Chapter 8, The Lucky Hat Rescue
I started pacing around the parking lot, hoping to come up with a solution to how we were going to get to the Beets concert that was another hour or so away in Bloatsberg. I was about to think about how Qualeman might solve this problem, when all of the sudden, I felt a gust of wind, and then, something land on top of my head!
Doug reached up to the top of his head to retrieve what had landed there. He pulled it off, revealing a worn in dark blue baseball style hat with a red viser on the front. It suddenly hit Doug what he was holding in his hands for the second time.
"You're not gonna believe it Skeet, look what I just found, or rather, what just found me! It's my…" Doug said, before he and Skeeter said the last two words together.
"Lucky hat!" Doug and Skeeter said together in unison.
"Wow Doug, I wonder if that hat would still bring you good luck!" Skeeter cried.
Doug placed the hat back on to his head, and no sooner had he done this, when a yellow taxi cab van pulled up to let off some passengers.
"Well what do you know Skeet, it looks like this hat still brings me luck after all." Doug said with a smile, pointing to the yello taxi van.
Skeeter, looking worried, leaned into Doug's ear.
"But Doug, that's a taxi. How on earth will ewe ever afford the ride to Bloatsberg?" Skeeter whispered worriedly.
Not taking off his hat, Doug approached the taxi van just as the other passengers were getting out.
"Uh, excuse me, sir. My friends and I need a ride to Bloatsberg right away." Doug said.
"Where to?" The driver asked.
Doug pulled out his ticket to the Beets concert and showed it to him.
"Oh, the Crome Dome Theater, I know where that is." The driver said.
"So you'll take us?" Doug asked with anticipation.
"As long as you've got the fare, sure kid, I'll take you wherever you want!" The driver said.
"All right! Looks like your lucky hat hasn't lost its luck after all!" Skeeter cried, giving Doug a high-five, as the two boys, along with the Rugrats, all piled into the taxi van and buckled their seatbelts.
Once everybody was settled, the taxi pulled out of the parking lot and rolled down the highway in the direction of Bloatsberg. Angelica however, couldn't help but notice that while her babysitters were two older boys, they were wearing pink jackets.
"Hey Doug and Skeeter, if you two are boys, how come you're wearing pink jackets? I hear pink is only for girls." Angelica said, giving Doug and Skeeter a dirty look.
"Uh, they're special jackets we got from the first time we met the beets, right Doug?" Skeeter asked.
"Uh, right." Doug replied.
"Well what happened?" Angelica asked.
"Well Doug and I had won tickets to a surprise Beets concert back in Bluffington, only for me to get grounded earlier that evening, causing us to miss the concert." Skeeter started to explain, before Angelica cut him off to ask another question.
"Grounded? You mean you were stuck to the ground? What happened, did you and Doug play in the mud or something?" Angelica asked teasingly.
"Oh no no Angelica, getting grounded is like, well, time out for big kids." Skeeter explained.
"So what happened?" Angelica asked.
"Well eventually, Skeeter got ungrounded, but by this time, it was too late for us to make it to the concert. So we…" Doug started to say, as he had a flashback to the events.
Begin Flashback
Doug and Skeeter are standing outside the Honker Burger at night, which was completely desserted.
"Oh great! Even the Honker Burger's empty. I bet ya everyone's at the concert." Skeeter said with disappointment.
Doug just smiled and raised his hand in a salute.
"I know, let's pretend we're there." Doug said, as he struck a pose like he were one of the Beets members, about ready to play his guitar.
"I'd like to dedicate this next song to my two friends, Monroe Yoda, and Porkchop." Doug said in a British accent, pointing to Skeeter, as he pretended to be Chap Lipman.
He, Skeeter and Porkchop started dancing around, singing the Killer Tofu song at the top of their lungs and dancing. While they were singing, a van pulled up that had the Beets inside.
"Very nice!" One of the Beets members commented.
This startled Doug and Skeeter from their pretend act, when they turned and stared at the Beets.
"The… The… The Beets!" Doug and Skeeter cried in unison upon seeing them.
Their driver came out of the Honker Burger carrying some orders to go.
"Well got the shakes so let's, shake it out of here." The driver said, piling into the van with the to-go orders.
"Nice work boys, keep up the great work." Chap Lipman said from the van.
"See ya!" Doug and Skeeter cried in unison.
"Oh and guys, catch!" Monroe Yota cried, tossing two pink Beets jackets out the car window at Doug and Skeeter.
They held up their jackets in disbelief.
