The Complete Opposite of Crossing the Streams

It’s no wonder those late-night show opening monologues are just a rehash of the previous night’s jokes about Paris Hilton, the President, and Kramer all the time. There’s really very little in the daily news that’s funny on its own. And since Letterman and Leno feel compelled to only pull source material from the front page of CNN.com, no one digs deep enough to find out where comedy lurks. Turns out in this case, comedy lurks in Boise, Idaho.

You know in Ghostbusters (unless you are my wife, who still hasn’t seen this gem) when Egon explains to the others what could happen if they were to “cross the streams” of their proton packs? He says that it would not only be bad, but also to “imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.” That’s a perfect storm that would comprise the ultimate tragedy.I think I’ve found the complete opposite of crossing the streams, the ultimate comedy.

Funny location? Boise, Idaho. Funny-sounding word? Zamboni. Funny means to justify an end? The Hotline. My two comedic wheelhouses? Fast Food and Sports? Jackpot, baby.

According to the Seattle Pilot (a reputable news source with a stupid name), two part-time workers at Boise’s Idaho Ice World skating rink opted to forgo the rink’s concession stand at 12:30 at night in favor or a late-night Burger King run. They also chose to forgo their own vehicles in favor of Ice World’s two Zambonis. The Burger King, about three-quarters of a mile down the road, served the two Zambonis through the drive-thru, but not before some Good Samaritan called a special Mayoral hotline to bust these two. No foul play was suspected, but hilarity was confirmed at the scene.

The above paragraph is all facts that come directly from the story, which in turn come from the collective word processors of the Associated Press. This was some fine reporting by a large, faceless, cadre of loosely-affiliated reporters, but had YABNews not closed their Boise office in October due to budget cutbacks, we would have been first on the scene, and we would have asked the tough questions. Those retroactive questions now follow:

1. Why do you take TWO Zambonis? Look, I’ve been to many a hockey game, and I’ve witnessed the inter-period cleaning of the ice. While the Zamboni goes round and round, some special Flyers fan gets to ride shotgun, thereby utilizing the most useless seat of all time. It faces backwards on a vehicle that makes ice for a living. For our Idaho duo, this could have actually been the FIRST EVER practical use of the Zamboni jump seat.
2. How’s the gas mileage? Okay, if the article says they went 1.5 miles roundtrip, and the thing goes 5 miles per hour, that’s nine minutes to get to Burger King, probably 10 minutes at the window while the post-midnight shift gets their act together, and then another nine minutes back. That’s not exactly a getawar car. (And meanwhile, that’s a whole half-hour of unsupervised free skate at Ice World! Woo!)
3. Can it be that bad? Okay, so we Yahoo Mapped this epic journey. Now because we did our homework on the Ice World homepage, we know that their starting point is not where Yahoo! places them, but rather in that teal-roofed building in the bottom right corner of the parking lot. Burger King is the end destination, listed as #5. So what? Well, it means that Items #2 and #8, Blimpie’s and Round Table Pizza, respectively, were COMPLETELY BYPASSED by our Hungry Hungry Zambonis. That must be some pretty awful pizza.

Or, it might be a wake-up call to the proprietors of both restaurants that there’s a untapped market segment longing for pizza and a tall glass of Pepsi.

With ice, of course.