Chapter 5

Hurp and Durp carried on acting as though they could improvise the rules of the competition. First, there were two contests (of course, they added a third because that was their running joke, firmly believing there would be two of things, then discovering there would be three, and changing the regulations accordingly). That was the entire gag.

I couldn’t help but think of the obvious parallels of how my brothers and I often changed our house rules and pushed things once we got what wanted. My mother seemed oblivious though – she giggled and gave her her full attention to the show.

Hope seemed bored and aloof, but that was how she was almost all of the time.

They brought the girls out on stage with burlap sacks covering their street clothes. They were all barefoot. The sacks covered their waists, and the other women were wearing shorts.

“This is what you spent all that time backstage doing?” Durp asked the FannyBottom sisters.

“That, and making ourselves beautiful,” Thelma preened.

“She sounds like you,” I teased Hope.

“Into the drink with you,” Durp pushed Thelma into the muddy water, and Thelma fell into mudpit as the crowd laughed.

“Hey, you can’t do that to my sister!” Louise defended Thelma and pushed Durp into the mud right after her. The crowd chuckled.

“You can’t do that to my brother!” Hurp pushed Louise into the mud face first, and the crowd raucously laughed. Then realizing there was no one to push him into the mud, he declared that “I cannot do that to myself!” and launched himself into the mud to thunderous laughter.

“That’s it, shows over!” Hurp stood up and demanded like a sour loser. The crowd booed.

Prince John emerged from his hidey hole, and declared that the show “must go on”.

The four performers sang a rousing rendition of the line from the Queen song by the same name in the style of Freddy Mercury “The show must go OAAANNNNNN!!!”

That became a running gag during the show. Whenever some hardship or frustration set in, they would declare the show to be over. Prince John would come out and tell them that it had to continue and they’d sing the line again.

Hurp explained as they got out of the mud and hosed themselves down with “Ye Old Garden Hose” made of artificial green dragon flesh that the show was now a “Wet Burlap Sack Contest”. Which they felt was far less risque’ than a wet T-shirt contest.

The joke being that the women could get soaked by being under buckets of water, dancing around and cavorting and no one could actually see under the sack. “It’s good clean fun!” Hurp shouted excitedly, and then one of the other performers dumped a bucket of mud on top of his head.

“Good, clean, DIRTY fun!” he’d say with even more gusto.

My mom was a great sport, and danced around as sexy as she could, given the type of show they were putting on. The Fanny Bottom girls did a much more comedic, exaggerated dance, that often involved pretending to spank each other’s butts, and sometimes slap each other’s faces.

At the end of the dancing, they judged the women and ranked the three volunteers based on audience applause. My mom actually won the first round. Prince John came out of his hole with a wine goblet and asked how his daughters were faring.

“They tied for first place, my grace!”

“As they should, and second place?”

“That as well,” Hurp offered as if trying to placate his boss.

“As long as they don’t get third place! It’s just NOT suitable for a Fannybottom! We can’t have our good name besmirched!”

“Yes, my liege!”

“Carry on!” the Prince commanded and went back to his hiding spot.

Thelma and Louise preened and lorded their victory over the other women. Naturally, Hurp and Durp pushed them both into the mud. Thelma and Louise emerged from the mud pit with sour faces. Hurp and Durp began performing a victory dance and slapping each other on the back. So naturally, Thelma and Louise reached up and pulled them into the mud.

Once, they washed themselves off. They said that it was time to “Get Serious” while performing several slapstick pranks on each other involving splashing water in each other’s faces.

“It’s time for the stupendous, magnanimous, spectacular Hurp and Durp splash Zone!” Durp announced.

“OOoooooooooooooooooh,” Hurp, Thelma and Louise oohed to signal to the crowd this was a big deal.

“Now, fair warning, there is a splash zone! And some of you in the audience MAY get wet ... let me show you the line where it is POSSIBLE you will get a teensy bit wet,” Hurp held up his fingers closely together to indicate it would just be a smidge.

“This much?” Durp splashed his brother in the face.

“More than that,” Hurp said.

“THIS MUCH?” Durp asked excitedly as he cranked up the water pressure and really blasted Hurp in the face.

“A teensy bit more than that,” Hurp wiped his face away and spat out water.

“THISSS MUCH?” Durp was extremely gung-ho and cranked up the hose to full blast. His brother ducked out of the way, and Durp appeared to “Accidentally” blast the Fannybottom sisters. They groaned.

“About that much, yes.” Hurp agreed with a big grin. Then he walked toward the audience and after the first row said “anyone behind this line MAY get wet”

I wasn’t worried because I was in the third row.

“Also, this line,” Hurp immediately walked to the second row, and the third row, and the final row and said that those rows were also in the splash zone.

“Wait a minute, ALL the rows are in the splash zone?” Durp asked quizzically.

“Hypothetically, yes. I guess it depends on how big the splash is,” Hurp shrugged like he had absolutely no idea for certain. It was light-hearted and fun, so nobody was really scared.

“They better not actually get me wet,” Hope said.

“I don’t think any man can do that,” I shot her a left-handed put down that implied my sister was frigid.

“Okay, Hurp, the only girl you can get excited is your mom,” Hope said. That definitely shut me up. The people next to us laughed when they heard her say that.