"The Beets! Jackets!" Doug and Skeeter cried in unison.
"No one's gonna believe us!" Doug added.
End of Flashback
"So you two actually got those pink jackets from the Beets themselves?" Angelica asked, still in disbelief.
"Yeah we sure did." Skeeter replied.
"Humps. I'll believe it when I see it." Angelica muttered, slumping back in her seet where Doug handed her back her Cynthia coloringbook, and Skeeter his Beets book, as with them now on the road, he figured they might as well keep themselves occupied on the long drive ahead of them.
Skeeter reached up to the ceiling and turned on two reading lights, those being the ones above him and Angelica, so they could see their materials, while the rest of the babies had fallen asleep in the way back of the taxi van, exhausted from the long day they had had up to this point, even though their adventure was far from over, as they still had the concert to get through. At that moment, the driver had switched on the radio, as Doug sat back in his seat, taking a few minutes to relax. Little did he know some startling news would come up on the radio.
As soon as the driver switched on the radio and tuned it to a station that was coming in clearly while on the highway, the Beets song, Where's My Sock was playing, but not for long, as it was quickly interrupted by a news report.
"We interrupt this Beets musical marathon to give you listeners some information about the Beets." The news reporter announced.
"I hope nothing's wrong." Doug thought to himself, overhearing this announcement.
"As everybody in the Eastern United States is well aware, the Beets will be performing their second concert in Bloatsberg this evening. That is, if they can make it there in time. We've been recently informed that they've been in a bit of an accident on I 90 North, trying to reach their destination. Let's go to the hospital, where we'll hear from the members of the Beets themselves." The reporter continued, as news coverage was transferred to Bloatsberg Medical Center.
"We were heading to our concert early for a rehearsal and a sound check, when this car from out of nowhere, swerved and ran into the side of our car. Even worse, they slammed into the passenger side, right where Monroe Yota was sitting. We're at the emergency room at Bloatsberg Medical Center, and Monroe is back with doctors, being examined right now. I just hope my good friend and partner, is all right." Chap Lipman said to a news reporter.
"Luckily there are long lines of people waiting for tickets, and thank goodness they have an opening act who made it to the theater many hours before. We'll bring you more coverage, when it becomes available. And now, back to the music." The news reporter signed off, as the radio station cut back to another Beets song, already in progress.
"Oh no!" Doug thought to himself.
"I hope the Beets make it to their concert and nothing's wrong with Monroe Yota." Skeeter said, looking up from his Beets book, obviously hearing the report despite being absorbed by his reading.
"What if they don't Skeet? What if the concert's canceled? Now how will we return the kids to their parents?" Doug asked in a panic.
"Relax man, I'm sure if worst comes to worst, we'll at least meet up with them outside of the theater and the bus will be there to take us home." Skeeter said reassuringly.
"But what if the concert is canceled before we get there? I mean, we're already behind schedule as it is." Doug asked, just as the cab van turned off the highway, taking the exit for Bloatsberg.
"Relax man, what else could go wrong?" Skeeter asked, patting his friend on the shoulder.
Doug took some deep breaths, trying to calm down, as the driver slowed down, driving in the direction of the Crome Dome Theater.
Apparently, there were several people attending this concert, as they ended up in a long line of backed up traffic.
Great! With this traffic jam before us, I knew we'd never make it. I swear we were in the taxi van for another half an hour as we crawled at a snails pace throughout the streets of Bloatsberg. I was about ready to scream when suddenly, the traffic started to clear and we started moving at a faster pace again. Little did I know however, that once we arrived at the theater, we'd be faced by another dilemma.
The taxi van rolled into the Crome Dome Theater, pulling up to the doors to let them out.
"We're here." The driver announced.
"Thank you so much sir." Doug said, as he and Skeeter started waking up the toddlers, who thankfully, awoke immediately and Angelica put her Cynthia coloringbook away in her backpack.
"Wait a minute." The driver said, just as Skeeter was getting the toddlers into their strollers, and was starting to look around for their parents.
"Well what is it sir?" Doug asked.
I then caught a glance at the taxi's meter, and then, it hit me. With us being an hour away from Bloatsberg, plus adding in another half hour with that massive traffic jam, it looked like we weren't going to have enough money to pay the cab fare.
"You boys o me some money." The driver said.
According to the meter on the dashboard, the amount read $130.00. Doug rummaged through his pants pockets and discovered he had a total of fifty dollars with him.
"Uh Skeet, how much money do you have on you?" Doug asked.
