Tag: bourbonnais

Behind the Moroniverse – Damien Ulysses Hurlbutt

~ Jen ~ 4 Comments

The main inspiration behind fictional character Damien Hurlbutt has is so self-centered, he thinks this blog is all about him.

Seriously. I hope over time more people learn about communal narcissists and how they insidiously abuse people. Overts and covert narc-a-doodles are bad enough; communals are even sneakier.  I would not wish narcissistic abuse on my worst enemy and wish no ill will. I just wish they would all form their own narc colony on a deserted island and leave the rest of us alone. 

Or better yet, drop them from planes into an erupting volcano, and vaporize them so they cannot make more narcissists (OK not really, but it would be cool).

I was married to one of these evil souls. Had I known he was the son of Satan, I would not have dated him, moved to Illinois to marry him, leaving behind a job I loved to take one that was less than pleasant. 0/10 would not recommend.

I wish I had been given the omen.

Now divorced, this real-life neckbeard and “men’s rights activist” has told his friends that I draw cartoons of him and write stories about him.

Has he heard of Squirrely Dan?

My ex works as a senior library specialist and loves to read. I would hope that someone like him, whom I would think has a good grasp on literacy would understand that Damien and all the other morons on this blog are fictional characters — as in pretend people, not real ones. DUH.

Apparently my former husband thinks he works in a movie theater, like the random stranger whom I had met in 2004. Just like the fictional Damien Ulysses Hurlbutt, this real-life despot had been offering cloned movie tickets in return for a date, to us call-center coworkers taking breaks outside. I did not meet my ex until 2008.

I will never forgive my ex for trying to turn the spouse of my late friend against me in his smear-campaigning. Such a tender-heart, a self-proclaimed “old soul” writes lunacy letters like the drivel below and sends them to his estranged spouse’s medical providers.

Because, umm, a librarian knows more about psychology than an actual mental health provider? yeah…no.

My ex thinks so. Behold part of this lunacy letter he sent to my mental health team:

Projection: A narcissist’s calling card, as is pathological lying. Methinks narcissists have their own code of misconduct, maybe even a manual.

I will never forgive him for telling me he was “a nice guy for not throwing me into oncoming traffic” while we were walking into the hospital. Yeah, a really nice guy NiceGuy™ does that, right?

I will never forgive him for manipulating the divorce judge into letting him take custody of my cat Holly, whom he repeatedly hit (“it’s just a light tap” he gaslit when caught) and put into the shower to “punish.” Who does that to a cat? Has he helped move a body or something? Sadly he took the cat from me…

I will never forgive my ex for idealizing, devaluing me and then attempting to discard me, shortly before I left him. Rumor has it, he still obsesses over me, and makes feeble attempts to smear campaign me using the same DARVO tactics and made-up mental health diagnosis he had used in 2017. I imagine he pushes away what little friends narcissistic supply he has left.. Like his bootlicker friend once said to me, I wish he would “get over it, just move on.”

With narcadoodles, every projection is a confession.

I write and draw MoronicArts stories to cope with having been abused. I feel it helps and I am a lot happier back in New York State, doing my own thing, living with my sweet kitty, creating music, learning to speak other languages and making Youtube videos.

My hope is that my stories help others who have been abused by these monsters cope and process the crap they have been going through and hopefully bring a little joy to them, and myself also. Oh and it s fun to draw silly cartoons of fake events and pretend people doing moronic things to each other..

Do you think you may going through domestic violence or know someone who suffers it? Emotional abuse is still abuse and a form of domestic violence. Please click this link to learn more and to find help in your area: https://www.nomore.org/the-no-more-global-directory/

Your needs are valid, I believe you, and you are not alone. Healing is possible, as hard as it may seem.

Damien’s desperate Dreamland letter to Donnie

~ Jen ~ Leave a comment

Tired of eating corn for his hot and getting yanked from his cot, captured trespasser, communal narcadoodle and neckbeard nincompoop Damien Hurlbutt asks if he can write a letter.

“You can only send inter-departmental mail here.”

“I know, I know, I know, I know…”

“Stop acting like a clown and get back in your cell.”

“Hooo!”

“I don’t know who. You’re the one who asked, fool.”

The guard slams the door, then the world’s largest source of natural gas starts scrawling, before he gets hauled away for his thrice daily flatulence testing. After returning to his cell in the Alternative Fuels Division at Dreamland Resort, Damien finishes his letter to President Turnip (no relation to Jamie Turnip), then gives it to the staff to type up so he can sign it.

