Kankakee bill-collector Sybil Kibble and dog food connoisseur lives, laughs and loves — not necessarily in that order. Do you live first, laugh first, or love first? Do you need a bathroom break before deciding? Maybe you can help solve a mystery.
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Narcissists want to buy your time…so they can waste it…over and over without paying.
Gothic Diana Ross is busy minding her own business at her specialist’s waiting room up at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. A routine follow-up appointment, Miss Ross would rather be home having fun singing with Gothic Flo and Gothic Mary, instead of waiting in a crowded room full of strangers.
An hour passes by and Di still has not been called.
“Hey, I’m Greg Schneissder. Are you from Manteno?”
”Ummm…” Diana rolls her eyes and looks away from the undead Greg,
“I saw one of your shows, you ladies are so beautiful and talented.”
“Pat is one of the coolest guys around! I hang around him and Bernadette Cacca.”
Diana freezes from panic, already nervous awaiting her lab results.
“Don’t. Mention. Bernadette.”
“Oh why? She is the the nicest person around! And so famous! I see her picture in the paper a lot. She’s a celebrity. Wasn’t she on that Human Body Odor Channel show?”
Diana rolls her eyes.
“How can you say anything bad about her?”
“Stop.”
“I am gonna complain. You are harassing me now. Nobody talks bad about Bern Cacca!”
Di looks at the lady across from her.
“I am sure he was just trying to help.”
“Really? Just…no.”
“How do you know?”
“Just leave me the feck alone.”
“I am gonna just leave. I can’t be at this office where people talk badly about other people!” Greg whinges as he storms down the stairs.
“Deeanna?”
“It’s Diana…grrr.”
Diana grabs her patent leather sack and follows the medical office assistant to be roomed.
It begins to rain, the clouds taking a massive whizz all over Northern Illinois. Thankfully Diana merges her black 1988 Chrysler Conquest onto 90/94 safely and avoids rush-hour traffic to head south on I-57 toward her home in Manteno. Mind clear from a clean bill of health, the slender gothic beauty slides into her canopy bed, the silky black sheets comforting her as she drifts off to her internship in Hell.
Two hours later, Diana wakes up in a panic, startled by a moron who thought it would be cute to crawl into her bed.
“You know Diana, your music would sound better if you articulated your words better.”
A stunned Diana looks over.
“You forgot to lock your door, hon.”
“Get the freak outta my house and my bed!” Diana screams at the top of her lungs and chases out the bored poopy-burner and communal narcadoodle, next-door neighbor Bernadette Moran Cacca.
“How dare you talk bad about my beloved Bernadette!” Gregory Albert Schneissder screams at Diana about the crowd-pleaser for whom he created the Fakebook account “BMCacca Fannn.”
Diana slams the slate door to her Victorian Gothic home.
Gregory slithers over to Bernadette and the pair head upstairs to Bern’s bedroom.
“Can you just, like, not fart in front of me?” Greg asks his date Bernadette Cacca during their date netting some flicks while hoping to chill.
“No, honey.”
”You don’t fart on stage at those charity events where you sing and play kazoo requests to raise money for the Manteno Optimal Club and for Ukraine.”
“No need to gas-sleight me!”
“You gaslit me!” Greg retorts.
“No, I mean, I need to fart. Farting is healthy. I will implode if I don’t rip ‘em when I need to.”
The swamp-witch Bernadette lifts her leg and her bum goes boom.
A wild Gothic Diana Ross appears in the foreground.
”Heave-ho! Where are your enablers now? Bwa ha ha ha ha!” The Gothic Boss Miss Ross interjects as she yeets the communal narcadoodle Bern halfway down the staircase, and the Midnight Supremes chuck her bum-licker Greg, spocking the pallino down the stairs.
“You left your front door open…” Diana addresses the undead mess spilled all over the basement floor with a smile.
”What did those stairs do to deserve that punishment?” Gothic Mary jokes as the Midnight Supremes leave in amusement.
“Uhh, a little birdy told me she was last seen near Area 51 in Nevada.” Bog witch, entramanure and communal narcadoodle Bernadette Moran Cacca says to her shapeshifting humanoid turkey vulture and self-righteous narc mother Carla.
“Who? Was it my cousin Jackie? He flies by all the time but not once, even once, ever says hi.”
“Who’s that?”
“Oh you know him, you met him when you were five at grandma’s house.”
