Kankakee debt collector and big moron Sybil Kibble went up to Chicago this past Monday. She visited the LaSalle Street Buckstars where Damien Hurlbutt got kicked out a few months ago for going batty on the staff when they politely asked him to wear a mask.
Thankfully, Damien was not inside. However, the barista making Sybil’s drink misspelled her name.
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.
Manteno pretend do-gooder, port-a-dump empress and Craptocoin hawker Bernadette Moran Cacca sure knows how to act stupid. I am so glad this moron and others like her are fake:
Slumlord scum, Ferengi lover and Poopy Groupie President Sonya Moran sure knows how to party.
Area 51 test subject, Squirrely Dan neckbeard, and world’s largest source of natural gas Damien Hurlbutt undergoes daily flatulence testing in their Alternative Fuel Sources Department.
Kankakee drugstore owner, wacky inventor and wannabe ladies’ man Wally Green sells his wares at the home of the Buy One, Get One Half Off (But Never Free) Sale.
Size matters! Over 500 short stories, some shorter than other, all free of charge to read here on MoronicArts. :D Subscribe using your WordPress or email account. It’s FREEEEEEEEEEEE!
The Hurlbutts get together for their annual Christmas shenanigans. After opening $1000 worth of useless crap from Damien, Kankakee store clerk, covert narcissist and Elvis impersonator Robbie opens the sole gift from his mother. PJ could not wait to give this to Robbie.
Robbie opens his present. “Maaaa, you got this for free from Sybil.”
“It’s an autographed Elvis picture! I got it for you because I know how much you love Elvis.”
“You paid nothing for it. I spent $100 on that Blu-Ray player and the bootleg copy of Dune.”
“Money can’t buy you love, Robbie,” a disappointed PJ advises her spoiled brat son, who is throwing a tantrum like a three-year-old.
“I’ll take it. I can sell it on eBay!” the elder Hurlbutt son Damien tells his little brother Robbie.
The Hurlbutt brothers argue back and forth — after all, that is what narcissists love to do. PJ tries to break up the fight. Meanwhile, smoke is coming from the kitchen.
PJ runs into the kitchen.
“What is that?” Damien inquires.
“The Yule Log,” PJ sarcastically replies.
PJ takes the meat out of the oven just in time to stop a fire, and sends her dorky kids home so she can have a peaceful rest.
Before PJ has a chance to lie down, her best friend Sybil Kibble rings the doorbell.
Ahhh, holiday cheer.
Merry Christmas from MoronicArts!
Knock-knock.
Bourbonnais communal narc-a-doodle Damien Hurlbutt ignores the letter carrier. “Must be my Weekly Weewee Wonders; the mailman can tuck those away in the box,” Damien tells himself, as he trims his glowing orange neckbeard.
Damien dons his newest fedora, carefully selected from his newest box of identical hats ordered from an online retailer.
Damien logs onto M’Ladies by Mail Online one last time to check for replies to his daily messages to Ha, his long lost mail-order bride from Vietnam. He sings the empty-inbox blues.
Damien looks for his flip phone and cannot locate it. “Check your pocket, Farley!” Damien says out loud, Lord only knows why.
“Who the heck is Farley?” his downstairs neighbor asks as Damien locks up, jiggling the doorknob for a full five minutes.
“Nothing!” Damien exclaims to his neighbor, as if she cared.
Damien locates his phone and calls his vulnerable narcissist brother Robbie.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Robbie’s voice is heard.
“Elvis, I mean Robbie has left the building. Leave a message. BOOORT!”
“Heyy, man. This is your brother. I am leaving to go try and patch things up with Grimace, I mean Lori. Wish me luck, okay!” Damien flips his phone closed.
Damien hops onto 57 North to Chicago, where Lori lives. He had got her address by abusing his employer’s NexusLexus database program. He has an idea she will be home tonight, because he has been tracking her plans through a sock puppet account on Fakebook.
Damien parks in a nearby garage and walks up to Lori’s apartment, roses and balloons in hand. He knocks on her door.
Lori answers, as she has been expecting a pizza delivery. It is 5:30 PM.
“I want to start things all over with you from the beginning.” Damien tells a shocked, angry Lori.
“Damien? Get the freak outta here now, or I will call the police!” Lori screams sternly.
“I could doink you every day if you would let me!” Damien says with an evil grin and his usual blank eyes.
“Eeeew, you moron! Get out of here!”
Damien spots his mail-order bride Ha in Lori’s apartment. Ha introduces herself, “Damien is that you?” “Why you love her not me?”
“Come now?” Damien says, startled.
Damien collapses emotionally. He is found out. Damien leaves hoping to dodge the police, failing to accept responsibility since he thinks he can do no wrong..
“I am so glad I showed you his crazy letter,” Lori tells Ha.
“I am so glad we met in that support group online.” Ha confides in Lori.
Screaming is heard emanating from down the street. It cannot be made out. Moments later, sirens begin to wail.
“You dodged a bullet” Ha says.
“We both did.”
“What a moron” they both say, in unison.
“Jinx!”
“Oh he’s jinxed alright!” Lori says and they both giggle as they greet the pizza guy.
