Injection Molding Can Be a Finicky Process
There's a scene in Rocky 28,000,000 (by critical consensus, one of the top thousand best Rocky sequels), where Bennie, the loan shark Rocky works for, scolds the down-on-his-luck fighter for failing to take a lead pipe to the kneecaps of someone who has fallen behind on repaying the principal and the mounting vigorish.
"Rocky, I told you, give the bum a double shot to the kneecaps, but do you listen to me? No. You know what your tragic flaw is, Rocky? You got a soft heart. Maybe you need some sort of injection of something. Hey did you ever go see Doctor Molding like I told you to?"
Dejected, Rocky walks into a bar and call out to the bartender, "Yo, Zig, gimme a double," to which the bartender responds, "You got it, Rock, double shot keycaps, coming up."
"Yo, Zig, you always remember my favorite whiskey," Rocky says. "How do you do that? It's freakin' amazing."
"Easy" the bartender answers, "it rhymes with kneecaps. And double rhymes with trouble. So I think, here's this sorry loser who just seems to have nothing but bad luck and trouble, and his capo is leaning on him to bust kneecaps with a lead pipe. And I put it together. I use narratives as a mnemonic device," he beams. "It woiks. You should try it sometime."
"What's a pneumonic device?" Rocky's interest perks up.
"Not pnuemonic, ya dope," the bartender corrects him and laughs. "That's got a silent 'p." It's mnemonic, with the silent 'm.' It means a memory aid. Like if someone wants to remember you always drink Keycaps whiskey, they just have to think about you and your aversion to breaking kneecaps."
"Don't go there," Rocky says, glumly. "It feels like Bennie is molding yours truly into a bad guy."
Rocky goes back to his room in the boarding house he's been reduced to living in since Rocky 26,875,326. In the room there's a two-burner hot plate, a dorm room-sized refrigerator, a mattress on the floor, and a small folding table holding a keyboard made by a two shot molding process.
Rocky squats in front of the table and gives a double shot to the caps lock key. He doesn't know exactly why he always does this first thing, before typing anything else, but it has become a ritual for him, and he is always relieved when he sees the little green light on the key go on and off in response to his tapping. It's become a signature move, which he calls the
. It's like seeing flashing lights after taking a hard one-two to the head, he thinks.
