Who needs a plane ticket?

Incident 6-1

I received a call today from none other than the great Mark Elgersma. For you who do not know him, he is a spectacular money man who secretly really wants to be a youth leader and presently is hiding somewhere in the halls of Bethel College. The call was concerning a trip to Africa. He was guiding me through the paperwork and sadly had to give me the final blow. Because I didn’t have the moneys properly turned in I couldn’t go! Oh that crazy mark always pulling my leg.

If I had been MacGyver…

I would be traveling to Africa because I a former college girlfriend was experiencing governmental persecution while she was working at an orphanage in the area. Yet, it would also be clear that I couldn’t get a ticket into this land not because I didn’t have the cash but because the government would be watching. Yes, this would have to be yet another covert operation. I would have my friend Jack Dalton ship me over in a wooden casket. The paper work would be filled out directing the casket to be buried in this land.

Of coarse the plan would not go as planned and bad guys would likely attempt to stop Jack on the plane. He would quickly dart past them and toss the refreshment cart down the isle to slow them down. He would arrive at the cargo area, open the door, and toss the casket out! The camera would pan out as the casket was shown falling through the air and splashing into the ocean below.

Just then I would push a button, the sides and top would explode off the base where I was laying. I would unfold the handles which were hidden between my legs and hands, and up I would stand to take off the remainder of the trip half way across the ocean on my wooden Jet-Ski, casket style!

Till next time,
Mac

Wedding Escape

Incident 5-1
I went to a wedding over the weekend for a guy who was a pretty close friend of mine in high school. Now, normally I hate weddings and all things involved in them, but this guy was such a close friend, that I didn't mind going one bit. The problem was, we had to leave right after the ceremony and before the reception. This created an awkward moment for my wife, my mom, and I as we had to make a very conspicuous exit from the rest of the crowd as we left the sanctuary and drove away. We all felt like bums, as if they were all standing there thinking, "I can't believe they're skipping out!"

If I had been MacGyver . . .
During the service, I would have spent some time folding my wedding program into an origami paper box with a lid that could open and close. The moment the ceremony ended and the couple began to usher people out, I would have grabbed a lit candle from the side of the sanctuary while everyone's attention was on the new couple. I would have smeared melted wax all along the outside of my paper box, and then used the wax's natural stickiness to fix it to the sanctuary wall directly beneath a smoke detector. I then would have placed the still-lit candle into the paper box and closed the lid.







Perfect!





It would take the candle a few moments to burn through the paper box lid, and so I would use that time to change into a very inconspicuous disguise like this one:





Bingo!



Then, when the fire alarm finally sounded, I would have made my very inconspicuous escape with my my good friends Pete Thorton and Jack Dalton.

Till next time,
Mac

Grad Party

Incident 4-1

I flew in on a plane last Thursday night from Europe and then traveled down to Dordt College to attend the final party of the year and say goodbye to all my friends. Upon arrival I was greeted by a bunch of them and we had a good time. One of my friends and his fiance took off and then we realized he didn't leave with all the people he had taken to the party. This brought about a conundrum which placed me as the sole vehicle holder having to make two trips (about an hour drive) to carpool the group, or find alternative means. We eventually asked enough people and figured it out.

If I had been MacGyver...

I would have just arrived from a plain in Central America outwitting an arrogand and well dressed drug lord. In order to celebrate I would have introduced my buddies to non-alcoholic eggnog or the like. Something of my own creation developed at home in my own 15 dollar chemisty set and a friendly neighborhood wizard. Some people disbelieve this could happen, well take a look at this!!!



It would have tasted horrible. The crowds would have quickly spit it out just as my good old buddy Pete did, and I would have grabbed the cup from him and taken a quick swig only to defend its realatively good taste considering the process it just went through.

Still, my absent minded friend who arrived with a carfull of others would have still left without his full load, and I would be left with a problem considering that a rival gang known as the "tough boys" were about to overtake the local tavern in which the revelry was taking place. Upon finding one of their masks upon the floor I would quickly attempt to evacuate the area. The people would flee but my friends would still not have a ride.

I would run over to my jeep and dismantle the soft top. The canvas top would be cut appart using my swiss army knife. Wheels would not be immediately available and therefore I would send one of my friends to gather all the aluminum cans available and bring them back to me. Meanwhile the strips of canvas would then tie together the bracketry behind the Jeep to create a type of carrage. Upon my friends return I would hand him the knife and explain how he must cut the cans in halves and attach them to the bottom bracketry to create a type of sleigh. He would express his concern that this would quickly be torn apart on the concrete roads. Who said anything about riding home on concrete I would ask???

I would return to the tavern and find a Tough Boy hiding in the shadows, after cornering him and ripping of his mask I would realize he was in fact one of the young men at the local Boys and Girls club which I so frequently worked with. A look of shame would fill his face but he would urge me to get out of the area. I said I couldnt leave without knowing what was going on. He would spill it all and explain how he joined the gang. A flashback would occur as the audiance was provided with a quick overview of his difficult innercity circumstances. And to deepen the plot he would explain that he just overheard other members discussing their ties to the same Central American drug lord MacGyver had just worked against and how the gang is in fact after MacGyver for his actions.

Just then a shot echoes through the empty tavern and a beer bottle shatters to the ground. i would jump over the bar with the repentant gang member in my clutches. Ripping material off of an abandoned jacket I would ask him to shove them in these liquore bottles. Using them as small explosions I would set fire to the surrounding area as we crashed through a nearby window. We would race to the jeep with bullets in pursuit. Hopping into the jeep, my friends already in the newly made buggy, I would take off accross the parking lot and ramp into a nearby field. Knowing in advance that the width of the Jeep is in perfect measurement with 5 rows of corn the trailing sleigh slid accross the newly tilled dirt with little difficulty. As the distance between myself and the Tough Boys was increased the camera would pan back accross the tavern as the tough boys emerged with guns at their sides and dissapointment in their eyes.