“I have no idea, it was just a rumor…”
“I’m picking up all this stuff here at her house…”
“Oh wow, ma, anything for me? Anything worth beaucoup bucks?”
“Nope. Everything I’m picking up I’m THROWING OUT!” the angry bird says with great pride (but not the good kind). Why couldn’t I get a free trip to Area 51?”
“Maybe she got a job there, I dunno…”
“I’ve applied there over and over, and heard nothing. Why does SHE get to go there but not ME? MUST BE NICE.”
Feathers ruffled, Carla Moran starts flapping her wings and cursing.
“Maa, y’know I have you on speakerphone.”
“Nevermind!”
“Why don’t you come down to the Manteno Optimal Club and compete in our poetry slam?”
“You know I hate poetry, and it’s a long way from Eastern Indiana”
“Oh come now, it’s for a good cause!”
“We’ll see…”
“I’d love to see my mother again. Won’t you do it just for me? You do love me right?” the hag gaslights.
“Okay! Okay! Okay! Enough!”
“Great see you Sunday.”
“Roger that!” Pamela Frickfrick laughs to her twin sister Becca who has been eavesdropping on her neighbors from across the block.
“Our newly installed Frickfrick towers are working pretty darned good I say. When are your grandkids coming over, Becca?”
“Today. Can you watch them?”
“I gotta work at Credit Recovery Associates. You know, that CRASS job I got a few months ago.”
“Isn’t it illegal for bill collectors to call on weekends? You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“You’re a CRASS bill collector too, you should know!”
Pamela storms out the door of her Manteno home and wanders on over to see what kind of dookie she can stir up over at the house of Cacca.
Bernadette is sitting upstairs pooping and singing a song of stupidity, therefore Pamela seizes the opportunity to do something even crappier. After all, it’s all a competition for these bored bitties. “Oh look a bowling ball!” Pamela hoists the lawn ornament from Bernadette’s house over on Kant Street to hers on Ken Street so it can grow legs.
She rolls the ball, striking her garage wall, sparing her from having to buy one herself. Then she goes out on another Moronquest.
Pam spots the slate Victorian mansion of Gothic Diana Ross and The Midnight Supremes. “Oh how handsome, a knight in shining armor. I think it fell off a truck,” Pamela thinks aloud as she hauls the decorative swordfighter over to her home to live instead. “Maybe I’ll dress him up to look like the king instead, the King of Rock and Roll!”
Pamela drives over to Wally Green’s to hopefully buy gaudy jewelry, a blue-black wig and fake sideburns to decorate her new man. Wandering around the store, two clerks circle around her asking eight times each if she needs help, despite her having said no the first time.
“Oh shoot-a-darn. I forgot to get my meds, where’s the pharmacy hun?”
The clerk points his arm toward the back of the store and a large cartoon of Wally’s silly grin.
After waiting in line for 25 minutes, Pamela finally makes it to the pickup window.
“Pamela Frickfrick”
“Sorry, we’re still working on it. Give us 20 minutes,” says her crush, Kankakee Elvis impersonator and pharmacy tech Robbie Hurlbutt.
Mrs. Frickfrick wanders around the store to buy some crap she does not need, only to circle back to her number one singer.
“We have a P and C at Pharmacy. Pharmacy, we have a P and C.”
“What’s that?” Pamela asks Robbie.
“Someone’s just dropping off a specimen over at the lab.”
“OK. Now tell me, do you have vaccines for FIV?”
“FIV? You mean HIV.”
“No. FIV. It’s a disease that cats can get and I don’t want to catch it.”
“Umm, we don’t have a vet clinic here, sorry ma’am.”
“It’s for me. You sell shots here right?”
“Of gin?”
“No, I don’t drink any darn alcohol. I just wanna shot so I don’t get FIV.”
“Lady, you can’t get FIV from cats!” a passerby shouts, then shakes her head as she walks away.
“Robbie, you are the sexiest man on earth. Don’t you know anything about what you sell? You are smart for your age.”
“Ummm, I am 47. I grow the same boogers as you.”
“You need to respect your elders! I am 74 and a lot older than you. Get me the manager now!”
“I AM the manager,” Robbie lies.
“Well imma gonna done call ICE and report you for being friendly to migrants when I go home. I am no longer your biggest fan!” Pamela breaks down and cries all the way across Kankakee County.
