By Val Kilmer

Peoria, IL - Flying in the face of years of anthropological research and baffling 3 out of 4 of the world's leading cryogenics experts - one of whom is himself on ice in a research lab in Zurich in the name of science - a 20,000 year-old caveman, dubbed by FOX news as "Al Gore", was unfrozen in a remote, cold - but warming - section of northern Canada last Tuesday.

Area naturalist and marathon runner Carson Leftwich was on the scene as the ice thawed.

"It was a bit surreal. The dude knew his coffin was melting way before he could get free and he kept making cave-faces at me. I decided that if I was planning to stick around, I'd better make peace with the guy, considering his frozen arm held a frozen spear in a pose like a Roger Clemens baseball card," noted Leftwich.

"So I figured, hey, he's probably hungry, why not offer him one of my Fruit-Roll-Upz? So he thaws, and I show him how to open the package and I eat one. I then hand him a fresh one, and then, like lightning, completely ignoring my clear instructions, Caveman Jones then proceeds to tear the shit out of it with his bare hands, like he was strangling a 3-inch animal of some sort. In the end, when he ate it, he didn't do so well with the package and probably got more of the paper and space foil than caramelized pseudo fruit sheet."

Evidently satiated, the caveman then began running south for no apparent reason. Feeling somewhat responsible for witnessing the historic event, Leftwich felt inclined to keep up, which, to his credit, he did for a good 20 miles - this being marathon off-season - until the remarkably fit cave personage left him in the dust. As it happened, "Al Gore" didn't get tired until reaching Peoria, Illinois, again baffling modern science, which declined to comment since it was in the middle of getting its hair done.

At this point, however, the unexplainably energy-rich Fruit Roll Up having been spent, our good cave man was naturally very hungry. Area McDonald's manager Roy Littleton describes the encounter.

"So this hairy dude that smells like McAss strolls in and starts sniffing around conspicuously like he owns the place. He had so much hair everywhere, at first I thought he was just wearing some really ratty pajamas, but it turned out it was more like he had been worked over by some slightly overzealous mad-scientist's version of Rogaine. Anyway, my neighbor Wendy McBride orders a Big Mac, takes a bite, and before she knows it, a 20,000 year-old oak javelin nearly impales her perm. Cave dude then dives face first onto the table and mauls the sandwich like it was road kill."

Gum chewing, hairspray overusing, high school sophomore and cash clerk Misty Raymond also had this to add. "I tried to explain to him that the sandwich was already dead, and offered him another, but evidently the thought never quite got into his fat cave-head, since he smashed it with someone's tray and then ate his "kill" off the floor that Pedro wasn't supposed to clean until two, which I guess is no biggie since cave people are supposed to have really strong immune systems, but it's still kind of gross, don't you think?"

Janitor and amateur hunting enthusiast Pedro Carbajal took a liking to the caveman immediately. "You know, we really are so disconnected from nature these days in our work and what we eat. Sometimes, I really get the urge to just go out into the country and get medieval on some deer or something with my mop and then eat the whole thing in one sitting over an open flame that I created." Mr. Carbajal's eyes then glazed over in a way that made everyone else feel slightly uncomfortable. "Anyway, fuck the deep fryer." He added. "I know what unfrozen homeboy over here is talking about."

As of Wednesday, Peoria authorities were now unaware of the whereabouts of the caveman, who was last seen on the corner of Main and 12th expertly impaling French fries and chicken nuggets from a safe distance with small toothpicks.  HSP