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The Unorganized Township of Bootstuck
An old box of randomly labelled cassette tapes is liberated from a garage sale and into the hands of a journalist who begins sifting through the contents and discovers random interviews with the citizens of a remote town known only as Bootstuck, a distant former military base in Ontario's northernmost region. The characters that occupy this abandoned outpost are colourful to be polite, unstable, unpredictable, or erratic to be direct but have all bypassed their obvious intellectual shortcomings to suss out an existence in this wild and challenging place.
The Unorganized Township of Bootstuck
Tape 2 -Toggle Woggle
Tape 2 is mostly a wash of static—until Hat Guy cuts through the noise. Twice. Both interviews offer little in terms of geography but reveal flickers of life in Bootstuck. One conversation unfolds over what sounds like a farm—roosters in the background, maybe?—and, true to form, it shifts quickly back to hats. No surprise there.
Still, a few breadcrumbs emerge: Hat Guy references a “computer phone” that takes photos, so we can assume smartphones exist out there… though good luck getting a signal. There's also a fleeting mention of a Walmart truck, which suggests Bootstuck sits on some kind of major route.
Then there’s a tale about Detroit—vague, meandering, and probably invented on the spot. At this point, it’s hard to tell where Hat Guy’s been or if he’s ever left. One thing’s for sure: wherever he goes, the hats come with him.
www.bootstuck.com
Your call may be recorded for quality assurance.
SPEAKER_00:What kind of hat are you wearing to the meeting?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, my God, I gotta send you a picture of my hair. Took out my fancy phone computer, so I got a computer phone, you know. Clickety-click, half a tap. On your telephone, I can take, not your, my telephone, I can take a photo. And I put together an array of nine different caps that I often frequent. I have to send it to you. You'll be able to see it once I do.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, then.
SPEAKER_01:You will look at my photograph, one photograph for nine different caps.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so back to my question. What hat are you wearing to the meeting?
SPEAKER_01:I got on my party hat. Your party hat? Yeah, I put on a party hat. It's got, it's pointy on top, so you got to hold it from the cone base when you put it on top and you stab your hand. And then it's got a little elastic that it goes right up under your chin and cuts off all of your voice like that. That's a strange thing to wear to a business meeting, don't you think? Business meeting? Yeah. Oh, well. It's a good thing I got a couple extra spare caps in the back. So I got me a fishing cap. You've seen that one from a fishing show. but smell like a little tiny baby soft mouth bath. The other cap I have is an astronaut helmet and probably won't wear those either. Oh, I'll probably wear the birthday hat, thinking about it twice, yep.
SPEAKER_00:Generally speaking, isn't a birthday hat not wearing a hat?
SPEAKER_01:That's a birthday suit. I got that on, too, underneath my coat. Everybody runs for the door and I get all the cake.
SPEAKER_00:Heavens to Tupperware.
SPEAKER_01:You're on your way to... Do a hat-related thing, I assume? Always. I had a shower this morning, got up, put my cats in the shower, washed them all. I got one today, and it's blue and gray, and it looks pretty nifty if you ask me. Nifty. Nifty. There's a word you don't hear much. Nifty. Why? I say it all the time. Like, well, last time I was in the grocery store and a guy came up to me and said, the pop's$2.99. And I said, nifty. Nifty. Nifty. I say it all the time. Where do you get sodas where you live? Yeah, but sometimes the Walmart truck comes by and we throws out the spots that Dave made and we get some sodas. You steal the soda. No, the truck breaks down all the time. Guy says, you got a phone? We say, yeah. Right down the road, he goes walking. And you just help yourself to the contest. Wow, you're sitting there straight. Now, I was leaving a note. They hope you like the phone. trick is ain't no phone. Well, there's a phone, but it's not attached to nothing. Anywho, I don't like to talk about the Walmart truck much because then the guys with the big hat come knocking on my door and that's a hat I don't have.
SPEAKER_00:That's a big hat.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, they got a big brim on the hat. Kind of looks like a black cowboy hat. Got a big shiny badge on the front of it. Got the strap with a toggle woggle.
SPEAKER_00:A toggle woggle?
SPEAKER_01:Toggle woggle.
SPEAKER_00:A toggle woggle?
SPEAKER_01:Yep. Keeps it secure. Well, sometimes when the wind Sorry, the wind goes what? You know a lot about hats, I gotta say. It's funny that hats aren't your profession. Smeary, smeary, sausage fingers. But can you tell me something about hats? A story without hats in it. I could tell you the story about the tiger shark. That's a good one. Would you like to hear the tiger shark story?
SPEAKER_00:Sure.
SPEAKER_01:All right. Well, it was about six years ago. Yep. And I was looking in the water and I saw a very handsome reflection of a fantastic looking cat.
SPEAKER_00:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. So as I approached the water to put my hand in, I realized it was my reflection.
SPEAKER_00:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:So the tiger shark?
SPEAKER_01:No, I was in Detroit. They don't have no sharks in Detroit. Well, you led off by saying this was a story about a tiger shark. What? Not only does the story have a hat in it, which you said it didn't, but it doesn't have a tiger shark in it. Well, no, it was in Detroit. I see. Oh, well, yep. Is that it? Is that what you'd like to end the call on? Sometimes you've got to put up your hand with all your fingers out, spread wide. What? Hello, are you there? Yeah, hello?
