A sister from another mother?

A year or so after Bernadette Moran Cacca had wandered her way into the Moroniverse, this other unpredictable Bernadette from nearby Joilet had made her debut on a much more famous and well-loved series: “The Big Leap.” Like Bernadette the kitten, Bernadette from HR is not a moron, nor an entramanure who sings show-tunes on the potty while playing accordion in the Manteno Optimal Club. This Bernadette likes to go where everybody knows your name.

She needs her own spin-off series. Maybe she can take over human resources dooties at Peppi’s Port-a-Potties or become the new president of The Poopy Groupies since Wally Green is getting annoyed.

Artificial Stupidity

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.

“Get Lost, Sonya!”

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.

TO BE CONTINUED

The Garden of Dearthly Delights

The Manteno Cantina reviews start to pile up all over social media:

“False advertising! They tricked us into thinking we were attending a Gotion protest when it was really just a stupid talent show. Plus those ‘free tickets’ are not really free because they have a two-drink minimum!”

“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?”

Smell Ya Later, Damien!

“Attention. Attention. This is a drill. Shelter-in-place now. I repeat, shelter in place now. This is a drill. Shelter in place now” Area 51’s resident alien deejay announces over the intercom.

People run amok. Had they read their emails sent earlier in the week, most of them would have stayed at their workstations instead, per their inboxed instructions, news and alerts.

The chaos wakes up Damien Ulysses Hurlbutt, captured test subject living in the Alternative Fuels Division, Flatulence Branch pries loose the door from his cell and wanders over to a control room. He makes a mad dash to the first unlocked computer he can find, credentials still inserted. Then he farts.

After logging onto to his uTube account, neckbeard Damien goes to the channel of his ex-wife Lori, immediately downvoting as many of her videos as he can. You can’t fix stupid. Then the bulbous, bald, bearded bum looks for videos of people sniffing m’lady madame’s feet. Yum!

One of the guards spots the communal narc-a-doodle-doo Damien, quickly dons a safety mask, then hauls him back to his cell. Padlocking his cage, Security adds a deadbolt for additional protection for the workers from the world’s biggest source of natural gas.

The Information Security Team destroys the compromised machine, to protect national security from the leakage both info-wise and anal, then maintenance gets ready to throw the chopped-and-screwed computer parts into the dumpster.

“Aren’t we having fun yet?”

“There’s no room for all this crap, what shall we do?”

“I dunno, remove some of that HAZMAT first.”

“Bingo!”

Maintenance comes back with a dumpster full of hazardous, radioactive Lawd-only-knows-what – plus a few dirty socks throw in for good fun – then chucks it all into Damien’s cage.

“Who-wha-whey-whyyy—“

“These are your new friends, Damien.”

The crew shuts the new 4000 lb gate and walks away happy, knowing they won’t hear, see, nor smell Mr. Hurlbutt anytime soon, except for the poor tech who comes in every morning at 0500 hours…

“Vitals!”

Chief Moron Wrangler

Daily writing prompt
If humans had taglines, what would yours be?

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.

Fun fact: “Moron” is the Welsh word for carrot!

MoronicArts Classics: This Is Not The Spam You Are Looking For…

Junk email broker, failed film student and nextdoor sociopath Pat Oswald Splatt ventured over to the Kankakee County Spam convention with high hopes to rake in new customers to rip off bombarding their inboxes with unsolicited commercial crap for fun and profits.

Sadly, Pat was disappointed to instead find Damien Hurlbutt, Sybil Kibble and her mom JK along along with people actually having fun celebrating canned lunchmeat.

Maybe the self-proclaimed master-marketer should have read the event advertisement more carefully.

Bernadette Cacca’s Wedding Ring

What type of diamond does Manteno communal narcissist, swamp witch and queen of the porcelain throne Bernadette Cacca wear on her finger?

MoronicArts Classics: Welcome to Hell

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.

Beanefits of Being Morons

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.

“What do we do now, Doris?”

“I guess our product is a ‘has-bean’.”