Meanwhile Keysha, Aaliyah and Cedric are playing in their gramma’s house. “Where did she get this bowling ball?” little Keysha asks her siblings as tries to lift it.
“I dunno, but let’s see how much damage it can do on this knight!” Cedric says, grabbing the 12 pound ball as he begins to throw strikes.
The two girls run into the backyard.
“Oooh, legos!” the kids cry, as they tear apart the red-and-white antenna array.
“A prize inside! Is this a radio?
“No, it’s just a dumb baby monitor.” Gothic Diana Ross tells the kids, having walked over looking for her missing lawn ornament.
“Hey kids, where’s your grandmother?”
“I dunno.”
“Is she home?”
“No.”
“Is anybody home?”
“Just us…”
Concerned about the thefts — and more importantly — the kids’ welfare, the Gothic Boss Ms. Ross calls the police.
The Kankakee police eventually locate Pam walking along the sidewalk somewhere in Bradley, carrying a red metal container.
“Are you Pamela Frickfrick?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Where are you headed, ma’am?”
“I had forgotten to fill my tank when the yellow light illuminated and I’m looking for a filling station.”
“Where did you get this bowling ball?” the cop asks as she shows her a photo from her phone.
“It rolled over one night when he had storms. Why?”
“And this metal knight?
“Oh he walked over to my house. I promise I did not steal him from his girl. I didn’t do anything.”
“Nope, you didn’t. We dispatched an officer to your home to find three children abandoned.”
“This is not fair! I’m a senior citizen who pays your salary! I know the mayor!”
“We know the mayor too,” the policewoman says as she handcuffs the town Frickfrick and reads her Miranda rights.
(This story dedicated to a special friend who loves cats).
Kankakee pyramid-scheme peddlers Doris and Leona Krabalsky are tired of standing on street corners and bugging hospital patients by pushing their useless woo oils, moldy-buttery-softlined-leggings and investments you can re-sell to your friends out of their trenchcoats.
“We are getting old and living on a fixed income. Our knees are wobbly, our hair is grey–“
“We are a retail store and not allowed to alter prices,” floor clerk Robbie Hurlbutt replies.
“Wait till you get to our age, sonny. You should respect your elders!”
“OK Karens!”
Not happy with their collective egoes once again deflated, the sinister sisters walk about the store.
“Hey, what’s this? My…wail-eee.”
“Miami?”
“My…my…hey would ya look at this! It might pert near dang work!”
The bumbling bullies read the box:
“Are your sales running flatulent? Get MyW-AI-LY, a degenerative-AI program to automatically poop out marketing schemes to sell anything you want, even a half-eaten sandwich! We don’t care what it is. Pivot, and walk that passive sidestream income over by doing almost nothing. Our state of the art Artificial Imbecilics will match up your target audiences using our potential spyware with the things YOU insist THEY must have! Forget those influencers! They’re too expensive and boring. Designed by none other than that wannabe Kankakee ladies’ man himself, the eye in this sky is Mr. Wally Green. He says this product will change your life, he uses it too! It’s his newest invention — and it’s on sale. Feel the power…of the funneling steamed hams backwashing income straight into the mouths of bossbabes like you! Never ruin your roast again! This product description was artificially genrated by MyW-AI-LY.”
“Why hire humans to sell our leftovers when we can hire Roy Batty to do it instead?” Doris Krablasky asks her sister Leona.
“I dunno, I kinda like that Leon guy better. He reminds me of myself!” The two shysters share a giggle while they plot their evil plans.
“Buy one get one half off, but never free. Why not? One for your computer and one for mine, a matching set. Awwwww, how cute. It even comes with a CrapApp and it matches our decor!”
The octogenerians take their newly found program to their basement and try their best to run the software on their Commodore 64, to no avail.
“Do I type R-U-N and then return?”
“No, it says press any key.”
“Where’s the ANY key?”
The forgetful duo call up their old buddy Pat Splatt.
“Yo, it’s Pat.”
“Hey hun!”
“Yes, lady, what must I do ya fer?”
“I got this program I need you to run.”
“I’m busy finishing up a project”
“I need unfettered access to this program right now so I can start making big bucks.”
“No Whammys?”
“Uhh no, hun.”
“I love money, benjamins are my cuddle buddies. I’ll be right over.”
Mr. Splatt drives the Patmobile over to the small geodesic pyramid-shaped domain shared by the pyramid-plan-peddling sisters, installs it on their Winduhs laptop that they happened to get free after buying a washer-dryer set some time back.