The letter is put into inter-office mail and sent forth to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC.

Bored with inventing new recipes for covfefe to barf up all over social media, the president reads the mail with his tiny hands and aging mental acuity. A couple hours later, Donnie reads Damien’s desperate cry for help.

After giggling, Turnip divides up the letter into strips, chucks it into the fireplace along with his other mail and proceeds to fall fast asleep in his chair, dreaming about how to bigly cheat at golf.

Then he poops.

MoronicArts Classics: Damien Hurlbutt’s Pool Toys

~ Jen ~ 2 Comments

“Why does your brother Damien keep buying pool toys in the middle of Winter?” Wally Green asks his Illinois pharmacy-chain clerk, Kankakee Elvis impersonator and covert narcissist, Robbie Hurlbutt.

Robbie says nothing, chooses to ignore his boss and keeps on stocking shelves as he hopes to leave early so he can skip out on closing.

“Has he moved a body or something?” Wally says of Robbie’s equally creepy and narcissistic brother Damien.

Robbie ignores Wally, finishes stocking and sneaks out the door while the store owner is not looking so he can head down to the bar. First, he has to meet his speedball dealer.

Robbie, high on uppers, spends 20 minutes chatting up the bartender, while other customers grow impatient and angry as he is holding up the mixing of their cocktails and the pouring of their beers.

Robbie downs his downers and chases them with prescription painkillers he stole from his elderly mother PJ.

The inebriated Elvis impersonator texts his brother Damien, hoping he will join him and take him home, however after multiple selfies and text messages saying how much he loves his brother, Damien does not reply.

Cinema-13 clerk, bulbous neckbeard and communal narcadoodle Damien Hurlbutt strokes his dayglow-orange facial coiffe, and sets out a clipboard containing a sign-up sheet requesting email addresses for a newsletter. A theater customer walks up to the movie theater counter and asks what the newsletter is about. “It’s just a newsletter,” the sneaky narcissist Damien replies in his typical smug tone.

After the picture finishes its run and the ushers escort all the guests, Damien collects the newsletter sign-up sheet and heads to his Bourbonnais neckbeard-nest to sleep on the floor. Before he can retire for the night, he get annoyed over the mess of texts and photos from his brother Robbie. Damien would rather sleep in his mess of plastic tubs, and boxes of the things he loves more than people, than head back to Kankakee to pick up a drunk. Thinking he can gain something from helping his brother, he drives down to the Kankakee bar at which Robbie is performing slurred Elvis Presley Karaoke. The two bumbling idiots get into Damien’s beat-up van and head home. 

“What about my purple clown car?” Robbie asks Damien.

“Get it tomorrow.”

Damien gets a text from a coworker whose birthday is coming up soon. Knowing well it is illegal to text and drive, Damien messages his coworker, lovebombing her about the $50 gift card he is going to buy her, bragging about the surprise she clearly expressed she did not feel comfortable accepting.

After nearly crashing, Damien flips off the other driver and heads to Robbie’s Kankakee apartment, crashing on his floor instead.

Damien and Robbie wake up to snow on the ground. Damien retells the same story about his father N. Ron’s obsession with the weather channels he has already bored Robbie with at least 80 times now. Robbie leaves the room, stumbling on record albums he dumped all over the floor to get to the bathroom. Even though he is terrified of getting locked in the washroom while pooping, Robbie wants to get away from Damien.

Robbie emerges, and Damien pulls out the newsletter sign-up sheet, filled with names and email addresses. “Hey Robbie, my number-one brother? I would love to ask a favor from you. Can you contact Pat Splatt and try to sell him these email addresses? I collected them to send out messages getting out the good things us tender-hearts at the Bourbonnais Men’s Rights Activist (MRA) Club can do to help us men fight misandry. I would like to sell him a copy because I need the money to buy my coworkers gifts. I spent my paycheck already on action figures.

“What’s in it for me?” Robbie asks his equally self-centered brother Damien.

“Well, our theater has an extra Gothic Diana Ross poster from when we sponsored her show a couple years back.”

“Sold.” Robbie grins ear-to-ear and dials up Kankakee criminal and email spammer Pat Splatt.

The Hurlbutt brothers drive over to Pat Splatt’s flat, where the straggly long-haired Pat is busy harvesting emails from the Internet using his Spam-O-Matic computer program. The three group together to organize their petty crime. 

“Damien, I can pay you per email reply, that’s it.”

“Oh come now!”

