Hear this story here!
2. Sonya Moran flew the coop.
4. Wally’s machines go beep and boop.
5. Sybil Kibble loves to eat.
6. Damien Hurtbutt sure loves feet.
7. Shapeshifting vultures hate defeat.
8. Let’s go Brandon to the lifted truck meet.
9. Barry Reynolds plays his tricks.
10. All these nitwits make me sick.
Welcome to the Moroniverse!
Midwestern housewife Scary Terry Steinke Reynolds has made a new TokTiks account to hopefully earn extra dough while otherwise sitting at home. Meanwhile her fallen-from-grace college president and former road test proctor husband Scary Barry runs his school of Mixed Moronic Arts. Between instructing Albion, Indiana folks howon the important practices of scythe fencing and psychic self-defense, Barry keeps an eye on his wife, who just ripped a big one.
“No I didn’t!” Barry comments, letting Terry’s followers that he’s at work in the comments section. “By the way, we’re running a special on defensive pooping class. Come join me on my live demo now! It’s free!”
[ Sign the petition inspired by this story and read about what inspired me to write it! ]
Scary Barry Reynolds gets fired from his job as a road-test proctor for the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles, and starts his own college called “Dr. Mathew B. Johnson School of Intrepid Arts” in Albion, Indiana, teaching martial arts and telekinesis, a school he named after his favorite academic leader and best friend.
“Become as powerful as the Dragonball Y characters you see on TV! Develop your real life martial-arts skills, and when you get to your senior year, you’ll become a PSI-ball master!”
“Not this ad again…” Gothic Diana Ross says across the Indiana border in Manteno, Illinois at the slate Victorian home where she and her bandmates reside. “Who wants to go to Indiana anyway?”
“Indiana wants us, but we can’t go back there.” Gothic Flo retorts and The Midnight Supremes all giggle.
Classes begin at the School of Intrepid Arts in Albion. Students practice basic self-defense, mixed martial arts and fencing.
“A new life awaits you at the School of Intrepid Arts” a flashing, talking blimp advertises as it flies over Northern Indiana and Illinois, spending a rather long time over Chicago, until someone begins to fire at it.
“Pop! Pop!” is heard as the floating advertisement-machine is gunned down somewhere on the Southside.
A scholar gets harassed in his dorm, racial remarks litter his marker board. One moron, Pat Splatt, writes “KKK” on an empty pizza box and drops it outside his dorm room.
Protests are held by multiple school groups which make the local news.
“I will answer that later. Come back.” President Reynolds tells the news, and does not return their calls.
The scholar tries to learn to make “PSI Balls” on the internet and learns that it is fake. Meanwhile President Reynolds uses school money to pay for pet construction projects so he can hire his wife Terry’s company to do all the work.
Barry and Terry make the classes so hard, it is impossible to pass. Barry and Terry love seeing the disappointed faces of aspiring martial-arts students receive their report cards littered with Fs.
President Barry Reynolds sends out a memo to his wife Terry using negative humor, snarking she should bulldoze “trash and idiots who live on minimum wage.” Barry accidentally copies the entire college on the email.
Oopsie!
Students start creating memes and Fakebook groups. President Barry reports them to Fakebook owner Emperor Zucc who shuts them all down.
Students take to the news to expose the corruption.
The scholar is interviewed, and talks about his brother — also a student — who died when trying to defend a bully using “PSI Balls.”
“If President Reynolds wants to create chaos and censor those who rise up against his regime, then maybe he should move to North Korea. I bet he would feel right at home.”
Barry and Terry visit Bern Cacca bathing in the bog near Manteno, Illinois, for public-relations advice hoping to clean up their image, since Bern is so good at maintaining her squeaky clean image while doing dirty those closest to her. Oh, and she burns poopies.
“Bern Cacca? We have an important message. We need your help.”
Bog Witch Bern keeps on swimming.
“Bern? We have something to tell you.”
Bern continues to ignore the looming Terry and Barry.
“Bern? We want to know how you keep your image so clean while you do others dirty.”
“Can’t you see I am taking a bath?” an angered Bern yells back, hoping to be left alone.
“Oh you are so…RUDE!” Terry snarks at Bern.
“I am busy. Go away.”
“God hates ugly people! I am calling the manager!” Terry says out of desperation and fear.
“I am the manager.” Bern replies as she shoos away Terry and Barry.
