CRASS Cubicle Contest

“You are number one!” Team Leader Sybil Kibble tells new part-time Collections Representative, Robbie Hurlbutt at Credit Recovery Associates (CRASS).

“I know,” Robbie smirks.

“I mean you made the top of our production metrics. Good job, keep doubling down on debtors and you will do just swell here at CRASS.”

Robbie flashes a thumbs-up to Sybil and dances back to his cubicle.

“Ding.” Everybody gets the same email.

From: “Mack. E. Avelli” [bigmack@crass-llc.con]
To: “CRASS Corporate Listserv” [all-crass-l@crass-llc.con]
Friday, October 25, 2022
Subject: Cubicle Decoration Contest

We here at CRASS care about employee stress. Therefore I, as your polite and tenderhearted Chief Executive Officer, am extending an entire thirty minutes (:30) to participate in the company cubicle contest (CCC). Be creative in decorating your cubicles and have fun! You are not required to use your lunch for this event, but we encourage you because time is money and money is time!

The winner will be selected by our very own art director, the lovely and talented Dorian James on Halloween Day. The prize will be a trophy to display in your office. Think of all the fun things you can do with that!

Regards,

Mr. Mack E. Avelli
CRASS Chief Executive Officer

The collectors get to work making calls and decorating their cubicles. Robbie Hurlbutt, a local Elvis impersonator best known for an Internet meme featuring a scowling lady unhappy with his nursing home performance, covers his cube with Elvis record covers. Dale Davis covers his walls with ghouls and goblins. Sybil Kibble covers her supervisor cubicle with dog bones because she likes to eat them during her breaks.

It is a cold, windy Halloween day in Kankakee and it is starting to rain. “If you don’t like the weather here in the Midwest, wait five minutes,” Dale jokes in between calls, jogging in place, beeping his watch to check his heart rate.

“Eeep!” The email all CRASS employees have been awaiting for has arrived.

“Who changed our notification sound to a wild eep?” Robbie asks.

“That was probably Dorian,” Sybil sighs.

From: “Dorian James” [dorian@crass-llc.con]
To: “CRASS Corporate Listserv” [all-crass-l@crass-llc.con]
Thursday, October 31, 2022
Subject: Cubicle Decoration Contest Winners and Losers

Sybil: Your design lacks thought and maturity. It is not what we are looking for.

Dale: There is no art development and it basically reads like a rather puerile joke.

Tara: You are obviously a 13 year old drama queen…Grow up little girl.

Mack: Several of us discussed your design and did not like it. Not everyone likes what I make. It is not personal.

Mike: You need to get used to the fact that not everyone is going to like your work and move on.

Robbie: That is the best design I have ever seen. That’s so deep. I love Elvis. You are a real winner!

R,

Dorian James
Art Director Extraordinaire
Credit Recovery Associates (CRASS)

The CRASS staff is upset…except for Robbie. He is smiling away, taking calls and collecting his Form 4s from all the bonuses he gets collecting on fake debt. Robbie is grinning ear to ear and cannot wait to rub his trophy in the faces of the collections team entire staff after he receives it.

Robbie continues to successfully make one call after another, when he gets a wide-eyed visitor.

“Hey there, fella!” an upright, confident Dorian James chants to Robbie as he is very happy to see him.

“Oh hey man! Thanks for picking me! Better than picking my nose ya know.”

Awkward silence ensues.

“That was a joke, ya know,” Robbie says nervously.

“Oh sweetheart, I am here to present you with your award.”

“Thanks, man!” Robbie says as he accepts his tiny, gold-tinted trophy.

“Oh, thank you honey. Not a problem at ALL! Hey Robbie, what ya doin’ after work? I think ya kinda cute and wanna take my number one man to dinner!”

“Wait, what?” a confused Robbie asks.

“Yeah cutie! I love your Elvis hair and your clothes! Let’s go out and do karaoke or something!”

“No way, man. You’re not my type. I quit!” An infuriated Robbie storms off the job and out the building.

Dorian feels crushed by the rejection.

“How does it feel to get rejected, huh? Yeah, ya little twerp! See what it’s like?” Sybil says to a beleaguered Dorian.

Happy Halloween!

She Walked Into a Bar…(A MoronicArts Classic)

From 2020

Linda walked into a Kankakee bar to get a drink, not knowing all the single men would take notice. Who will she choose?

Robbie, PJ and Damien Hurlbutt

Pharmacy clerk, vulnerable narcissist and Elvis impersonator Robbie Hurlbutt?

Cinema clerk, neckbeard and communal narc-a-doodle Damien Hurlbutt?

Wally Green Brainless-storms

Wacky inventor, drugstore owner and sadist Wally Green? 

Dale thinks he is worth your time.

CRASS Bill collector, and desperate hillbilly Dale Davis?

So many bottom-feeders, so little time.

“Dating is like shooting a bunch of arrows and missing the target every time.”

– Linda Stay

Moronic Crime Rings and Things

Multiplex clerk, fedora-sporting neckbeard and Communal narcadoodle Damien Hurlbutt desperately wants to impress his new girlfriend, Rachel Shelley, into coming back to visit him in Bourbonnais, Illinois from Detroit. However, he is as broke as a joke from his toy hoarding.

He comes up with a plan. Damien dials up his vulnerable narcissist brother Robbie and asks if he can steal some identities. He offers some of his duplicate record albums as payment.

