Swamp Duck Picker Pawn People

Mike: You’ve heard of uncharted territory? Well, we were in the big middle of it. Luckily, the camera crew was already there and in position to film us setting foot in it for the first time. We’re the Swamp Duck Picker Pawn People.

Frank: Danielle called to tell us about a unique and rare opportunity: Some guys in Louisiana had a boat paddle they claimed to have found at the main fork of $#!+ Creek.

Mike: We had good directions to the swamp. We were met there by Crock Boy and Granny.

Frank: Granny was an amazing woman. She had dentures made from Alligator and grizzly bear teeth.

Crock Boy: You should see her shadow on a tent wall! (Hooting and leg slapping) It’ll make a city boy wet his pants!

Mike: We hadn’t been there ten minutes before my phone rang. It was our friends from Las Vegas. They have a pawnshop.

Old Man: We didn’t have cellphones when I was growing up. We had semaphore flags. My grandson is an idiot.

Rick: If this thing is real, I want it! No one in recent memory has ever been up $#!+ Creek with a paddle; this could be a first. I’m not an authority on boat paddles, so I called in an expert.

Mike: Meanwhile, Frank told Granny and Crock Boy how to make a turducken. Granny was not impressed.

Granny: I don’t think it’s a good idea to eat anything that starts with them four letters. I ain’t too crazy about the last part, neither.

Rick: Granny was an amazing woman. She was as crude and earthy a person as you could hope to find. She also had her soft side. When the sun went down, she played “Amazing Grace” on a duck call, and it just made your skin crawl.

Corey: My skin is still crawlin.

Old Man: That’s because you have so much of it! Back in the day, if we wanted our skin to crawl, we had to do it ourselves.

Mike: Granny dropped something in the stew pot; it looked like a snake.

Granny: It’s a cotton-headed rattle moxican. It cain’t hurt you. Them’s good eatin!

Chumley: Can we have seconds?

Rick: Early the next morning, Gator Boy poled his pirogue up the bayou to the main fork of $#!+ Creek. If you take the east fork, you stay on $#!+ Creek; if you take the west fork, you’re on Shinola Creek.

Gator Boy: Most folks don’t know the difference. (Pointing to a gravel bar) Right there’s where we found the paddle.

Rick: Our expert, Rowen Oarlock, met us there.

Old Man: People from my generation didn’t need a paddle to get up $#!+ Creek. We never expected one. My son is an idiot.

(The winner and first runner-up of the Sasquatch lookalike contest battle through the camera shot. One of them is wielding a chainsaw, the other one swinging an axe.)

Granny: Those folks have just about ruined this place, cuttin down all the cypress trees… Lord, what’s this world comin to?

Frank: We followed Granny over the top of what looked like a half-submerged semi-truck. It was hard to keep up with her.

Gator Boy: Them ice road truckers is crazy. It ain’t been below freezin around here since…

Granny: Hell, it’s never been!

Rowen: (Examining the boat paddle with a magnifying glass) Rick, you can see that these striations were made by the teeth of a Gaboon. I don’t have to tell you that Gaboons are indigenous to $#!+ Creek. They’ve never found one on Shinola Creek. (Dramatic music, shots of Rick, Mike, and Frank looking wide-eyed and anticipatory; a shot of Danielle back at the shop listening in on the phone; twenty minutes of commercials.)

Rick: We might be looking at the only paddle that has ever been up $#!+ Creek.

Mike: I really want this thing, but I’m going to act like I’m indifferent and lowball the owner.

Rowen: (Examining the boat paddle with his magnifying glass) To recap: Rick, you can see that these striations were made by the teeth of a Gaboon. I don’t have to tell you that Gaboons are indigenous to $#!+ Creek. They’ve never found one on Shinola Creek.

(Rick looks ready to smile. Mike exchanges a conspiratorial glance with Frank. Music builds.)

Rowen: But. (Music stops. Rowen puts down the magnifying glass and tilts his hat back on his head) Gaboons went extinct in 1981, and this paddle—you can tell by the three feathers and the1997 markings on the handle—wasn’t made until 16 years later.

(Assorted bleeped profanities)

Rowen: But! (Maybe-my-life-isn’t-meaningless-after all, pup-ready-to-fetch-if-you’ll-just-throw-it looks from Rick, Mike, and Frank) If we take a little linseed oil and tobacco juice—thanks, Granny—and rub it on with a tuft of armpit hair—Granny, you’re a lifesaver— (suiting action to the words) …you’ll see that the date and one of the feathers disappear. (Deadpan stare) It’s real!

Rick: (To Granny) So what do you want to do? Pawn it? Sell it? Donate it?

Granny: Right, I called you all the way out here so I could donate it to the Beaver Rescue Foundation. Of course I want to sell it! What’s wrong with you?

Mike: I’ll give you five bucks for it. Cash. Right now.

Granny: Do I look stupid to you?

Frank: To be honest, she didn’t exactly look like a Rhodes Scholar, but I wasn’t about to say that to an armed octogenarian, so I offered her 15 dollars if she’d throw in the dentures.

Granny: Jed! Git me Mr. Drysdale on the phone! And Elly May, git them critters out of the cement pond!

Thurston Howell III: I’ll give you 8 million dollars for the boat paddle. Maybe the Skipper and Gilligan can row us back to civilization.

Jeanie: Master, if you’ll just let me use my powers, I can make you hundreds of boat paddles.

June: Ward, I think we should buy it and donate it. I’m worried about the Beaver.

Major Nelson: You’re not Jeanie! You’re Corporal Klinger!

Little Joe: Pa, how come Adam is older than you are?

Archie: Because you’re a dingbat! End of story!

Cisco: (Laughing) Ah, Poncho!

Poncho: (Laughing) Ah, Cisco!