“Hey Diana! Check out this big, beautiful picture my Peppi smoked up for me!” Manteno entramanure, bog witch and communal narcadoodle Bernadette Cacca brags about the huge printout containing her likeness surrounded her bootlickers, to her neighbors Gothic Diana Ross and the Midnight Supremes.
“You’re holding it upside down.”
“What?”
“I saw Smokey Ashe, Undead Greg waiting in Hell’s in-processing line during my last internship. Lucy Furr was checking them in.”
“You’re not God, you know honey…” Gothic Mary smirks. The Midnight Supremes collectively snap their fingers, break into song and dance their way back to their Gothic Victorian home next door to the Caccas on Kant Street.
Shapeshifting humanoid turkey vulture Carla Moran drops by for a visit. She flies into a tree again, then plops to the grass.
“Oh hi Mom! Look what Peppi made for my birthday month!”
“Oh-kay. Why are you pretending to be Jesus?”
“I know. I know. It’s really me using a Vulcan mind meld on aunt Sonya. I have not gotten a gig since she had flown the coop. I’m trying to revive my career!”
“You don’t even like Star Trek.”
“Yeah I do. I really love that Dr. Spock guy and his Jedi mind tricks,” a very confidently incorrect Bernadette plainly spits her alternative facts.
The Midnight Supremes share a giggle at Bernadette’s newest gaffe, Bernadette’s loud mouth wide open to catch a fly shrinks down to a shriveled grimace.
Wife of Brandon Dixon – owner of Brandon’s Imbecile Machine – and mother to his kids; Pris Dixon is highly nosy, butts into strangers’ business out of pure ennui. She had been best friends with shapeshifting humanoid turkey vulture Sonya Marie Smith Moran, until she had flown the coop.
She needs to get better hobbies.
Pris works as a Medical Office Assistant for her father-in-law Kankakee Ears, Nose, and Throat specialist Dr. Eddie Dixon, and as a store clerk at Archangel’s Craft Stores. She has a reputation for gaslighting patients and customers just to confuse them.
Police refuse to let her victims press charges, save for once, stating Pris “is just mentally ill.” Yes, acting like a sociopath is a mental problem, which causes her victims to seek treatment.
“You’re crazy, the only one on the bus whoever starts problems!” — Pris Dixon gaslighting her verbal and physical abuse targets
Pris proudly drives a green imbecile machine given to her by Brandon, branded with “You just got passed by a girl” decals.
Pris was raised by wealthy parents who gave her everything she wanted. Pris feels that, because she is a parent, she should cut in line at the cafes and burger joints. She dislikes the child-free by choice and gets her kicks by invalidating their feelings. Pris feels that only parents can make a valid point, and that life does not begin until you become a mother or father.
“Here I sit all broken-hearted, tried to crap but only farted,” a forlorn Bernadette “Bern” Cacca sings on her porcelain throne, practicing kazoo and accordion. She lights a fart, burns her doodoo in the fireplace, then makes a call to a Northwestern Illinois bar on her smell phone.
“Poopy’s.”
“Hi, my name is Bernadette Cacca. I’m a famous singer near Chicago.”
The bartender giggles.
“I have a wonderful offer to make your bar.”
“May…I take your order?”
“I would like to open a Poopy’s here in Manteno.”
“I thought you were from Chicago!”
The bartender continues to giggle as he hangs up on Bern.
To increase her bottom line of attention, money and bootlickers, communal narc-a-doodle Bernadette offers to sing and play her accordion cover songs at a charity event to raise money for the victims of the Russian war against Ukraine. She dreams about all the praise, awards and photo opportunities she can gain from making it look like she cares. She does not raise money for this or any other cause because she feels concerned about the efforts of living beings trying to stay alive, fighting or fleeing a psychopath trying to take over their beautiful country. She just loves to pretend.
Bern heads home from a long day working her and her husbands’ business Peppi’s Portapotties, excited to burn the porta-poopies in her fireplace, only to be interrupted by a phone call.
“Hi, Bernadette…ummm…Cake-Uh?”
“Cacca.”
“Yeah, I am calling about your gig at the Gaslight Bar tomorrow night.”
“Oh hiiii! I am THRILLED about playing this extraordinary gig at 7:00 tomorrow night.”
“Good. We are calling to tell you about a slight time change. Due to staffing shortages, we need to move your gig back an hour.”