“Just set up the prompts, let the bot do the work, you sit around the clock and collect the bucks — plus my 20 per cent.”
“No, WRONG, Pat you get only 10 per cent.”
“OK, make it 50. I’m giving an offer you can’t refuse.”
The ladies get busy hunting-and-pecking, letting the artificial stupidity carry out their very human shenanigans, which people begin to notice.
SUBJECT: “Open up for your new health insurance benefit!”
“ I can sure use the money” Bernadette Moran Cacca thinks aloud as she reads the subject line while pinching a loaf, then clicks to open the email.
“Weight loss? What the heck? Yeah…no!”
SUBJECT: “Get $5 haircuts with the device Nobody wants you to see! Open now!”
“What on Earth would I do with this vacuum-hose thingamajig? I’m bald!” Barry Reynolds screams at his phone, then slams it down on the hard concrete floor, smashing it to bits.
SUBJECT: “Make beaucoup bucks with this one simple trick! Slots open now!”
“We all have jobs, thank you, miss Krabalsky…” Gothic Diana Ross deadpans in her dark bedroom, decorated with band posters, black hanging beads and the text “IN GOTH WE TRUST.” She dims the lights, then deletes the thinly veiled canned commercial content from her cell.
The Krabalksys hold a meeting.
“I got home as soon as I could. I got done chased by them cops again from underneath the 57 exchange while trying to make a sale. “
“It’s not working.”
“Why are we losing money again? I thought we were supposed to get large gains this time! We cut out the middle-man!”
“Call up that nice boy Pat. He knows what to do.”
Leona picks up her flip-phone, slowly dials the chunky, illuminated numerals.
“This is Patrick Oswald Splatt.”
“Hi hun, we have a problem.”
“Leave a message after the bleep and—“
“Oh, another one of those machines again. I hate machines. They ruin everything! They ruin everything, everything, everything! Back in our days we all shared a phone, the entire block only had one television, and no-one had a computer!”
The sisters take turns pestering Pat. After they spend 30 minutes ringing his phone off its invisible hook, Mr. Splatt picks it up.
“I am in the washroom taking a crap! Can ya call me back?”
“Oh, I’ll only take a minute with this one very simple question.”
“No minutes left, you ran out.”
“Huh?”
“You owe me my consult fee plus additional charges for expediting your non-emergency. Pay up or else!”
Then Pat flushes.
“Hello! Hello! Where are you? Is it snowing in there? What’s that noise? Your TV on the fritz? It’s making this weird beeping sound. Is that ya microwave?” the sisters keep shouting into the void on a recursive loop.
“I think it’s broken. Imma gonna lie down after playing some Solitaire.”
Leona lays down the cards onto her wooden desk and begins to play, while Doris falls fast alseep on her polyester, dusty-rose-patterned sofa, sawing not only wood but an entire forest.
Slumlord, malignant narcissist and shapeshifting humanoid turkey vulture Sonya Marie Smith Moran squawks and lets loose the gasp of her ego’s death after finding out that the tenants in one of her buildings have organized and formed an association. After all, they’ve got that right, but Sonya does not want them to have it because she’s a moron.
Even though not doing the damage is, you know, cheaper and more effective than damage control, she attempts to ban her tenants’ meeting by arguing and flapping her wings out of retaliation.
Her song and dance fails to make an impression on a single, rightfully-fed up resident. The maladapted personality — whose empathy cells fell out her brain aeons ago — starts casing her tenants across Northern Illinois and Indiana looking for drugs to steal when they are not at home. After all, she has the master key, so why not (so she thinks, anyway).
Sonya gets mixed up along the way, lost in flight across the Midwest and out toward California.
Hoping to get high after watching some Breaking Bad, she makes a wrong turn at Albuquerque. Oops! Not anticipating consequences just like any other run of the mill narcadoodle, Sonya soars into the airspace at Groom Lake and gets shot down.
After captured, the Area 51 folks run experiments on the shapeshifting humanoid vulture known as Sonya Moran. They don’t know what they are dealing with, so they draw blood, run her through an MRI machine and slide a scope through her beak to identify the creepy cryptid. Then she poops.
Sonya gets arrested for FUI (flying under the influence), her blood chock full of all that Adderal she sniffed chasing the dragon up and down. Then she gets thrown into the cage of fellow test subject, neckbeard Damien Ulysses Hurlbutt. Damien gives her the bedroom eyes, a gaze she quickly returns.
