Kankakee bill-collector Sybil Kibble loves the taste of dog food so much, she eats it on her breaks and for supper.
Because of the shipping delays, Sybil cannot find her beloved Alpo online to buy.
Frustrated with repeated bouts with the Spinning Cheerio of Death, she opts for Brand X instead, reluctantly.
Kankakee, Illinois’ number one Elvis impersonator, Wally Green’s drugstore clerk and vulnerable narcadoodle Robbie Hurlbutt has a huge crush on Midnight Supremes lead singer Gothic Diana Ross who isn’t remotely attracted to him, plus she has a boyfriend. He wants to make a huge impression on her because he does not understand the word “no.”
She has a gig coming up soon and he is scheming to find a way to connive his boss, store owner Wally Green into letting him hang up her show poster at work to promote her music as he thinks it will somehow make her like him.
”Hey Robbie, have a look at these paper towels I invented just for my store: Half the size, twice the cost. All the frustration when you go to rip off a sheet, thanks to me!” boasts a balding, squat, rotund Wally Green as he tips his fishing cap.
“I know, boss, let’s put them on a groovy display table near the front of the store so the suckers — I mean customers — will think they are getting them on sale.”
“Great idea! I am glad I thought of it!” Wally exclaims with glee, throwing his stubby arms into the air.
“Well…now that I, boss, thought of such a splendid idea, I have a favor to ask. This band is really a gas and I want to hang up their poster for their upcoming show at the store,” Robbie says to his superior with bedroom eyes, dreaming of Miss Gothic Diana Ross, the only Boss he could ever want.
“Naw. Get back to work. I need you to make production metrics this time. Start selling people some pills they don’t need.”
Credit Recovery Associates (CRASS) Lead Debt Collector Sybil Kibble comes into Wally Green’s Drugstore to buy an iced coffee and a bag of dog biscuits for lunch as she forgot hers at home.
“Ehh. Out of order again. Must be that half ply toilet paper,” Sybil thinks out loud.
“The washroom is on the blink?” Robbie asks, aghast.
“Yeah and I am in a hurry!” Sybil shouts as she makes her way over toward the men’s room.
“Do not go in there!” Robbie commands Sybil.
Sybil walks by Gothic Diana Ross in the men’s room, who is looking in the mirror, applying her jet-black eyeliner. She pinches a huge loaf in the stall next to Wally Green, who is busy whizzing away in the urinal. Sybil flushes but does not clean up the mess on the seat, flinging the door wide open with her arm. She makes a beeline for the sink and spots Diana sarcastically chortling away at the Gothic Diana Ross and the Midnight Supremes poster on washroom wall.
A befuddled Robbie struts into the men’s room.
“I TOLD YOU NOT TO COME IN HERE!” Robbie shouts at the women. “THIS IS THE MEN’S ROOM.”
“Get back to work, Robbie, the ladies’ room is closed. Take down this poster while you are at it and apologize to our customers.” Wally Green tells his employee Robbie.
“I am sorry IF I offended you.” Robbie smirks.
“Get lost!” Diana and Sybil chant in unison at his non-apology as they leave the bathroom.
Sybil buys her lunch and drives back to work.
Wally sells loads of paper towels and Robbie is put on temporary janitorial duty until he improves his customer service skills. But don’t lock him in the bathroom. He thinks he is Elvis.
Business is crappy at Peppi’s Portapotties and there has been a brownout at the spectacle known as the Manteno Optimal Club. Despite offering “free tickets” to Robbie Hurlbutt, Madeline Topolla-Teirant, Konrad Teriant, Judi Avelli, her mother Carla and the Cheshire Cat, nobody’s falling for the “two drink minimum” scam anymore.
Needing take make extra dough, bog witch, communal narcadoodle and entramanure Bernadette Moran Cacca applies for a job at Credit Recovery Associates (CRASS), the company at which nearly all of Kankakee County has worked at one time. She is so good at annoying people that Clio Bersola hires her right on the spot.
“Would you like take a survey?” Bernadette asks her first caller. “You have been specially selected because your opinion matters!”
“Would you like take a survey?”
“Would you like take a survey?”
“You have been specially selected.”
“Your opinion matters!”
Instead of hounding people for money or craptocoin tips, the wrestler once known as The Manteno Wonder haunts CRASS debtors and creditors with survey spam.
The calls go on and on.
“Is she that weird lady who works down at that Manteno port-o-dump facility?” Dale asks Polly.
