Lutefisk may just be the most repulsive food in the history of humanity. For those that don't live near a large Scandinavian population, lutefisk is fish... sort of. In order to make this affront to humanity, you start with whitefish (usually cod), then you act as if you have lost your senses completely. First, you must air dry the fish, and then soak it in water for several days until it takes on the consistency of jelly. As if this wasn't ridiculous enough, you must then soak it in lye. For those not in the know, lye is better used to clean bathroom floors than cook... it has a tendency to turn flesh into soap (literally). After this particular step, the fish is highly poisonous, and would be the equivalent of drinking Drano... so you soak it in water another five days or so to neutralize the hydroxide. Then, you take this nasty, disgusting, gelatinous fish... and steam it. Once it is steamed, it looks, smells, and tastes like rotten, soapy fish. Anybody hungry? Believe it or not, our friends from Sweden, Norway, and Finland eat this shit... and they don't even have to beat themselves over the head with a hammer before attempting to scarf it down.

Now I know what you are thinking... "Hey Captain Jackass, why are you giving me a lecture on this nauseating concoction?" Well, as those following this tale know so far, I had a cannon and some explosives.. but what on earth would I use for ammunition? That's right ladies and gentlemen; this gun was going to be firing a rather unique round. Now all I had to do was acquire enough lutefisk to fill the cannon, and I wasn't about to pay hard-earned money for this gelatinous goo that smells like it came out of Satan's asshole.

There is a city not-to-far from Issaquah called Ballard. Redhook beer made it the location of their first brewery because it is full of fishmongers. Statistically speaking, these fishermen drink more beer per capita than any other city in the Seattle area. While this is indeed a proud achievement, it also happens to be one of the largest concentrations of Scandinavians this side of Minnesota. I figure they drink so the lutefisk goes down a little easier, but on the other hand... it might just make a person want to pray to the porcelain god a lot more.

Whatever the reason for their strong drinking and strange eating, they had lutefisk... and lots of it. The only problem is that Scandinavian fishermen tend to be very large... which is to say they are mostly taller than six feet tall and absolutely ripped. Woe be to the poor soul on the receiving end of that particular beat-down. I was not deterred by this potential ass-kicking, so I plotted to pilfer the largest lutefisk factory in town... my target was called the "Lutefisk Lair." To put it into perspective, the largest lutefisk manufacturer in a town full of Swedes and Norwegians was still only a two-story building made of brick and taking up about half a block in each direction. Not exactly an impenetrable fortress... but (as usual) there was a problem.

The problem happened to be the night-shift guard. The guard was far more dangerous than Huey, Dewey, and Lewey... and far more beautiful. You see, the night-shift guard was a woman named Inga Sirenson... and Inga could have been a model for the Swedish Bikini Team if she so chose. She was about as close to the ideal in beauty that she really had no business keeping her looks behind the wall of a stank-ass lutefisk factor. The trouble was, for as nice as Inga looked, she was (in technical psychiatric terms) absolutely bat-shit crazy. Inga worked the night-shift because she was not mentally stable enough to be inflicted on society during the daylight hours.

I know many of you out there may be scoffing at my claim of a dangerously hot guard, so allow me to enlighten you. Believe it or not, but historically speaking I'm not the only person to have designs on robbing the "Lutefisk Lair." I may be the only one that simply wanted the stinky fish, but others tried to get their hands on loot... lutefisk loot that is. As disgusting as the whole fish-melting process sounds, it is also quite expensive since the EPA got involved with clean-up of all the caustic materials. If you pile on top of that the reality that every single person in Ballard buys some vomit-inducing fish at Christmas, you have quite the jackpot.. assuming of course Inga doesn't get her hands on you. Just last Christmas two would-be robbers entered the Lutefisk Lair. Accounts of what truly happened are a little sketchy because Inga isn't exactly much of a talker, but suffice it to say that both robbers were hauled off to the morgue with broken pelvises, severe internal bleeding, and huge grins... use your imagination.

Make no mistake, I totally intend to breathe my last while nailing a hot Swedish bikini model... but not until I'm a crusty old man. Needless to say, I was a little nervous going in to this particular phase of the prank... could I say no to a hot, horny supermodel? This would surely be my biggest test, and I knew I couldn't go it alone. Again I would need help, so I recruited yet another friend... let's call him... oh I don't know, how about Josh Weltman. Yeah, that works... but certainly not a real name. Stop looking at me like that.

Josh and I made our way out to Ballard on a dark and stormy night. Yes, I know that sound cliché, but in Seattle, pretty much every night is dark and stormy. The Lutefisk Lair stood in the middle of a somewhat industrial area of Ballard, so there was not much foot traffic passing by to see two high school guys dressed all in black and clearly up to no good. We moved as silently as we could in the shadows that reached from the Lutefisk Lair to the alley behind. The back door to the Lair was one of those "Emergency Only" doors that would sound an alarm if we tried to open it, so we had to make our way to the side entrance. The side entrance was not visible from the street, so we had time to pick the lock... but we had no idea how to pick a lock. It seems to me that in every part of this story, somebody at some point has to try to knock in a door... and here we go again... (Hey, it's my story).

Weltman and I lowered our shoulders and charged the door... and we both pulled up at the last moment. Neither of us actually hit the door, apparently we both knew that this was one of those anti-tank missile type doors. So we had to regroup and come up with a better plan. This particular plan involved getting on the roof and sneaking in through a door up there, or perhaps an air vent. Thankfully this was a rather old building and it had one of those emergency stairwells on the side like you see in New York all the time. We made our way up that rusted-ass piece of shit ladder to the second level. (I made Josh go first because I knew he would totally check out my ass if I had gone first.)

The roof of the Lutefisk Lair was dark... and it was still stormy out. We saw a shadow of a doorway in front of us, and we quietly made our way over. As luck would have it, the door was unlocked, and no alarms went off when we threw it open. The door slammed against the wall with an ear-shattering "BANG!" It probably would have been smarter for us to quietly open the door, but we wanted out of the storm. A dark metal staircase stood before us leading down into the bowels of the Lair. There was a faint light at the bottom of the stairs, not unlike a fire. The fire fit perfectly with the illusions of traveling into hell that I had running in my head... and the stench... holy shit dude. It stank of rancid fish wrapped in a mule's asshole and left out in the sun... somewhere a Swede is getting hungry.

We crept down the staircase like two teenagers trying to sneak out for a kegger... but sadly the door slam had already alerted Inga as to the presence of an intruder (stupid storm). We saw the shadow of a very shapely, very attractive woman thrown against the wall.. and we knew we were in serious trouble...

(Sorry folks, you'll just have to wait for the rest... though by my count there are now 6 episodes)