Retreat into Madness Part 2: The Dungy Baker's Dozen

Ultimately there would be no premature exodus for me escaping "the Ranch," I would have to plow onward until my sentence was though. If I was going to stay, I figured I would have to mill around the courtyard and try to make nice with my fellow inmates. Apparently not many of them made lasting impressions with me, as most have blown away from my memory like a sneeze into an air-duct. Though most are gone, a few remain locked away in my mind-grapes.

Apparently those who sponsored the retreat were part of a worldwide organization, so there were imprisoned children from all over Rand McNally, rather reminiscent of that prison movie I referenced in the previous blog entry. There were two foreigners who I remember the most, a Dutchman who's name escapes me, so let's call him Jacques, as he was from the French border, and had a largely French accent. The other was a Swiss, likely named Johann or something; he was largely less noticeable as a foreigner, his accent was then, and looked like any other American youth. I'm assuming there were other alien children, seeing as there was more than one hundred in attendance, and both Jacques and Johann were both in my activity group.

Wondering what sort of activities we had to go though? Well, I'll tell you. There was the usual group talk mumbo jumbo, wherein you sit in a circle and talk about your alleged "feelings" and make visual representations of teamwork using carpet samples or some other malarkey. I was always lacking in these activates, as years of diligent training had led me to no longer have those human actions known as "feelings." So, as people would go around the group and speak about how we think hugs could end ethnic wars in foreign countries, or something. Whenever it became my turn to speak, my response would always disappoint, people would end up pouring their hearts out, over what was essentially nothing. Following their sob stories with my torpor towards the activity may have insulted their feelings, simply because I didn't have some tear jerker of a story to tell a group of strangers. Well, excuse me for being a robot!

Thankfully there were also some physical activities to be bad, seeing as we were in a large activity ranch, I suppose it made some sense. I think we spent an entire day out and about, doing physical labor, and being prohibited from eating or drinking anything. Unfortunately, I can only really remember a few of the things we did on that day.

One challenge given to us was to pass though a large rubber tube that had one end tied to a telephone poll, and the other being moved in a circular motion by one of the team leaders. You would have to time your movements just right, if not you would get a large smack in the back, and be forced to retry it, until you went through unsaved. I was the last to go, and being the maverick that I was, I decided to try another way around the double-dutching tube of death. I used my brains to analyize the trap, and noticed that the tube moved the least on the end tied to the poll. Grivously, my actions were far from graceful, as I flopped around on the ground like a fish until I bypassed the poll. Many a lady swooned that day.

The other activity I can recall was a mock minefield; the more I remember the more I believe that this retreat was just a front to recruit soldiers into the French Foreign Legion. We were taken to a secluded area in the woods surrounding "the ranch" and shown a obstacle course of sorts, which we were told was a mine field. The group of candidates were split into pairs, one of which would be blindfolded, while the other would shout directions of how to cross the field, without being dismembered. Thankfully I was paired up with the Swiss kid, who spoke fluent English, while he who was with the Dutchman, I can't say was as fortunate.

Retreat into Madness Part 1: The Baseless Escape

I may have already mentioned in posts made long ago, that I was always labeled as a "leader" by people in charge of my education. This label never really seemed to suit me, people never listened to what I had to say, and I preferred (and still do) not to actually deal with people, as I found them agitating, and chaotic as a bag of rabid mudskippers. Yet, despite my overt distain for being pushed to take charge, I was still pointed at and told that I should take charge. Eventually I was "persuaded" to attended a leadership retreat sponsored by the Rotary club, boy what a weekend it turned out to be.

The event was held at Newcomb's tennis ranch, which thankfully was only a fifteen minute drive from my hometown, so it's not as though I was to be banished to a smelly Radio Shack in the Australian Outback. Anyhow, I was herded into the registration area on Friday night, I suddenly was overwhelmed with a feeling of despair. I never really wanted to go, but at this point my feelings of wanting to back out reached its zenith. I felt as though I was a Soviet scientist planning on defecting, on my way to the border, only to find that you were being delivered to the KGB, instead of freedom from the Iron Curtain. The darkness only added to the ambiance, with only the soft glow from the building illuminating the silhouettes of the activity leaders becoming me to misery. Unfortunately I was unable to turncoat and run.