“Oh yeah, I see her on TV all the time. Those ads drive me crazy!”
“Just another day in Kank!”
The collectors share a chuckle.
“Good job, keep it up. You’re the only person who applied for this job, so we hired you. What’s your name again?” Sybil says.
“Don’t you know who I am?” the show-tune cover queen and portapotty empress Bernie asks her boss.
“Um…no. That’s why I asked you.”
“I do the charity gigs at the Manteno Optimal Club! I sing showtunes, play piano and blow vuvuzela horn.”
“Well don’t blow this job.”
Sybil goes to Schmucks a few days later to stock up on her Alpo meals. Not finding good deals on her favorite food, she walks across the street to the Wally Green’s and gets one can at regular price and another for half-off (but never free). While browsing the Sleevies, StrangleTangles and Turd Machine Deluxes, her new employee runs up to her as if to hug her, unfortunately.
“Hi there, my fabulous boss!”
“I’m busy.”
“Let me drive you home.”
“No thanks, my car is a block away from here.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t have to drive in the rain.”
Not wanting to isolate her new hire, Sybil reluctantly wheels her doggie bags to the trunk of Bernie’s poopmobile and gets in front. Before she has a chance to close the car door, let alone don her seat belt, Bernadette peels out of the Wally Green’s parking lot.
“Slow down there…Nelly.”
“My name’s not Nelly.”
“OK, just drop me off at Schmucks. I took the preggers parking spot. Nobody’s gonna look inside my womb to verify.”
Bernadette loads the heavy cans into Sybil’s car.
“Call me if you need anything, pal!”
“Yeah sure, thanks!”
Sybil drives her white Chrysler LeBaron home, makes sure the oil is not low, and carries her suppers inside. While munching on some milk bones, Sybil checks her voicemail.
“This is a reminder call for: Sybil Kibble. You have a colonoscopy scheduled in three weeks. Please call us back to confirm your appointment. Be sure to have a driver because you cannot legally drive the day of your procedure.”
“Oh crap. I forgot about that.”
Trying to find someone to bring you to a procedure is as bad as finding people to help you move.
Sybil calls down to her mother and asks if she can bring her.
“No, I’m playing Bingo with the girls that day,” JK yells up to her daughter from her basement apartment’s air vent.
She reluctantly calls Dale Davis, even though she’s the object of his unwanted affection.
“No boss, I have to work that day. You scheduled me, remember?”
Out of options, The Kibbler texts The Manteno Wonder.
“Oh yeah, I will take the day off just for you.” Bernadette replies, then she poops.
Bernadette repeatedly texts Sybil daily to ask if she needs any supplies, toilet paper or liquids. However, Sybil says no thanks to the offers, except for the dog food one.
“My two favorite words, free food!” Sybil tells Mrs. Cacca.
“You’re the best!”
Something does not feel right about her newly found friend (not to be confused with Newly Formed Turds). “How can someone be so fond of me, so quickly?” Sybil writes in her diary. “I walk away from her with a funny taste in my mouth but I cannot quite put my finger on it.”
The weather has cooled off a bit in the two-and-a-half weeks which have passed. It’s Friday night after a long, stressful week at work, and Sybil is happy to be back at her Kankakee home.
“Can you come over and check to see if I locked my door?” Bernadette texts, asking about her shack up in Manteno.
Sybil plays The Crushing Candy Game for an hour and then texts Bernie back, “yeah, it’s locked” before going back to her phone, then watches some Unsolved Mysteries.
Sybil texts Bernie to ask for some toilet paper, however she gets no reply.
She shoots another text: “I’ll give you a ten.”
Another hour passes, so she sends out her ma to get the TP instead.
It’s the Sunday before her procedure. Between potty runs, Sybil texts Bernadette to confirm the time tomorrow. An hour passes, no answer. She calls Bernie, who answers after the third try.
“What do you want?” Bernadette snarks.
“I’m just calling to confirm the time you’re come getting me.”
“Just have them call me when you’re ready. I’m not going in.”
“You ARE bringing me TO and FROM my procedure right?”
“I have to meet someone by 9:30 for a portapotty job.
“OK, just pick me up at 8:45.”
“That’s fine. But I’m not signing any paperwork.”
After a very long, sore night, it’s now the bottom of the hour on colonoscopy day.
Bernadette peels onto Sybil Lane and into Ms. Kibble’s driveway.
“Ready to go?”
“Yeah, I’ve been going all night!”
Awkward silence passes.