“Oh go now, Damien. That is my final offer. Take it or leave it. I don’t have to offer you anything.”

“I know, I know, I know…” Damien says like a broken record, mimicking a certain furniture commercial emanating from Champaign. 

Damien reluctantly hands Pat the photocopied sign-up list containing contact information he collected from unsuspecting moviegoers.

Damien then heads to Wally Green’s to buy more pool toys and chucks them in his bathroom. After whizzing, he washes his hands with far more water than he needs and sprinkles the water all over the bathroom floor, leaving on the bathroom light and fan because he does not care.

Damien begins typing up his MRA “newsletter” in a word-processor program on his 10 year old desktop computer, resting atop a wooden folding table, the only piece of furniture in the entire room. The rotund neckbeard emails his diatribe while wearing his graphic tee displaying the text:

“I can 

EXPLAIN 

it to you

But I can’t

UNDERSTAND

it for you.”

A few days go by, however nobody takes Damien up on his offer to join the Bourbonnais MRA Club. Nobody clicks on the ads for the 21 Conference either. 

Damien realizes he needs to get ready for work now so he can make it on time after taking his two-hour shower.

Mr. Hurlbutt walks into the theater barely on-time. His boss, theater owner Konrad Teirant, calls him into his office.

Damien’s heart sinks and he utters a melodramatic “gulp” as he walks over to Konrad’s office.

“Damien, you really dropped the ball this time. I have been receiving numerous complaints from customers who have been getting emails about some misogyny club.”

“What?“

“This is unacceptable. They told me they signed up for a newsletter here? I never ordered you to or anyone else to put out a call for contact information. Do you want me to get sued?”

“Well…no” an embarrassed-because-caught Damien tells his boss.

“Damien, you have been working here a long time. You know that if we want to gather contact information so we can sell it, that would come from me. And only so I can profit, not you Damien. You’re not that important. Not at all. In fact, I can fire you at any time. I am telling you that because I am your friend. Oh by the way, why do you wear that dumb fedora? It looks stupid. And wash your beard. It smells. Don’t tell anyone we had this meeting. Go home and stay home the rest of this week. I will call you about next week’s hours.”

An excited Damien rushes home to play with his pool toys because he is happy he has the week off, not wondering at all if his boss will even call him back to work the next week.

MoronicArts Classics: Bern Book

~ Jen ~ 1 Comment

“Story time with Gothic Diana Ross & The Midnight Supremes? At the Manteno Library? I would say that a trip to Manteno is not complete without spending a few hours at the Manteno Optimal Club with Bernadette Cacca! Hmmpf!”

“Why don’t you start your own book club, honey?” Shapeshifting humanoid turkey vulture Sonya Moran asks her communal narcadoodle, bog-witch niece Bernadette.

“You’re the best!”

“Butt first, a trip to Bucketheads.”

“Why are you going to a hardware store?”

“It’s my own personal prop department!”

“Hot dawg!”

Bernadette pinches a massive loaf upstairs in the washroom while tapping away at her smell phone to announce yet-another-gig her aunt Sonya got her. Ahhh, the stench of nepotism.

BOOK CLUB NIGHT, TUES with yours truly! Join me at @MantenoOptimalClub TONIGHT, AUGUST 18, 9:30pm-3am. What will I read? It’s a surprise!  It’s the hottest new event in Kankakee County!

“I never drank coffee while I was in college. I drank pop,” Gothic Diana Ross complains to the Buckstars staff about her coffee again. 

“What’s this crap? A port-a-potty made out of poop? Do you drop dookie in it, on it, or next to it?” Diana scrolls through her Fakebook feed as she waits for her iced caramel latte to get re-made.

“She’s no Bansky…” Gothic Flo quips.

“I know, we should crash her gig. Maybe we can heckle her or something,” Gothic Mary giggles.

“Well, there is this card game…ooops. Nope, we’re not old enough,” Diana laughs as she reads the community events.

“Oh darn.” The dark gothic beauties share a laugh and drive away from their Gothic Victorian home in their black 1988 Chrysler Conquest TSi.

The Poopy Groupies surround Mrs. Cacca and shower her with a gush of superlatives at the Manteno Optimal Club:

“You’re the best thing that ever happened to Illinois!”

“You make me feel like a star, Bern!”

“It’s the Manteno icon herself! You should be beatified!”

Queen Bernadette rolls out her porcelain throne and makes an announcement:

“Today, I’m here on a campaign to promote regularity! I’m sure you saw my announcement on TV! I was on every channel!”