Skeeter did the same, only to turn up with fifty dollars in his pocket as well.
"Uh, fifty dollars man." Skeeter replied.
"Well, here you go sir." Doug said, handing one-hundred dollars to the driver.
The driver counted up the money, then looked back at Doug and Skeeter with a look of disappointment on his face.
"Something wrong sir?" Skeeter asked.
"Yes there's something wrong, you're thirdy dollars short!" The driver screamed.
"I'm sorry, sir, we had no idea the cab fare would be that much." Doug said appologetically.
Just then, Angelica let go of Skeeter's hand and approached the cab driver.
"Hey mister, wanna hear a song?" Angelica asked.
"I don't have time for music little girl, as it is, I'm late for my next pick up." The cab driver said.
But as usual, the three-year-old blond paid no attention to him, as she opened her mouth and started singing.
My country, tears of thee
Sweet land of lizzardy
A bee I seen.
Land all my father buys,
Land of my chillin' pies,
For every mountain's eyes
Let freedom ring!
Just as her high pitched shreak on the last lines broke her father's glasses when she sang that song originally a while back at the Little Miss Lovely's Contest, this time, her singing was so pathetic, that everybody, including Doug, Skeeter and the taxi driver were covering their ears, and just as she sang the last note of the song, or rather, screamed it, the scream was so loud, that all of the windows of the taxi van, including the front and back windshield shattered, leaving splinters of glass all over the parking lot. Once Angelica stopped singing, the cab driver stared at the entire gang angrily.
"Get her out of here, now!" The driver screamed.
"But what about the thirty dollars we o you?" Doug asked.
"I'll let you off thirty dollars short, if you just, get that good for nothing brat out of my face!" The driver screamed, nearly in tears.
"Come on Angelica, let's go." Doug demanded, grabbing her arm, as he, Skeeter with the two strollers, Chuckie and Kimi all ran away from the van as fast as they could, careful not to trip on any glass in the process.
They ran towards the door of the theater, bolting inside quickly, just as the cab drove away as if there were a fire, not caring that it picked up some splinters of glass in its tires, obviously causing them to lose air in the process. Once inside, Doug turned his attention to Angelica.
"Thanks for saving us Angelica." Doug said.
"Don't mention it, Doug Anti Money." Angelica said teasingly.
By this point, I was ready to scream at Angelica for constantly getting my name wrong, but seeing she did manage to save our lives, and my life savings from ending up in the hands of that taxi van driver, I simply smiled at her. Who knew the most difficult child could be so heroic at just the right moment.
Once inside the theater, they wandered down a hall towards the auditorium, hoping they weren't too late.
And how will the concert go? Find out, in the last and final chapter of this story, which I plan to get released tomorrow, on the big twenty-five year anniversary day itself, and you'll better understand why this is when it happens.
Author's Note: The flashback I portrayed earlier in the chapter was from the season 1 Doug episode, 'Doug Rocks,' and the song Angelica sang towards the end of the chapter was the same one she sang in the season 1 Rugrats episode, 'Beauty Contest.' Also, while Angelica is typically a pain, she does have her moments of glory, like when she helped the babies in the forest in 'The Rugrats Movie,' and gave a bit of revenge to Coco Labooche at the end of 'Rugrats in Paris,' when she made her underwear appear to everybody at the Notre Dame church. Therefore, I had to come up with something clever for her to do to finally make the gang of Doug and Skeeter appreciate her, despite her being a brat up to this point, and, well, again, this seemed like the perfect moment to pull it off. Thanks to her horrible singing, she got her babysitters out of paying the entire cab fare they ode. Also, I did think about possibly having Doug and Skeeter reunite with the Police officer that drove them to Bloatsberg in, 'Doug's Hot Ticket,' and then thought, I've gotta do something different here, since so much of this adventure parodies that episode in a lot of ways. So having the taxi van sounded like the perfect compromise. Also, a reference to the season 2 episode, 'Doug's Lucky Hat,' which is one of my favorite episodes, along with its partner episode, 'Doug's Lost Weekend,' which I sort of mentioned in the previous chapter when Chuckie found that video game at the arcade, well I just had to have Doug have another run in with his lucky hat, and to everybody's pleasant surprise, the hat still brings him good luck, after all of this time. Anyway, it looks like this story will only have 9 chapters instead of 10, but that's fine, be looking for the last and final chapter of this story tomorrow, when we see what happens with the concert. To everybody who's followed, favorited, and reviewed this story so far, thank you so very much, and I assure you, the next and final chapter will be available, before you know it!