Anyhow, the actual retreat was okay when we did activities, unlike the ACTS retreat I went on, we didn't have people tell their personal stories and burst into tears. But, there was an over abundance in pep, which I don't mix entirely well with, especially when I was overly pushed into being peppy as well. The area in which we slept was reminiscent of a World War 2 prisoner camp, as seen in films like The Great Escape, and Chicken Run. So, in a sense it was a cult compound that force fed people with peppiness until they conformed, and smile brilliantly. I had to escape... But though a combination of not having a thorough plan, and laziness, I didn't not escape. Though thinking back I probably could have walked home, it would have taken an hour or two, but the tennis ranch wasn't too far away from New Braunfels, where I lived. Though the prospect of simply walking home in the dark wasn't as exciting as racing a gang of Nazis on motorcycles to the Swiss border. But there was one person I knew of that did escape from the madness that was the leadership retreat.

During our assigned feeding times we were forcibly told to sit with someone different individuals, I'm guessing in an attempt to quash any possible rebellions. One of the evenings I was trying to down some rather watery spaghetti while sitting next to a rather ponderous fellow, whom I had not seen socializing with anyone throughout my captivity at "the ranch," perhaps there was one who wanted to be there less than I? I remember spending the meal at the end of the table having to try and make conversation to the people on my left, for on my right lay a mute beast who decided to be as loud as possible without speaking. So, the meal continued onward with me hearing various slurps and chewing noises behind me, afraid to turn around as I may see a rancor eating one of Jabba's dancers.

Anyhow, after a night haunted by nightmares about a rather large sobbingly eating beast, I continued to the next day without having to see he who is without table manners, for a while. However during a lunch of gruel and capers I looked out the front windows to see a familiar shape placing a suit case into the trunk of a car, then shuffling inside the automated-mobile. By the hammer of Thor! The bastard had done it; somehow he had found a way to escape the fortress of cheery-tude. Had he set fire to the Australians practicing tennis? Or funded illegal snail jousts? It is a mystery that I don't believe I shall ever solve. As he rode away in quiet victory, I turned back to stuff another span of time at "the ranch."

Pork Chops and a Possible Faux Irish

Asado is a technique for cooking cuts of meat, usually consisting of beef alongside various other meats, which are cooked on a grill (parrilla) or open fire. It is considered the traditional dish of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile and southern Brazil. (definition from Wikipedia)

This was my last meal eaten upon the evening of the first Friday of December in the year of two-thousand and ten. I chauffeured myself to my friends Ricky and Tracy’s house for supper, and entertainment via Mystery Science Theater 3000. As I entered Ricky sat at the kitchen table chopping up portions of a hog like a street side butcher in Vienna during the 1900’s. Though he had all of the ingredients necessary to make the meat portion of the meal, we didn’t have any tortillas to go with the meal.

As Ricky was cooking the young lass Tracy and I ventured off to the local grocery store in search of unleven Mexican bread and some cow’s milk to make some hazelnut cocoa with. Being early December, stores are splattered with flashes of red and green in a vain attempt to force people into celebrating Jesus’ birth, but you know, without the Jesus part. Tracy and I spoke of Christmas trees of years past, and how as we grew older our relatives traded in for a more artificial stock, extending the whole plasticly-fakeness that goes with Christmas when you become an adult.

The store had felt the need to have two out of it’s three doors closed, causing a proper fire hazard. We journeyed forth to the baked good section, Tracy used her optic spheres to spot what she believed to be miniature Christmas trees. Yet, as it happened they were simply rosemary bushes, leaving the both of use feeling quite the fool.
We scurried away in embarrassment.

We did eventually find some pine trees, but they were a little on the Charlie Brown side. But, no amount of flailing our arms wildly made it any better. For a reason unknown to us, the pine needles were decorated with a fine layer of sparkly glitter elements. The best I could muster was that a fairy drank too much raspberry vinaigrette and had a liquid laugh in the arboretum.

Following our arboreal observations we each took our one dairy, and one baked product and scuttled off to the registers. Our cashier was a squat young man with a bush of brown hair adoring his head. Overall all he was unremarkable, except for the fact that he spoke with a an Irish accent. Solely based on my aural skills his accent was pretty good, used the soft vowels, and dropped the “h” in any words containing a “th” at the beginning, they were both there.

