"Bye, Mr. and Mrs. Abernathy." "I hope the retirement trailer park community is everything you saved for." "Oh, it will be." "Golden Endings is supposed to be lovely." "They say there's a bunny living there." "We hadn't seen Mrs. Abernathy in six months, and I thought she was already dead, so I was happy to see her alive." "They're going to die soon, aren't they, Earl?" "At least they'll be near a bunny." "I was also happy to see her leave, 'cause that allowed me to do#52 on my list." ""Dig up and return the buried treasure."" "It all started back when me and Joy were married." "Some families all get together and play Scrabble." "But since we couldn't spell, we would just go stealing." "If we steal enough stuff tonight, I'm getting a motorcycle." " No, you're not." " Yeah, I am." "You're not getting a motorcycle, dummy." "You broke your collarbone trying to drive a kid's Big Wheel." "No one ever talks about how I made it one mile down the highway on that Big Wheel." "They only talk about the collarbone." "We were bored of robbing our usual places like the hardware store and my dad's house so we chose a place we'd never been before:" "the library." "Come on, let's get to stealing." "Can I stay back here and be lookout?" "Why?" "I can't touch books." "You know how afraid I am of paper cuts." "They might as well make books out of knives." "And when I start crying, Joy's going to make fun of me." "You know, like how she does because I can't snap." "Are you coming or not?" "Randy's going to stay here and be our lookout." "Great." "Hey, if you see somebody coming, just snap." "Seriously, though, you need to give us a little whistle." "Damn." "In Camden County, the library was also the museum, so you could actually learn stuff there instead of just reading books." "I learned that day the official bird of Camden was a peacock." "And since it wasn't nailed down, I took it." "Randy!" "Peacock!" "Oh, snap." "Check it out." "Fancy forks and spoons." "Wow, this one's got holes routed through it." "Nice all cereal, no milk." "Wait!" "Now that we got fancy silverware," "I want us to eat like civilized human beings." "Join hands." "We going to dance?" "No, dummy, we're going to say grace." "Earl, deliver our blessing." "Lord.... thank you for allowing us to steal such nice silverware." "Uh... we..." "we promise to take good care of it, as we use it to eat all your creatures." "Amen." "...librarian is on..." "Check it out." "The library's on TV." "They broke the beak clean off of Zucker, our peacock." "Plus they stole the silverware that belonged to Philip C. Graber." "He was our famous Civil War General." "The silverware is worth $2,000." "We're rich!" "And it's prominently marked with a C." "The police have been alerted." ""C" for silverware, that's smart." "So we took the silverware to Jasper to sell it, but he had seen that old lady on the news, too." "Sorry, it's too hot." "And I can't give it to my silver guy, 'cause he got busted melting down a menorah." "They said it was a hate crime, but he just hated being poor." "Since the silverware was too hot for Jasper, the plan was to sit on it until things cooled off." "Randy dug the hole too big, 'cause he got confused and thought we were burying Jasper." "But all the next day I thought about getting a motorcycle." "If those fat twins from the world records book could each have one," "I didn't see why I couldn't." "So I came up with a plan." "Got to poop." "I wrote a ransom note to the library asking for $2,000, or I'd kill their silverware." "And to make them think I was a real sicko," "I even cut a nipple out of a nudie magazine and used it as a period." "Earl, you've been in there 20 minutes." "Yeah, yeah, I know." "I thought I was done, and then round two." "I'm just as surprised as you are." "Just turn the damn fan on!" "Okay." "Damn it." "I figured my ransom note would work a lot better if I could prove I had the hostage." "Luckily I had stolen a camera the week before." "So I took a picture of the hostage and another one of two crickets humping, and then reburied the silverware." "Fortunately for me, there's an unwritten rule at the trailer park:" "If you see someone burying something at night, you don't ask questions." "Looking back," "I'm surprised Joy didn't figure out I was up to something." "Mostly 'cause I'm a terrible liar." "Why are you so dirty?" "Horse." "Huh?" "Rode a horse." "Horses are dirty." "I got dirty while riding it." "What's the big deal?" "You don't get to tell me when I ride a horse and when I don't." "Well, you can go ride on the couch tonight, Pig Pen." "I was glad Joy kicked me out." "If I had stayed in there any longer," "I was afraid the subject of the silverware would come up and that was the last thing I wanted to talk about." "Earl, listen." "I got an idea about what we can do with the fancy forks." "Let me guess, Randy, a fork robot?" "No..." "Do you know how to make a fork robot?" "And I'm locking this door." "I don't want you sneaking back in and trying to put your dirty hands all over me." "Women." "They sure are loud, huh, Earl?" "Anyway, about the fancy forks." "Enough about the forks, I need some air." "I dropped off my ransom note that night and Dotty found it the next morning." "It scared the pee-pee out of her, which at her age, wasn't a hard thing to do." "So all I had to do was wait for Dotty to make the drop." "I told her to put two grand into a Chubby's Barbecue bag, and leave it in a trash can outside the old train station." "I had a close call when Joy drove by, but that smoker's cough was betterthan a