the way I used to. That’s because for one, I live in the city. Most of the garage sales here are less garage sale and more sweaty crackhead shaking beside a blanket containing a selection of unpawnable/ broken items and DVDs that used to belong to my neighbors.

The cordless drill? Oh yea it works just fine. But you see it can’t be crushed up and injected or smoked so I really have no use for it. Five dollars!!

And secondly, thanks to E-bay and Craigslist garage sales are going the way of  Vallue Village. You just can’t find all the great things you used to.

Things like:

Those gold plastic weights.

The only thing these weights are good for now is weighing down the body of someone you killed or killing your lawn a month after you put them on your curb with a sign saying free. But there was a time when the suburban failed Adonis thought he could actually get money for them. They were often coupled with the chest expander.

Bonus if it was a really hairy guy selling it and there were hairs in the springs

And grip strengtheners.

Bonus if they were the gold executive model that wannabe 80s power suits kept on their desk for intimidation.

Archery sets.

When I was a kid every other garage sale had one of these up for grabs. I got a great one with a huge hunting bow, a quiver full of arrows and a homemade target on wheels for something like $15. I drew pictures of people I didn’t like and taped them to the front of the target. This was a big step up from throwing darts at the nipples of the topless Samantha Fox poster I won at the Appleby Mall fair.

f Samantha Fox could sing half as good as she could grow tits, she’d be top of the charts. – Some old copy of Viz Magazine.

Old Playboy & Penthouse magazines

Look at the article topics. Was anyone really that dedicated to being a scum bag?

It always amazed me how many of these fat truck drivers and bearded bikers were selling their old scud magazines at their garage sales. These men had no shame.

Ohhh, yep. Had a lot of good times masturbating to those… a LOT of gooood times. Hate to see ‘em go. 75 cents each or 3 for $2. 50 cents for the ones missing centerfolds.

Power Wheels

Look at the little girl acting just like her dumb bitch trophy wife mom. Kids, they’re like little people.

I used to see these at garage sales all the time. Rich parents would buy them for their kids not realizing that the rechargeable battery only had like 20 minutes of juice. I don’t know how many times I saw some frazzled dad dragging a Power Wheels back from the park with his shrieking kid under one arm. I was never allowed to get one at the garage sales because my dad had also seen those dads and because the dumb rich parents always wanted too much for it.

10 Cents?! I paid over $800 for that piece of shit!!!

Partially painted D&D miniatures.

Usually being sold by a guy like this.

Who had maybe grown up and found better things to do wit his weekend.

I remember purchasing a few to accentuate my growing army man collection. If the 101st thought the battle of the bulge was tough, wait till they find out Hitler has acquired two Orcs and a giant spider!

Pantyhose dolls.

I’m not really sure what the deal was with these things but there were lots of them at garage sales. Maybe the old women in my neighborhood couldn’t bear to part with their used pantyhose after having to ration them so much during World War II. (Did you know that women used to rub gravy on their legs to make it look like they were wearing nylons back then?) Who knows for sure? I bought a pantyhose doll at a garage sale and it was a little old man with a long grey beard and when you lifted the beard it had a dick and balls under it! I can’t believe those never caught on. Another pantyhose based item you got a lot of was jars full of little asses called Pickled Bums.

Something that I’m sure exists for real at the  Chinese Wal-Mart.

Toys that would be worth a lot now if someone didn’t fuck them all up.

You know what I’m talking about. You pull up to the garage sale in the back of your parents car and you see that AT- AT Walker on the table but when you run out of the car to buy it, it’s all messed up, missing all the parts and full of dirt.

Or the Smash-Up Derby cars that some kid’s anal-retentive mom pain stakingly glued all the pieces together so they don’t smash up any more.

The kid across the street from me’s mom actually did this

Don't forget the Cabbage Patch Doll Naked and covered in pen.

My Cabbage Patch doll was called Ralph Damien until I sent in the name change papers and had it legally changed to Thrash Damien. I always thought that Xavier Roberts signature on the doll’s ass would make a good tattoo for some 80s obsessed girl to get (or a girl that looked like a Cabbage Patch Kid).

And low and behold someone has gone and done it.

Good for you. Good luck explaining that to your grandchildren.

Good for you. Good luck explaining that to your grandchildren.


Well you see kids… there were these dolls… and 15 years later Granny got really drunk and…

you know what, never mind. Why would Granny be showing the kids her ass in the first place?

And finally the box of miscellaneous G.I. Joe parts (For those faint of heart avert your eyes).

Yes those flimsy cardboard mass graves that contained the corpses of so many fallen Joes. Twisted and tortured by some sadistic child until their legs wobbled and their rubber torso bands snapped. The final eulogy engraved in magic marker on their tombstone:

Whole Box $1.

I morn them and curse their tormentors but not without my own feelings of guilt. For the last time I saw my Duke Howzer figure he was sailing over Appleby creek attached to 4 bottle rockets. His body will never be found.

Yo…..

Joe.

Yeah garage sales may not be what they used to be but what is these days? I still get excited on a Saturday morning when I see that sign.

And you can still manage to find something good from time to time.

So come on all you human vultures. Strap your fanny packs on and get hunting.

P.S. A special mention has to go to some of the people that make garage sales great. They are as follows.

The woman who says, Oh you just take it for free, it’s yours. when she sees a kid’s meager handful of change.

The man who says, If you want him, make me an offer. when his dog greets people at his garage sale. He will say this 76 times in one morning.

The kid who snatches toys out of peoples’ hands and screams That's not for sale! then runs into his room with it. He will do this 26 times in one morning.

The crazy couple that show up to an 8am garage sale at 6 am.

The even crazier couple that rope off their garage sale so that no one can visit it until their start time of 9am

I don't have internet access... unga bunga.

It amazes me when people say I don’t have access to the internet. That’s like saying I don’t have access to a phone. Not even a payphone!

The only people that still use payphones are drug dealers and crack-heads. They should all just get walkie-talkies together (except the crack-heads would undoubtedly sell theirs for crack).

Ten four good buddy. Lung Warts over and out!

But you don’t even have to pay for internet access. You can go into any library and use their computers. Sure you might have to share it with homeless men that want to look up pornography but it’s still free.

So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to lend a helping hand to those out there that claim to have no internet access. I’m going to provide you with a service.

The internet by mail.

Here’s what you do:

1) You write a letter to me and tell me what you want to look up online.

2) I (or one of my trusted staff of library homeless men) will Google your query, print off the list of findings and mail it back to you.

3) You select which of the Google hits you’d like to investigate further, circle it and send it back to me.

4) I (or a hobo) will click on you selection and screen print the resulting website. All further clickable areas on the website will be highlighted and the printed copy will be mailed to you.

5) If you wish to delve further into your selected web page, simply circle the highlighted clickable area on your web page print out and return it to us.

6) We will repeat step 4.

7) You may repeat step 5.

8) We will repeat step 6.

There will be an initial charge of $5 for your search and $1 for each additional click, plus postage. For the cost of only $10,000 you can join our VIP mailing list. I will hand deliver your search results on horse back, wearing my finest tweeds like the messengers of old.

Now I was about to give you payment and mailing instructions but wait. You’ll never see this. Because you don’t have access to the fucking internet! Well too bad you ridicules collection of cavemen, CHUDs and Amish. Instead I will post videos to offend you all. Good day.







P.S. What do you call an Amish guy with his hand up a horse’s ass?

Answer: A mechanic!