From dkk@Athena.MIT.EDU Mon Apr  3 14:55:24 1995
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 91 17:26:14 -0500
From: David Krikorian <dkk@Athena.MIT.EDU>
To: sst@Athena.MIT.EDU, jcb@Athena.MIT.EDU
Subject: [Heidi Burgiel: A funny!]
Reply-To: dkk@mit.edu
Home: 47 Lake St., Arlington, MA 02174, (617) 646-9289, -9269 (fax)


You might not want to read this whole thing, but it was funny, at
least at first.  (I just skimmed it a bit.  It was still funny when I
stopped, but too long...)

------- Forwarded Message

Date: Thu, 14 Nov 91 13:55:26 -0800
From: Heidi Burgiel <burgiel@math.washington.edu>
To: pikans@Athena.MIT.EDU
Subject: A funny!


                      The MacGyver Cookbook

     Well, folks, here it is.  I didn't have time to cook this
stuff myself for you the way Paul Newman does, so I just wrote up
this cookbook to give you all the recipes, tried and true just
like I make 'em in my own kitchen at home.

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES:

Frequent flier coupons
One medium paperclip
  (not plastic coated)
One movie ticket stub

     Now remember that chocolate-chip cookies are supposed to be
a nice relaxing kind of food, so the first thing you'll want to
do to make them is to go somewhere where you can kick back and
relax.  Ecuador is good, so use your frequent-flier coupons to
pick up a round-trip ticket there.  The stewardess will hand you
a couple of bags of peanuts, but don't eat them, since we're
going to need those for the cookies.

     You'll find yourself sitting next to an attractive woman who
teaches archaeology at Cornell; she'll explain that she's going
to Ecuador to try to find her father--a biochemist by trade, but
he dabbles in archaeology as a hobby--who went down there to find
the lost pyramid of Sesquichachloride, well known in
archaeological circles as the fabled storehouse of the god
Valhequesal who, according to myth, rode down from the skies on a
pillar of fire bringing with him a wealth of powerful but
somewhat failure-prone magical devices that, according to the
priests of the day, were pretty darn all-around nifty.

     Now her father, after examining several stone tablets
depicting the god Valhequesal, discovered that he is always shown
wearing a curious bracelet on his left wrist that looks
surprisingly like a digital watch, leading him to the conclusion
that Valhequesal did actually exist, but he was really an
advanced space traveller with comparatively poor taste in
accessories, and that the lost pyramid of Sesquichachloride must
contain his spacecraft and untold other devices from his world.
About this time, the stewardess will bring by the main meal and
you'll want to be sure to save the little packets of salt and
butter that come with your meal--the woman next to you will be
too worried about her father to eat and so you'll want to take
her packet of butter and go ahead and keep her crackers too.

     When you get off the plane in Ecuador, just go out to the
front of the airport and try to locate a cab.  There won't be
any, for some reason, so you'll go inside to inquire about where
transportation might be found and some guy will stumble against
you and when you look at him, you'll notice that he's been
stabbed in the left side and is bleeding pretty profusely.  With
a weakly shaking hand, he'll thrust the key to a safety deposit
box into your hand, gasp something about "be careful of the
poison ivy" and expire messily on the floor of the terminal.
You'll decide that maybe waiting for a cab is the better part of
valor and head back outside--on the way, though, be sure to stop
at the concession stand and ask for a half-pound of chocolate
chips.  The clerk will measure the appropriate amount and put it
in a bag for you.  Be sure your movie ticket stub is visible in
the handful of change you pull from your pocket to pay her.
She'll reach down under the counter and then surreptitiously drop
a roll of microfilm into your bag along with the chocolate chips,
then hand you the bag, saying, "On the house."

     At this point, speed is of the essence--get back outside the
concourse before a swarthy man with a mustache strides up to the
snack shop holding a movie ticket stub.  Moments later he and the
clerk will run out the door looking for you, just as the woman
who sat next to you on the plane drives up in her rental car and
offers you a lift.  Cheerfully accept, and hop in before the man
with the mustache disconnects the safety on his gun.  If all goes
well, you'll both be out of the parking lot and on your way
before he has time to squeeze off more than one shot--and he'll
miss on the first one anyway and the woman driving the car will
think it was just another vehicle backfiring.  She'll be kind
enough to offer to let you stay in her hotel room, but she'll
need to stop off at the bank first to take care of a little
business.  While she's talking with the bank representative, you
casually wander back to the safety deposit boxes and open the one
that matches the key.  In it, you'll find a fair sized paper bag
containing bags of flour, sugar, baking soda and a large bottle
of calamine lotion; take this along with the folded piece of
paper lining the bottom of the safety deposit box.  Go back to
the lobby just as she's getting ready to leave.