He almost had the two of us fooled, except that what sprang from his noise hole was not something that sounded like an Irishman, but rather a crappy television stereotype of an Irishman. I revealed him that I was partially Irish, and he started asking things like “you like fighting a lot of people?” and “You like drinking?” This these things that were usually attributed to the Irish by people who made them build the railroads out to California with the Chinese. Following his statements I replied with a “no,” but I said I did suffer from the crippling Irish guilt, like all mean from the Emerald Isle. He seemed to not know of what I was speaking. As a result Tracy and I became rather skeptical of whether or not he was what he made himself out to be. I decided that he wasn’t. An Irishman without Catholic guilt? That’s like a comic by Stan Lee without an excessive amount of exclamation marks.

Days of Pinewood Thunder

I come from a line of men who had achieved the all-high title of becoming an Eagle Scout, my brother was one, and my father before him. Perhaps there were others before them, but I can’t be bothered to look back any further in my family line, as that requires a mild amount of effort. Though I never made it to the rank of Eagle Scout, I was a member of the Boy Scout’s equivalent to pre-school: the Cub Scouts. Though I would never reach the ranks of men such as Gerald Ford and Elmo Zumwalt, I could still make one hell of a balsawood aero plane (provided easy to read instructions were included) and design some pretty creative Pinewood Derby cars.

Life as a Cub Scout wasn’t exactly as hard as living as a serf in the middle ages, but it had its ups and downs making construction paper turkeys did take its toll on me after a while. We would meet once a week, usually at someone’s garage, though perhaps sending a group of children to a stranger’s domicile wasn’t perhaps the best idea of how to get the kids out of the house on Saturday afternoons. The actual activities we did remain a mystery to me, perhaps they were so traumatizing that my brain blocks it all out so I can’t be bothered by it.

I seem to remember participating in some kind of contest were we would have to accomplish, like bird watching, knot tying, personal hygiene, and finding mint vinyl records of Roger Whitaker’s entire body of work. Anyways, following some kind of assignment, we would be rewarded a certain number of points, with which we could redeem for a (not so) fabulous prize. Then for a few weeks of taking on assignments to do the things Cub Scouts do like, wildlife exploration, delivering small packages to the backs of warehouses, and continuing the search for Jimmy Hoffa. Eventually I was able to choose a prize from the fabulous selection of assorted crap that which likely didn’t cost much money, so that the den mothers could spend the money on online poker (which didn’t exist back then.)

I eventually spent my hard earned points on a Nickelodeon trademarked wide-ruled notebook. Why you ask? Well I will give you a speculation of mine. I had enjoyed the life luxury known as basic cable in my early childhood, but then came the dark ages. During a several year stint, my parents decided to no longer pay for cable, and had our television reduced to a measly twenty channels, including three Spanish-language networks, and Catholic public access. In my desperation for children’s entertainment, I grabbed the notebook, believing that inside there would be a screen which would play any of the network’s shows at my leisure. Alas it was just a regular notebook which I filled with crap like this:
As previously stated, I am lacking in the physical ability department, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a productive individual. What I lacked in physical prowess I could usually make up with creative skill, or whininess. Every year there would be a Pinewood Derby competition amongst the regional Cub Scout dens, where in we would see who could design the fastest car. When assembling you car, there were two kits, one which contained a solid block with pegs, weights, and wheels, for when you wanted to carve your own design for the car. Or you could simply take the pre-cut car and paint it whatever color you want (these are what the loser kids used). I am no expert in aero dynamics, but I did know how to change a block of wood into something a bad art critic would deem to be a masterpiece.
My first car I had transformed into a cartoon cat and dog watching a television while sitting on a purple couch. The cat and dog were a toy I had received from Taco Bell kid’s meal, as opposed to an extra cup of cheese, which became an unwanted item during some visits. Though the car wasn’t exactly the Mach 5, it did catch the judges eye, enough so to win me first prize in the most creative design competition, a prize awarded so that the socially awkward kids would have something good to feel about. The following year I entered in again to see if I could once again obtain the title of “most creative design,” falling in line with the previous year’s motif, my second car included kittens bowling. Daring, if not strange. I eagerly awaited for the judges to call my name, but alas like all my childhood dreams, it was crushed, preventing me from ever daring to dream again. But the thing that grinds my grits the most is that the kid who won the most creative award, obviously didn’t design it himself, his dad did it, or his dad paid some Audi mechanics to design it for him.