“I wish my hearing aids were broken.” Peppi Cacca says to his wife Bern and the Reynolds couple leaves.
The Indiana Attorney General investigates and shuts the school down, and the story makes television headlines.
“Oh good, we no longer have to see those annoying ads.” Gothic Flo says to Gothic Diana and then turns off her TV.
Oh man, the main inspirations for Scary Barry and Terry Reynolds are people I hope you never encounter.
One hundred per cent miserable, and equally evil as her counterpart Barry, there is no pleasing Ms. Terry. She gets joy out of seeing others suffer. She’ll bite the hand that feeds her and once you’re sore from the fresh wound, she’ll bite it again to make it hurt that much more…
Imagine going on a trip overseas to study, experience different perspectives and have fun. That was my hope in the summer of 1999. when I took classes through my university for a study-abroad program in Italy.
What comes to your mind when you think about traveling?
Being forced to share a room with strangers who hated me was the last thing I expected.
Scary Terry was one of the haters. Much older than me, Terry made it a point to harass and belittle me. One time she woke me up and called me “whiny” because I was, you know, groggy like most people who just got up?
And then there was the time Terry told me to cover my legs. I have an autoimmune condition which affects my skin. get over it. Terry, if you don’t like it, then don’t look at it. Find something else to do in Italy than harass a fellow student.
I did smile when Terry had the audacity to talk trash about me at dinner, in front of all the other students from the United States. They told her to shut up and said they did not want to hear it. Neither did I.
Sadly, this Terry person (yes, the real name is Terry, different surname of course) majored in education. I feel bad for any student of Terry’s. No wonder we have some awful teachers in the school system.
When I got home from Italy, I told my family about the abuse I endured from her and her cousin, with whom I was forced to room. Since I did not grow up in a supportive family, they invalidated me by acting like it was no big deal. My feelings are valid.
To help process the trauma from repeated verbal abuse by Terry and the cousin, and the gaslighting I faced when i went home, I created my character Terry Reynolds. I will discuss the cousin in a separate entry.
Taking your road test is nerve-wracking enough. Imagine living in a small city where the sole proctor is a malignant narcissist, taking joy in seeing people fail. Meet the inspiration for Scary Barry Reynolds.
Barry (again, real first name) loved telling students “YOU FAILED” in a stoic tone, with a hint of an evil grin.
Imagine greeting your proctor as you enter the car “Hi Barry” only to be screamed at, likely out of fear “How do you know my name?” And then told “I. Don’t. Like. That.”
Barry may look like Leon Kowalski from Blade Runner, and act like him. It goes without saying he would fail any empathy test. Maybe I should run the V-K Test on him and watch him fail. I just won’t ask him about his mother.
After failing my road test five times with Barry, I passed my test when I took it in another city and of course a different proctor. I had called his supervisor, per advice of my driving instructor, who failed to address the problem, saying “he makes his quota.” Yes, some doctors graduate at the bottom of their class. What do you call them? Yeah, a doctor. .
When I first got the spam, I thought it was for EarthBound cheat codes. Think again.
These morons tried to sell a psychic attack self-defense e-book. The spammer only accepted a check mailed to them, and then they promised to email you the electronic book after they got your check. Yeah, sounds legit.
The email was so funny, I had to save it, and use it for something.
Around the time I got the Defense Against Psychic Attack spamvertisement, I spent a lot of time on message boards chatting about metaphysics. Fans of Dragonball Z asked how to make “PSI Balls” and some even made videos pretending to “psychic attack” people using them. I thought the whole darned thing was so funny, it needed to prompt a story idea. Most of my ideas sat dormant in a different series, which I merged into MoronicArts.
Psychic vampyre rabbit Missy Hey works at Wally Green’s collecting blood in their lab after dark, before the sun comes up.
A customer runs up to the counter near the drawing station to complain.
“I pulled in at the stroke of midnight. It’s now 2:00 AM. Do you know where your patients are?”
“Heyyyy! Guess what? I have a bone to pick with you. There’s no way you’ve been waiting two hours, I saw you coming before you got here.”
“You may be psychic but you don‘t know everything!” the customer understandably reacts to Missy’s dismissal of his concerns.
“I’ve been working here 38 nights! I know every vampire in town. I’ve been in this job longer than any one else in Kankakee County! Don’t I know you from the refuge?”
“What refuge? Do you mean the homeless shelter? That was 8 years ago.”
“No the refuge.”
