Uncle Sal and the Consumed Collector (Episode 121)

At lane 17 of the Chicken Bowl, Uncle Sal put his skull design bowling ball in the ball return and sat across from Cedric "Deep" Welles as he put on his shoes. Cedric removed a blue-haired troll doll (his good luck charm) from his bowling bag, looked at Uncle Sal's Welcome Back Kotter sweater vest and said, "Hey, you know who would love that shirt? My friend Bertie Rigmoramus."

Uncle Sal flagged down a waitress and ordered a Spud's.

"Bertie is a big fan of Welcome Back Kotter. I mean, he knows every episode by heart. And he has the entire series on DVD. I tell ya, I don't think I ever seen anyone so devoted to a television program. He's got a room all done up with memorabilia of the show: trading cards, lunchboxes, stickers, you name it. Of course, he's single. No woman would tolerate a room like that. I bet he don't have a sweater vest though."

Uncle Sal grabbed his ball and took a practice roll, a strike. He had the feeling it was going to be a good night at the lanes.

Cedric continued his story. "So Bertie, he's been going on eBay, looking for all the Kotter memorabilia he can find. His latest thing is, someone made a line of t-shirts. Each t-shirt features a different Sweathog on it. Seems he's got all of 'em except for Vinny Barbarino. Can't for the life of him find the t-shirt with Vinny on it. That ain't hard to imagine of course. It's probably the most valuable one since John Travolta is such a big star. Thing is, Bertie would give anything for that shirt if he could find one. He's just crazy about the whole thing. Obsessed, you might say."

After a sip of his Spud's Uncle Sal looked at Cedric and said, "I'll admit it seems pretty odd, but your friend has clearly convinced himself that Bertie needs one shirt, Deep."

This episode featured:
Irv "Gutter" Ball as Uncle Sal
Henrik "7-10" Splittorf as Cedric
Laine Kryplewicz as the waitress
and
Jellybean Merengue as the blue-haired troll doll.

Tune in next week when Uncle Sal says, "When it comes to women, does anybody really want the facts?"