Shady Bourbonnais neckbeard and communal narcissist Damien Hurlbutt went dumpster diving the morning after he and his part-time lover from Detroit, Rachel Shelley, got into a bitter fight and she threw some of his hoarded items into the dumpster. As Damien dug for the treasures he loved more than his woman, little did he notice the danger lurking behind him.
“Aw, man. I have these diet coffee beans for sale and nobody wants to buy them. All I get are panhandlers asking for money and free coffee. Got any ideas, Pat?” Kankakee street schemer Doris Krabalsky asks local spammer, Pat Splatt.
“Let me introduce your idea on social media! I have a proven strategy that will certainly win for both of us!”
“This bossbabe is in to win it!”
“I will get cookin”. Pat logs on Instaphoto and begins to look for accounts with thousands of followers or more.
“Look at this account. Lots of videos, but the most liked ones are so weird. The hot videos not so much. Oh, look at this account! Sterling Heights with no culture. I will keep looking” Pat says at a local cafe, as he combs the accounts to target with messages like this:
“Diet coffee colon cleanse – new product to promote gut health! No calories! Ask me how!”
Pat can be heard on the phone with Doris. As Pat puts his phone on speakerphone, a cafe customer catches on to what he is doing and plays the Monty Python Spam song out loud from her tablet. “Where are you?” Doris asks Pat.
“I plan on making big money here. We can make lots together. I can hire people, get them credit and then fire them, not planning on keeping them anyway.” Doris and Pat share a chortle.
Pat looks for Instaccounts to spam inbetween his looking at girls on the dating site Tindling. “She’s not too hot. Swipe left. Ooh look at this Insta account. It has 100k followers.” Pat calls people who did not reply back to his oodles of spams ableist slurs and homophobic slurs as insults. Doris thinks it is funny. The cafe patrons share dirty looks aimed in his direction.
Pat’s Sixerr and Paybuddy accounts keep getting declined. Pat cannot seem to figure out why. He thinks the internet is for spam and that he should be able to help his customers make money under his influence over people.
“It is all good. Don’t worry. It will all work, Doris. Gotta run.”
Pat checks his Instaphoto account. A message pops up: “your account has been terminated for illegal activity.”
“Oh crap! I will just create another account.”
Pat logs onto Instaphoto. “Please enter a credit card.”
Pat tries all his cards. Declined.
The wheel starts spinning. He cannot log on. A young lady approaches him.
“Can I get you something to eat?”
“No.”
“Drink, then?”
“No.”
“We have detected via our IP that you have been perfoming illegal activity. The police are on their way.” The barista informs Pat.
“You, you WOMAN!”
“No use trying to leave, our nice tall ladies guarding the door will stop you. Oh good, police came fast! Yayyyyyy!” The barista claps her hands and the entire cafe erupts in laughter and applause, except for Pat Splatt.
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, Leona Krabalsky walks in the room.
“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.
“What do we do now, Doris?”
“I guess our product is a ‘has-bean’.”
Damien Hurlbutt, movie clerk for Teirant Cinema-13, stars in their new TV commercial. Can you feel his enthusiasm?
“I know.”
— Damien.
It’s a sunny day in Kankakee and Sybil is out for a walk. Sybil is strolling to the beat of auto-tuned mumble-country in her earbuds, when she spots a green cloth bag with a dollar sign on it lying on the ground near the Last National Bank of Kankakee County.
“Hmmm, what should I do?” Sybil wonders for a moment.
“Should I go on a shopping spree, or take it home and shove it away in a drawer. I know! Shopping spree! I will pretend I am on Shop Till You Drop and go crazy with it! It’s my lucky day!” Sybil tells herself. She grabs the bag off the ground and heads home to her McMansion, gets in her Chrysler LeBaron and heads out.
Sybil pulls into the Bradley strip mall, which had contained the only Buckstars that ever went out of business in the history of the world. She walks into Miser & Co. Collectibles. “SALE! Three for the price of two (must buy three)” reads the storefront signage.
Sybil gets the biggest cart she can find and starts loading it up. “Oooh, fat free oil. I cannot get enough bottles of this.”
Sybil spies another item she supposedly cannot live without. “Dehydrated water. How keen. Must grow my collection.”
Sybil continues to add to her cart. “A seatbelt belt? I could rock one of those. Oh and what is this? A golden mustache earring? Hot dog!”
“Hey Sybil, m’lady, m’lady” says a nearby Damien Hurlbutt, looking over the store’s record collection with his younger brother Robbie.
“Oh, tell your mother I said hi.”
“Yup. Will do.” says Damien. A silent Robbie has his nose buried in the Elvis LPs.
“Almost time to check out, just need to get a few more ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ signs. They are buy one, get one half off, y’know?” Sybil thinks aloud.
“I know.” Damien says, because he thinks it is all about him.
Sybil heads to the checkout counter, her basket almost overflowing with useless crap. She waits in a long line to check out. As she approaches the clerk, reaches for her money bag.
“That will be $500.69.”
Sybil opens up her bag and pulls out the bills. However, they do not look right to her. They are smaller, thinner, and printed on different colored papers. Sybil’s frown stretches down, her face turns red from embarrassment.