The portapotty empress sits on her toilet which she just bought from Bucketheads Hardware and begins to sing from a book:

image: “regular” book

“Being regular is important to me, and I hope it is EQUALLY important to my regulars. I love my Poopy Groupies! Nooowwww–baaaaaack–toooooo-the—booooooooooook!”

The Poopy Groupies hoot, holler and catcall. Yes the cat-calling is sexist but the queen of the porcelain throne does not care what kind of attention she gets, as long as she gets it and she is the center of attention. After all, she feels entitled to it since she does gigs like these for charity.

The cheering crowd of Bernadette bootlickers is cut like a knife from a few voices in the crowd.

“Why are you pooping in public?”

“Oh honey, I am not really pooping. See look, all golf balls!”

image: toilet box on a hardware store shelf. image on box of flushed golf balls. text on box reads: "Flush like a champion."

The crowd roars with laughter.

The Midnight Supremes join in on a tune of their own:

“You can’t hurry death
You just have to wait.
Charon works on his own time,
No matter what prayers you say.”

Upset about getting upstaged, Bernadette throws a fit:

“Do you know who I am?”

“Yeah, an unruly citizen who is obsessed with pooping!”

Awkward silence fills the hall of the Manteno Optimal Club. Eyes roll. People begin to chortle.

“I am reprising my role from the Human Body Odor EXCLUSIVE show, “Dropping the Deuce.”

A voice emerges from the crowd.

“Hey, I have a gift for ya Bernadette!”

Sybil Kibble hands Bernadette a box and runs. Happy for the distraction, Mrs Cacca opens her gift. “Is this for meeee? Oh you are the best.”

Bernadette shows her malcontent for the gift, and even the mere thought behind it. She rambles like a Turd Machine spitting out letter-blocks from a craft store. 

Sybil Kibble escapes Bern’s word-salad diatribe in her trusty Chrysler LeBaron as do the Midnight Supremes in their sleek sportscar.

Bernadette continues to sing and ramble like the moron that she is, as she watches her mug on the community FartTV, ignoring the confused crowd leaving her stupid book club: “Late last night when the moon green, around the corner came a turd machine…shots were fired, a scream was heard…Join me here next week as I livestream again…oh dear.”

MoronicArts Classics: Damien Hurlbutt Storms Area 51

~ Jen ~ 17 Comments

Make it rain with N.F.T.s – Newly Formed Turds! Craptocoin mined the old fashioned way! Ask Bern Cacca how.

“Oh boy oh boy oh boy!” Bourbonnais multiplex clerk, fedora-sporting neckbeard and communal narcadoodle, Damien Hurlbutt exclaims when he gets a link to a message bearing the subject “thank you Damien Hurbutt–old soul and tender-heart.” It has arrived from one of his favourite puppeteers on Fakebook, whom he has been stalking, mailing weekly postcards to her home address.

Damien hems and haws, not used to getting the praise to which he feels entitled. He clicks the link, which leads to a “You Are An Idiot” video, complete with Fakebook comments section on the female performer’s page rightfully poking fun at his narcissistic behavior.

Damien rages due to his narcissistic injury, ego deflated to the size of a pea. He throws his computer out the window, hitting an older lady on the head, instantly killing her.

Bored and fearful he will be locked away forever, without a chance for narcissistic supply, Damien hoovers his ex-wife Lori. Ennui gets the best of him: Damien emerges from nothing by false flagging Lori’s social media content, hoping to get her into Fakebook jail. Instead, Damien goes to real jail – Kankakee County jail – as he awaits his trial for manslaughter and stalking.

Damien’s enabler, fellow communal narcadoodle, and fart-enthusiast Bern Cacca posts bail. Damien goes home, assuming he will get the acquittal to which he feels entitled.

Think again.

A bounty hunter is sent out to sniff out Damien; Bern’s transaction failed because she paid in Craptocoin and burned it all…in her fireplace. 

“The only thing I like better than mining Craptocoin, is burning it…” Mrs. Cacca says as she cooks her books at the Manteno shack she shares with her husband Peppi.

Damien pursues Bernadette, who is not home, nor at work. Damien heads over to the bog she inhabits, which she uses as a bathtub and and slow-cooker for devouring the living. Unfortunately for fugitive Damien, the sign at Bern’s Bog reads “the bog witch is out.”

Damien gets a “fake news” tip sent to his flip-phone by Pat Splatt that Bern went to Area 51 for a toxic secret flatulence experiment. Keep flames away from butts.