Alejandro's Anti-Amazing Athletic Adventures No. 3: The Wally Whale

Though I was not the most athletic of children in the greater New Braunfels, and Comal county area as a lad, I did participate in a series of sport related teams, all of them losers. During what I believe to have been the summer afternoons following fifth or sixth grade, my mother would take me along to the Landa park pool, where I was forcibly entered into the world of underwater gladiator battles. It was either that, or the local swim team.

If it is not currently a publicly known fact; was heavier set as a young adolescent than I am today, despite the fact that I have somehow grown up to be a human-lemur hybrid. My physical stature prevented myself from being terribly strong, adept, agile, or quick, so I would have to use my wits to move ahead in sports. Perhaps I should have been entered into a crochet class instead, as my lack of natural talent might be better applied to making hats and tea cozies.

Anyhow, I was forced onto a local swim “team” which had practice every day in the eastern side of the Landa Park Olympic pool. Why I was entered into this particular athletic activity still remains a bit blurry, like an Avant Guard film’s still life image. But, the reason more than likely was that my mother would have been at the pool anyways, and she didn’t want me sitting at home watching the Pokey-mans during the afternoon after my book learnings. So, there I was placed upon the concrete slab which surrounded a rectangular body of water which may or may not contain a certain yellow liquid within its walls, and I wasn’t about to dive in with my mouth and nostrils agape.

I remember there being three coaches, a man I may falsely remember as being named Doug, a overly tan woman, and an old man who was possibly at one time an Olympic swimmer, but I never saw him get into the water. Come to think of it, I don’t believe that any of the coaches got into the water, not even to show a swimmer how to properly perform a swimming stroke. This lack of interactivity is likely what led me to dislocate my shoulder for the first time, whilst mid-stoke.
I was assigned to do several laps using the butterfly stroke, wherein one propelled themselves forward by turning their arms in a circular fashion with them out in opposite directions. This movements requires a great deal of strength in your shoulder muscles, otherwise you will simply look quite the fool flopping about slowly in the water. About midway though a lap, I attempted to further myself through the water when I felt something happening to my left arm. The sensation isn’t entirely describable, just imagine squeezing a baseball until it pops out of your hand, that’s essentially what happened to my left shoulder. There I was in the water, wounded and unable to continue utilizing the stoke which had initially debilitated me. I believe this was a good sign for me give retirement a try.
Though we were dubbed a “team,” I don’t recall us ever competing against any other group of swimmers. Perhaps they felt I was simply a novelty and would only bring me along to their meets if they knew they were going to come in dead last, and they didn’t want the good swimmers to be embarrassed. As we were a “team,” we were given a mascot, and predictably it was a dolphin (big surprise.) As previously stated, I was far from the thinnest child about, so being hydrodynamic was not in my design. The rest of the male swimmers were of a slim build, and always equipped a pair of Speedos for a reduction of traction in the water, I would not follow in their example. There was a kid who was later to become my semi-friend who always felt the need to point out me being heftier than the rest of the water urchins. He would often remark “We are all the dolphins, but you’re; The Whale.” While cocking his head back to look up to the sky as if to see whether or not the all knowing seagull god was pleased with his insult.

Alejandro's Anti-Amazing Athletic Adventures No. 2: Bodgedall!

Like most American students in the nineties and early two-thousands, I was subjugated to the humiliation factory that was dubbed “P.E.” which we all know stands for Philistine Experimentation. In actuality it stands for “physical education,” though it wasn’t particularly educational, it was required as some way of combating the ever-looming threat of becoming a human sausage that wears ill fitting shorts. So, once a day we would be herded into the gym where we would be given some kind of activity that might get the blood pumping and minds focused on our learning of how “simile” is spelled.

Anyhow, the children of my generation were still subject to torture by way of the child killing blood sport known to the world as “dodge ball.” This “sport” has been deemed so vile and savage that, many states now ban it’s use as a way to break children, and train them to become future soldiers in the war against the non-existent flying elephants. The version of the sport I played was fairly standard in it’s rules. The class was divided into two nearly equal teams, now by equal I mean equal in numbers, not in ability. Why it wasn’t uncommon for the gym teachers to place the athletic kids across from the geeky kids and band nerds, just to see them get pummeled into dust just for their own sick entertainment.