“Ma’am, did you really think you could pay us with Monopoly money?” says the clerk.
Sybil faints. She had shopped until she dropped.
“I’m With Stupid” reads the graphic tee Leona Krabalsky wears to the Kankakee job fair. She along with her younger sister, Doris, are busy manning their booth.
“I hope we sell truckloads of these here essential snake oils, you oily mama!” Leona slyly says as she slaps her sister on the arm.
“I hope we sell lots of these here business ops too. After all a sucker is born every minute! But don’t tell them that, Bossbabe! Shhhh.” Doris whispers in Leona’s ear.
The day is almost over and the ladies have yet to make a single sale. Tired, hangry and frustrated, Leona grabs her pack of unfiltered smokes and gets ready to head out to burn one. A 40-something gent with long, straggly, dark brown hair and round, blue, plastic glasses approaches the booth. Leona hides her cigarettes, dons her cheesiest grin and locks eyes with the only person who approached the booth all day.
“How may we improve your life today?” Leona says with a huge, fake smile.
“Hi. I am Pat Splatt. Nice to meet you” he says as he tightly shakes Doris’s hand, and clasps his left hand over both hands.
“Our essential oils can change your life.” Doris says to Pat.
“Can they get me la-…dies?” Pat giggles.
“They sure can!” Doris says with a smile.
“All right!” Pat pumps his fists.
“We have patchouli, try this out, I bet you will love it.” Doris tries to persuade Pat.
“And we can make you rich! Let me tell you about our business opportunity!” Leona chines in.
“And I can make you richer!” Pat exclaims.
“How so?” Leona asks quizzically, finger to her lip.
“I can make sure your oils and opportunities are known by every person with an email address!” Pat says with a smile.
“I tell you what, I will give you that a set of oils in exchange for you marketing our stuff.”
“Deal.” Pat says and the three exchange handshakes.
The next day, Pat goes down to his basement and fires up his email harvester, stealing massive numbers of addresses across the Internet. After loading the addresses, he imports them to his Spam-o-Matic 2000 program.
“I do not like spam. But I do not care. It makes me money and gets me free stuff” Pat says to himself as he clicks the “Send Spam” button.
Over a billion emails spew out Pat’s basement server to unsuspecting people all over the world, advertising Leona and Doris’s unsolicited snake oils and pyramid schemes. Pat kicks back in his dark basement and falls asleep after eating a box of cheese doodles and drinking an entire bottle of pop straight from its two liter bottle.
Meanwhile, Doris and Leona are getting flooded with angry emails and calls.
“Take me off your rotten list!” states one message.
“Stop spamming me! I hate this crap!” writes another.
“Who is this? You’re a moron! There is a special place in Hell for people who send out junk emails!” shouts a third.
Leona and Doris decide they have enough of the thousands of messages and change their contact info.
“That’s a bust. I guess we will have to try telemarketing next,” Leona says to Doris.
“Naaaw, I will go back to selling this stuff on the street like I did before…” Doris snickers and grins.
Sirens are heard in the background and flashing lights are seen. What was that about selling on the street? The world may never know.
Kankakee, Illinois’ number one Elvis impersonator, Wally Green’s drugstore clerk and narcissistic abuser Robbie Hurlbutt has a huge crush on Midnight Supremes lead singer Gothic Diana Ross. After all, she is an impersonator also, and he wants to make a huge impression on her. She has a gig coming up soon and he is scheming to find a way to connive his boss, store owner Wally Green into letting him hang up her show poster at work to promote her music as he thinks it will somehow make her like him.
”Hey Robbie, have a look at these paper towels I invented just for my store: Half the size, twice the cost. All the frustration when you go to rip off a sheet, thanks to me!” boasts a balding, squat, rotund Wally Green as he tips his fishing cap.
“I know, boss, let’s put them on a groovy display table near the front of the store so the suckers — I mean customers — will think they are getting them on sale.”
“Great idea! I am glad I thought of it!” Wally exclaims with glee, throwing his stubby arms into the air.
“Well…now that I, boss, thought of such a splendid idea, I have a favor to ask. This band is really a gas and I want to hang up their poster for their upcoming show at the store,” Robbie says to his superior with bedroom eyes, dreaming of Miss Gothic Diana Ross, the only Boss he could ever want.
“Naw. Get back to work. I need you to make production metrics this time. Start selling people some pills they really do not need.”
Credit Recovery Associates (CRASS) Lead Debt Collector Sybil Kibble comes into Wally Green’s Drugstore to buy an iced coffee and a bag of dog biscuits for lunch as she forgot hers at home.
“Ehh. Out of order again. Must be that half ply toilet paper,” Sybil thinks out loud.
“The washroom is on the blink?” Robbie asks, aghast.
“Yeah and I am in a hurry!” Sybil shouts as she makes her way over toward the men’s room.
“Do not go in there!” Robbie commands Sybil.
Sybil walks by Gothic Diana Ross in the men’s room, who is looking in the mirror, applying her jet-black eyeliner. She pinches a huge loaf in the stall next to Wally Green, who is busy whizzing away in the urinal. Sybil flushes but does not clean up the mess on the seat, flinging the door wide open with her arm. She makes a beeline for the sink and spots Diana sarcastically chortling away at the Gothic Diana Ross and the Midnight Supremes poster on washroom wall.
