Colonel Kyber and the Mysterious Horse Barn – Part Two

Colonel Kyber and the Mysterious Horse Barn – Part Two

If you haven’t read Chapter One (aka Part One) you can read it here…

Colonel Kyber and the Mysterious Horse Barn – Part Two

So, with a horse barn full of horses, and now rats and mice, Kitty, although wealthy beyond her wildest dreams, found herself in a state of confusion in the dreary state of Ohio. While she could afford the best rodent exterminators in the world – none of them were located in Ohio – she would not trust any strangers around her fabled thoroughbred, up-and-coming racehorses – now worth gazillions…she was, as they say in Ohio… in a pickle.

Kitty Kyber

She would only trust one person to rid the barn of rodents and – you probably guessed it – that person was her son, now known fully as Colonel Kyber. But there was one big problem. The Colonel was off somewhere in the Polynesian area of the Pacific Ocean sampling grass skirts and mai tais and who knows what other shenanigans.

The Polynesians are famous for grass skirts, mai tais, dolphins that are not mammals, and vowels. No dignified Polynesian would dare have more than two consonants in their names. They are only allowed two by law, except for King Kamehameha who was allowed five – but he was a king, after all, right?

Anyway, the Colonel, was floozing his way around Polynesia, carefree and footloose until he met Ms. Lai’a A’oeja – who used up only two consonants in her entire name, despite her pedigree as some sort of princess. Many think the family used apostrophes instead to save up legal consonants in case one would have to change his or her name via marriage or turn to a sordid life of crime and go on the lam.

Lai’a (pronounced by Americans like me as Laya – as in laya cake or laya brick) knocked the old freewheeling Colonel right off his extraordinarily large feet.

He was infatuated with her – even without her grass skirt. And don’t get any base ideas here, she had long ago dumped the itchy grass skirts for more traditional ones made out of whatever skirts are usually made out of. I’ve never been an expert on skirts – except as a more than casual observer of skirts – but now I’m getting way off topic.

Anyway, the poor old Colonel was completely enchanted, and even though his poor old mom was home dealing with millions of dollars, a horse barn full of racehorses being tormented and possibly infected – or worse – by growing colonies of rats and mice – his enchantation with Lai’a was growing more fierce… more fierce by the day.

Although marriage was one of the items listed on the Colonel’s official list of The Seven Deadly Sins, Lai’a changed that… he removed “Marriage” from his official list and replaced it with “Gluttony”. Only the Ghost of Christmas Future knew how soon he would remove “Gluttony” from the list and replace it with “Funyons”.

“You’ve got to meet me mum”, the Colonel said, trying his darndest to sound British. Little did he know then, with those words, his downward spiral toward marriage, barns, and a titanic battle with rodents would begin.

Lai’a’s (lots of apostrophes going on there), parents owned a pineapple plantation. Her family hobnobbed around with the Dole family – whom you may know by their bananas.

Not to get off track here, but most of you have heard of Chiquita Banana, right? Well had the Chiquita company not made a blunder of cataclysmic proportions, the Dole name would have been forever tied to pineapples only. After all, who could compete with the cheeky Chiquita the dancing Banana? Anyway, it seems Chiquita Brands admitted in federal court that a subsidiary company (which was subsequently sold) paid Colombian terrorists to protect employees at its most profitable banana plantations… and with that Chiquita Banana and her company, pretty much slipped on a banana peel and went down the tubes – so to speak.

The Dole folks, inspired by Lai’a herself, got themselves a dancing pineapple to capitalize on the dancing banana from now troubled Chiquita Brands aka United Brands, and their once popular singing, dancing, Chiquita Banana. Lai’a designed the dancing pineapple and named it “Pinellopy” (get it?) so I guess it’s female – but these days – geesh, you never know do you? However, Lai’a, being both beautiful and humble, would not take any credit and never earned a pineapple or penny from her work in the design and creation of “Pinellopy” the dancing pineapple.