“I can part with my poorer copies of ‘Broken’ by The Favorites, my extra Walter Egans and all my Jewel records. I can throw in some Katy Scarys if you want, too…” Damien explains to Robbie, a Kankakee Elvis impersonator and pharmacy clerk.

Robbie jumps at the opportunity to add to his own hoard.

Robbie gets busy calling local con man Pat Splatt and the two devise a way to break into local sweetheart, single lady Kitty Bee’s computer to steal her identity. Feeling dejected from having been rejected in 1993 after Pat had made a pass at her, Pat decides Kitty is a perfect target for moronic revenge.

Robbie successfully steals Kitty’s credit card information and buys 18 bottles of dehydrated water and six tubs full of fat-free oil from Wally Green’s online mall. Damien thought these new inventions would impress Rachel in her fruitless efforts to lose weight, and who else to mansplain but Bourbonnais neckbeard Damien Ulysses Hurlbutt? “Throw in some cubic zirconia rings. She’ll never know they’re fake,” a bulbous Damien commands his brother Robbie.

Robbie Hurlbutt: Kankakee’s Number One Elvis Impersonator

“You got it.” Robbie smirks, a crooked grin fills half his face, almost touching one of his blue-black mutton chops.

Damien tips his black fedora, the one with which he hatfished Rachel. After all, how would the public — whom he works so hard to impress — know his “medium” bald spot takes up his entire head? He enters the washroom and sits on the potty.

“Oh kids!”

“What kids?” A quizzical Robbie asks Damien.

“Oh kids. Ohhh kids!”

A loud splash is heard from the washroom.

Damien is so proud of his poopies

“Pheeeew!” Damien cries and waves his hand by his bum.

He emerges and sprinkles his newly washed hands all over Robbie and roommate Andy’s living-room carpet, using it as a bathmat, and at Robbie as well.

“I just left a huge stinker in your toity. Would you like to see it?” a proud Damien boasts.

“Just leave the door open and don’t close it if I am in there.” Robbie says.

“You’re not Elvis, just an impersonator.”

Two days later, the stolen goods arrive at Damien’s Bourbonnais apartment. “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!” Damien exclaims as his next-door neighbor gives him the stinkeye.

Damien wraps the stolen, useless crap into prank boxes, boxes inside larger, nested boxes, and oddly shaped packaging, taping each package with hard-to-open packing tape to extend his desired cliffhanging effect on Rachel Shelley.

“I can’t wait to videotape Rachel, the expression on her face when she opens all those gifts from ME!” Damien says to himself, wearing a huge grin.

Damien Hurlbutt basks in the glory of his own narc-capades

Damien finishes up his hours of taping, wrapping and more taping. He tests out his camcorder and memory card. He is all set for his catch.

Rachel walks in the next day, much later than Damien anticipates. Damien tips his fedora. “Hello, M’lady, Madame.”

“Yup. Hey.”

“Good to see you, do I get a hug?”

“Sure.”

The two embrace.

“Turn around and close your eyes. I am going to take your hand, honey puddin”.

“I told you to stop calling me that.”

“But I say it because I love you. You’re so little and dainty.”

“Grrrr.” Rachel emits.

“Now take my hand. I have a little surprise for my honey puddin.”

Damien begins secretly rolling tape and then takes Rachel’s hand, leading her into his cluttered kitchen.

“Now open your eyes, M’lady.”

Rcahel opens her eyes, displaying her typical blank expression.

“I bought all these gifts for YOU!”

Rachel cracks half a grin.

“Now I want you to open this one first.”

Rachel opens the huge, nested box.

“Dehydrated water? Ohhh-kayyyy…”

“Yeah. I thought you might like it. I bought it at Wally Green’s. It was buy one get one half off. Now open this one.”

Damien shoves another large box over to Rachel. She opens box after box, finally revealing its contents.

“Fat free oil?”

“Yeah. You could use it to cook. After all, you need to lose weight and I want to help!”

Rachel begins to scowl.

“Oh, now you will really love this. Women love small boxes.”

Damien hands Rachel another box, which she also struggles to open.

“Why do you use so much tape? Packing tape too? Did you run out of regular tape?”

“Oh this is regular tape.” Damien snickers. Rachel finally gets the package open. “I got you a sparkly!” Damien exclaims. “Not only one but 17 of them!”

Rachel tips the box on its side and reads the label. “Cubic…zirconia.”

Damien’s face turns cherry red.

Music is heard from the other room.

“That’s my phone.”

Rachel gathers the boxes and walks away. Damien checks the tape. Rachel walks back in and Damien jumps, startled, and hides what he was doing.

“Hi honey.”

“Oh hey, I gotta go. Thanks for the stuff.”

“Yeah honey puddin. Where you going?”

“Out.” Rachel declares and heads out with the stuff Damien gave her.

Damien is all alone. Sirens are now wailing from the distance, getting louder as the seconds pass. Damien is shaking but trying not to show it. A knock is heard at his door. It is just what he fears.

Rachel arrives at her lover Leon Peeone’s apartment.

“Hey Leon, I got some crap to sell so we can get some more hard stuff.” The two laugh but not for long. Neither one of them are too bright.

Shop Till You Drop, Sybil!

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 sack 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 sack 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 sack.

“That will be $601.90.”

Sybil opens up her sack 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.