Dodging the balls reached it’s zenith during my sixth grade year, which I spent at Oak Run state penitentiary. My three gym teachers would usually find some kind of activity for the class to perform some kind of activity that included some kind of running around. The two most popular activities were indoor base ball (which featured 30 outfielders) and of course dodge ball. So, we would play the now banned sport an average of two times a week, I’m not sure how any of us children survived the horrid onslaught which was known to emotionally ravage most of middle-America.

Unlike in the olden days when the balls used were composed of a thick rubber material which pronounced a rather loud “ffuthummmm!” whenever they made contact with a surface, whether it be a brick wall or a child’s face. Yet, when it came time for me to come of age and step into the arena of death, they had been replaced with a much softer counterpart. The balls we used were comprised of foam, and a rather thin pleather covering, which came in two colors red, and blue. After about a week of use the foam balls were very likely to be skinned through many impacts with young children’s faces and kneecaps, so they became shapeless masses of foam flying about the gymnasium.

Seeing as I wasn’t the most athletic of students, it was more often than not that I wasn’t the most effective player of the game. The foam balls were apparently manufactured in a way that only children who played baseball professionally could throw them with any accuracy or strength. Try as I might, my noodley arms were unable to project the ball in a straight line, or at a speed faster than a moseying panda bear. The rules of the game state that if a ball is thrown and caught by an opposing player before it hits the ground, the person who through the ball is out. Following this guideline, I found it much more productive to leave the throwing to the fit kids. Where as I would go on to become the world’s fifth most important Star Wars fan, they would just become regional sales managers. Chumps.

Over the course of the school year, we were bound to play dodge ball more often than a southern state feels the need succeed, the coaches felt the need to spice things up a bit. So, there would be variations of the game, where the allotted lines of moment for players was changed up, or we were all required to wear Tibetan hats while playing. The main name I remember for a variation on the game was called “Queen Bee,” wherein we would have the standard separation, but one kid on each side would be required to wear a florescent vest. As if the vest wasn’t punishment enough, it was a rule that the opposing side could only win if they hit that person with the ball.

As a whole I usually lasted fairly far into the game, as I didn’t usually throw the balls, and rarely attempted to catch them. This came to become a fairly interesting point when in that particular sixth grade class it came time to play a game of Queen Bee, where Danielle (the girl of my interest) was the queen and I was on her side of the court. The game went underway and slowly the rest of the team was eliminated and only I and Danielle were left, any twelve year olds dream come true.

The coaches decided to try and finish the game quicker by allowing the opposing side to move up to a distance were she and I were only a meter away. As we moved around trying to catch the balls being hurled at us, I had to stand in front of her so that I would absorb any accurate throw. Yet, alas! After months of being quite clumsy, I at long last was able to have a proper reflex reaction to an object being thrust at me. So I heroically dodge a ball, which whizzed past me and smacked Danielle right in the face. Super-smooth wasn’t I?

Musing On Being Alejandro

During my fifth of a century of life, it has become rather apparent that I am a beta male. This ranking has led me to a series of personality quirks and various physical reactions to external stimuli. The life of a beta male is most dangerous while in middle school, where the hormones leave their training academy and head for the front lines. This is the time in which the alpha and beta males begin their great schism, the alphas went on to bulk their muscles and reigned over the females of the school, and the betas retreated to their caves and began to whine.
I being a fairly low ranking beta male did not exit my pupal stage until after my teen years, which is not the most fortunate of times to leave metamorphosis as a rather large and unseemly moth. Before you go about saying “that’s not true!” and all of that other clap-trap, you need to stop taking me so seriously and continue reading. Now, where was I? De Nang?
As expressed in my previous blog, I apparently lack the proper combination of pheromones to attract any females that don’t spend four hours a day watching reruns of Oprah from 1992, and eating tubs of processed cheese. So, I’ve began to try and rely on my outright witticisms to attain the eyes of the ladies, but unfortunately for me they are quite tightly stuck inside their sockets. Though in recent years since emerging from my cocoon I have done my best to make myself less garish and unsightly to look upon it’s seems not enough to make women take interest in me. So instead I have built a device from a used toaster oven and a series of misused Christmas lights to make myself more interesting, but it only left me unevenly cooked and half-lit.

