The Incredible Adventures of Melville Amsterdam and the Collapsible Ironing Board

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Chapter One: A Newfound Love

ONCE upon a time there was a man by the name of Melville Amsterdam, who was walking down the street, going to work. He worked in a factory that made left shoes. The factory next door made right shoes, but it had been closed. Hence, Melville was limping.

He had almost arrived at the factory when he saw it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw it. He had been walking right past a furniture store, one that he usually ignored because he was usually busy glueing a newspaper to his face (which was company policy). But today, he had forgotten to, and hence he saw the store out of the corner of his eye.

There it was, sitting in the display window. It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever laid eyes on. A collapsible ironing board, sitting in the display window, posing gorgeously. Melville was in love.

Chapter Two: A Newfound Glove

So he went into the store, determined to buy the ironing board that had captured his heart. He decided to quit his job right then and there, because he wanted to get married. He made a paper airplane with the words "I QUIT" on it, and threw it feebly in the direction of the factory, assuming his boss would find it and know what it meant.

There were two cash registers in the store. He asked a janitor why. The janitor said "One of them is booby-trapped, in case the soviets come and try to buy stuff here. If you go to one of them, you get shot in the face, and if you go to the other one, you'll get service." Melville was slightly alarmed by this, but decided it was worth taking the risk to be with the one he loved.

He walked up to one of the cash registers and said "I'd like to buy the ironing board in the window, please. I have two lollipops and a twig. And a pair of pants. And an arm."

The cashier said: "I'm afraid we won't accept that, sir. If you look at the price tag on the ironing board, you'll see that we won't accept any price lower than at least four peices of lint, four marbles, or a piece of an action figure."

Chapter Three: A Newfound Shove

Melville was out of luck. But he couldn't bear the thought of being separated from that gorgeous ironing board, so he reached into his pocket and pulled the twig out. He pointed menacingly at the cashier and said "I'm stealing that ironing board. Give it to me or I'll shoot!" The cashier burped. Melville screamed "BANG!!!!!" and cackled maniacally.

The cashier stared at Melville blankly. "I shot you! You're dead!" said Melville. "Oh, sorry, my mistake," said the cashier, and he started arranging his burial. Melville ran over to the window and said to the ironing board, "Well, you're all mine now! I bought you!"

A nearby old woman said, "What do you think she is, a prostitute? This store sells RESPECTABLE appliances, dude! If you want cheap action, go to the adults-only refridgerator club downtown!"

Melville was distressed by this comment for several seconds, before he remembered what he was doing and he folded up the collapsible ironing board, stole a backpack from a nearby shelf, and put her inside. "You and me are going to have so much FUN!" he said to the ironing board in his backpack as he wandered out into the street.

Chapter Four: A Newfound Ugg

Melville took the ironing board home, and set it up right next to his bed. He talked to it for eight days straight before realising it hadn't said anything back. "Shy, huh?" he said, grinning at his newfound lover, "Well, I think I know what might build up your confidence a little more."

He remembered what the old woman had said to him: "If you want cheap action, go to the adults-only refrigerator club downtown!" He decided to take the ironing board to this strip club, to try and loosen her up a little bit. He didn't have a fancy car to impress her with, so he settled on taping a picture of a Ferrari to his jacket and screaming "VROOM!!! VROOM!" as he walked the 700,000 miles to the club. It turns out that when the old woman had said "downtown," she had meant "Antarctica."

And so, Melville spent 50 years walking through South America. Of those 50 years, 30 were spent attempting to translate a Spanish "stop" sign, before he realized that the sign already contained an English translation.

Once he reached the southern tip of the continent, he decided to travel to Antarctica by riding the back of a penguin (he didn't notice the large sign that was 20 feet away from him that said "GET YOUR FREE BOAT RIDE TO ANTARTICA HERE!!!!")

He had decided to ride there penguin-back, and now all he needed was an obliging penguin. That's when he saw it. A 20 foot tall, plastic penguin outside a car dealership. He climbed up on top of the penguin, and sat there. "Take me to Antarctica!" he said. The penguin was unresponsive. Melville sat on top of the penguin for five months, sleeping the entire time. He finally woke up, and looked around.

"I must be in Antartica!" he said, as he eagerly jumped off the penguin, plummeting 20 feet to the car dealership parking lot below. Thankfully, a trampoline conveniently blew underneath him. Inconveniently, he missed it by several feet.