“The refugee center? I have been volunteering there but it’s been awhile since they needed me.”
Wally’s getting fed up with his lab tech. “I’m giving you a written warning, Missy, you’re not making production because you talk too much with the patients. We are losing a lot of money and that’s why I opened this business, to make as much as possible. Just get your work done or you’re fired!”
Feeling the heat from her write-up, Missy applies to work for “Scary” Barry Reynolds at his new School of Mixed Moronic Arts in a strip mall in Noble County Indiana so she can annoy people over there instead. “I love to talk” is listed in her unique set of qualifications along with a set of bowling scores on her “psychic vampyre” resume.
Feeling so impressed by her credentials, Barry unexpectedly hires her after asking only two interview questions from his office near the Northeast border of Indiana and Ohio.
Barry immediately puts Missy to work as his new secretary, working evening shifts.
”Hey! This is Missy from Barry’s School of Mixed Moronic Arts. Call me back to confirm your class or we will have to cancel.”
She makes calls to bother customers four times nightly to “confirm” their appointments, hound them about their bills and missed classes, even after they ask her to stop calling.
“Hey! I’m Missy calling to remind you that you’ve not been to Mixed Moronic Arts in 30 days. You need to keep coming in to keep your membership active. We are open from 7:30 PM till 3:00 AM every week from Monday through Friday. Thankies!”
Message deleted.
“You have a sexy voice, I bet you’re handsome!”
Click.
“Why is that same blue van here? It’s blocking my view. Its registration expired four years ago, it’s such an eyesore…” Missy bothers her boss.
“It’s from the guy that was squatting next door and hoarding. He had done got it removed two weeks ago. Don’t it smell better over yonder now?”
“I went bowling and got a 99 in two games!”
Missy hounds a new student who had just walked in the door. “Why are you wearing THAT? It looks terrible.”
“Missy, just ask them to change into their uniform and remove their shoes.” Barry commands.
She then walks over to the audio room near the dojo and attempts to mix CDs like records on a turntable.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m a deejay!”
Barry — and his students — have had enough of Missy’s antics.
Barry her puts her in the dojo for others spar, accidentally forgetting on purpose to tell them that Missy has no scythe-fencing skills, nor psychic-self-defense, just plenty of offense. He watches from his washroom while eating popcorn., practicing his defensive pooping.
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.
“Boss, can I get a vacation? I have been taking souls down the river Styx for millennia now, and I need a break,” Charon the Grim Reaper asks Satan.
“Just one day. I will ask in-processing clerk Lucy Furr to fill in while you are out, as she is your backup. You need to train her first.”
“I don’t need training, I can run circles around you!” Lucy Furr demeans the tired old Charon. The harbinger of the dead goes on vacation and Lucy takes a trip to Albion, Indiana.
The notoriously crooked couple “Scary” Barry and Terry Reynolds are having their daily, bitter argument.
“You did not unload the dishwasher!”
“Terry, you did not ask me.”
“Just anticipate it!”
“I cleared the table and wiped it down.”
“That does not even count!” Terry screams at her husband who begins to feel the onset of a heart-attack. In the midst of their creepy fight, a shadowy figure looms behind.
“Is it stalking season yet? Where’s Sonya?”
“She hasn’t flown in yet,” Manteno, Illinois very own narcadoodle extraordinaire and port-a-dump proprietor Bernadette Moran Cacca informs her mom Carla, in from Manteno, Illinois to visit.
A thump is heard, likely from the bird deflecting against Mrs. Cacca’s Albion, Indiana home. The buzzard has landed.
“Are we going out stalking?” shapeshifting humanoid buzzard Sonya asks her family as she transfigures from vulture into subhuman.
“I need to cut down on my stalking bill,” Carla tells her sister-in-law and bird-of-a-feather, Sonya.
“I’m walking away from you now. This is unacceptable and won’t be tolerated,” Sonya berates Carla and flies off, doing donuts in the sky over a body of water and its surrounding structures.
Sonya eggs a guy on to throw a cat in the river, literally. She had been laying eggs by the water because she was bored and began chucking them, demanding the male stranger go murder the poor animal. Poor kitty was living at the bar on the river, surviving on the food in the trash there and the odd chicken tender or bit of burger the customers were giving him. Seriously, who the heck hates cats, let alone wants them dead?
Sonya’s distinct poopy smell, it lingers, wafting through air after she drops off some more friends at the pool.
