Volcanoes

I love volcanoes but that was not always the case, especially after my Uncle Ricky fell into one.

His last words were “Aaiigghh!!”

Actually that was just one word but it lasted for about 30 seconds as he descended from the rim of a very tall volcano into the molten lava which made a burping sound as it ate his bones. 

I can’t tell you the name of the volcano where Uncle R. bought his molten hot lunch because our family is forbidden from saying it.  At family dinners some of us like to create tiny volcanoes with mashed potatoes and gravy and ask of no one in particular,  “What shall I name it?” and then we laugh but feel bad about it.

OK, I can’t keep it in any longer, the volcano’s name is Phyllis and it’s in Ohio.

Uncle Ricky was married to Aunt Edna who has big hands and likes to push people in the back and I wasn’t supposed to tell you that either.

Maybe I wasn’t even really there when the volcano ate my mother’s little brother. Maybe I have just thought about it so many times that it feels real which also happens whenever I see a Matt Damon movie.

My mom has another brother, Ronnie, and he won’t let anyone walk or stand directly behind him whenever he’s on a mountain, a cliff, a volcano, or brushing his hair.

A priest Uncle Ricky and I used to get drunk with said most of the western United States is actually sitting on top of a vast underground volcano that will erupt one day and kill everyone except him.

Volcanoes have also tried to kill a few of my friends but, sadly, not my roommate Alonzo who thinks volcanoes only live at zoos, just like dinosaurs.

But all that volcano hate is in my past. I love volcanoes now because I have learned that if we didn’t have volcanoes we wouldn’t have lava and lava has created many great things like Hawaii and the Internet.

In the Bible, Moses refers to Volcanoes as “Satan’s bathtubs” and he throws bad guys into them all the time.

When a volcano dies it doesn’t really die. It becomes a mountain with a funny name like Dead Volcano Mountain or Shemp.

My neighbor Hank Forest played half a season for a minor league baseball team called the Erupters. Every time they hit a home run a fake volcano in centerfield would “erupt” which was tons of fun until the cops found out they were using real lava.

Another fun fact about volcanoes: there are a bunch of them in Iceland. Really. Except in Iceland they’re called Icecanoes and they shoot out whale sperm. Google says there are about fifteen-hundred active volcanoes and that doesn’t include the ones in outerspace so that means there has to be at least a dozen more.

My junior high school science teacher, who I still see sometimes at the Y, told me the study of volcanoes is called volcanism. He also told me the study of potatoes is called potatoism and that’s why I think he’s a jerk.

My family used to have a Halloween party every year but we would have it the day after Thanksgiving.  hose parties always had a few fistfights, which usually started when Uncle Ricky would compare someone’s ass to a volcano.

My Uncle Ricky had dreams of being something important like a vegan or a screenwriter. I like to think if he hadn’t gotten murdered by that evil firehole he would have penned a script about a volcano that spews affection and acceptance, not magma.

And it would have been a really funny movie if that affection and acceptance burned off Matt Damon’s underwear. -TK