He got up, and realized that several of his bones were broken, so he bought some glue at a local store and smeared it over his wounds meticulously. Then, he pulled the collapsible ironing board out of his backpack. "Well," he said, "We're here. Antarctica. Now we need to find this strip club that old woman talked about. Hopefully, after some time in the strip club, you'll come to appreciate me a bit more, and will maybe build up enough confidence to talk to me."

Chapter Five: A Newfound Mug

But the trouble was, he didn't see a strip club anywhere. He was greatly puzzled by the fact that Antarctica looked exactly the same as the South American country he had just left. "There's got to be a refrigerator around here someplace!" he said, and then he saw it. It was actually a barrel of Oil, but it looked enough like a refrigerator for him to make the mistake.

"Let's go!" he said, and he carried his ironing board over to the barrel. "Okay, refrigerator," he said to it, stuffing one of his lollipops into the barrel, "My friend the ironing board is a bit tense, and needs to lighten up a bit. Can you give her a lapdance? A nice, gentle, relaxing one?" The barrel tipped over, which Melville took to mean a nod. "Excellent!" he said, "I'll give you two your privacy. I'm gonna call my mother and tell her where I am!"

And so, he wandered into a local hotel, where he asked the lady behind the counter, "Do you have a telephone?" She reached into her pocket and removed several can openers, a bazooka, a steak, and a wireless telephone.

Chapter Nine: A Newfound Pug

Melville took the phone and called New York. An operator picked up the phone. "May I help you?" she asked.

"Who are you?" asked Melville.

"I'm an operator. I'm not sure why I'm still employed, as operators are completely useless nowadays. I think they just forgot to fire me. After all, I am the only person who works in this old, abandoned building, and I do have to force my way into it every day in order to do my job, and I haven't recieved a paycheck in 15 years, but whatever. How may I help you?"

"Can you dial Louise Amsterdam for me?"

"Who?"

"Louise Amsterdam. She's my mother."

From the other end of the line, there was the sound of rustling papers, then a loud crunching. "What's that crunching noise?" asked Melville, and the operator responded, "Well, since this building is deserted, so therefore they don't serve meals, I just eat paper to keep myself alive. But back to the point, it appears that Louise Amsterdam doesn't exist."

"Um," said Melville, "Yes she does. She's my mother."

"She's not in the phone book!"

"Yes she is."

"No she isn't, sir. She doesn't exist."

"Yes she does, she's my mother!"

"No she isn't."

"Yes she is!"

"No she isn't!"'

"Yes she is!"

"No she isn't!"'

"Yes she is!"

"No she isn't!"'

"Yes she is!"

"No she isn't!"'

"Yes she is!"

"No she isn't!"'

"Yes she is!"

"No she isn't!"'

"Yes she is!"

"No she isn't!"'

"Yes she is!"

"No she isn't!"'

"Yes she is!"

"No she isn't!"'

"Yes she is!"

"No she isn't!"'

"Yes she is!"

"No she isn't!"'

"Yes she is!"

"No she isn't!"'

"Yes she is!"

"No she isn't!"'

"Yes she is!"

"No she isn't!"'

"Yes she is!"

"No she isn't!"'

"Yes she is!"

"No she isn't!"'

"Yes she is!"

"No she isn't!"'

"Yes she is!"

"No she isn't!"'

"Yes she is!"

"No she isn't!"'

"Yes she is!"

"No she isn't!"'

This went on for several hours, before Melville said, "Look, just call Warbler Apartments. That's where she lives."

"Okay," said the operator.

The phone rang for several seconds, and then a man said, "Hello, Warbler Apartments."

"Who is this? Are you the guy who works at the counter?"

"No, I'm a burglar, actually. I'm robbing the apartment building."

"Oh. Well, uh...do you think you can get me room 44B?"

"Sure, no trouble."

After a long pause, an old man picked up the phone.

"What?"

"Hey, you aren't my mother!" said Melville incredulously.

"Actually, I might very well be your mother," said the old man, "Are you a three foot tall midget with a wooden leg and an uncontrollable sweating problem?"

"Uhhhhh...no..."

"Okay, then I'm not your mother. What do you want?"

"I want to talk to my mother, Louise Amsterdam."

"Uuuuuh...she's dead. She's been dead for twelve years."

