Introductions had to be the first order of business, roles and responsibilities were going to shift around and new relationships had to be forged. The table filled up, there were a lot of important people here, including little Esther, who snuggled up in my lap and was yapping at me about everything and anything that had happened while I was gone. I finally spied Aunty at the far end of the table and tasked Esther with taking care of her, off that little girl bounced with determination and a mission.

I had to talk to the time twitchers first, I grabbed poor Timmons and put him in my chair, leaving him with the task of making basic introductions across the board and asked Jeb to give him a hand. I grabbed my small original group and the Gretzkys and we moved back to the camper for a moment. There was minor confusion on all of their faces but I wasn’t above playing this up. Hell, I had a minor buzz and needed a laugh.

But I needed to clarify this quickly otherwise confusion would reign and the wrong things might be said. Once I had them all in that small camper I merely said, “Ladies, I’d like to introduce you to Steve Urkel and his lovely wife Lucinda. They join us from the early 1980’s.”

You could have heard a pin drop for almost a minute. Then Sheriff started stammering and the ladies started giggling and it all turned into raucous laughter. Sheriff was still beside himself, the Urkel thing still bugged him although with his size and presence it was beyond absurd. Hell, if I outlived him I’d make sure that went on his headstone.

Heck, I had addressed the bouquets of thistles I sent to my best friend’s grave to ‘Lurch’; his wife protested both the thistles and the nickname but damnit woman, he wouldn’t want roses from me. He was my best buddy not my sweetheart; thistles made him laugh. He also had liked the manly gifts I gave him, like the fine, hand-made hatchet and the custom machete. Gifts that made the women say “What the fuck?” and all the guys go, “Damn, I wish I’d gotten that.”

Of course, I also gave my buddies tampons or some other silly shit for Valentine’s Day and a box of condoms on Father’s Day. Most importantly, on the anniversary of the day they were wounded I sent them children’s cartoon band-aids of some sort. It was important to keep laughing at the world together. The minute any of us started to take the world seriously, we’d shatter. Laughter was our glue of love.

Sheriff was just starting to learn this lesson, Lucinda didn’t yet know that he had whipped a man and that he had, upon reflection agreed with that necessity. Did she ever need to know that? It wasn’t my place to ask or even consider. Rabbi seemed to firmly believe that what was done absolutely had to be done and he was the one it was done to. He definitely got the final word in that discussion.

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Sheriff finally came around to the hilarity of the moment and I passed the abbreviated story on to the girls quickly. Musings and laughter aside, we still had to get back out in public. But now Michelle, Matilda and Sonya understood that we had new time twitchers in town and that they would be moving into the main compound.

So Prince Urkel Sheriff and Princess Lucinda accompanied us back to the main table where lively conversation was in process. It also seemed that cultural/racial groups were being formed. Mouse was suddenly glued to me again and I had to make some quick decisions.

Sonya and Michelle were my greatest assets and Clara was shadowing me as recorder yet again. I had an entourage wherever I went, which very much didn’t please me. I had to sit down and explicitly assign Clara to Sonya which didn’t necessarily make either Sonya or Clara happy. I needed every new arriving family to have a tent and I looked to Sonya to make that happen. I needed everyone to be fed, including the boatmen, and I needed a party arranged for the weekend. I was glared at even harder when I insisted that they probably needed to recruit some help. They were simply lucky I didn’t sic Aunty or Matilda on them, I finally got Sonya to settle down by threatening to ask for a full set of asset and production reports. Oddly enough, she didn’t want to spend her weekend doing that so she buckled down and worked with Clara to get our current problems handled.

With those two set to work, I looked back at the rest of the folk and ordered more beer to be brought out. When Matilda’s ladies attempted to set a mug of beer in front of Michelle, who was sitting next to me, I waved them off.

Michelle complained, giving me the opening to exact a small measure of revenge by saying, “No, no, Mama. No alcohol or caffeine for the expecting mother.” Yeah, it was petty shit, but so was dumping me and then getting knocked up on purpose. Hell, she’d even told me that was her intention but I didn’t really believe her when she had explicitly told me that it.

So now I had two women who weren’t my companions carrying around my spawn, I was less than amused by that situation. It really didn’t make me feel more manly to have two women walking around pregnant by me. It's not like it's difficult to do, hell doing that was actually less difficult than taking a shit.

So yeah, I was still a little pissed about the being used as a breeding stud. It was beyond ridiculous.

Obviously, I was a little more pissed off about the concept than I was willing to admit, even to myself. This isn’t the way I hoped my escape from modern civilization would go, this didn’t fit my freeway daydream of lottery winnings.

And, seriously, Matilda and Michelle of all people?

Hadn’t Michelle just dumped me as a boyfriend?