Artist’s rendering of secret experiment room

Damien tries to sneak into Area 51 after taking pictures of the “Photography Prohibited” Area 51 “No Trespassing” sign.

Damien heads toward the once-secret base nicknamed “Dreamland” and gets rightfully arrested by the military police.

The officers, tired of shooting people on sight and patrolling the same remote corner of Nevada, decide to bring Damien in and question him. Damien sits down at a metal table, glances down at the floor, all by his lonesome. Out of seemingly nowhere, a group of five military personnel materialize in the room, all facing the bulbous neckbeard. ”Face to Face” by Daft Punk plays over the public address system, beat-matched into a remix of ”Paris 400” by SebastiAn. Area 51’s DJ really likes French House Music.

“Nice floor tiles you have, M’Lady!” Damien smirks, hoping to impress the leader with his negative humor.

Obviously not impressed, the Area 51 security team haul Mr. Hurlbutt into a solitary cell in the top-secret experimentation wing, where human and extraterrestrial scientists work to develop a “super-soldier” performing experiments like turning humans into giant spiders and installing amplifiers into cyborgs to blast Katy Scary music to scare away terrorists.

Damien makes his one phone call to Pat Splatt, asking where Bernadette had gone.

“Bern is at Area 21, not 51”

“Why did you text me she was at Area 51 then?”

“Umm…typo?”

MoronicArts Classics: Welcome to Hell

~ Jen ~ Leave a comment

Kankakee pyramid schemer Doris Krabalsky and Bourbonnais communal narc-a-doodle Damien Ulysses Hurlbutt both arrive at Hell’s in-processing department at the same time.

“Sign the register” says Hell’s in-processing clerk and former Medical Office Assistant, Lucy Furr, who was notorious for bullying her roommate on their college trip to Italy. Meanwhile, Doris and Damien try to take over.

MoronicArts Classics: Konrad Teirant Cleans House

~ Jen ~ 1 Comment
Image: a bald, stocky male with shoulder length orange hair and an orange beard clenches his jaw and looks to the left. Text: shirt reads "World's largest source of natural gas."

Bourbonnais cinema clerk, neckbeard and communal narcadoodle Damien Ulysses Hurlbutt was last seen near Area 51.

While cleaning out his ex-employee’s desk, Teirant Cinema-13 owner Konrad Teirant found Damien’s scribbled-on evaluation forms. Behold, the work of a master-moron!

MoronicArts Classics: Aim High

~ Jen ~ Leave a comment

“Oh man, I want to see the new movie Aim High but the tickets are all sold out. It opens this Friday, you know, the one based on the newest Nora Roberts book?” Dorian James rambles.

“Never heard of it.” Sybil tells Dorian in the CRASS cafeteria as she crunches her dog biscuits.

“I want to see it when it comes out, but the tickets are sold out because it is a Valentine’s Day movie.”

Sybil has a few extra minutes before she logs onto the phones, so she searches OKStupid for potential dates, reacting to herself as she reads through the personal ads.

“41 year old man in Chicago seeks female. Must be 18-25 and love sports.”

Nope.

“Do you like big trucks? 21 year old guy, loves beer, weed, works hard and plays hard, no games.”

Naw, I like the occasional backgammon.

“Rare frog, last of his species, seeks woman of any age to give him a kiss. Very polite tender-heart. Age 48. Bourbonnais.”

Just a photo of his feet? A bit odd, but I can try I guess.

Before Sybil has a chance to message the stinky feet from Bourbonnais, they email her.

Sybil and the mystery man email back and forth. They hit it off right away. The divorced man complains a lot about his ex-wife, which Sybil tunes out. Sybil talks about her love of lawnmowers and dog food, which the guy ignores only to interrupt her about his “poop elves” story.

It’s a Valentines Day in Kankakee. The birds are chirping and Sybil is tweeting online about how excited she is about her new man and the mystery gifts he keeps teasing her about. Could he be the next Robert Stack?

It is 11:30 and Sybil is on the phone trying to double down on debt. Operations Manager Mike Philips comes by with a delivery.

“Flowers for Sybil!”

Sybil hangs upon the debtor and immediately logs off the telephones. The long, green and cream box, sealed with packing tape, came from New Jersey. Sybil gets out her scissors. She struggles for 20 minutes and finally opens the box. Inside are 12 longstemmed roses individually attached to the box by hard plastic fasteners.

