By Alexander Shulman

After being trapped in an avalanche at Doomsday Resort, the Mozzarella family needed a break from the mountains. Mr. Mozzarella said, “Hey kids! Let’s take a trip to the desert! I’ve always wanted to see those cartoony cactuses in the round.”

“Let’s get out of here! I want to see sand and not snow,” agree Mrs. Mozzarella. “Kids, pack your bags.”

“What about my friend? Can he come?” said Parmesan. His parents agree and that is how I came to be in the backseat with Parmesan and Baby Gouda on our way to “the desert.”

I had grabbed my Tweeterson’s magical jacket and a duffle bag and loaded them in the trunk.

We drove seven hours the first day, and it felt like sitting on a bumpy piece of metal. It was very boring and I resorted to doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. Outside the window there was nothing to see except factory farms stretching to the horizon. I must have fallen asleep because when I woke up we were in the Disneyland parking lot!

“Disneyland? What? Am I dreaming?”

Mr. Mozzarella said, “we’re staying in an EconoLodge next to the park, so why not spend some money? We don’t have anything better to do until we hit the road again tomorrow.”

“An EconoLodge again?” I said, “How…decent.”

Just then Baby Gouda pointed and shouted, “wola-costa, wola-costa!”

We ate lunch in the car and walked into the park and did all the things we were supposed to do:

We rode on roller coasters (the line took forever). We tried out a ladder game where it starts to spin and hurl you off when you begin to climb (Parmesan said it was a rip off, but I won!). We saw the strangest mimes in giant styrofoam costumes. Finally we watched a free imax movie about a group of people that got stuck in an avalanche (what a coincidence!) and the screen was huge.

At dinner time we went home and ate Mrs. Mozzarella’s premade dinner at EconoLodge. It was soup and bread and if there’s one thing you can’t mess up, it’s soup. Soup is never bad! You can always make soup taste great. I know this doesn’t make any sense, but I slept in a bed that was somehow scratchy yet not scratchy and woke up at 6am to fall asleep in the car again.

 We were in a very hot place when I woke up. I heard a hissing sound. It was a gas station. Mr. Mozzarella was filling up tanks of gas. “If we’re going to a desert, we need to get lots of surplus gas.” 

Later, we passed an area with lots of signs that said, “Keep your windows closed!” and “Toxic fumes, use recirculate!” Mr. Mozzarella said that we were approaching the Salton Sea, a toxic ocean of waste. 

I thought “Things are becoming bad again.” 

Mr. Mozzarella didn’t seem to be concerned. He turned toward the backseat and said, “No problem. We’ll just close the air vents. Isn’t this great?” 

Parmesan asked, “So where exactly are we headed?”

Mr. Mozzarella replied, “We’re headed for The Doomy Mine. Legend has it that there are gold nuggets there that fall from the roof.”

We drove and drove, and eventually one by one I started noticing these strange trees. The biggest were as high as a 1 story house. They had grey trunks and piny tufts. The tree looked like it was holding pom-pom’s. They were kind of spaced out, and sparse in some places. Suddenly, there were no more trees and only cactuses. 

We turned off the paved road onto a gravel county road and Mr. Mozzarella said, “we’ll look for a camping spot soon.”

Mrs. Mozzarella said miserably, “waaashhhboooooaard” as the car started jolting along and reached in her purse to take out the tylenol. She said,  “Acetaminophen for everyone!”

We bounced down the road for what felt like days but was probably forty-five minutes. Baby Gouda fell asleep. Parmesan had given up on reading her book and now looked close to the color of a frog.

Finally, Mr. Mozzarella stopped and took out his shovel. “This spot is perfect!” he declared. “This is a great flat spot. Here are a bunch of shovels, kids. Start digging!

We got out of the car, and all of the jackets, which were venting suits in the car, became AC suits. It would cool down the inside, but blow heat out from a vent. 

“Uh, why are we digging?” I asked.

“To set up a tent!”

After hours of digging, we set up a tent. Of course, it would have been easier if we had a CAT. But as it was, we had to make due with four humans and a baby.

Next, we unloaded dinner, which was bread on a stick. (“Oh crap!”)

Finally, the sun was going down. I looked around at the area, and saw that I had absentmindedly dug up an ant hill and they had relocated into my sleeping bag. 

“Oh crap!” I cried. “Avalanches are better than ants in the sleeping bag!” Suddenly, the car began to shake. Wondering what was happening, I went to the car, and saw my jacket. 

Return to safety! Return to safety! The jacket said. 

I called Mr Mozzarella over and told him what was going on. “I think we should get out now,” I concluded nervously, “this jacket is always right.”