Like most narc-a-doodles, Damien Ulysses Hurlbutt does not sleep well, usually because lies awake dreaming up devious schemes. This is not one of those nights.
“Her toes, her toes, her delicious toes…let me sniff her toes…cover them in barbecue sauce, oh M’Lori, M’lady Madame….”
“Vitals!”
Damien’s audible pillow talk comes to an abrupt halt.
“You okay in there? Time to get your vitals before we install your probe,” says a worker sporting a badge reading “Alternative Fuels Department, Area 51.”
Damien gazes over at the wall-mounted digital clock, which reads 0500 Hours.
“You’re a freak. Your body contains the highest concentration of natural gas we have ever tested here in Dreamland,” the nurse says after they capture Damien’s blood pressure, temperature and pulse oximetry.
“Now time for your daily flatulence testing!”
“Now Mr. Hurlbutt, we have a special treat for you on your birthday! Instead of daily corn-on-the-cob which we know you just love, we have something else!” the guard says as she brings the test subject his tray.
“Oooh boy, oh boy, what is it?” Damien exclaims with glee, orange neckbeard aglow.
“Corn SILK! Enjoy, Daemon!”
“It’s Damien…” the communal narc-a-doodle and former cinema clerk from Bourbonnais frowns with disappointment and melodrama to add sappiness atop sappiness, head in palm drawn down in slow motion because he is an idiot who had tried to break into Area 51.
Happy Birthday Damien!
Bourbonnais cinema clerk, neckbeard and communal narc-a-doodle Damien Hurlbutt does the fart dance when he goes to rip one. The only thing he loves more than his hoard is the smell of his own gas blasts.
Bourbonnais multiplex clerk, neckbeard and communal narcissist, Damien Hurlbutt, has caught word that his estranged former wife Lori is coming into Kankakee County for a doctor’s appointment. He is deathly afraid of running into her because he is scared she might confront him about his history of verbal abuse toward her, tarnishing his squeaky-clean image. He heads over to his brother Robbie’s apartment to ask him and fellow con man Pat Splatt to come up with a sneaky way into avoiding her.
“I’m back!” Damien tells his younger brother and fellow narcissist, Robbie.
“I’m front!” Robbie snickers back.
“I am leaving town for a week or longer. I am telling my boss at the cinema and then hitting the gas. My ex-wife is coming back into town and I am scared.”
“Scared?” Robbie replies in his typical faux-Elvis voice.
“Yeah. Sssh, don’t tell anyone. I really look good online after I smear campaigned her to all my friends, even to that famous couple until they had told me to stop messaging them, sending them presents and mailing them weekly postcards. I had sent them a drawing I made all by myself after our friend passed away since I had talked them into letting me send them art instead. I swear, they are really impressed! Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!” Damien exclaims with glee as he rubs his palms together.
“Just man up and deal with it!” Robbie Hurlbutt tells his older brother Damien.
“Come now. That is not how you talk to a fellow Men’s Rights Activist! You know that!” Damien says on the defense to Robbie.
“I hope you get the time off approved.”
“Okay, okay, okay, okay…” Damien repeats ad nauseum, not knowing his little brother Robbie is already out of earshot.
“Ding-dong.”
“You’re wrong!” Damien snickers beneath his breath to the person at Robbie’s door.
A half-grinning Pat Splatt opens the door and struts inside.
“I popped the question!”
“What question?” Damien asks.
“Heyyyy…where did you meet her?” Robbie replies and looks away.
“Hey Pat, my ex is coming into town and I am feeling lukecold about this. I was wondering if you could help come up with a scheme—“
“Damien, I just got engaged!”
“I know, I know. My ex is due in sometime this week. I would like to gingerly bow out of town but I have to work. What do you suggest I do?”
“Hey, can I sing at your wedding, Pat?” Kankakee’s number one Elvis impersonator, the one and only Robbie Hurlbutt asks.
“Do you know anything besides Elvis?”
“I can sing lots of oldies.” Robbie replies.
“Do you play any metal?”
“No, but you can book me really cheap. I will throw in my groovy dance moves for free.”
“I’ll consider it.” Pat says to Robbie.
“So where did you meet her?” Robbie asks.
“The dating app OKStupid. Hey, I’ll show you guys a picture.” Pat gets out his phone and opens up said dating app.
“Who’s Daniel Sprague?” Damien asks.
“Oh, that’s my profile,” a half-embarrassed Pat replies as his gawky, straggly self shows the Hurlbutt brothers the obviously-stolen photos of the handsome, athletic man in the photos with the gorgeous hair and eyes.
The Hurlbutts smile and ask to see his new girl.
“Her name is Alix. She’s from South Africa.”
“When did you meet her?” Damien asks.
“Oh, a month ago.”
“She came to Kankakee?” Robbie asks?
“No.”
“Hey Damien, let’s work on avoiding your ex,” Pat says to change the topic and the three work on scheming.
The next day arrives and so does Damien. Unlike Pat, Damien rings the bell and waits. While he waits, he taps his foot and jiggles the doorknob a dozen times. Make it a baker’s dozen.