“I am a pillar of the community and a national treasure! Your tone is not appropriate for someone doing business. I would get used to people like me.”
“So are you coming or not? We have other guests who want to play and help—“
“Okay, okay, see you tomorrow. Don’t forget it!”
Bern teams up with local cybercrook Pat Splatt to develop her pretend money Craptocoin. The bum-waste-bin overlord thinks it is cute to sell Craptocoin at the charity event and decides she will solicit tips using her funny money.
“Hello Manteno! Thank you all for coming! Let’s raise some money! Gimme your requests! CraptoCoin only, my handle is @BMCacca! Maybe you already doing it, and that’s awesome!
ALSO, a shout-out to my extraordinary hairdresser @lilacroule from Croule, Young and Lovely who keep me lookin’ good! AND, my makeup by fabulous @marigoldyoung! So much love to their salon. Practices are things done more than one time regularly, and I have been practicing hard for tonight’s fundraiser! That’s why I call them practices!”
“And…without further ado, give it up for the Manteno Wonder herself, Mrs. Bernadette Cacca!”
A slow clap is heard, mixed in with hoots and hollers from Bern’s obsessed fanboys.
After finishing her last accordion cover tune for the first half of her set, “My Fart Goes Boom”, Bern runs to the washroom, humming “Let’s all go to the restroom” as she poops and farts.
Mrs. Cacca emerges, approached by a Chicago television reporter.
“Hi Bern. I would like to interview you. We got a press release—“
“Not now, after.”
“I have other stories to cover. Let’s do this now.”
“The show must go on.”
“I am from Ukraine and have family there.”
“Fair enough, let’s do this interview up on stage. We will both look awesome up there!” Bernadette gushes.
The Chicago TV reporter enters stage right, Bernadette stage left. Reporter Elena Emm stops to remember her questions so she can begin her interview.
An impatient Bernadette sighs loudly, whistles and hums.
“Why are you staring off into space? Are you in a fantasy world?” Bern snarks, snickers, thinking only Elena can hear her.
“I am blind,” the reporter advises the oblivious Bernadette, unaware a camera operator is filming the entire interview.
“Here let me touch your face,” the ableist and ignorant Bern belittles the Chicago TV news reporter, reaching for her face.
Elena knocks Bernadette unconscious with a single blow to her piehole, then proceeds to yeet her into the crowd of bootlickers.
“This show is getting entertaining” Gothic Diana Ross says to her bandmates, The Midnight Supremes, who are waiting in the wings.
“I may be visually impaired, but I’m not stupid” Elena Emm says to the crowd who had poured in to find out where their entertainer Bernadette had gone, only to have that communal narcadoodle chucked right into a pile of them, knocking the fanboys over like a set of bowling pins. Strike!
Happy she got a scoop on the poop-mistress extraordinaire, Elena and the news team head back to Chicago to produce their segment for the next morning’s newscast.
“Next up, give a hand for these lovely ladies, Gothic Diana Ross and the Midnight Supremes!” announces the emcee, who had called the Manteno girl group last minute to replace their annoying neighbor Bern Cacca on the bill.
Sybil Kibble unveils the new “Enigma” computers for her debt collection team at Credit Recovery Associates in Kankakee, known better by their acronym CRASS.
“How do you get on the Internet?” asks a quizzical Dale Davis.
“Just type “INTERNET” and then “RUN.”
“How do you load the Collect-o-matic 2000?” a wary Judy Avelli asks.
“Just hook the machine up to a parakeet cage and type away.”
“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:
“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!”
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.”
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.”
Kankakee town troll Leona Krabalsky runs from Manteno sociopath and port-a-potty entremanure Peppi Cacca confronts her for selling fake drugs down below the I-57 overpass.
The king of the porcelain throne drunkenly aims a hair-dryer out the passenger side of his poopmobile while his equally crappy wife Bernadette brags, “My AWESOME husband has “ARI: Armed Redneck Insurance!”
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.
Manteno’s very own bog witch, entramanure and communal narcadoodle Bernadette M Cacca loves her Turd Machines so much, she mounted one on each wall and windowsill.
“Gotta get rid of that Gothic Diana Ross!” — Bernadette Moran Cacca, Manteno
She even guards her basement turd vault, full of craptocoins and Newly Formed Turds (N.F.T.s) with one Turd Machine Deluxe on each side.
MoronicArts 
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