Bring in the Clones: A Really Lost Episode

Robin

Jan. 2003


Adam was recovering from his latest bushwhacking injury and the Cartwrights and some of their pals were enjoying a quiet evening in front of the hearth keeping him company. Adam had a bandage around his hunky handsome head and Doc Martin had ordered him to rest on the settee.

"Rest on the settee" Paul Martin said as he wrote the latest prescription for broth and laudanum.

The Cartwrights and their friends had finished watching the Cow Pie Bowl Foot ball playoffs on  not yet invented television.

They all watched the news waiting for the "Miraculous Pets Saved By Richard Thomas Show" on PAX.

 "Hope they don’ edit the heck out of it again. Last time they only showed 2 of the three little kittens who lost their mittens," Joe sighed with a tear forming in his eye. Pa consoled him.

"And the giraffe was edited to having a short neck." Ben hugged him and cried too.

"Stop your weeping Joe! I can’t hear the news," Adam griped. He wanted Pa to stop but he would never ever talk back to Pa.

"Yea, buck up Little Joe!" Hoss agreed. He hated when Joe got Pa to hug him and Pa cried.

Mrs. Long Lost Friend handed Ben her hanky and he blew his nose and then held the handkerchief to Joe’s cute adorable drippy nose.

"Blow Joe," "KKKKkkashhhh" Little Joe blew his nose adorably.

"The scientist who rocked the world with her announcement of the first human clone one week ago is now backing off promises of DNA testing to prove it." the KVC reporter said.

"DNA testing? Don’t bother me! Heck I’ve got to study for my SATs!" the cloned baby was quoted as saying."

Everyone immediately glared at Little Joe who was due to take the not yet invented college entrance exams shortly. Adam had gone to college and Ben felt Little Joe should too.

Hoss was a lost cause and besides, who else would carry the Virginia City Stage coach over the washed out canyon until the bridge was built.

Joe was gazing longingly at Tzatzkelah, the blue dressed daughter of one of Ben’s never before mentioned Old Pals, Longlost. Tzatzkelah Longlost was brushing her gorgeous hair. She had already been accepted at her first choice college, Back East School For Girls and couldn’t care one fig Newton about SATs or Little Joe. Her sister Doomed (which was short for Doomed Girl in the Blue Dress) Longlost longed for Little Joe to make her "a WOMAN" before she croaked but didn’t have the nerve to say so.

Maybe she would ask during the commercial. Maybe she wouldn’t.

On the TV screen, the Cowboys watched the news continue.
Hop Sing brought in a HUGE basin of Chex Mix with tiny crisp latkes as a snack. "The Salsa is almost done! And I just put in a batch of lasagna." Hop Sing had started to watch the Food Network on Cable.

"YUMMY!" Big Hoss grinned. He loved Salsa and chex mix. He got up and politely gave Mrs. Long Lost Old Friend his seat. Miss Jones had just taught him "Cowboys and gentlemen defer to ladies."

"Zaftig Brigitte Boisselier, the alleged chemist who heads Clonaid, which claims to have produced the clone, told a French television station Thursday that no DNA sample has been taken and the parents of the baby are reluctant to do so.

"Gee if you were full of merdre (the French word for Cow poop) wouldn’t you be a bit unwilling to be unveiled?" Brigette said revealing her neon silly putty enhanced bazoom. The screen was filled with her cleavage. It was stunningly blinding.

"WOWza!" Joe exclaimed loudly knocking over the Chex Mix to get a better look of her endowments.

"Double WOWza!" Hoss gasped looking at both boobies.

"Egad!" Adam said clutching his throbbing bushwhacked head.

"OH MY!" Ben said having an immediate flash back of one of his wives. It went by in such a flash that he couldn’t figure out which one it was.

"Is that Mount St. Helens? The Grand Canyon? Bay Watch? A Dean Martin Roast?" Roy Coffee asked near sightedly. He had smashed his glasses in the Mall Shoot out with Chaza Nate. One of the Saloon Gals had helped him select more fashionable frames at the Virginia City Eye Mall Glass Shack but they were not ready yet.

"No, Roy, it is the silly putty mine over in Placerville," Adam said cynically. "It just exploded and folks bounced all over the valley. Booma la boom."

Hoss and Joe sat google eyed. Hoss drooled in the salsa.

"Err Boys! " Ben growled. "We have company and ladies are present!"

Tzatskelah smiled despite her new years resolution to never get involved with any cowboy her mother suggested even if he was hunky, smart, brave and perfect in every way. Even if he was a Cartwright. She would show her mother, Mrs. Long Lost, that she was an independent woman.

The television reporter Bawa Walters continued. "And here is what Boisselier said:
''The parents told me that they needed 48 hours to decide yes or no - if they would do it,'' Boisselier told TV station France-2 in an interview.

"She also wanted to see the reruns of Gilligan’s Island dubbed into French," Bawa added on the news.

"Or Canadian," Joe sighed nostalgically. He still wished his old girl friend Canadian Bacon hadn’t joined a convent in Quebec abd had given him a farewell kiss instead of an algebra review book when she left Virginia City, in a blue dress of course.

"Heck ," Adam muttered ignoring Joe’s remark. "The French think Jerry Lewis is God. What do they know?"
"What do the French know?" Roy Coffee repeated.
"They know to make escargot?" Hop Sing learned that on reruns of Julia Child. He wanted to marry Julia or Mrs. Butterworth or even Martha Stewart, despite her criminal past. She would sure know how to keep the Ponderosa clean and keep Joe’s magical green jacket stain free.

