Former CHS English teacher Robert Morgan is back at CHS as a long-term sub for Sarah Hechler. On his first day back in the building, he shared his favorite joke.
"So there's a colonel. It's the Gulf War, early '90s.
The colonel's fighting in the war. He's just been sent over, he's stationed in Saudi Arabia at a US Air Force base. It's the weekend--- Saturday hits and before the new week starts, this new shipment of Jeeps have come in from stateside. The colonel's excited. He's gonna get his hands on these puppies before any other private. So he decides--- Sunday morning, early, he's going to take one out for a little test drive, right? He's got a satellite radio. He's got his water bottle. It hits 6 a.m., boom. He's flying out of the base.
He's going over the sand dunes at speeds the Jeeps were not designed for, and wouldn't you know it, he hits the top of one of these dunes--- sickening crunch. As the Jeep hits the ground, he spins out, and he's stranded in the middle of the desert.
The wind's picking up, the tracks are blowing away. He has no idea how he's gonna get back to base. He starts walking over and pops open the hood of his car and takes some windshield wiper fluid. Now he knows that it's going to keep him hydrated, but he doesn't know how safe and healthy it is to consume. He figures desperate times call for desperate measures.
The colonel's walking over to these ____. He's trying to find his way back to base, but that afternoon sun's picking up, it's getting hotter. He's going through his water bottle quick, and soon enough he dips into that windshield wiper fluid. He hits the top of a dune, his leg catches a little in the sand, he stumbles downhill. 20 feet ahead of him, he swears he can see an enormous lever.
He goes up to the lever, and as he reaches out to touch it, he hears a voice whisper in his ear. He looks around, and next to the lever on a large pole is an enormous snake. The snake says "Stop! Please! My name is Nate. Nate the snake. I've been guarding this lever for thousands of years. This lever restarts humanity. Please don't touch the lever. If you don't touch the lever, I promise I'll give you three wishes."
The colonel, having seen a lot of existing movies about wishes, knowing that they're dangerous, goes "Alright." He's going to test the waters here, he says "What can I lose, either I'm hallucinating and the snake isn't real, or I have three wishes."
He goes, "I wish for clear, drinkable water." Boom. A trough of water, right next to him. He dives in. It's the most refreshing moment of his life. The sand falls off of his weather beaten face, he takes a big gulp. And then he thinks to himself, "Alright, two more wishes. This is real. Tell you what. I wish for wisdom for my second wish so I can have an informed third wish." Seems like a good strategy.
Nate nods his head, slowly agreeing. And the secrets of the universe go through the colonel, he's suddenly just imbibing the knowledge of all mankind. He opens his eyes after a long pause. For his third wish he says, "I just want to see my family again."
At this, Nate sheds a single tear and says, "That's a good wish. And you know what, my son Jake's been gone for a long time. I don't know how long I'm going to be left on this pole. I just want to see Jake again before I go," and the colonel makes a promise. He says, "I swear to you Nate the snake. After I spend some time with my own family, I will find Jake and I will come back."
A decade passes in a moment.
Hugs. Children growing up. After all of these life events, the colonel realizes he's only got so much time left to find Jake, and Jake could be anywhere in the world. [The colonel] criss-crosses the globe, [and he] ends up in a market in Morocco, behind a stall. He opens a lid and there, curled, is Jake the snake. He takes him out, he says "Your father, he sent for you."
Jake knew this day was coming. He jumps in the colonel's back pocket, curls up his arm, and off they go. Wouldn't you know it? Same [story]--- [they're] cruising through these dunes in Saudi Arabia, but increasingly cannot find where to go--- it's not like [the colonel] intended to find this lever [in the first place], he got lost and stumbled into it. They're picking up speed, becoming more and more desperate. They hit a dune too hard.
They are speeding down this dune and the colonel pumps and realizes the brakes aren't working. They're picking up speed. And they look ahead. And at the valley of this dune, there's the lever and there's Nate the snake curled around that pole. He knows if he swerves to the right, he could hit the lever, risking humanity, risking restarting the human experiment. To the left, Jake's dad [would be] dead. Jake in the passenger seat looks at the colonel and says "Please. Please don't kill my dad." And the colonel looks at him and goes, "Better Nate than lever!"