Nervously picked up Humphrey tonight, I felt like a kid on his first date!
I met Linda at her door and she took me to the garage. We moved the old boat carefully out of the way and I got my first close look at him. I had to admit he didn’t look much like Humphrey, Linda agreed, she often wondered herself. I joked maybe Barrie only told her it was Humphrey so she’d agree to let him bring him home – after all there is certainly a bit of a creep factor to owning a lifelike wax figure. She laughed.
He was leaning against the window as his legs were bending somewhere around the shin. They thought he was “melting” but I figured his body would be more like fibreglass – either way I was curious and even more cautious.
The metal base-plate he was bolted to must weigh 50-80lbs, so it was difficult moving him without causing further damage but we managed. First removing his head and carefully placing it in a cloth lined box, Linda joked that Barrie, on his way home with it in 1989 stopped at a light and picked it up to scare other drivers idling next to him. I would have like to meet Barrie.
We got Humphrey’s body safely stowed in my van and rid of the family of spiders he was taking care of.
Driving home I started to worry. What if this isn’t Humphrey? What if he is some boring Canadian Politician …or worse a serial killer? I could never sleep with something like that in my house! (the politician, not the serial killer)
At a stoplight, a police car pulled up next to me, I looked at the decapitated body lying in the back of my van through my rear-view mirror, smiled and fought the urge to hold the head up to them.
My always helpful neighbour Merv came over while I was unloading, when I told him what it was, he gave me the “ok, you have finally lost it neighbour” look. He helped me unload the body (only a good neighbour helps you do that) and I asked if he wanted to see the head? Not waiting for an answer, I pulled it out and just as I was saying that I wasn’t sure it really looked like Bogie, the evening light hit him in a particular way and Wow! It really was him! The blond eyelashes and eyebrows and missing hair really disguised him, but in certain light you could still see it was him.
My puppies (Toby 13 months and Raja Kahn 3 months) didn’t know what to make of this headless man, Toby wanted to greet him and lick his hand, Raja was terrified, which turned into wanting to eat him, which turned into being really interested in eating some of the crud that was still on the base.
My wife blinked a lot.
He was leaning against the window as his legs were bending somewhere around the shin. They thought he was “melting” but I figured his body would be more like fibreglass – either way I was curious and even more cautious.
The metal base-plate he was bolted to must weigh 50-80lbs, so it was difficult moving him without causing further damage but we managed. First removing his head and carefully placing it in a cloth lined box, Linda joked that Barrie, on his way home with it in 1989 stopped at a light and picked it up to scare other drivers idling next to him. I would have like to meet Barrie.
We got Humphrey’s body safely stowed in my van and rid of the family of spiders he was taking care of.
Driving home I started to worry. What if this isn’t Humphrey? What if he is some boring Canadian Politician …or worse a serial killer? I could never sleep with something like that in my house! (the politician, not the serial killer)
My always helpful neighbour Merv came over while I was unloading, when I told him what it was, he gave me the “ok, you have finally lost it neighbour” look. He helped me unload the body (only a good neighbour helps you do that) and I asked if he wanted to see the head? Not waiting for an answer, I pulled it out and just as I was saying that I wasn’t sure it really looked like Bogie, the evening light hit him in a particular way and Wow! It really was him! The blond eyelashes and eyebrows and missing hair really disguised him, but in certain light you could still see it was him.
My wife blinked a lot.
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