Colonel Kyber needed to do several things, but he was not certain of the order in which to do them. His “To-Do” list was:

1. Quit the Army.

2. Marry Lai’a

3. Get back to Ohio and rid the horse barn of rodents for his mom, Kitty.

4. Find someplace other than Ohio to live with Lai’a.  The Colonel was quite sure she would find Ohio unsuitable with its drab, gloomy ever-lasting wet, cold winters (where is global warming when you need it, eh?) and its short, hot, humid, mosquito-y summers.

It did not take him long to decide…

He resigned from the Army first since it was the easiest to do. It’s not hard to quit the military – they even give you a nice hunk of cash when you resign. “Sign here, Colonel, Sir!”

Getting married on a pineapple plantation is not as easy. A wedding ceremony on a pineapple plantation is a big hoop-de-do gala affair, and those things take time, money, and lots of planning.  Plus he’d have to tear his mom away from the horses and the now-growing hoard of rodents to come to the wedding. No one likes weddings more than moms. He’d have to worry about Ohio later.

The Colonel left the wedding planning up to Lai’a and her family – they were paying for it after all… and went out to get drunk and celebrate his last few days of freedom before tying the knot with Lai’a.

After a wild night of debauchery, drinking, and looking at a dazzling array of dancing girls who didn’t mind wearing itchy grass skirts, the Colonel woke up sweaty, wreaking of bad odors, and nauseated. To sum it up, he was hung over – to use the vernacular.

Meanwhile, back at Lai’a’s mom and dad’s mansion, the wedding planning was in full vigor. There is no planning that is more unrestrained than wedding planning done where money is not a consideration. Lai’a’s family was loaded. Not only were they loaded, and near-royalty, they didn’t even brag about it by having more than three consonants in their names.

Pom’a A’oeja – The father
Ava A’oeja – The mother
Lai’a A’oeja – you know her already.

Folks can sometimes be petty and a lot of them think the A’oeja family cheated in the consonant game by using apostrophes, but according to Webster, apostrophes are no more consonants than semi-colons, commas, periods, or question marks.

Lai’a’s dad, Pom’a, was a very busy man. Running a successful pineapple plantation takes a lot of time, a lot of hard work, and a lot of dedication. He wasn’t often home anyway, and he was certainly not going to be home with all this wedding planning going on for days and days.

The thought of his hard-earned fortune being spent on chocolate fountains, chocolatiers, tuxedos, wedding gowns, flower girls, bridesmaids, flowers, extravagant place settings, wine, booze, pyrotechnics display, limousines, dancing monkeys, and perhaps even young ladies dressed up like dancing pineapples, made him dizzy and ill.

He had a cottage on top of a hill at the northern end of the pineapple plantation that he called (apologies to Ben, Hoss, and Little Joe), The Pineapple Ponderosa. It was here that he spent most of his time when he was not “motivating” the pineapple pickers and the pineapple groomers, whom he thought were more than fairly compensated for the work they did and for putting up with his often-nasty, and sardonic tongue. You have to be tough to run a pineapple plantation. It’s not like running an apple orchard in Ohio, you know.

It took almost two weeks for Lai’a and her mom and her mom’s cronies to see how much money they could throw at the wedding.

The Colonel continued with the debauchery for the next twelve days and nights. He was practically killing himself. He grew so ill that he felt he was seriously near death. He was so afraid he was going to die before the wedding that he broke a promise to himself and called Lai’a on his red, Jitterbug phone.

He had promised himself he would not call her while the wedding planning was going on. But if he didn’t call her, he would be dead in a matter of days. He could feel the cold, clammy, ugly breath of death breathing on the back of his sunburned neck.

Back in Ohio, Kitty was doing her best to keep the horses safe from the vermin that now had taken over the horse barn.  Her son, the Colonel, wanted her at the wedding in Polynesia, but she was afraid to leave the horses during the horrible siege of rodents. Why was he taking so long to get married? She needed him home… NOW!

But the Colonel, despite his military toughness and years of military training for battle, was no match for Lia’a’s substantial charms.

Lai’a’s family owns a private jet which will come into play here shortly. But let’s move on for now…

Coming up next… Part 3 of “Colonel Kyber and the Mysterious Horse Barn – The Wedding”.