“Hello, M’lady, Madame!”
“Oh no, that thing is gonna mate! Quick, yeet her!”
“No wait, this could be the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for!” the fellow biologist tells her superior, as the two caged crooks enjoy their conjugal visit.
Meanwhile, Area 51 researchers compare Sonya’s DNA results against the cells-interlinked forensic database. “She’s no angel.” It’s the tip of the iceberg, leading authorities to discover Sonya’s secrets and perhaps the literal skeletons in her closet.
Sonya gets put in restraints and through a series of experiments in the Pain Tolerance Department. A technician force-feeds Sonya 50 hotdogs. Then she pukes them up. Next, a team of scientists slowly play Katy Perry music louder and louder, almost to the volume of a chain-restaurant washroom. Lastly, they bring in an exorcist to pay Sonya a visit.
“Self-reflection is hard, but important Sonya. Have you ever, in one moment, considered that YOU are the problem?”
“Grfhdihfowehfwfhwufthouwofghuwgt!!!”
“I cast thee out in the name of Jesus!”
Sonya pukes up more of those darned hotdogs.
Not knowing what to do with their newly discovered cryptid, the biology team put her back in the cell with Damien.
“Bernadette is one of their many talented performers. She plays the same two-hour set, refuses requests, then demands craptocoins! Come by on any day but Tuesday or Wednesday and enjoy the non-Bernadette singers.”
“The smelliest washrooms in Kankakee County since the dog-food factory closed down.”
“We’re losing business again. Why is it always the same eight people here?” the president of Bernadette Moran Cacca’s fan club, The Poopy Groupies, aunt Sonya Moran asks.
“Maybe we can hire that Hurlbutt kid to do his Elvis act.”
“Nahh.”
“How about we do some remodeling? And a name change? Nobody will know the difference,” suggests Poopy Groupie and neighborhood turd-burglar JB Powers.
“Not a bad idea. I’ll notate that.”
“I don’t know, Sonya, maybe we need more advertising?”
“Yeah, Dorian. That’s a wonderful idea! Woooooh!” Sonya exclaims a bit too hard, holding her brown note a bit too long.
Dorian begins to sing with excitement.
“Oh honey, don’t quit your day job.”
“Umm…Bernadette, my day job IS advertising and design.”
“Oh I mean keep going with that. I am sorry IF I hurt your feelings,” communal narcadoodle Bernadette gaslights in her typical fashion. She has the voice of an angel and the soul of the devil, leaving that bad taste in your mouth but you don’t quite know why.
Text alerts go out to every member of the Manteno Optimal Club via their CrapApp:
Kankakee Idol! Watch and sing along with the best Kankakee County singers, right here in K3! Watch our singing competition from the comfort of your own home on Cable Access 19, or be a part of the audience in Manteno. Get your free tickets now! Another crappy show brought to you by Peppi’s Portapotties! Bernadette and Peppi Cacca are King and Queen of the Plastic Throne!
Signage has been plastered all over Kankakee County featuring the big cheesy grins of the judges, craptocoin emojis, and this text:
Tomato Karen & The Haggs “They’re Coming to Take Me Away”
vs
Wally Green “Fart Your Birds”
Judges:
Bernadette Cacca Sonya Moran Dorian James
With your host, Konrad Teirant!
The day arrives. Emcee Konrad Teirant, one third of Moronic Half Assets and chief cooker of the CRASS books, hopes to make a big bag tonight.
“Live here, this is your host KT on the TV. Tonight at the Manteno Cantina, we have a real salad bar! We also have these ladies! Give it up for Tomato Karen & The Haggs as they sing “They’re Coming to Take Me Away!”
Tomato Karen Napoleon, Demanda Broccoli, Becca Frickfrick and Jamie Turnip try their very best to sing and play their poorly tuned instruments. As the crowd plugs their ears and Bernadette plugs the toilet, Tomato Karen’s ghastly wail raises in pitch and insanity – hitting a high C toward the very end – barely.
“Thank you for that, whatever that was. Now let’s hear from our awesome judges. Bernadette?”
“You guys are the GOAT! It’s a wooooooooooo from me!” Bernadette’s mouth opens wide, tongue hanging out as usual.