Bern Cacca — the proud G.G. Allin fan and craptocoin miner — does not even flinch at Sybil’s poop joke.
“Just give me directions.”
Despite looking so good on the outside by giving her a lift, the charity-side-show-queen Bernadette does not even bother to ask Sybil how she’s feeling.
“Just have them call me. But, I’m not signing any papers.”
“What do you mean by not signing papers, if you don’t mind I ask?”
“I don’t want to sign anything I don’t know what I’m signing up for.”
“They might need you to sign a discharge paper, to say you are picking me up, that’s it.”
“That’s fine.”
“I’ll have them call you.”
Bernadette still does not even ask Sybil how she’s feeling, and instead pulls away. Sybil enters the outpatient facility to bravely face the her anal probe alone.
The procedure goes well. Sybil enjoys the best 10 minutes of sleep ever, and then awakens in the recovery room full of people fart-fart-farting away.
“Good news, Ms. Kibble. I circled Uranus and found no Klingons.”
“Great news doc. Have you got ahold of my ride?”
“We’ll have the nurse keep trying.”
Eventually Bernadette pulls into the outpatient facility.
“Slow down!” the guard warns her.
Sybil Kibble gets wheeled to Bernie’s car and she gets in. “How’d it go?” Bernie asks Sybil.
“It went well. No abnormalities.”
“Did they use real anesthesia?”
“No…just the Fisher Price kind.” Sybil deadpans.
“Great, let’s get you home.”
Bernadette spends the whole ride home complaining about “the sky poop” and her online battles with people who “don’t get her revolutionary ideas,” because “it must be that Manteno water,” while explaining in detail every little chore she has done for CRASS, The Poopy Groupies and The Manteno Optimal Club.
What doesn’t Bernadette do? Ask Sybil how she’s feeling, of course. Instead she peels into the Kibble homestead’s driveway, dumps Sybil on her doorstep like a turd, peels out and waves, evil grin showing off the barely good deed she did for a fellow citizen. She cannot wait to brag about this all over Fakebook and Instaspam!
Mrs. Cacca shows up for work at CRASS the next day, walks in the door bright and cheery, mouth wide open as if to catch a fly, eyes as cold as always to hide her daily fear and self-loathing. She struts right by Sybil’s cubicle, and toward Marketing until Sybil calls her name at the top of her lungs:
“B. M. Cacca, come to my cubicle now!” The call center floor giggles.
Bernadette sits down at her desk in Marketing, defying her boss’ orders.
“Bern Cacca, please see Sybil Kibble immediately,” Accounts Receivable Chief Tara Bull calls over the intercom.
Bernadette chooses to ignore the page, so Sybil walks over to her instead, stack of papers in hand.
Sybil faces Bernadette.
“Your position has been eliminated due to lack of business needs. Resign immediately or be terminated.”
“I told you, I’m not signing anything!”
“OK. You’re fired. You have a 30 minute window to clean out your desk before Security escorts you out the door.”
“I WANT to SPEAK to the MANAGER!”
“I AM the manager.”
“No, YOUR MANAGER!” Karen — err — Bernadette, cries, throwing a toddler-tantrum.
“I’m giving you five minutes to leave,” a tall, fit, medium skinned woman wearing box braids demands.
“Do you know who I am?” Bernadette asks.
“No, do you know who I am?”
“I need the manager STAT!”
“I AM the manager. Leave now before we prepare the trebuchet.”
“Can I go to the washroom first?
“That’s it!”
A tiny violin is heard over the intercom, then Sybil’s voice commands: “YEET!”
The entire company cheers as Bernadette gets flung to lawd-only-knows-where.
“I wonder how she is feeling now?” Ms. Kibble giggles to herself before taking another supervisor call.
Every year on September 31, Kankakee debt collection firm Credit Recovery Associates (CRASS) wants staff to bring their parents in to have fun at their team-building events like the Medicine Pronouncing Contest, Browser Loading Race and Bill-Collector Speed Dating.
Collections Team Leader Sybil Kibble brought her ma JoAnn to enjoy learning how to bother people on the phone to ask for money they likely do not even owe, and her mother took 3rd prize in the CRASS Idol singing competition. Sybil took last place because her mouth was full of dog bones while she tried to belt a tune.
Kankakee’s newest Credit Recovery Associates (CRASS) debt collector, member of “The Haggs” band and humanoid veggie Demanda Broccoli runs around the office asking her co-workers to sniff her feet.
“Get back to your cubicle, now!” Team Leader Sybil Kibble commands.