The second contest was a “Belly Flop contest” that involved the girls jumping into the mud from the diving board face down. The “mud” was soft, wet and clay-like. It was hilarious watching the three volunteers actually do it. Betty was reluctant and she just didn’t make the jump. The guys didn’t make a big deal out of it.

Lola leapt into the mud with excited glee.

“Low-Low-Low-La! My Low-Low-Low-La,” Hurp sang, proving that not all of the show was scripted.

“Misty, My My, Misty! Misty!!!!!” Durp sang for my mom when she planted herself face first, ass up in the mud. My mom wasn’t wearing panties. The burlap bag was longer than her mini-skirt but when my mom face planted, it fell down and exposed her bare bottom. The audience had a huge laugh about that.

“Wardrobe malfunction,” Durp shouted nervously.

“Talk about moons over my hammy,” Hurp referenced a sandwich from Denny’s.

“Hey, what do Scotsman wear under their kilt, Durp?” his brother asked as they tried to take the focus away from my mom.

“Not panties, I’ll tell you that,” Durp said wryly. My mom’s flash was only momentary, but it was rather memorable as she adjusted herself. The Fanny Bottom sisters were on her in a moment and helped her up.

“It’s gonna be hard to follow that,” Durp admitted. The Fanny Bottoms fell together face first, stuck their butts up and because they were wearing bikinis, it was pretty fun to watch them eat the mud face first.

Prince John popped out to check on the contest. “How are my daughters doing?” he asked without walking over to the mud pit. The prince was holding a turkey leg and he took a bite.

“Winning!” Hurp and Durp held up their thumbs and assured their boss.

“Naturally! Let’s keep it that way, or it’s going to be your heads!” the Prince insisted while running a finger across his throat before returning to his hiding spot.

“Our heads?” Hurp sounded nervous.

“Well, we are not using them,” Durp shrugged as if that wasn’t a big deal.

Hurp agreed and helped the girls out of the pit. They asked for a big round of applause for everyone, and the crowd clapped thunderously. The guys sprayed the girls down, and occasionally acted detached and pointed the hose in our direction.

They became comically apathetic about spraying the audience. It was just a light splash, but it got some of us wet. “Did you just get that girl wet, Hurp?”
“Nay”

“It would be a first, if you did!” Durp implied his brother had never aroused a woman.

The crowd got a little rowdy when they got splashed again. “Hey you are sitting in the splash zone!” Durp warned us like we were dumb. “Don’t you the signs?”

There were no signs.

“Hurp, did you forget to put up the SPLASH zone signs?” Durp asked as he casually sprayed an arc of water splashing the muddy women in the put and all of us in the audience.

“I thought you were going to put up the SPLASH zone signs!” Hurp sprayed us as well.

“Well, just use the power of your IMAGINATION, there are signs clearly marked here and here that say SPLASH Zone, you should have heeded them!!” Durp laughed sadistically as he sprayed us all again.

They mainly focused on the women in the pit, who were writhing in the mud and getting nice and dirty.

“Yay, splash zone, so fun!” Durp didn’t even look in our direction and just held the hose out and sprayed one or two good sports in the audience, and then himself, and then the women in the pit again.

“Splash zone! Where the fun NEVER begins,” Hurp spun in a circle while holding the hose, but the spray of the water was nowhere near possibly reaching the first row.

“It’s time for the finale!” Prince John announced abruptly as if he had grown suddenly bored.

“The Finale!” three of the performers sang, and Hurp sang “The show must go oaannnnnnn,” out of tune, before looking around with a humiliated expression.

“Alright, is the Dragon of Angnor ready for the finale?” Durp asked Hurp.

“Is the Fire Breathing Dragon ready?” Hurp asked Thelma.

“Is the fearsome, beastly dragon prepared for devastation?” Thelma asked Louise.

Louise turned to ask someone. She saw no one, so she checked into a box. She held up a stuffed skunk and held her nose. “Uh ... it looks like the Wizard turned the Dragon turned into a smelly skunk”

“Does it breathe fire?”

“I don’t know, but please don’t make it easy!” Thelma wafted her hand in front of her nose and dropped the skunk like she smelled something really foul.

Hurp proudly waved his hand behind his ass, and took credit. “Oh, sorry! That was me.”

The crowd chuckled.

“Well, no dragon? How can we have a finale to declare a winner?” Durp said.

“What were we going to have a Dragon do anyway?” Hurp asked.

“Obviously, it was going to eat any of the virgins in the contest!”

That was the cue for Hurp to look at the women in the contest with a puzzled expression and declare them safe, before laughing out loud at the possibility that Thelma and Louise could be virgins. Naturally, they pretended to be virtuous and offended by the implication.

Prince John asked if there was a problem while counting his gold.

“Nay My lord, we just don’t have any virgins to feed to the dragon of Angnor!”

“What? What about my lovely daughters!”

The Fannybottom sisters giggled haughtily.

“Well, we wouldn’t dare feed THEM to the dragon, My Leige!”

“Good idea! Maybe we could feed their mother to the dragon!” Prince John laughed wickedly and went to hide. Not all of the jokes were laugh out loud, and that one was super corny. It was a real thinker, because I realized after the prince exited the stage that the implication was his wife was frigid and had become a virgin over time.