“Why am I craving tin cans right now? Oh, speaking of can…” Bernadette runs off stage and straight to her favorite room to mine more craptocoins because she can. It’s potty time!
“Sonya?”
“The Haggs rule this composition. It’s a woo-hoo from me!”
“Dorian?”
“This song is too repetitive.”
The crowd erupts in boos.
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over. It’s a yeah, no from me.”
Sounds of the disappointed crowd magnify.
“Speaking of boos, be sure to stop by our bar for our awesome drink specials!” Konrad spamvertises the already mad crowd.
“Butt, be sure to text us your votes on your smell phones! 815-555-FART.”
“Thank you Bernadette. You look awesome!”
“No, you!”
“You’re a national treasure Bernadette. This next guy is a real hoot! Tonight we present you Wally Green!” The bulbous, squat, 60-something enters the stage wearing a horizontal striped polo shirt, a fishing cap, and a cheesy grin.
“This one is for alllll the single ladies out there. Wally taps the microphone, causing ear-piercing distortion in the public address system.
“Fart your owls, fart your cockatiels. Let them fly away, let them fly for free. Don’t hug your dog, don’t kiss your cat. Love is what I got so give it all to meeeeeee!”
The three judges look at each other in wonder, confusion and astonishment.
In unison: “This is the dumbest thing we saw all day. It’s a heck-no from us!”
“Be sure to lock in your—“
“No nevermind, the razzy has already been awarded. The loser of Kankakee Idol is, Tomato Karen & The Haggs! Congratulations, you’re the only act we’ve seen that’s worse than Wally Green!”
“This is Konrad Teirant signing off…ooh is this thing on?”
There are over 500 tales about the denizens of the Moroniverse and their antics. It’s a silly job but someone has to do it! These stories don’t themselves. I’ll only stop when the world runs out of morons.
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.
Doris Krabalsky is bored waiting in her bed for her meal and medication. Who knew staying in the hospital could be so boring? Doris decides to go for a walk to the nice skin cancer patient she met earlier in the day.
“I have the perfect solution for you.”
“Is it the stinky pink drink?” the lady asks?
“No, I drank that for four years.” Doris replies.
“I am not using essential snake oils because I am smell-sensitive,” the elderly lady replies.
“Nope.”
Doris’ nurse walks in. “What is going on here? Patients are not supposed to go into other patients’ rooms. You all signed and initialed an agreement when you got here.”
“She was just telling me about a new treatment for my skin cancer.”
“Oh no, selling stuff is strictly prohibited here.”
“I am not selling, I am recommending.”
“Recommending? Only licensed medical providers are allowed to do that here, per your agreement Doris. Now you broke three rules. Three strikes, you are out. I am afraid we will have to release you.”
“Waaaaah! What about my bum knee?” Doris growled.
“Oh, ma’am your pain was not that bad anyway. I will be back shortly with your discharge papers. Are you calling for a ride home or shall we have Security escort you?”
“Hrrmph.”
Five hours later, the Kankakee town troll Leona Krabalsky walks in the room after leaving her home undeneath the bridge.
“Bustin’ outta here?”
“They are sending me home too soon,” Doris sighs to Leona.
“You say? How so?”
“They told me not to suggest our fine products to other patients.” Doris says to Leona.
“Oh, you should see these magic beans!”
“I have tooted enough, Leona.”
“No Doris, magical beans, not musical.”
The two sisters head out after Doris signs her discharge sheet.
Doris walks into her home and Leona meets her in the den.
Leona opens up a small paper bag and pulls out a handful of dried beans.
“You see, Doris, these are not any beans. They are magic beans.”
“How are they magical?” Doris asks her sister.
“They can make us lettuce.”
The two sisters look each other in the eye and grin.
“By convincing our customers that these beans I bought at the grocery store they have special health benefits which they do not, and persuading them to pay more than they need, we can make a lot of green!” Leona tells an intrigued Doris.
Doris and Leona get busy setting up a Fakebook page. Since Pat Splatt has left town for South Africa and is unreachable, the Krabalsky sisters develop a marketing plan on Utube.
“Since Grammarlee did so well advertising their overpriced Autocorrect program before every video, I thought we could make an even longer commercial with even more annoying music and sound effects!” Leona tells Doris.
“Let’s do it. Add a slide whistle, boom clappity music and a vuvuzela.”
“Done,” Leona tells Doris, feeling accomplished.