Till next time,
Mac

Computer Trouble

Incident 3-1

A youth kid from our high school group had taken some pictures for me at our last middle school meeting. I was supposed to download the pics to my home computer so I can show them at the next meeting. I forgot to download the pics, and so when she showed up at the door to retrieve her camera, I went into a panic and scrambled to get the job done. Well, the printer/camera card interface wouldn't work, so after making her wait for five minutes, I finally just gave her the camera back and told her I'd have to get them later.

If I'd been MacGyver . . .

That camera would have probably contained pictures of my kidnapped boss and friend Pete Thorton at the hands of Murdoc. I would have forgotten to download them, not because I'm absent minded, but because I'd spent the last two days recovering a lost Chinese satellite in the Congo.

As soon as the I entered the camera card into the printer and it refused to read the card, I would have popped the back off the computer tower and unscrewed the back off the camera. Using the wires from the inside of some twisty-ties from the drawer in my kitchen, I would have wired the camera directly into the computer and retrieved the pictures.

Then my houseboat would have blown up. But I got away. Wanna know how? Well, let's just say it looked a little
something like this . . .








Till next time,
Mac

Can Dustin get any happier? I think not!!!!

Incident 2-1
So I have been living in the Netherlands for the past 4 months without a car. Instead, my only form of transportation to and from school has been my bike. Over the months this bike has taken a beating as nature has thrown at it wind, rain, snow, sleet, and extreme cold. As you can guess, eventually the bike started to give way. It turns out the last 3 weeks I was here the breakdowns began. I was biking home from the train station after one of my many trips and my chain fell off. Being as it was behind a guard I was unable to get at it without the proper tools. I therefore held on to my friend Bryan’s bike as he pulled me home.

If I had been MacGyver . . .

I would have been exhausted from fighting a terrorist organization overseas because my friend Jack Dalton got in over his head once again. Things would have just wrapped up and I would be headed back to my houseboat on my bike when suddenly the chain popped off. I would have quickly removed my pocket knife in a manner allowing the camera to zoom in for dramatic effect. After quickly removing the screws on the chain cover a picture would have fallen to the ground as the cover came lose.

Turning the Polaroid picture over I would see a picture slowly come to life only to reveal Pete Thornton tied up with Murdoc’s scarred face revealing the newest scars caused by our last meeting, a meeting which I thought would have left him dead.

Just then I would realize a ticking sound, slowly scanning the bike I would softly open the silver bell casing to reveal differently colored wires attached to a small amount of extremely explosive C4. Knowing that I can’t leave the bike where it is because of Murdoc’s perfectly planned breakdown in the middle of the town center I begin to look around. I pull out stick of bubble gum to and use the tin wrapper to short-circuit the wiring mechanism. It doesn’t work. I run over to the school aged girl playing in the park and borrow a hair clip which I use to mend the chain.

Still, I realize I will never be able to get the bike out of the area soon enough. I notice a broken down car on the side of the road and quickly pop the hood. I remove the alternator belt and attach the mended bike chain linking the bike and car alternator. I then quickly rewire the car battery cables to the bike. I would quickly hop on the seat, backwards of coarse, covering my eyes, and vocalizing a clever line hoping this works, and begin to peddle, the wires begin to smoke and just before the final second clicks off the timer, it stops. Apparently the added charge disrupted the atomic clock and prevented the bomb from going off. I lower my head as I realize how narrowly I escaped being overtaken by Murdoc. Still, Pete was still in Murdoc’s clutches, and this wicked awesome two part episode would be completed by none other than the great J-Money.

Until next time,
Mac

A Tribute to Dustin . . .

Ah! The first post of what I hope will be many in a little tribute I've set up for my pal Dustin! Why for? you ask. Well, I feel there are times in all our lives when we find ourselves in tricky situations and it'd be so much easier to escape disaster if only we had the smarts of wiles of TV legend MacGyver.

It's a very simple premise, and to demonstrate, it'll go a little something like this:

INCIDENT 1-1
While leaving the church today for lunch, I found my right rear tire to be deflated. I changed the tire with the full sized spare from my trunk. Upon inspection of the deflated tire, I found the head of a nail sticking out of it. I took the damaged tire to Midtown Tire in Pella. They fixed it, and by the end of the day I had it back on my car.

If I'd been MacGyver . . .
The instant I saw the flat tire I would have knelt by the car and given a subtle grimace. I then would have sprinted back into the church and straight to the janitor's closet where I would have grabbed a jar of turtle wax and a bottle of drain cleaner.

Using a discarded butter dish from the church dumpster, I would have mixed these two ingredients together along with bird droppings I scraped from the car, and some used chewing gum I'd found under a park bench. Using an injection device I created from a ball point pen from the secretary's office, I would shoot the substance into tire's air intake with the help of an aersol can from the janitor's closet. The substance would patch the hole from the inside, while the aerosol reinflated the tire and popped the nail out.

I would then have taken the nail to the hardware store to discover that it was a nail from bin 88-2A. A hardware store employee would then tell me that nails just like that were just purchased by a man with a funny accent from the south side of town. Upon investigation, I would then find out the man was Russian, and he was building a warehouse to store atomic weapons that he was smuggling into our country for communists. He'd go to jail, and I'd go out to lunch with my good friend and boss Pete Thorton.

Till next time,
Mac