"Oh yeah! I forgot!"

Chapter Ten: A Newfound Chug

Melville hung up the phone and ran back out to where he had left the ironing board. But when he arrived, he was shocked to find that the ironing board wasn't there anymore! He looked up, and saw, to his horror, that several men were pulling the ironing board onto an oil tanker with a rope. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" he screamed at the man who was pulling it up. The man yelled something back in Spanish, which Melville immediately set to translating. After four hours, he narrowed it down to two possibilities: the man had either said "We need an ironing board because none of us oil miners have ironed our clothes for 3 years," or "I saw an elephant and a thumb tack, wheelbarrows! wheelbarrows!"

When Melville looked up to where the tanker had just been, he found to his horror that it had sailed away. The love of his life had been kidnapped! He had to find some way to follow that boat. He decided simply following the trail of leaked oil and dead fish that the boat left behind was too obvious; it was probably a trap. He also chose not to follow the 20 foot billboards saying "THE BOAT WENT THAT WAY YOU MORON," as he suspected that they, too, were only decoys intended to send him the wrong way. The world was in conspiracy against him!

He decided he needed the help of his dead mother. He thought of getting on a plane and flying back to the United States, but he decided that airplanes weren't trustworthy. He needed to go underground. Conceal himself from the oppressive system that was trying to keep him away from his beloved ironing board.

Chapter Eleven: A Newfound Slug

And so, he spent another 20 years (he spent 3 of them trying to zip his pants back up after peeing) walking all the way back up to New York City, where he knew his mother was buried somewhere. The trouble was, he had absolutely no idea where exactly his mother was buried. He figured it was in a graveyard somewhere, but he didn't know specifically which one she was buried in.

So he merely wandered around in the city, dissolving into tears every time he saw an ironing board. Which didn't happen very often, because nobody really uses ironing boards any more. But no matter.

After roaming around the city for several weeks, eating nothing but pigeons, disgarded hot dogs he found, and pieces of soggy, rain-soaked garbage he plucked out of gutters, he saw the biggest gravestone he had ever seen. He spent three days digging underneath it before he realized it had in fact been the Empire State building. So, he wandered into a nearby clearing and cried.

But then, he realized that this clearing was, in fact, a graveyard! He went from grave to grave, looking for one marked "Louise Amsterdam was my mother (I think). May she Rest in Peas." He didn't find the grave, but he did find one marked "Lucius Midkins IV, born 1789, died 1850." He decided, as "Lucius" and "Louise" both started with the letter L, that he could pretend they were the same person. So he dug up the grave, and found Lucius's skeleton.

"Mother! So great to see you again!" he said delightedly as he pulled the heavy skeleton out of the grave, smashing several pieces of it. "I need some advice. My girlfriend got kidnapped by the crew of a spanish oil tanker. What should I do?" The skeleton was unresponsive. Melville took this to mean, "Find that ship and fight until you've won your ironing board back!!!!"

"Okay, mother, I'll do just that!!!" he said, and he gently picked up Lucius's skeleton so he could take it with him on his quest. After traveling 20 feet and causing 13 heart attacks, he decided it might be advisable to stow the skeleton away somewhere, so he smashed it and put it in his backpack for storage.

Chapter Twelve: A Newfound Rug

He wandered into a nearby gun store and said "I'd like to buy the biggest weapon you have, so I can kill people." The man behind the counter said, "What do you mean, 'kill people'?"

"Uh," said Melville, "nothing."

"Oh, okay," said the man, "I'll go fetch you a flamethrower."

Melville was so delighted to hear this, he jumped in the air. But unfortunately, his backpack came unzipped at this exact moment, and Lucius's skull came spilling out onto the counter.

The man behind the counter looked alarmed. "Is that....a skull?"

Melville thought fast, and answered: "No, of course not, it's...uh...a shoe."

"Oh, okay."

Within five minutes, Melville had his flamethrower. He was out to rescue his collapsible ironing board once and for all.

He decided to search every single ocean until he found the boat he was looking for. He crammed the flamethrower into the backpack with the skeleton, and hurled himself off a pier into the icy waters of the ocean. After 5 months, he had swam through the entire New York harbor, and hadn't found anything. He struggled onto the shore of a nearby beach, numb.