“There must be a glitch!” Mr. Mozzarella said. “I’m sure it’s just low on battery. Look, I shook all the ants out of your sleeping bag. Let’s get some shut-eye and we’ll charge the jacket up tomorrow.”

Reluctantly, I went to sleep.

I woke up the next morning and still felt nervous. I checked out the jacket and it was no longer throwing a fuss.

Mr. Mozzarella told me to go to the nearest spring and boil some water. I brushed my teeth using hot water and drank hot tea in the desert. By the end, I felt WAYYYYYYY more refreshed. I remembered boiling snow in an avalanche. Hot snow is better than hot desert spring water. For breakfast, we had oatmeal in a can, on a stick. 

After breakfast, Mr. Mozzarella told us to get our hiking boots on. “According to this map, there’s an abandoned mine just a few miles from here. We can pack our lunch (sandwich on a stick) and go exploring.”

Mr. Mozzarella got everyone in the car and we left for the Doomy Mine…

We bounced along as the navigation system said, “GPS signal lost 😦

“Let’s go back,” Mrs. Mozzarella said.

“I’m sure we’re close,” said Mr. Mozzarella. “According to the map it’s over there in the Creepy Crawly Mountains.”

We drove 5 more miles and finally found a hole in the ground with a sign. RIP those who went in and never came out. 

Went in and never came out? I thought. Mr. Mozzarella said, reading my thought, “Probably just some miners who died during an accident. As soon as we entered, my jacket became like the strongest octopus in the world, growing a bunch of arms that grabbed us by the ears and dragged us dragged out. “No, no, no. Naughty, naughty, naughty,” it said. 

“I think this jacket is really trying to tell us something,” I said.

Parmesan added: “To get out? And to get out NOW.”

Mr. Mozzarella said, “nonsense!” and pulled the battery out.
Promptly, a robotic hand extended and pulled its battery back in.

“Back-up battery activated. Do not remove the main battery. Bad. Bad. Bad” it said.

In the jacket commotion we didn’t notice that Baby Gouda had walked back into the cave. We noticed just in time to see a nugget of gold falling on Baby Gouda’s head. There was a loud shriek, followed by laughter. “Goad! Goad!” she cried.

I held the nugget in my hand. It felt like a 10 ounce piece. It glowed yellow like uranium. Suddenly, the jacket turned into a geiger counter and emitted a series of loud chirps. “It’s radioactive!” Parmesan and I shouted!

“Tut tut” said Mr. Mozzarella. “We’re rich! And there’s probably more where this came from. Let’s go down this dark, scary tunnel.”

I took out my leftover lemonade and said, “I’m going to sit here and finish my lemonade. I’ll find you guys later.”

As I drank, I heard a boom from the dark scary tunnel. The jacket shoved the minute maid bottle into a pocket and said, “Battering ram mode activated. Please anchor to rock—or thing—and press the detonate button.” I tied it down to a stalagmite, and pressed the detonate button. It sprang forward and hit the wall of rocks. Promptly, the stalagmite broke. 

“I can’t believe this is happening again,” I mumbled.

“I know. The Mozzarella Family is very stupid,” the jacket agreed.

“Well, we have to rescue them,” I said.

“Please anchor to rock or thing and press detonate button.”

I tied the jacket to a large boulder, which immediately rolled away. 

“My luck!” I cried. 

The jacket automatically tied itself to yet another boulder, which had a bunch of stalagmites around it. Fortunately, there was a tiny hole in the wall of rocks. Unfortunately, the rock rolled away, destroying the stalagmites with it. 

“This is not a bad day. This is not a horrible day. This is seeming a lot like a doomsday,” I muttered.

I squeezed through the hole, and found them, and I found a ton of gold. 

“Goad, Goad!” Baby Gouda said when she saw me.

“I might not always be around to initiate a rescue every time a mountain buries you,” I said.

Mr. Mozzarella ignored this and directed, “Have that jacket make a bigger hole, and we’ll get out with this mountain of gold coins. We can get rid of our spare tire.

The jacket leaned on the gold stack and destroyed the wall of rocks (it was about time). We took the gold to the car and took out the spare tire and the empty gas tanks. There was just enough space to fit the gold in. We started off. 

We got all the way to Disneyland that day. We spent time in the Econolodge and Disneyland. The next day, we headed off again. Then, at a toll station, the gate wouldn’t open. The operator said that Los Angeles was in quarantine. 

And that was the end of the Doomy Mine… or was it.

Alexander Shulman is a professional E-waste dumpster diver. He is writing this on a Dell Latitude 2007.