OH MY GAWD!! I have never laughed out loud for so long in such a long time. This book is non-stop hilarity, in fact there was one time on my commute home from work, I had to pull the car over, and stop the audio, so I could catch my breath and clear the tears out of my eyes. All I can say is be warned, this book is so funny it hurts.
Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel team up to write this story and each one plays a character in the book. I think the authors were about the only ones that could adequately have presented this book which is full of misunderstandings and misfortunes. So, as far as the narration of the book these guys knocked it out of the ball park. Barry and Zweibel are no strangers to comedy. Dave Barry wrote a weekly humor column from 1983 to 2004 and a few books. Alan Zweibel is an original Saturday Night Live writer and has won lots of Emmy Awards in television for his repertoire which includes; “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show,” “Monk,” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Putting these guys together makes for one awesome dirty bomb of comedy.
The book focuses on a foul-mouthed jerk and forensic plumber, yeah forensic plumber, Jeffrey Peckerman and the mild-mannered pet store owner, Phillip Horkman as their lives meet and clash and then create world peace, not without a few bumps along the way. I really am having a hard time trying to summarize this book because I don’t want to give too much away, It’s the surprises that add oomph to each comedic episode, but in order to do the book justice I will have to give you the gist of the story. So be warned there are some spoilers but the trip along the way in the listening to this awesome audiobook is just as funny if not funnier than the final outcomes.
The story starts out with Phillip Horkman refereeing a soccer game in which Jeffrey Peckerman’s daughter is playing. Horkman call’s Peckerman’s daughter offsides and the foul-mouth brute, Peckerman, makes sure he let’s everyone know his daughter was not offsides. Anyone who has attended a child’s sporting event, ever, has witnessed, at least once, one of these overzealous parents. We now jump a few days later and Peckerman’s wife calls and tells him her Oprah book club is meeting and asks him to pick up some wine. Peckerman sees a shop called “The Wine Store” and pulls in.
Phillip Horkman is the proud owner of a petshop which he established with a loan from his in-laws. They insisted he name the shop after them since they loaned him the money, so now Horkman is running a pet shop called “The Wine Store.” Once Peckerman realizes there is no liquor in the place he begins screaming obscenities about who would ever mis-name a store. Horkman, who is in the back room attending to a sick canary, hears the voice, and recognizes the foul-mouthed creature behind it. He comes up front and eventually takes all the abuse he can and chases Peckerman out of the store with a baseball bat. Peckerman picks up a cage with a rare lemur in it to protect himself and runs away (keeping the lemur). This then starts a chain of events that lead to the New York Police department thinking Horkman and Peckerman are terrorists and are threatening to blow up the George Washington bridge with an insulin pump. Which then leads to them hijacking a cruise liner which is loaded with nudists, and take it to Cuba, and manage to lead rebels on to overthrow the Castro regime, they then are captured by Coast Guard Salamanders, much like Navy Seals, but the Salamanders don’t exist. On the Salamander sub, Peckerman suffers from explosive diarrhea which causes emergency evacuation.
The two terrorists/revolutionaries sneak onto a ship headed to Somalia where they manage to stop pirates and land the ship full of bananas and stopping the police run government from keeping the food from the starving. Then the two are whisked away to Yemen where they cause peace between the Arabs and the Jews (peace in the Middle-East) then on to China and create a system of Democracy for the Chinese and then land in the Republican National Convention (back in the U.S.) where Donald Trump offers them a million dollars a piece if they can convince the Republicans to nominate Trump as their presidential candidate.
The fun in this whole adventure is the fact that it is non-stop and yet the two, Horkman and Peckerman never know what they have done, only that the New York Police want them for shooting a police helicopter pilot in the scrotum. Non-stop hilarity that is brilliant in its delivery as well, in that it is told from both men’s point of view through and each one has a different opinion as to how to handle themselves. Trust me this is one audiobook that is worth any investment it takes to get your hands on.