Chapter Thirteen: A Newfound ^%$)))%$))$#)$$)$#)#@##

He realized just how difficult this task was going to be. How would he ever find this oil ship? Then it dawned on him. "I'll disguise myself as a puddle of oil!!!!" he screamed, frightening several tourists. He ran to a nearby paint shop to buy some black paint. Unfortunately, the only paint they had came in a brilliant shade of magenta, but he decided it would do. He dumped it all over himself, and ran back out onto the beach.

He ran back and forth, screaming, "I'm oil!!! I'm oil!!! DRILL ME!!! DRILL ME!!!" He continued this for a week. Then a month. Then a year. Soon, a crowd had gathered around him, saying, "Performance art! It's so realistic! So symbolic! So avant garde!!!" Melville was oblivious to this praise; he was too consumed by his desire to make himself as oil-like as possible.

As he continued his beachly frolicking, many came to think of him as a symbol of protest against the world's ever increasing reliance on oil. Artists from miles around would come to listen to his "poetry," to watch his "performance art," to paint pictures of him, to photograph him, or to pee on him (not sure why). Soon, the time of the next presidential election approached. He was nominated, and won 100% of the popular vote in the United States. However, he lost the electoral vote because of a dispute in Florida.

All of this he was completely oblivious to as he ran around screaming "I'm oil! I'm oil! DRILL ME!!! DRILL ME!!!" He could only think of one thing, and that was his darling ironing board, the only love he'd ever had. Meanwhile, he was recieving donations that numbered in millions of dollars. One day, he finally noticed how heavy his backpack was getting and decided to take it off, to make it easier for him to run around.

He was shocked by what he found inside. "MONEY!!!!" he screamed, to tumultuous applause from the nearby crowd, who took it as a shout-out against the wealthy. He took the money delightedly and ran off.

Chapter Fourteen: A Newfound Tendency to eat Olives and say "GALLOOP!"

Melville used his money to buy eight new flamethrowers and to hire somebody to find out the exact location of the oil tanker that had taken his precious ironing board.

After being given the location, Melville hired three private jets--one for him, one for the skeleton, and one for his flamethrowers--to fly him to the exact spot. When his airplane reached its destination, Melville leaped out and pulled the string to open up his parachute. The backpack he was wearing exploded, and he fell to the deck of the ship, in flames. He rolled around on the deck to put the fire out, then yelled up at the plane, "what the hell happened?"

The pilot yelled down, "That was the 'self destruct' cord! You wanted the 'open parachute' cord!" Then, the pilots of the other planes threw down the skeleton, and the flamethrowers, who both ironically used their parachutes perfectly. Melville picked up the flamethrower and pointed it at the captain of the ship.

"Give me my ironing board!!!!" he bellowed.

"Okay!" said the guard cheerily, "no problem!"

"Do you expect me to believe that you're just going to hand it over? What kind of idiot do you take me for, you rapist?" Melville shot the captain with the flamethrower, along with eight other crew members.

"SURRENDER NOW!!!!" he yelled.

All of remaining the crew members said "yeah, alright."

"What do you mean, 'yeah, alright'? Is that some sort of malicious code?" he said, as he shot the rest of the crew.

The man who had piloted the plane that took Melville here landed on the boat, and said, "Do you want me to fly you back, too?"

"NO!" said Melville, killing the pilot and blowing up his plane. An albatross flew overhead and squawked. Melville killed it.

Chapter Fifteen: A Newfound final error box off Google Images

Melville had killed every living creature on, or near, the boat. Now, he started scouring the ship, looking for his love. He ignored the box saying "THIS BOX CONTAINS A COLLAPSIBLE IRONING BOARD," because he knew it was a trick. That is, until 5 years later when, after searching every nook and cranny of the ship 800 times, he found that he had no choice. He opened the box. There, looking as radiant as ever, was the old ironing board.

On that day, they were married, the ceremony overseen by the skeleton of Lucius. Melville put the skeleton in charge of steering the ship, then turned to the love of his life, that glorious, gorgeous ironing board, shining arousingly in the sunlight. It fell over backwards. Melville took this as a beckoning gesture, and he took off all his clothes and dove eagerly on top of the ironing board.

This marked the end of Melville's adventure in finding love, and the beginning of a new adventure in sexual dexterity. But that's another story.

THE ENDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDddd.

See also

• The Incredulous Adventures of Melvin Hamsterdan and the Amazing Copy-right Ironing Board