“Okay, so in this book, there’s an oil crisis. I apparently think the Earth has “given up” and that’s why there’s no more oil. So I am pretty stupid from the get-go, which is fitting because I’ll probably end up making stupid decisions. Stupid does as stupid is, to reverse the phrase.
My brother, Ned, is pretty sure something else is going on. Which makes me trust Ned at first. I mean, after all, to think that there might be something beyond the Earth “giving up” on providing oil seems like a sound leap to make.
When it’s decision time, we have to decide whether or not to go to Saudi Arabia and solve the mystery ourselves. I don’t know exactly how old we are, but we look to be in our early teens, based on Ned’s picture. Unless maybe I’m a lot older?
I made the decision by virtual coin toss, tossing “Todd Redden’s Decision Coin” to be specific. Apparently there’s this small market for coins that have been made for decision-making. I guess it’s probably small because, you know, you could just use any old coin. There are “Yes/No” coins, “Hell Yeah/Hell Naw” coins, “Fuck Yes/Fuck No” coins, and as with anything customizable that probably had more use in the 70’s, vaguely pornographic “Heads/Tails” coins that I probably don’t need to explain. But it’s a butt or oral. I said I didn’t NEED to explain, but that doesn’t mean I don’t WANT to.
We go to Saudi Arabia on our points. Apparently we do this sort of thing a lot, solve mysteries. In the Saudi airport, Ned becomes transfixed by mandalas and wants to just stay there and stare at them. He tells me to go check in to the hotel.
Let’s pause. I have a brother. We traveled internationally. If we got to the airport and he was like, “Dude, I’m going to stare at these designs. I’ve only seem them on lower back tattoos, so it’s cool to see them in another medium. Just go to the hotel, I’ll meet you there.” My response would be, “First of all, we’re staying in a hostel. I don’t know who you think you’re on vacation with, but them’s the breaks. Second, fuck you. Let’s go. Quit dicking around. We have a world crisis to solve here, and this is no time to spend a couple hours staring at anything.”
Anyway, Todd Redden’s coin decided me to go ahead and leave Ned. Who is promptly captured by some evil organization who overheard our mission. I guess they were so confident that we’d fuck up their evil plan that they captured Ned. They GREATLY overestimated us, to say the least.
I guess Todd Redden’s coin wasn’t a lot of help. And it doesn’t even have a sexy lady like that 70’s coin. Letdown. “