“Well doesn’t that put poop in your soup?” Damien asks Robbie.
“Say what?”
“My time off did not get approved. I have to work. That means if my ex-wife comes into town, and visits the theater, she could say something bad about me if I am mean to her! What do I do?”
“Weren’t you saying you had heel spurs, just like the former president?”
“You know, the Moon landing may not be real but durn it, my bone spurs are!” Damien sternly replies.
“You deserve a long, hard week off.”
“You know, that’s right. I’ll just call in.”
“What do you do at that theater anyway?”
“Oh, make copies of tickets and give them away. And make color copies of things I print out…all on the company’s dime. Why not? They’re paying for it.”
The brothers share a giggle and Damien drives home to his neckbeard nest to sleep on the floor.
Damien dials his supervisor, Cinema-13 owner Konrad Teirant, on his ten year old flip phone to call in “sick.”
“You will need to be examined by a doctor and have a written excuse for each day you are out. Company policy.” Konrad says to Damien.
Upset and surprised by this rule, Damien makes an appointment to be seen. The office cannot tells him he cannot in until next week.
“Phew!” Damien says aloud after he hangs up his ancient flip phone and writes down his doctor appointment.
Damien drives over to Robbie’s apartment, where Robbie, his roommate Andy Skandees and Pat Splatt are all dancing and watching children’s entertainment.
A bulbous Damien sits down on the basket chair and nearly falls out, while Pat stares angrily at his phone on the couch next to Andy, who is relaxing in his white tank top and cargo pants.
“She says she wants to come meet me. In person. I keep telling her I am busy. She says she is on her way to Kankakee in a week-and-a-half for a business meeting via way of Chicago!” an unhappy Pat exclaims.
“Why don’t you want to meet your girl? Andy asks.
“Reasons,” Pat replies.
“Did I tell you my story about the poop elves?” Damien asks with a large grin on his face.
“Way too many times…” the rest of the room answers in unison.
“Oh, I forgot.” Damien lies.
The Kankakee storm rages on, and then changes to sun five minutes later.
Damien spends the next week off work, feeling glad he does not run into his former wife out and about, especially at work. It is review week coming up and he is deathly afraid of this time of year, as he is every year. Damien lives to impress, and will not even let his peers throw him a birthday party because he is not the one doing the impressing. If anyone would care enough to surprise him — not that they would — he would take over the check, (in a not-so-polite-way) and insist on paying on it himself thinking that would somehow impress them. Damien only does this for image, as he only cares about himself. He just wants to look good to cover up his lack of empathy.
Damien goes to the doctor’s office the following Monday before returning to work at the movie theater that night. After all, he had just spent a week off for his heel spurs!
While waiting for about an hour for his fifteen minute exam, in walks a familiar-looking woman, along with a much older lady. Damien looks up.
“Oh gawd.” Lori says to her friend after briefly looking over at Damien and then back at her friend.
Damien is now shaking with fear. He immediately dials up Robbie. It goes straight to voicemail. He calls Andy. Same thing. He calls Pat.
“Hey, man. It’s an emergency.”
“Be right over. I am charging you double-time.”
“Fine.”
Damien flips over his bronze-age phone and waits, tapping his fingers, whistling audibly.
Thirty minutes pass and Damien has not been called back to see the doctor, neither has Lori.
Pat Splatt walks in, cowboy boots a-clomping.
“Hi Damien. What’s going—“
“Look, Pat.”
Damien points across from him, to his former wife and her friend.
“What do you want from me?” Pat asks.
“That’s my ex wife! I thought her appointment was last week! You gave me the info.”
“So what. Things change. It happens.”
“Hey, you sound familiar!” says one of the ladies across from him.
“Hey-hhmm-hhuhhh—hmmm—what?” a melodramatic Damien replies.
“No not you, that guy next to you.” the elderly lady replies in her Cape Town accent, appearing to be about 72.
“You mean Pat?” Damien snarkily replies.
“Pat? I thought your name was Daniel!”
“Alllll-iiiiixxxx?” a stunned Pat Splatt replies.
“Yes, sonny. It’s me. I had told you I was coming into town. But you hadn’t wanted to meet me. I wonder why not? You do not look anything like your picture. The engagement is off.”
“Well neither do you!” Pat exclaims.
“Calm down everyone!” a staff member shouts from behind a window.
The group of people waiting wonder how any of them would get any calmer by a comment like that.
Damien is eventually thrown out of the office and Lori is called in next.
Needless to say, Damien does not pass his yearly review at Teirant Cinema-13. Poor Damien. If only he had just tried to be nice. But then again, he would not be Damien.
Kankakee pharmacy clerk, vulnerable narcadoodle and the city’s number one Elvis impersonator Robbie Hurlbutt was surprised to see his ex-girlfriend who had left him 17 years ago. Mimicking his self-entitled communal narcissist brother Damien, he put his flip phone up as she passed by him at the grocery store and took a photo of her, in plain daylight.
He never got over her having broken up with him, and him being the creepy narcissist who thinks he can do no wrong, Robbie thought it was just dandy to take her photo and keep it in his souvenir collection of exes he idealized, devalued and discarded like chewed up gum.
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