Patrick Elkins breaks in, sings song

A few nights ago, we got a text message from Berkeley. The former-Ypsilantian on the other end wanted to know if we’d be home at 7:00. I told him that we would. And, a little while later, the doorbell rang. It was Patrick Elkins in gin-soaked top hat. We talked through the door. He said he had to come in. I said that whatever he had to do inside our house, he could do on the sidewalk. He said that he was cold… What happened next, I’ve since explained to people, was kind of like when the kids in the book by Dr. Seuss let the Cat in the Hat into their house… I’d only cracked the door an inch, when a walking stick slid in, and a gloved hand pushed me aside. Patrick was already singing.

He strutted into our living room, an open bottle in his pocket, sloshing whiskey in his wake, singing about our son, Arlo, and what a terrific thing his birth was. Building up to a climax, he then jumped up on our coffee table, spun into a pose that I can best describe as an Al Joslon-like pose, and promptly fell over, onto his face. Clementine, who was hidden behind the couch by that point, asked if we should do something. But, before the question could even leave her lips, the snoring had begun. And there he slept for about an hour, just feet away from the spot where the baby Arlo was born.

The baby Jesus got his three wise men. Arlo got Patrick.

Many thanks to Ruth, James, Josh and Amelia for the giving Arlo his first real celebrity encounter.

[If any of you would like to commission a Pat-O-Gram, there are two ways that I know of to initiate communication with the reclusive entertainer. You can either leave a letter in his secret mailbox, or you can put a piping hot bowl of Campbell’s Bean with Bacon soup on your back porch at midnight.]

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12 Comments

  1. anonymous
    Posted December 10, 2011 at 11:52 pm | Permalink

    I hope you went through his pockets when he was passed out.

  2. Kristin
    Posted December 11, 2011 at 8:46 am | Permalink

    Does he do corporate? I’m on the staff meeting planning committee this year.

  3. Edward
    Posted December 11, 2011 at 9:18 am | Permalink

    I’m relieved to see that “Al Jolson-like” doesn’t mean blackface.

  4. Eel
    Posted December 11, 2011 at 9:34 am | Permalink

    I thought that it had already been established here that Patrick Elkins was a robot developed and controlled by Maynard Corp.

    And, for what it’s worth, I plan on making this my only form of communication in the future. Fuck the internet.

  5. K2
    Posted December 11, 2011 at 8:47 pm | Permalink

    I was going to say that you should have harvested his kidneys, and then it occurred to me that Patrick’s might not have great resale value. You could have surgically removed his beard, though, and sold it to Chaz Bono.

  6. kevin
    Posted December 12, 2011 at 7:45 am | Permalink

    <3

  7. Patrick
    Posted December 12, 2011 at 8:37 am | Permalink

    You forgot to tell everyone about the part where I psyched you out with that fake Facebook status update.

  8. Grandma
    Posted December 13, 2011 at 12:53 pm | Permalink

    WORRIED!!!!

  9. Forest
    Posted December 14, 2011 at 4:10 am | Permalink

    One time Patrick passed out & I went through his pockets & he just had a big pocket fulla’ cum. I was hoping for $2000!

  10. anonymous
    Posted December 14, 2011 at 8:06 am | Permalink

    That was nectar, Forest.

  11. Mr. X
    Posted December 14, 2011 at 9:55 am | Permalink

    It’s actually Lay’s Fench Onion Dip. If you’d have looked in his other pocket, you would have found his supply of Ruffles. Patrick signed a sponsorship deal with Lay’s in September. They pay him to eat their products wherever he goes.

    http://www.fritolay.com/our-snacks/lays-french-onion-dip.html

  12. Eel
    Posted December 14, 2011 at 2:31 pm | Permalink

    As cute as Patrick is, I think this is cuter.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/14/baby-seal-house-couch_n_1146980.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

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  1. […] exception this time, though, as it appears to be the handiwork of thickly bearded local troubadour, Patrick Elkins… My guess, given what little I’ve been able to decipher thus far, is that […]

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