Demanda goes back to her cube, but not on the phones. When Sybil isn’t looking, she walks over to the supervisor cube, and scrawls on her marker-board, “I love Damien Hurlbutt!“
“No! Get back to your workstation and on the phones! Now!”
“OK-OK-OK-OK-OK” she snarks. Then she runs over to the executive suite and rips a fart that would make Bernadette Cacca envious.
“Did someone light a stinkbomb?” CRASS Controller Konrad Teirant asks.
Sybil Kibble spies her loose subordinate, grabs her by the crown and hauls her back to her seat.
“This is your final warning. Do some work. That’s why we pay you to come in. You DO want money, right?”
“Oh, that’s how it works…”
Sybil just shakes her head and walks away as Ms. Broccoli dons her headset.
“Credit Recovery Associates, Demanda.”
“Hi, this is Bernadette Cacca. Can I pay my bill in craptocoins? I just mined them myself…
Poor George, he’s just not a people person. He and Sybil have different tastes.
“Man, that cigarette smoke smells like horse manure! I am getting sick to my stomach!” How does she get away with it? I keep reporting Smokey Ashe to security and she keeps on smoking in her cubicle. I feel like I am going to heave!” an upset CRASS, LLC bill collector Dale Davis tells his team leader, Sybil Kibble in their Kankakee office.
“There is nothing I can do. I do not want to get in the middle.” Sybil tells Dale.
Dale tromps over angrily to Smokey’s workstation.
“Smokey, why don’t you go outside and smoke? The smell is making me sick!” Dale yells at Smokey.
“What are you going to do about it?” Smokey snarkily asks.
“Just go outside with that crap.”
“Let’s take it outside. I will fight you now.”
“Grow up. You are so childish. I am calling security to report your threats.” Dale tells Smokey.
Dale calls Low Cost Security, or L-C, CRASS’s security contractor to report Smokey’s threats. Of course, his call goes straight to voicemail. Dale leaves a detailed message.
Dale never gets a return call so he heads to Mikey Philips, Building Manager.
“Yes?”
“I need help with something important.” Dale tells Mike Philips.
“I am very busy.”
I need to report a security violation.
“Did you call security?” Mike asks, nose buried in his PC.
“Yes, call went to voicemail. Smokey Ashe threatened me after I asked her to stop smoking inside.”
“Nothing I can do.”
“So what are you going to about Ms. Ashe smoking in her cube? It is making me physically ill.” Dale asks.
“I see nothing in the security logs from L-C.”
Mikey moves the Queen of Hearts to the top pile. “I am winning!” he says with a grin.
“What?”
“Oh, I am using my peripheral dexterity enhancement tool. This on the job training application is designed specially for the mouse,” Mikey explains.
“Uh-huh.”
Smokey butts into Mikey’s office. “Are you coming to the baby shower?” Smokey asks with a grin.
“No, I have a sock drawer to rearrange.”
“Dale, my handsome buddy?” Smokey places her hand on his shoulder.
“No, I have to go home and clip my toenails. Busy night.”
Smokey goes to Sybil Kibble’s supervisor cube and interrupts her.
“Hey there, my lovely lady! How about coming to my baby shower tonight! It is for my granddaughter! There will be games!”
“No thanks, I am looking forward to my Alpo tonight.” Sybil logs on the phones.
Smokey walks over to Tara Bull’s manager suite.
“Hey Tara! You look great!”
“Go back to work, Smokey. Not interested.”
It is 5:00 PM. Smokey, her daughter and granddaughter are gathered in the break room, all decorated in yellow, pink and blue. Smokey is puffing away, wondering where her coworkers are.
“How many people did you invite?” Smokey’s daughter asks.
“The entire company.”
Two hours pass by. Nobody shows. Dale drives by CRASS and pulls in.
“Oh hey there my dapper Dale! You remembered!”
“Yeah, my watch. I cannot believe I left it at work.” Dale dons his watch and gets into his pickup truck, pulls out the parking lot and heads home.
“I cannot believe nobody showed” Smokey says as she fills the air with her stinky smoke.
“AAAAAAANT! AAAAAAANT!”
“What’s that?” Smokey’s grandaughter asks.
“That’s the fire alarm.”
The fire trucks’ sirens are heard in the background. Meanwhile the company sprinklers rain down on Smokey and her family, showering the entire party.