cow bell around her neck." "Dotty was right on time, as old people and librarians tend to be." "Lucky for me, she was both." "I was a smart enough criminal not to go for the money right away." "Just in case anyone was watching." "I forgot to ask Randy what he was doing following that guy with the tight striped pants." "It was at that point," "I decided to forget about the whole scheme." "And don't worry, that homeless guy is on my list." "Especially since I've seen him around town, and he's still blue." "And looking back on it now," "I realize karma must not have liked what I did, 'cause it tried to kill me with an exploding bush." "Now that Joy's neighbors have moved away," "I can finally dig up the silverware and return it to the library." "There was only one problem." "I don't understand, Randy." "I could swear this is where we buried the silverware." "There was a reason Earl couldn't find that silverware, and I knew what it was." "You know the kind of guy who likes hanging out with his brother, watching cartoons and also likes to touch things with his tongue?" "Well, that's me." "I'm also the kind of guy who likes hanging out with his brother and watching cartoons." "Oh, wait, I-I already said that." "I also hold the Camden County record for staring at the sun." "My name is Randy." "My name is Randy." "I could swear we buried the silverware right here." "Maybe someone from China dug and got it from the other end." "I just think maybe I'm off by a few feet." "How did I know Earl wasn't going to find that silverware?" "I knew because I took it." "You're not getting a motorcycle, dummy." "You broke your collarbone trying to drive a kid's Big Wheel." "I was bummed that Joy wouldn't let Earl get a motorcycle, 'cause I always wanted to ride in a sidecar." "But I was even more bummed that Earl and Joy were fighting, 'cause when they fight, it always gives me a tummy ache." "But after we stole some fancy silverware from the library, everyone started being happy again." "Randy!" "Peacock!" "There was nothing better than when everyone was getting along." "Except for when I was staring at a spoon, and a little, tiny, upside-down Randy with a crazy forehead was staring back." "But it didn't last." "We couldn't sell the silverware because it was too famous." "I guess we would have had the same problem if we stole that Webster kid from Diff'rent Strokes." "We went from everybody getting along, to nobody talking, and that's when my tummy started hurting again." "I got to poop." "I guess Earl's did, too." "Whenever I was alone with Joy, it made me nervous." "And when I get nervous..." " I got to pee." "After I got away from Joy," "I went to meet up with Darnell for what I call "idea time."" "Nerf sidewalks." "That's what I'm talking about." "That is man I was telling you about." "That guy stole silverware?" "He is not brains of operation." "Oh, he's muscle." "He's more like butt." "You mean, if I only had two grand I could turn it into 20 overnight?" "Well, I'll see if I can find new investor." "Hello, friend." "You may have heard me speaking to my high-level business contact in Russia." "Would you be interested in turning $2,000 into $20,000?" "Yeah." "But I don't have $2,000." "Do you have anything worth that much?" "No." "Are you sure?" "Maybe some..." "Cutlery?" "What's cutlery?" "Silverware, of value." "Forks, knives..." "I don't even care if it's stolen." "Hey!" "So we made plans to meet later that night." "I couldn't wait to get home to tell Earl how I met a man who sounded like Count Chocula and looked like Frankenberry." "But the important thing was, he was going to make us rich." "I tried to talk to Earl, but he was distracted by Joy's yapping." "Listen to her, yappity-yappity-yappity." "Women, they sure are loud, huh, Earl?" "Anyway, about the forks..." "Enough about the forks, I need some air." "I knew something was wrong with Earl because I was pretty sure there was air in here, too." "He left because he was mad, and so was Joy." "If I ever wanted my tummy to stop hurting," "I had to sell the fancy forks on my own." "So later that night, I snuck out." "I dug up the silverware so the businessman could send it to Russia." "I wondered who that guy was selling his silverware to." "You got?" "This is good." "I worried you no show." "I leave town soon." "But how am I going to get my money?" "Oh, right." "Tomorrow, you meet my associate at old train station." "How will I know it's him?" "Just ask for person who has... the stuff." "So the next morning," "I went to the old train station to get the money." "Do you have the stuff?" " Do you have the stuff?" " Get away from me." "I'm just here to do what the note said, even though the spelling was atrocious." "Spare some change?" "Sorry." "But if you're hungry," "I just saw a lady throw away a Chubby's bag." "It looked pretty full." "Thanks, buddy." "Do you have the stuff?" "Pardon?" "If you have the stuff, I want it, can you give it to me?" "You do have the stuff, don't you?" "Oh, I have got the stuff, kitten." "Great, where should we do it?" "Well... there's a little gazebo right over there." "Come on." "Police!" "Freeze!" "Don't move!" "The stuff he had was the same as the stuff I already had, so I got the hell out of there." "The point is, I never got the money." "And that's how I knew Earl wouldn't find the silverware." "It's not here, Randy." "I'm sure we buried the silverware ten paces from the tree." "We were drinking that night." "Did you try ten drunk paces?" "I'll give it a shot." "He might be off by a couple of feet, but when he does find