The only time in recent memory that anyone took an interest in me after hearing my voice was during my adventures with my compatriots Laura, Linzie, and Nicole last week. Upon Laura, Linzie, and I’s return from the utterly unspicy food of a local Thai restaurant to Nicole speaking with her mother on the phone. When we got settled in our seats Laura and Linzie got to talking about something while I stared off into space (one of my greatest skills), yet at some point I said a handful of sounds that may have been formed into a fractured sentence. For description sake, I will say that I was having an internal discussion with my brain over what my favorite middle-eastern fruit was.
Apparently the few syllables that escaped my larynx was able to move across the apartment to the kitchen and into Nicole’s phone. As my nasally whines were sent by satellite to another part of the country it apparently registered as “man” in the mind of the mother on the phone, a common mistake to be made. She then inquired her daughter; “is there a boy there?” with some anti-hesitance as apparently it was assumed that I was someone who resembled a young Clive Owen, as opposed to being a modern day Ed Grimley.
Now, you might wonder what the point of all that was? Well to tell you the truth I don't know either, but you still bothered to read it, maybe I just felt the need to waste your time by making you read some inane gibberish in run-on sentences. Anyways, despite all of the weirdness that I exhume, and lack of testosterone I am becoming mildly well adjusted with the moth I have turned into. And thinking about it, even if I don’t always enjoy who I am, I don’t think I would rather be anyone else. Except for maybe this kid.

A Breif History of Time and Space, and Poke-e-Mans.

Back when I was a wee lad, I was one of the millions of American children to fall prey to the Japanese phenomena known as Pokémon. From television, to video games, to cards, you were never far from an image of one of these “pocket monsters.” I was in the fifth grade when I started my fascination with those one hundred and fifty one battling creatures. As my parents never bought me a Gameboy for any occasion, I had to settle for the card game, which thankfully my compatriots also partook in. The simple joy that came when opening a booster pack of those vibrantly colored pieces of paper, it was like Christmas, only more disappointing. Though the thrill that came when I opened that cellophane package and saw that glittered sparkling of a holographic shinning light up at me, was far above any experience.

In fifth grade, my entire class was hit by the brutal force of Pokémon hit my classmates and myself in full. Within the halls, and cafeteria the adventures of one Mr. Ash Ketchum and his comrades; Brock a man who apparently stared into the sun until his eyelids welded shut, and his red-haired friend Misty were widely discussed. I remember one occasion when I brought my card collection to school to show my friends once recess time came around. Well around the time recess normally came, it did. As we all got up to go and play on the neon colored slides and, play kickball on heavily uneven teams, I grabbed my green photo album which I kept my cards in. “Why are you taking your binder to recess?” asked Mrs. Ansorge as I stopped to answer the question. I explained to her that I was going to show my collection of Pokémon to my chums in the school yard. She looked at me as though she just found me sitting on top of a pile of narcotics, with illegal fireworks in one hand, and pornography in the other. The punishment for the pseudo-offence was light admonishment, which left me feeling more confused than punished.

A year or so after the incident at school, a small shop had opened up downtown which contained exclusively Pokémon products. The store was run by a small Japanese woman, who from what I could tell was a frequent customer of the tobacco shop located next door, as she was never without a cigarette. In the front window was a sign telling anyone who cared to look that they could sell their memorabilia there for cash. So, with this news I gathered my cards and had my father drive myself and my brother to that particular mustard-yellow colored store.

Once inside my father and brother busied themselves by staring at different sizes of that particular electrified yellow rat, as I took my cards to Tokyo Rose for what I assumed was going to be a mountain of cash. While she flipped my card-binder with near apathy I twiddled my thumbs expecting to gain a large sum of dollars to which to by more useless crap with. After a few moments she closed my collection and looked at me though her tear-drop glasses, scheming of a way to crush my short-lived dreams of economic stability. She went on to explain that I did not have desirable cards, saying that what holographic cards I did have, she would put on display for a few dollars, and would not have any buyers. My heart sank, and as a topper after I took my cards back she decided to exhale her smoke into my face, as if to say “it’s a Squirtle eat Squirtle world kid.” A month or so later the store closed, I suppose kids aren’t willing to buy toys from some crotchety old woman who will give you second-hand smoke for free, and refuse to buy your pieces of paper with fire-breathing salamanders on them.