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Slide Show
by David Drake
From the October 1998 Flowstone
"I've had bad luck all my life," Vic be-moaned as he entered the dining facility at Camp Meadowbrook for the start of the annual Grotto picnic.
"You don't know anyone who's got a slide projector do you? Mine blew a bulb and I've been all over town looking for one, hell, the girl at Wal-Mart didn't even know what a slide projector was!"
"I've got one back at the house," I hesitantly offered, knowing that I was about to have to make the 45 minute round trip back to get it. "But your carousel won't fit my projector" I added. "We'll have to transfer all the slides."
"Well, I guess if we're going to have a slide show, you better go get it. I'll go out to the truck and get the other stuff."
Barely five minutes after arriving at Camp Meadowbrook, I was back on the road headed for Vinemont. As I drove, I wondered if there would be any BBQ left when I got back to the picnic. We were mere moments away from chowing down on an entire
smorgasbord of delectables when I was called into duty for Vic and my country.
Much to my surprise when I returned the congregation was still sitting around and talking. The first spoon had yet to violate the potato salad. A few more people had arrived since my departure, but one was gone. . . Vic.
"Where's Vic?", I asked inquisitively.
"See that over there?" Arlon replied, pointing to a projector screen laying on the floor next to the wall. "That's all he brought."
"What?"
"He forgot the slides!"
"Crap!"
That meant an hour round trip, at best, back to Hanceville to get them. That meant another hour before we would eat. I feared many in our group would perish.
Brutal starvation besieged us.
"Let's eat" someone suggested. We resembled piss ants converging on a discarded sweetroll at a family reunion.
Vic returned with the box of slides before all of the food had been devoured. Pleasant conversations and light laughter consumed the next 30 or 40 minutes as we, in turn, consumed the baked goods.
Soon it was time for the slide show. Vic and I wrestled with a projection screen that Goodwill would have rejected, before finally agreeing to save our efforts for later, after the slides had been transferred from his carousel to mine. I informed him that we would have to test one slide first to see which way to put the rest of them in. I pulled the infamous "Frog on the Rope" slide out to use as the tester. My first insertion resulted in an upside-down frog on a horizontal rope. I pulled the slide back out, flipped it around and tried again. This time the frog was upright, but the rope was still horizontal. So I tried again. Bingo! I said, as I flashed an out of focus shot of a vertical climbing rope with a little green tree frog clinging to it.
"Uh, the frog's supposed to be on the right side of the rope," Vic eagerly corrected. So I pulled the slide back out and reinserted it the only way left to try.
No sooner had I brought the slide into focus when the strangest thing occurred. . .
- - - -POOF- - - -
Another light bulb bites the big one.
"I've had bad luck all my life," Vic reiterated.
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