Emails come in and so does money. Beans go out. As the word gets out, so do more beans.
“Soon we will have to hire a bean counter!” Doris jokes to Leona.
“Ding!”
“Ahhh, we got our first review. Hopefully it will not be our last!” Doris tells a nearby Leona.
“These beans did not work at all. I thought these were magical and I did not feel a thing. I did not see a thing! Not recommended!”
“Ding!”
“I planted these magic beans and my beanstalk did not lead me to find a giant. I want my money back!”
“Ding!”
“I ate these musical beans I did not even toot even once. What a ripoff!”
Doris and Leona log onto Welp to read their reviews and they are even worse. Every customer wants their money back and contacts the duo for a refund.
After yet another long week calling up strangers at work, patients in hospitals and people just trying to cook supper for their families, Kankakee bill collector Sybil Kibble is feeling stressed and irritated. She works as the team leader collecting dubious debt for Kankakee’s most shady debt-collector Credit Recovery Associates (CRASS), and she’s tired of people hanging up on her.
“Out of dog-food again! Dang, I just bought some at Schmucks! How did I eat all those Alpo cans so fast? They must be making them smaller now.”
Needing someone with whom to vent, Miss Kibble goes over to visit her best friend and next-door neighbor, Mrs. Pearl Jo “PJ” Hulbutt who is busy meditating. Sybil barges right in and startles PJ who nearly bangs her head on the table, then tells her to “calm down!”
“Ah my boys have not come around lately. They don’t appreciate their mother and all I do for them! Have you seen that Kitty Bee lady? Her hair is pink now!”
PJ rambles on complaining about person after another. “Have you talked to your father?”
“I stopped talking to him years ago. You ask me that every time I come over. Why?”
“My father was not so nice. It says in the good book we should forgive people and pray for them to change.”
“He’s dead. His new wife was just as abusive, I hear she has an extra room. Why don’t you call her up? I am sure she would like the company. She’ll probably ask all kinds of questions about me! Go up to Chicago and spend a month or two to see what it’s like. Just call her after I leave.”
“No need to go overboard with your remarks. They are entitled to their beliefs as well. As a person with a daemon latched onto her body at the age of two that never leaves me alone, I understand fear and misunderstanding. I’ve been judged for my demeanor and nosey words my entire childhood but I still care and help others. I define me not other people.”
Livid, Sybil Kibble stomps back to her home, and eats her last dog bone; much tastier than the word-salad her neighbor had spit out. Meanwhile, PJ hops on a bus to find more people to annoy:
“Why are all these people getting at the bus at once?” PJ Hurlbutt asks aloud to a bus full of strangers, looking around for someone that cares. An enquiring mind wants to know. PJ repeats her nosey nonsense and adds more crap to her routine. “Look at that lady with the green hair. Does she know those tattoos are permanent?”
“I’ll tell the mayor,” Dorian James deadpans, making a cheeky grin while adoring his boyfriend Ant’s half-sleeve.
Sybil calls a bunch of friends, hoping to hang out.
Pyramid-scheme-peddlers Doris and Leona Krabalsky’s phones go straight to voicemail.
Sybil drives her white Chrysler LeBaron to investigate why people are ignoring her calls and texts.
Slowing down through the I-57 underpass, she seeks the Kankakee troll Leona. Nope, she’s not home.
Out of desperation, Ms. Kibble calls her hairdresser Lila Croule at her home-based salon, even though it’s a week too soon to get her face-frame cut, but sorry; more voicemail jail.
Sybil continues North toward Peotone to find her sharp-tongued stylist Lila Croule, hoping to trade barbs about moronic customers. After she parks her reliable box-mobile, she rings the doorbell at Lila’s front door. No answer. The RRRRRRGH of the lawn tractor stops and Sybil spots Lila trimming the edges of the grass using her $1000.00 hair shears, completely tuning out Ms. Kibble.
“I hope these folks don’t visit my grave one day, since they don’t bother me while I’m alive! Hmmpf.”
As she drives back home to Kankakee, Sybil sees her subordinate Dale Davis jogging on the sidewalk, beeping his watch repeatedly. Dale waves to Sybil and beckons her to come hither so he can confess her love, and she just drives on by. Her stomach turns. She then drives to Major’s Supermarket to buy her favorite meals: buys 50 cans of Alpo, with which she drowns her worries at home, glad to be away from the rest of the Moroniverse.
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