MoronicArts Classics: Bern Book

“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!”

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 walks away as fast she can. 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.”

Have an offal good birthday, Carla Moran!

Carla Moran’s wish list.

The Moroniverse wishes the Midwestern sterile supply clerk, shapeshifting humanoid turkey vulture and self-righteous narcadoodle known as Carla Moran a very happy hatch day! We hope you and your flock have your carrion/steak meatballs, and burp them up too. Yum!

Demanda Broccoli Gets Chopped!

Bernadette Cacca, her husband Peppi and Demanda Broccoli all have one thing in common: Ennui.

“I saw this broad over here, had to go around her…Hi, I’m Demanda, I’m a friend of Mexico, he’s my brother,” she says to Bernadette, extending her hand to shake, holding a beer in the other. Bernadette pauses…then clarifies:

“You mean you’re a friend of Peppi’s.”

“I don’t have no friends. I tell a secret, three people know then I gotta kill both of them,” Kankakee debt-collector and humanoid vegetable Demanda Broccoli tells communal narc-a-doodle Bernadette Cacca, before walking over to her secret lover/sociopath Peppi Cacca, while they’re all sitting outside the Cacca’s Manteno homestead drinking and smoking skunkweed.

“Does Mexico have the Spanish flag?”

“No, they have their own flag, Demanda.”

“Who has the Spanish flag?”

“Umm…Spain”

“Where is Spain?” Demanda asks, guzzles even more beer from her plastic cup and then steals some moonshine from Peppi’s flask.

“Dude, you stank!” Demanda makes fun of her side piece.

“Time to burn some poopies, honey!” Not to be out-stinkified, Bernadette plays a sour note on her butt-trumpet, then lights a match.

BOOOM!

Demanda gets so blown away, her florets, stem chunks and crown make a mess all over the Cacca’s front lawn.

“Mmmmmm! Veggies for supper! I will sure done get regular now!” the bog witch cackles as she picks up the pieces of Demanda.

Carla Moran’s Ticket to Fly

“You have a wake to attend.” Undead Greg Schneissder tells his lover, the communal narcadoodle and bog-witch known as Bernadette Moran Cacca.

“What?”

“There’s some dude out there photographing a dead bird.”

“Oh that’s that millionaire from Kankakee.”

“Millionaires in Kank? They exist?”

“Well yeah, duh! His name is Mack, he owns some debt collection firm there.”

“We should start a band called The Dead Fledglings,” the undead sociopath suggests, before waking into a wall.

“That’s so uncouth!” Bernadette’s ringer starts playing a GG Allin Medley.

“Hi Mom! I see you got my Craptocoins! I just mined them fresh myself!” Bernie flushes the toilet.

“Bernadette, take YOUR shower!” the shapeshifting humanoid turkey vulture demands.

“Mom?”

“C’mon, we’re going on a little outing.”

“Where?”

“It will be a surprise.”

“I’m very busy burning the poops from last night’s port-a-potty job, raising money for the Manteno Optimal Club this weekend, and devouring unsuspecting gentleman callers next time I go to my swamp.”

“Get him out!” “Get him out!” Carla screams at the baseball game.

“Mom?”

“That didn’t even dawn on me. How about you and I take a little break, have some mother-daughter time, maybe we can do each other’s pedicures?”

“Eeeeew!”

“Don’t talk to me in that tone of voice!”

“Stop squawking at me!”

“No-wrong!”

“We always get into fights because you find that one thing about me to complain about.”

“You’re too sensitive, honey.” Carla gaslights.

“I have this awesome piano gig at the Manteno Cantina tonight. Wanna come see me play?”

“I know, I know, I know. So you’re not coming with me?”

“Yeah…no. That’s my final answer.”

“You mommy will miss you.”

“Good. Go have fun! Gotta run, because I got the runs!”

Bernadette hangs up her smell phone and flushes her washroom toilet again.

Carla of course calls Bernadette right back and leaves a voicemail:

“DON’T YOU HANG UP ON ME AGAIN! FINE! I will fly out to Groom Lake without YOU. We have all been wondering where your Aunt Sonya went but I guess you don’t care. When I find her, I will tell her how YOU mistreated me, and how little you’ve cared about her since she left town. You aunt cares an awful lot about you. And I love you an awful lot. Bye honey.”

Bernadette sees that she has one new voicemail from her mother, and immediately deletes it without listening. Then she poops.

Visions of vacationing in the desert by the lake, fill Carla’s grandiose head, devoid of vision. Lighthouses greet the boats passing in the night, scores of grey aliens cheer outside their ships of the space kind and wave at Ms. Moran, as she approaches the gate of the Dreamland ranch.

The next morning, Carla flies out from Indiana and Southwest toward Nevada, taking breaks to circle around with other vultures in the thermals to rest her wings. They land in Dulce, New Mexico helping themselves to a freshly dead cow, taking the back entrance and chowing down on as much carrion as they can after exiting. Within minutes, they fly away to some trees in the next town over to clean off their outstretched wings.

Carla then flies solo up toward Nevada looking for her Groom Lake vacation spot. Confused by the lack of water, beaches and boats, she stops at a diner in Rachel to ask directions.

“Dry Lake? What the heck is that?”

Disappointed by the lack of water in the Nye County surrounding area, Carla flies toward Homey Air Force Base to find her long lost sister Sonya where she was rumored to have last been seen.

Tired of flapping her wings, Carla walks over to the gate. Signs reading “No drones,” “Photograhy Prohibited,” and “Warning: US Military installation. Unauthorized entry strictly forbidden” are plain to see. She struts over to the guard shack and demands to be let in.

“Ma’am, did you read the sign?”

“My sister is locked inside and I need to rescue her.”

“Do you have ID, ma’am?”

“I have no idea where in there she is, no.”


“Do you have a driver’s license? Passport? Military identification?”

“Come here. COME HERE! I need to show you something.”

“If you don’t have proper identification, I will deny you entry.”

“I am Carla Moran. You DO know my sister, Sonya Moran, do you not?”

The camo dude just laughs.

“If you don’t leave the premises, I am going to have to call police.”

“OK! OK! OK! OK! OK! OK! OK! OK! OK! OK! OK! OK! OK!”

“Back out the way you came, and head out. Where did you come from and where are you heading?”

“Inside to see my sister.”

“Alright, I’m calling police.”

Within a half hour, the sheriff shows up and take Ms. Moran into custody, issues her a $640 citation, and sends her home.

“Oh my god, my mom’s on TV! Wooooo! Look at this, JB!”

“What’s that honey?” her second-favorite lover Mr. Powers asks. Bernadette’s husband Peppi is out on another port-o-dump run.

Bernie points at the TV and spits out her beer.

“Indiana woman with ties to Kankakee County arrested for — get this — trying to break into Area 51. Reporter Elena Ess is on the scene.”

Bernadette giggles like a giddy child on Christmas and grabs another bottle.