that box, he won't like what's inside." "Idiot." "You know the kind of woman who could have been the next Faith Hill, but somewhere along the way discovered peach daiquiris, put her diaphragm in wrong, and wound up smack dab in the middle of trailer hell raising two kids?" "Yet she still manages to look hot and you could bounce a quarter off her butt, 'cause you've got to take care of yourself, I mean, come on." "Anyway, that's me." "My name is Joy." "My name is Joy." "There were two reasons I knew Earl wouldn't find what he was looking for." "One, he was wasted, and two," "I got to it first." "We stole some silverware from the library, but it was too hot to sell, so we agreed to let it sit in the dirt for a few years." "I got to poop." "But then people started acting real weird." "Earl never reads in the bathroom." "He uses that time to make the cockroaches race." "Then Randy started acting even weirder." "You know, guilty-like, but trying to hide it." "Like that face O.J. made when he was putting on that glove." "I got to pee." "Those two dummies were definitely up to something behind my back, and I didn't like it." "And I'm locking this door!" "I don't want you sneaking back in and trying to put your dirty hands all over me." "I was going to make sure" "I stole that stolen silverware from them before they stole it from me." "I took the good stuff, and replaced it with some crap from home that way, if those two dummies tried to sell it behind my back, they'd be screwed." "* Take away this ball and chain... *" "Oh!" "Dumb ass." "Since I couldn't sell the stuff as is," "I decided to melt it." "I figured turning silver into silverware was probably the hard part." "But turning the silverware back into silver that I could sell was going to be easy." "But I was wrong." "What do you mean, you can't take it?" "Joy, this town is crawling with those Civil War reenactment guys trying to find this stuff." "And the ones from the South would love nothing better than to find it with me." "I was upset Jasper wouldn't take the silverware, but I can only stay upset for so long when my girl Faith is on the radio." "* Caught up in the touch,* *the slow and steady rush *" "* Baby, isn't that the way that* *love's supposed to be?" "*" "* I can feel you breathe *" "* Just breathe. *" "So I was forced to rebury the silverware, but in a different spot, where Earl and Randy would never find it." "It was a special place because it was the exact spot where I was standing when Earl Jr. was conceived." "I can't wait to see their faces when they dig up that box and see what's inside." "What's so funny, baby?" "That lady put her big granny panties on the clothesline again?" "We should go over and get in them together and take a picture for our Christmas card." "Earl thinks he's going to find some silverware we stole a while back." "But I stole it out from under him and hid it by the big rock out back." "Oh, yeah?" "Yeah." "I tried melting it down until it was all black and gross but, underneath, it was pure silver." "It's kind of like my safety net." "I like knowing it's there just in case I ever need to jump bail and head for Mexico, or I see a pair of shoes I like." "I didn't have the nerve to tell Joy that silver wasn't where she thought it was." "You know the kind of guy who graduated college at 14, is a virtuoso cellist, and can identify 254 varieties of cheese in a blind taste test, but can't reveal any of that because he's in the Witness Protection Program?" "Well, that's me." "Don't tell anyone I told you this." "My name is... well... you better just call me Crabman." "When Mr. Fish died," "I thought I'd bury him in a place he would like." "It was a special place where I took Joy on our first date." "Sorry." "I thought the pepper was the fish food." "I know that couldn't have been an easy way to go." "But if it's any consolation, I put the fish food on my eggs." "It didn't kill me though." "Sorry." "* You're gonna lively up yourself *" "* And don't be no drag *" "* You lively up... *" "It looked like it was from some ancient civilization, possibly Paleolithic, though it appeared to have been struck with a cylindrical object that wouldn't have been invented until the Bronze Age." "So I decided to take it down to the museum." "I thought I'd bring them in here since you're the expert." "I'm pretty sure it's just trash." "But we still have some room in our display case." "Earl wasn't the only one who would never find his silver." "Neither would Joy." "That's what they get for trying to screw with me." "And I sure wasn't going to be the one to tell her." "I never said it out loud, but that bitch is crazy." "I don't know what happened, but it's not there anymore." "I felt bad because I didn't know what Earl could do about the thing on his list." "There was only one thing I could do." "I'd like to make a donation." "Oh, honey, we don't sell weed here anymore." "That man got fired." "I know." "Tito was a friend of mine." "I wanted to make an actual cash donation." "You know, to make the library a better place." "Oh." "All righty." "I'll get the shoe box." "Hey, Earl, check it out." "They found something that belonged to cavemen right here in Camden." "That's when I realized why I couldn't find the buried treasure." "I still, to this day, don't know how it got there, but at least it meant I could cross #52 off of my list." "You know the kind of woman who seems like the quiet librarian, but, when she removes her pencil and lets her hair fall down, she looks all wild and sexy?" "I wish that was me." "My name is Dotty."