We want to TP everyone in Kankakee County! On April 1st, come over to the headquarters of Credit Recovery Associates (CRASS) and get the scoop on poop! One brand spankin’ new roll for each customer! If you use both sides, it lasts twice as long! Run on down now to CRASS before Bern Cacca steals it all!
And while we’re at it, be sure to pick up some half-ply toiler paper recipes, courtesy of Wally Green!
CRASS Chief Executive Officer
Mack E. Avelli
PS: April Fools!
“Excuse me, excuse me sir, YOUR laundry is done!” shapeshifting humanoid turkey-vulture Carla Moran squawks at Konrad “Kon” Teirant who had fallen asleep at the Manteno mini-casino/laundromat “Spin-n-Sudz.”
“Yeah! I need a machine!” sister Sonya Moran says at the man who had ruffled her feathers in his sleep.
Carla continues to poke Konrad, who had spent the past week staying up late cooking the books into a mutated mystery-meat mess at the Kankakee bill-collection company Credit Recovery Associates (CRASS).
Carla shoves Kon into the slot-machine, causing it to spin into oblivion, make a racket and flash like a fire truck.
“I won the jackpot!” Konrad says in a startled haze.
“No, dude, that’s my jackpot!”
“It’s mine!”
The two avian sisters peck at each other over Konrad’s money, to which they think they are entitled. The love money more than Kon, and that is hard to beat.
The owner walks in. “Who let these stupid birds in? Don’t y’all know not to feed the animals?” she says as she scans her eyes across the mini-casino and bar. She picks up a broom.
“Shoo ladies! Shoo! Fly away and don’t come back now, y’hear.”
Konrad goes to collect his winnings, ignoring the warning screen right under his nose:
“TILT!”
“Sorry sir, malfunctions void all transactions. It says so right on the sign.”
“Wha–“
“It’s our policy.”
Konrad audibly shuffles his feet over to the laundromat to pick up his clothes, like a toddler ready to throw a tantrum.
“Sorry sir, we just closed. You’ll have to get your laundry tomorrow.”
A wild Konrad storms out the building into the Manteno parking lot looking for someone else to blame for his own mistake, because why take responsibility when you can just blame someone else? So goes the mind of a tyrant anyway.
“You stupid birds! You cost me my big bag!” Konrad yells into the Midwestern clouds at the vultures who had long flown away, like a wolf howling at the moon, or a pixellated coyote from a casino slot machine if you prefer.
Then it begins to rain.
“We need to increase our bottom line,” CRASS CEO Mack E. Avelli tells his entire staff in the board room.
“Size matters.”
Laughter fills the entire room.
“Our budget is only so big and we need to increase our revenue to exceed expenses. We could only give so much to the Optimal Club last year and we had to shortchange the Kankakee Medicine Pronouncing Competition, even though we had already committed. We need good ideas, only the best.
Dale raises his hand.
“I know. I have a really good idea. How about we do things the Dale way this year…”
Mr. Avelli sighs.
“No just listen up. I’m worth your time. How about we spend less money on charity? That way we will have more money for the things we need. It all makes sense. We can do things the way we have been doing them, or we can do things the Dale way.”
“That’s enough Dale. We need to look good for the community. Image is everything. Who will go next?”
“Maybe we can hire more people to cut back on overtime? I am swamped with purchase requests!” Linda Stay says.
“Nice idea, but work faster,” Mr. Avelli snarks.
Sybil raises her hand.
“Sybil Kibble! What is YOUR grand idea?”
“I know. How about we call up and say we are “Kristy” from Management. Ask the debtor to call us back. We have no Kristy working here. Block caller ID so the suckers will not know it is us!”
“Great idea Sybil! Change all scripts immediately and don’t forget to double down on every call, everybody!”
The collectors get to work.
Calls come in.
“I would like to talk to Crispy?”
“Crisco called. Hahahaha.”
“Is the Cisco kid? My router is stuck. Can you fix it?
“Yeah I hear I won a free trip to Frisco. When do I go?”
More calls roll in.
“Yeah I heard a manager called me. I wanna speak to the manager. This is Karen.”
Team Leader Sybil Kibble cannot keep up with the call volume. The Collections Representatives keep transferring all their calls to her because they keep asking for a manager. After all, the messages stated a manager called for them!
The phone system shuts down due to Denial of Service, in other words a system overload.
“What are we going to do?” CRASS CEO Mack E. Avelli asks Sybil Kibble in her office.
“Act more ethically next time?”
They share a laugh.”
“Carrier pigeons,” Mr. Avelli smirks.
It is CRASS business as usual.
MoronicArts 
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