Sybil’s frustration grows as her scissors are not enough to loosen the delicate roses from their restraints, so she grabs a set of pliers from her drawer after five minutes of searching.

Finally, the flowers are out. Thankfully, the potential suitor included a vase. Sybil goes to the ladies’ washroom, fills the vase with water from the sink, and puts the haphazard bouquet on her desk.

Sybil calls her mystery man to thank him.

“You just won Valentine’ Day!” he says to her.

“I did?” Sybil sighs.

“Well, did anyone else get as much as you today?” He asks.

“I do not know. I did not look…and I am not that impressed by gifts. I am more of an acts of service person. I like when people do stuff for me,” Sybil tells the gentleman.

“Look in the box, Sybil.”

She looks in the box. She uncovers a movie ticket.

“You and I can go to the opening of Aim High tonight! I cannot wait to meet you!” he says.

“You sound familiar. What is your name, mine is Sybil.”

“Damien.”

“Oh, you’re PJ’s son. I remember you.” Sybil tells Damien, remembering the terror that communal narcissist Damien caused by mentally abusing his former wife, Lori.

“I know, I know, I know…I will meet you tonight at the show, M’lady Madame. I have long red hair, an orange neckbeard and I wear a black fedora.”

“Right. See ya.” Sybil says to Damien hangs up the phone and laughs.

Sybil dials Dorian James.

“Yup.”

“I got a movie ticket for you. Aim High. Tonight’s the opening night. It is all yours. Have fun!” Sybil tells Dorian.

“Allll-right! Be right over.”

MoronicArts Classics: Damien Hurlbutt Thinks Excess Plastic is Fantastic

~ Jen ~ Leave a comment

For Bourbonnais cinema clerk, communal narcadoodle, and neckbeard Damien Hurlbutt, invalidation of others’ feelings has always been one heck of a drug.

”Hey Damien? Why does Buckstars wrap all their plastic utensils in even more plastic?”

”Well actually, Lori…I was watching the Angery Game Nerd Show on PooTube and the host gets mad there is not enough packaging. After all, plastics makers need to make money too…“ Damien the self-proclaimed “nice guy” said to his ex wife at their former home in Champaign. Lori Brown – whom Damien calls “Grimace” – has been happily divorced from the Bourbonnais cinema clerk who sent her doctors lunacy letters, thinking he knew more about psychology than…um…an actual psychologist?

Have you known someone like Damien? I hope not. Lori would not wish his abuse on her worst enemy.

Go, Bernadette!

~ Jen ~ Leave a comment

“Oh no. Not her again. Hey, let’s sit down and hide out over there.” Before Gothic Diana Ross & The Midnight Supremes have a chance, their next-door neighbor Bernadette rips a big one, the sulphuric stench drowning out the delicious coffee aroma.

“Bernadette, you farted in my chair. That’s my favorite chair! Lick it clean.”

The three songbirds cackle in unison and wave her away, butt, the queen of the plastic throne Bern keeps her bum firmly planted in the fragrant coffeehouse chair, wishing she had a match.

Waiting by the barista bar for their iced caramel lattes, the Gothic Boss Ms. Ross and her sisters approached by a slender, 5’4”, 60-something blonde woman wearing cheater glasses.

“It’s smelly out there, take this.”

“Do I know you?” Diana asks the stranger.

“No, I’m Sybil Kibble. I’m in here every night and I got this picture from some weirdo named Jen. They said they liked your music and felt bad about some smelly morons next door to you. You’re from Manteno, right?”

“Thanks! This is nice for a change.”

“Jen said to keep it for good luck. Maybe it will ward off Barn-o-dette or whatever the heck her name is.”

After arriving home from the Bourbonnais Buckstars in their black 1988 Chrysler Conquest, the ladies go inside to practice their instruments. Gothic Diana Ross takes a break, walks outside to put out the waste bins, and spots her next door neighbor Mrs. Cacca standing nearby.

“Oh no. Eew. I hope she doesn’t bother me for the zillionth time,” Diana says to herself. She pulls out the talisman given to her by Sybil and puts it in her front jacket pocket.

Instead of running up the stairs of Diana’s slate Victorian house to verbally spam her about the Manteno Cantina charity crap only done to look good on the outside, the communal narcadoodle Bernadette instead waves at a bus passing by, hoping its smiling eyes would react to Bernadette’s wide open grin as if to catch a fly. 

In turn, the bus loudly “faaaaart-faaarts” like the truck from the American Freight commercials, one of the few things more annoying than Bernadette Moran Cacca.