     Once the two of you get back into the car and start driving,
unfold the piece of paper--it's a map leading to somewhere deep
in the Ecuadorian jungle.  Look more closely at it just as your
companion notices the map, gasps, nearly runs the car off the
road, and exclaims "That's my father's handwriting!"  From this
point on, it's pretty straightforward--just trek through the
jungle with her for a few days, evade the occasional drug lord
and that guy with the mustache, locate the hidden temple and
descend down a long pole into its depths, and locate the treasure
room.

     There'll be a large golden idol in the northwest corner with
huge rubies for eyes, a golden bowl in his lap, and a bird's nest
on his head.  Put the butter from the plane into the bowl and
stir until softened.  Get the gold cup to the left of the idol
and add two cupfuls of sugar to the butter, stir until creamed.
And two eggs from the next, one swiss army knife spoonful of
baking soda and two-and-a-half cups of flour, being sure to
remove the large plastic bag of cocaine that was hidden in the
bag of flour first.  Mix well, add the peanuts from the flight
and the chocolate chips from the bag, pocketing the microfilmed
list of drug contacts first, and place by swiss army knife
spoonfuls onto the silver tray propped up against the back of the
idol.

     Once the cookie batter is on the tray, your companion will
ask to lick the bowl, but in doing so will bump against the gold
torch held in the idol's right hand and there will be a low
grinding sound as the stone block that forms the doorway to the
drug smugglers' lab slides out of the way and you'll see her
father chained to a lab table being forced to refine drugs for
the smugglers.  While they're having a beautiful and happy
reunion, pick up a strange device from the outer room and bring
it into the lab where there's better light for a closer
inspection.  Be sure to bring the cookie sheet too and set them
next to each other on the lab table.  Your companion and her
father will be trying to figure out how to get him unchained
while you note that the device in question is clearly of
extraterrestrial manufacture and appears to be some sort of
highly powerful laser cutting device--except that it shows signs
of being dropped, breaking the actuator wire and misaligning the
front partial mirror.

     Tell them to be quiet for a moment as you use the fish
scaling blade from your swiss army knife to realign the partial
mirror to one quarter wave and then unfold the paperclip, using
it to reconnect the high-voltage trigger to the laser firing
mechanism.  Have him stand back while you use the high-powered
laser to cut through the chain holding him to the table and,
incidentally, the wall on the other side of the room, alerting
the drug smugglers to your presence.  They'll burst into the room
and one will fire a pistol at you, missing you but hitting the
laser, forcing it permanently on and cracking the rear reflector,
bathing the area--the cookies in particular--with high-energy
radiation.  Now get chased around the interior of the temple for
a while and, just after the second brief romantic moment where
you kiss her and think "Gosh, for someone who's been running
around the Equadorian jungle for nearly a week, her hair's not
greasy at all" the cookies should be done.

     Run back through the drug lab, grab the cookie sheet, noting
that the cooling system for the laser has failed and it's about
to explode, and run to the outer room where the three of you
scale the pole with the bad guys in hot pursuit.  By the time you
reach the top of the pole, the bad guys will be halfway up it
already, so uncap the bottle of calamine lotion and pour it onto
the pole, causing them to fall back into the temple as you and
your companions escape into the jungle depths just moments before
the entire secret temple explodes, destroying the drug smuggling
operation along with all the extraterrestrial artifacts.

     By now the cookies should be cool enough to eat.  Enjoy.
Your companions will have a few too, wistfully sighing over the
loss of so much knowledge so senselessly, as you take another
cookie and notice that the metal sheet you baked them on has
etched onto it the plans for what appear to be some sort of space
drive.

     Anyway, this is the best chocolate-chip cookie recipe I've
ever tried--I've made it dozens of times and haven't had a single
bad batch yet.



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