"And they invented French Fries and French kissing too!" Joe added. He leaned over to Tsatzkelah and said "I can show you how that is done. My dead mother was from New Orleans."

"I hate French Fries. They make me break out," Tsatzkelah responded.

"Do I remind you of your dead mother?" Doomed said seductively to Joe. "Or yours? Or yours?" she asked Adam and Hoss.

On television Brigette continued to explain to the news conference. "And we know they didn’t "do it" good enough to have the baby the traditional way, but who cares about tradition," she added.

"Who cares about TRADITION !  Tevya that’s who." interjected the reporter from the Jewish Broadway News. "TRADITION!  Boomddiddy boom! Suddenly all the male reporters break into song "who day and night must scramble for a living, Feed the wife and children, Say his daily prayers and who has the right as master of the house to have the final word at home? THE PAPAS! THE PAAPAs!!!"

"That has a certain ring to it!" Ben smiled.

"Maybe we should put on "Fiddler on the Roof of the Little House on the Prairie" this year in the Virginia City Community Theatre, "Adam suggested. He longed to be in a musical.

"We can get Thomas Bowers to play Tevye!" Hoss suggested.

"That is mishugina!" Hop Sing announced as he brought in the platter of curried goat.

"Mishugina?"  Doomed asked. She was having a better time with her mom’s friends than she anticipated. Adam wasn’t half bad looking and he was brighter than she had expected a cowboy from Virginia City to be. Maybe he could make her "A WOMAN".

The reporter on not yet invented TV continued. "Many experts have expressed skepticism about the cloning claims. Clonaid was launched by a religious sect that believes life on Earth was created by extraterrestrials using genetic engineering or as many people have called them "MISHUGINAS".

""Are they from Michigan?" BIG Hoss asked. Somehow he heard the word Michigan and it brought back memories of his amnesia episode.

"No," Hop Sing explained "mishuga means crazy in Yiddish. I learned that from watching Kosher Gourmet on the food channel. That’s where I got the matzoh ball soup recipe."

"MMmmmm," Adam said slurping. He had thought the broth was especially yummy this time.

"Experts have said they need DNA proof to believe claims by Boisselier, who is a bishop in the Raelian sector as she is known "A high ranking MISHUGA"

"See I told you!" Hop Sing wagged his finger. "More matzoh ball soup, Mister Adam?"

The reporter continued. "Last week she said test results should be ready in eight or nine days proving the baby is a clone of the 31-year-old American woman who is also the mother as well as the father, sort of like making a cutting of a philodendron or a choleus. But now she says the parents are reconsidering the DNA testing because of legal action taken in Florida that could result in the child being taken away from them.  And we all know how concerned Florida authorities are with child welfare. It is rumored that Disney World has made a bid on the baby and will use her/him/it as the baby Snow White had with one of the dwarfs in the new R rated "Snow Beige" starring Brittany Spears and Leonardo DiCaprio."

"Pa if I do good on my SATs can we go to Disney World?" Joe proposed.

"No, let me watch the news" Ben said decisively. "And get your feet off the furniture." For one brief moment Ben toyed with cloning each of his sons and training them to work harder and keep their feet off the furniture and not get bushwhacked so frequently. But that was not what Ben Cartwright would ever do. Maybe he should just clone Adam’s clothes and give them to Candy or use one of the mutant clones as a red headed orphan son.

Bawa Walters continued on the TV. "Miami attorney E. B. Special asked a court in Florida this week to turn the baby over to state care if it found the baby's health was in danger. Though Clonaid has kept secret the baby's whereabouts, the company held its news conference in Hollywood, Fla., to announce the birth of the baby. E. B. Special said that could give the court jurisdiction and Governor Jeb Bush someone who knows how to count ballots."

"Do you know what E. B. stands for?" Adam asked. He liked to show off that he had read Mark Twain’s latest editorial in the Territorial Enterprise.

"Edward Bob? Ernest Bill?" Ben guessed.

"Ernest Barney?" Roy asked. He was going to ask his deputy Clem to change his name to Barney Fife. It had such a nice ring to it. Deputy Barney Fife.

"Emil Bernard? Elliot Beverly? EB" Doomed asked weakly. The clock was ticking and her heart was beating weakly. She had only hours to get one of those Cartwrights to help her die "A WOMAN".

 Even Hoss was beginning to look more appealing. Tick tick tick.

"No," Adam said smugly. "E. B. Special is short for Early Bird Special. After all he is from Florida.

"The television reported concluded "Attempts by The Associated Press to reach Michael Guillen, a freelance journalist and former ABC-TV science editor who was arranging the DNA testing, were not successful. A spokeswoman for Clonaid said she was not familiar with Boisselier's broadcast remarks and was unable, unwilling and unlikely to comment. Disney also owns ABC."

"Good thing they don’t own PAX," Ben said as the "Miraculous Pets Saved By Richard Thomas Show" started. "Today’s episode “radioactive two headed calves of the Comstock."

"Heck, it’s a rerun!" Doc Martin muttered.

"But it is a good one!" Hoss grinned.

"Hope they don’t edit out the best parts," Ben sighed. "The glow in the dark breech birth and chicken who plays naughty sea chanties on a tiny piano. Give me the remote, Adam. I want to turn this up louder. "

Ben and Longlost stand with their arms around each others shoulders and nostalgically sing the sea chanty along with the chicken. It was the same song they learned as sailors on Abel Stoddard’s schooner, the Love Boat.

THE END


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