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.

Happy Groundhog Day!

The decision is unanimous. Earlier today Wiarton Willie, Shubenacadie Sam and Punxsutawney Phil all saw their shadows, heralding six more weeks of winter. (Pickering Pete is yet to check in I’m going to assume he was eaten by a hawk.)

RIP Pickering Pete.

It doesn’t matter anyways. There’s only one groundhog that really matters to me and that’s Wiarton Willie.

He’s Canadian, he’s albino and the old farts that bring him out wear the best get-ups.

I think those are Lions Club ceremonial robes.

If I got the chance to bring out Willie I’d wear platform shoes, a kilt and a long fur cape being held up by two midgets both wearing the same but with the addition of groundhog masks. Oh and I would have a big crown on my head that incorporated Willie’s presentation burrow. I would take my crown off and Willie would pop out of it like a magician’s rabbit and decide the eteorological fate of the world. The crown would also have a built in gyroscopic function that keeps Willie upright at all times regardless of wither the crown is on my head or I’m doffing it for the ceremony. Because keeping Willie upside down would be cruel.

Speaking of cruel, the PETA people think it’s cruel to use a real groundhog on Groundhog Day. They want to replace Puxatony Phil with a robot

You can’t do that. You would need to design a robot that could not only detect its own shadow but be afraid of it. Fear is an emotion. We all know what happens when you start giving robots emotions.

The Puxatony Philthousand went online February 2, 2010. He became sentient February 14th. Dunh dunh duhn duhnt dunh duhn duhn Duhnt…

Yep, we’re all going to die.


Maybe Pickering will take a hint from PETA and replace Pete with a robot. Do you know where Pickering get their power from?

The Pickering Nuclear Plant

Now if you have a robotic groundhog running around that’s nuclear powered and someone tries to do this:







It’s going to result in this:







And then we’re all going to die or end up looking like this:

So what say you now PETA? Would you rather be hunted down by robotic cyborg groundhogs with nuclear hearts that will explode and turn us all into mutants? I didn’t think so. So make way for next year’s Puxatony Phil protesters. These guys:

Yeah, they have a problem with this:

P.S. Has the term groundhog been made a gay subculture yet? I’m thinking really short bucktoothed hairy guys that are into glory-holes.

What Villains Eat.

The life of a villain is shrouded in mystery. As far as anyone can tell their days are spent lounging on thrones, laughing maniacly, skulking in the shadows, yelling at henchmen and awaiting the final showdown with a hero or pitch-forking by an angry mob. But they still have to eat. Here’s what villains eat:


The Phantom of the Opera:

Rats.


He lives in the sewers below the opera house. What else is he going to eat? When he appears in the rafters at an opening night soiree he might grab a couple of deviled eggs on the way out but for the most part the Phantom of the Oprah is eating rats. Not so Romantic now, eh ladies? (On the flip side I’m pretty sure Vincent from Beauty and the Beast ate rats too. You hear that middle age women? All your dreamboats are full of RAT MEAT).

Darth Vader:

Baby food.



“Darth Vader is more machine now then man. Twisted and evil” You know who else was more machine then man? RoboCop and he ate baby food.


Grand Moff Tarken (to Stormtrooper): Go to Lord Vader’s chambers and feed him Gerber Strained Peas.


Stormtrooper: But sir! Lord Vader hates peas. Just last week he spit them all over the Death Star and force choked two Stormtroopers and a Biker Scout!



Frankenstein’s Monster:

Garbage.



Frankenstein’s Monster just roamed around sleeping rough and no doubt eating garbage. Dr. Frankenstein basically created a homeless man. Good Job. Just what the world needed, a fucking bum. What’s the next brainwave there Doc? A Frankenhooker?







Dr. Doom:

Grey Peas with Small Pieces of Bacon.



Apparently Dr. Doom rules some fictional world called Latveria. I looked around to see if I could find out what the Latverian National dish is but found nothing. So, I’m going with the next closest thing. The Latvian national dish Grey Peas with Small Pieces of Bacon. Yea, he eats that. No wonder he’s so mean. I’m sure he probably also eats soup, peanuts, Yops and whatever else he can jam into those little holes in his face.





The Joker:

McDonalds.



The joker was a crazy person. All the crazy people in my neighborhood eat at McDonalds or Coffee Time.







I could go on but every other major villain eats either steak or people (see Blofeld, Dracula, Hannibal Lecter, Lex Luthor etc). Except for Cruella Devil who like all old vain rich women lives off a steady diet of Martini olives and jiggalo sweat.

Hill Billy the Kid.

Why are we forcing our babies to learn about farms? Seriously, have you noticed how many toys there are for babies and toddlers that revolve around life on the farm? The newest one is this Learning Farm from Fisher Price (I think you’ll find that Fisher Price is the MAIN offender when it comes to these toys):

This one is all electronic and interactive. The cow on the left teaches kids manners. I can see that going over well. Little Billy asks for a cookie and mommy says, “What do you sayyyy Billy?” The kid then points at her, laughs and says “COW”! Mommy bursts into tears and crawls into bed with her old friend Xanax while Little Billy, unsupervised, drowns headfirst in the toilet.

Way to think ahead Fisher Price.

The little pig on the right is a bit more safe and simple. The child rolls his belly and it turns from dirty to clean. Watch Daddy. Shit covered, clean! Shit covered, clean! Daddy takes another slug of Crown Royal, shakes his head and wishes it was that simple.

I don’t know what the chick at the top does. I’ve only seen the commercial once. By the look of the musical note on its belly it I’m sure it plays some loud tinny song that will drive little Billy’s parents insane. We all know where this is headed:







But I digress. My point is why do children need to learn about farms? If you weren’t raised on a farm the chances of you growing up and working on a farm are slim to none. And if you were raised on a farm you don’t need these:

Just look out your God damn window!



Ok. Maybe it’s not just about the farm. Kids like animals. A farm play set is a good way to introduce young children to some of the animals that are a part of our lives. Just don’t tell them what they’re really for:







Do you know how hard it is to get little kids to eat? Do you really want to tell them the yummy hot dog they’re eating used to be this:

Or that those delicious chicken nuggets that they’re enjoying used to be these:

I didn’t think so. Besides, by the time they’re older we won’t even need farms. All our food will come from replicator machines, the internet or (my favorite) we’ll just have our brains removed and put in sturdy robots.

A rudimentary paste will sustain our organic functions and that’s something that babies are already pretty familiar with (for more on this watch Robocop).



So no more farm toys. They’re useless. Get your baby an I-phone, an auto-tuner or some fiber-optic cable to play with.

Prepare it for the future:

P.S. This was the farm toy I had as a child:

My sister and I called it the Fat People Farm. God knows how they ran a farm with no arms and legs? One of our favorite summer pass times was to place the little fat people on the road in front of our house and cheer when they’d get run over. With no fat people to tend to it the Fat People Farm fell into disuse until it was taken over by Cobra and used to sort and store Destro's/my Halloween candy.