A befuddled Robbie struts into the men’s room.
“I TOLD YOU NOT TO COME IN HERE!” Robbie shouts at the women. “THIS IS THE MEN’S ROOM.”
“Get back to work, Robbie, the ladies’ room is closed. Take down this poster while you are at it and apologize to our customers.” Wally Green tells his employee Robbie.
“I am sorry IF I offended you.” Robbie smirks.
“Get lost!” Diana and Sybil chant in unison as they leave the bathroom.
Sybil buys her lunch and heads back to work. Wally sells lots of paper towels and Robbie is put on temporary janitorial duty until he improves his customer service skills. But don’t lock him in the bathroom. He thinks he is Elvis.
Tara Bull, Division Manager of Accounts Receiveable at Credit Recovery Associates (CRASS) in Kankakee, IL holds a strategy meeting with Chief of Accounting, Konrad “Big Bag” Teirant and Chief Executive Officer Mack E. Avelli. Tara thinks CRASS can increase their bottom line by using their synergetic mindset to implement the new increased production metrics.
“Making our staff work harder for the same pay will move the goalposts,” Tara insists.
Ms. Bull is Sybil Kibble’s supervisor. She asks her Lead Collections Representative Sybil Kibble how her team would best achieve those metrics. “My double-down tactic always works,” Sybil advises her superior as she munches on dog biscuits. “By telling our debtors to pay twice as much as they can afford, they will always pay more.”
“Get ‘er done” Ms. Tara Bull tells Sybil. “I do not care how it gets done. The ends justify the means.” A hovering Mack. E. Avelli flashes an evil grin and a thumbs-up gesture.
Sybil and her team spend the eight hour work day making the calls, even skipping breaks at Tara’s insistence. Dale none too happy, runs in place at his cubicle to kill the stress, checking his heart rate on his beeping wristwatch. Mikey does his usual cleaning, making the toilets clean and sparkly at his own pace. However, something does not get done.
“Sybil! Get over here now!”
Sybil hangs up on her angry caller and works her way over to Ms. Bull’s office.
“Yes?”
“You all are not making the metrics!” growls a livid Tara Bull as she chucks a pile of papers at Sybil. “Bring in the bucks or I will fire you all!”
Dale decides to try a different approach. He offers payment plans, and goes around Sybil and Ms. Bull’s hard rules. He finds his stress levels decrease as he is able to help his customers pay their bills and empathizes with them at the same time, as Dale was once down and out himself.
Sybil tries her might and cannot not double down to make her double bonus/Form 4 and metrics. She thinks to herself that if she could go home and work, she could call people around suppertime and reach more people. After all, it works for telemarketers, right?
Sybil drives her Chrysler LeBaron home, logs into her computer and starts making calls. Not long after 5:30 PM, Sybil hears a knock at the door.
“Who can this be, dag-nammit?” Sybil thinks to herself.
Sybil opens the front door to her stone McMansion, next to the four-stall garage. “Hi Sybil. I am sorry to bother you. My cat Holly is missing and I am terrified. Have you–
“Your cat is not here, Kitty, go away,” barks Sybil as she goes back to her typing and calling.
As Kitty searches high and low for her dearest Holly-Cotton all over Kankakee and Bradley, Sybil’s Form 4s pile up. “I am winning! I am getting my Form 4’s! Gimme my Form 4’s!”
Sybil is so excited to collect all that money and make bonuses as a result via the Form 4 bonus and hopefully please her boss, Ms. Tara Bull.
“Man, I gotta pinch a loaf,” Sybil says aloud as she gets up after her last debtor hung up on her.
Meanwhile, a certain Miss Holly-Cotton, who has been hiding out in Sybil’s rather large house, needs a place to go herself. She hops up on Sybil’s messy desk and starts sniffing around. She sniffs a certain pile of papers and jumps on top of it, highlighting the entire stack!
Sybil exits the washroom, one of many, after springing a leak. She immediately spots Kitty’s cat Holly on top of what used to be a pile of Form 4’s.
“Oh my gawd, get the heck out of here you little brat-cat!” Sybil shouts at poor Miss Holly-Cotton as if she had done something wrong.
Holly gladly exits the house of Sybil and enters the loving arms of Ms. Kitty, who is waiting outside after having searched all Kankakee County for her long lost fur-baby. Meanwhile, Sybil returns to a useless pile of forms, formerly known as Four. Sybil doubles down on her nightly bowl of doggie chow.
Sybil joins her mom JoAnn (“JK”) to watch her favorite show, the Linksabbiegen 500, in her basement she rents from Sybil.
Kankakee pyramid schemer Doris Krabalsky parks her van at a Wally World hoping to trick hungry kids and their parents into buying ice cream from her MLMmobile. Parents get mad because their kids were screaming for ice cream, not leggings. Doris fails to earn a single penny, so she broadcasts her ads on shortwave radio instead.
Needless to say, The Lincolnshire Poacher only brought Doris more trouble.
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