A medium-skinned trio stroll along, new to Albion. “It smells like warm milk and trauma.” Gothic Flo deadpans.
Gothic Diana Ross scoops up the fluffy munchkin after having witnessed Mrs. Moran’s histrionic menacing.
“Sonya, the Indiana Attorney General is prosecuting animal abuse cases to the fullest extent of the law so I will be turning you in.”
“It’s just a rotten cat, ya stupid nincompoop!” Sonya screeches, mad because caught. Then she poops.
“Fee Fi Fo Fum. I smell the turds of a big moron!” Gothic Diana Ross and the Midnight Supremes chant, enjoying their mockery of the apathetic fool who tried connive a kid to murder that adorable little fluffball. Gothic Diana Ross takes the kitten to the vet clinic where she had just interviewed to get him some help. She names him Kevin.
Shapeshiftin’ Sonya flaps her wings in frustration and anger, squawking like a parakeet. Then she flies away.
“Another one of these? What is Sonya on, anyway? There is no cat pee smell outside my door!” the young lady thinks aloud as she grabs the lunacy letter her landlord left on her door. “Why always Friday? I had a long day at work and am too tired for this codswallop. She needs to get a hobby!”
Gothic Diana Ross sees a familiar face.
“It’s Kitty Bee from Kankakee!” Diana cracks a smile and the two exchange some dap.
“Whatcha doin’ in town?”
“We came in because I had an interview.”
“Ah nice. On TV?”
“No. A job interview.”
“Nice. Where?”
“Over at that vet clinic by the college. That…um…self-defense school? What’s a PSI Ball anyway? Those ads blew up our TV!”
“It closed.”
“Oh, nice! Those ads were driving us batty.”
“Yeah, did you hear what happened? College President Barry Reynolds got in trouble and they shut it down.”
“Nice. One less moron. Speaking of nitwits, you should see this lady down by the river. She tried to kill a cat!”
“What?”
“Yeah, she was like, laying eggs and pooping everywhere.”
“I need to get the scoop on that poop.”
“Umm. Yeah.”
“What did she look like?”
“Tall, lanky, goofy eyes.”
Kitty gets out her phone and shows her a photo of her landlord, who has been running for Albion mayor.
“Yup, that’s her.”
“I knew it! Hey I am going to do a story on her. Our city is done taking her crap.”
“Us too. That smell…”
“RRRRGGGGH! Thanks! Bye!”
“See ya.” The dark gothic beauties wave in unison.
TO BE CONTINUED
Read some press regarding the main inspiration behind this story: https://www.mlive.com/news/jackson/2021/09/petition-seeks-removal-of-albion-college-president-for-alleged-bullying-racism.html
“This is Kitty Bee reporting live here in Albion, Indiana. I am here at the MASSIVE mansion of the now former college president of the Dr. Mathew B. Johnson School of Intrepid Arts, Mister Barry Reynolds. What do you have to say about the corruption at the college?” the reporter asks Barry as he eats his lunch in his massive kitchen.
“These appliances are dated…” Barry replies as he continues to eat out his designer bowl.
“Your appliances look brand new…I wish I had a kitchen this fancy. Speaking of kitchens, how many cooks are in that kitchen over at Intrepid?”
“If you buy this record, you like poopyburners” Barry replies.
“Ah. Since we’re on record, where is your wife Terry? Is she planning new construction projects for the school now that you ran it into the ground?”
“Back in 1991, Greg Snyder saw someone going down the road who owned one.”
“All hail the great Greg Snyder, that must have been some event. Now that it’s 2021, what on earth are you eating?” she asks Barry as he pours more alphabet soup atop his lettuce, tomatoes and parsnips.
“Word salad.”
To read more about the real-life word salad bowl, kindly visit this blog.
Mosquitoes suck.
After the Dr. Mathew B. Johnson School of Intrepid Arts in Albion, Indiana got shut down by the Attorney General’s office for fraud and corruption, Scary Barry Reynolds lost his health insurance, since the United States requires a job in order to get such basic needs met.
Barry’s doctor ordered labs so he went to the local Wally Green’s to get it done at 1AM in their Vampyre Department.
“What if I don’t have insurance?” Barry asked the vampyre working the blood lab.
“We will mail you a bill, and make sure to screw it up as always. However, we only allow self-payers to get blood drawn by our team of mosquitoes since a venipuncture requires insurance.”
MoronicArts 
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