“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.
“I have been working for 666 weeks now. Can I get a raise?” Hell’s intake clerk Lucy Furr asks her boss, Satan.
“No.”
“I work harder than anybody here. I do 80 per cent of the work. I can run circles around the other damned people.”
“We provide you shelter with free heat. That is sufficient.”
“How much longer do I have to work? I am gonna quit if you don’t give me a raise.”
“You are here for all of eternity. According to your records, you had been assigned here because you had behaved like a bully your entire life. You were harassing an autistic person on their trip to Italy, tag teaming with your cousin Terry. And you had continued to bully that same person, plus scores of others at the cancer center where you had worked the check-out desk.”
“I don’t care. Get me outta here.”
“That’s not my decision. I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them. Now get back to work, or I will order you to the jagged rocks and bubbling excrement room,” Satan orders his subordinate Lucy.
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.
Gothic Diana Ross gives her TV the side-eye
“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.
Barry and Terry Reynolds respond to the media from the comfort of their own home.
“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 bathes in the bog
“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.
“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.
Thinking the gas stinking up his pet construction project in Albion is from a massive dump — residents pooping on the street — he calls on them for help, both practical and sinister.
“Oh yeah! You got gas? I do. RRRRRRIPPPP. That was a good one!”
“Um yeah. I am calling you for help in the Turdology department. Can you come down to Albion, Indiana and sniff things out?
A flush is heard in the background. Barry continues his request:
“My wife his this “constrution”, I mean construction project going on in town, running until the end of the year. I was told we were blocking emergency access to the street. Why should I care if a bunch of junky locals OD on meth? Anyway, can you come down today, it’s an emergency.”
“We specialize in emergencies. Peppi and I will come right over.”
“Good, we need help clearing the air.”
Barry ends the call, excited to get the Caccas’ expertise in all things crappy.
After Bern Cacca finishes burning poopies in her Manteno, Illinois backyard, she peels out her driveway and hurries over to Albion, Indiana.
Hours pass, no sign of Peppi and Bernadette. Barry checks his phone.
“Umm, how do we get in so we can get the scoop on your poop? These roads are all blocked. Every single one of them.”
Barry texts Bern back:
“We are building 100 roads — all the more to block.”
Barry snickers.
An hour later, someone rings the doorbell outside the gate of Barry and Terry’s McMansion.
“Who’s this?”
“Hi Barry. Peppi’s Portapotties. King and Queen–“
“How do you know my name?”
“You called me and told me.”
“I. Don’t. Like. That.”
Barry buzzes the gate open and the Caccamobile burns rubber across the Reynolds’ driveway.
“Park over there,” Barry demands, pointing to a crooked spot toward the end of the driveway, behind Barry’s multiple luxury cars.
The Caccas get out. Bern runs up to Barry, as if to hug a long lost classmate.
“Git!” Barry barks.
“Ooooh, I think you’re cute.”
“Git!”
Bern goes to hug Barry.
“I SAY GIT!”
“That’s my mating call. I met her in the bog,” Peppi Cacca tells Barry.
“She’s my bog witch extraordinaire! Entremanure by day, bog witch by night.”
“We met you there, remember?. Bern was taking a bath so we left. Can you help me clean up my act, I mean reputation? It really stinks out here.”
“Your construction crew hit a gas line. We only do portapotties.” Bernadette advises Barry.
“Nature is calling, we gotta go.”
Bernadette and Peppi Cacca make their way out of Albion, and back to Manteno over in Illinois, eventually. Bern did not get to burn rubber that night, only poopies.
“Why are people up here in Albion so anti-Reynolds? I have done nothing but help this community. The other day, I told an obese lady about the new gym I wanted to build. I wanted to help her. But, noooo, people are so rude and mean. They do not appreciate my help! After all, they shut down The Mathew B. Johnson School of Intrepid Arts — The Best Martial Arts School around I could have taught them kiddos how to make PSI Balls!!”
“Those are fake.”
“I know. But but makes us money, and I want to teach ’em! This whole state needs a good schoolin’! This whole world!”
“Hey Barry, why don’t you call that Bernadette moron, the bog witch who sings opera for charity?”
“How about we drive down to Manteno. Maybe we can try their porto potty business since their number always goes to voicemail. I can only listen to that recording of them polka-rapping about porto potties so many times.”
“We have nothing better to do. I am bored. Let’s go!”
“Take that ugly desk with you. Maybe you can give it to her to pay for our public-relations clean-up act.”
Barry and Terry Reynolds run to Manteno.
“Turn left. Then turn left. Then turn left. Recalculating.”
“That dang GPS, why does it screw up so much? It has one job!” Terry exclaims.
Terry and Barry arrive at Peppi’s Portapotties.
“Dang! Just missed ‘em. They closed ten minutes ago. Let’s do a drive-by past their house.”
The bumbling idiots drive past the Caccas’ run-down shack. Nobody’s home. Spotting the beautiful slate, Victorian Gothic home next door, their curiosity draws them in.
The Westminster Chimes are played as they ring the doorbell. A 5’10”, slender, medium-skinned Gothic beauty answers the door, wearing an all-black dress and fishnet stockings.
“Yeah?” Gothic Diana Ross answers.
Barry’s stoic face turns a slight smile.
“Umm, hi Miss. We will not take up much of your time.”
“You’ve already taken up too much.” Diana quips.
“What’s the deal with your neighbors? The Caccas?”
‘Oh man. Just don’t.”
Diana inches away and begins to close the door.
“Wait? Miss! We have this $1000 desk we can give you, if you just talk to us!”
“I’ll tell you where to put that desk.”
Diana slams the door and goes back to singing rehearsal with the Midnight Supremes.
“Barry, I gotta whizz.”
“Yup. You’re the boss.”
“No Diana is. Let’s go.”
Barry and Terry pull into the nearest corner Wally Green’s. While Terry is emptying her bladder in the washroom, Barry finally answers the sales clerk who asked him six times if he needed help finding something.
“Yeah, do you sell those SpamMaster 2000 CD-ROMs?”
“No, sorry. Are you looking to send unsolicited emails? I got a guy.” Drugstore clerk, covert narcissist and Elvis impersonator Robbie Hurlbutt slips Barry the number for Pat Splatt, petty criminal and junk emailer.
Pat Splatt multitasks, sending out heaps of junk emails on one monitor, while repeatedly right-swiping on the other monitor.
Barry and Terry meet Pat Splatt at midnight on the street, not far from the interchange bridge under which Kankakee troll Leona Krabalsky is sawing wood. The three shadowy figures shake hands and part ways. The Reynolds drive onto Interstate Route 57 North, toward Chicago-O’Hare Airport, and board a plane for their monthly vacation.
“We’re headed to Australia and we’re so stoked!” reads the craption below Terry’s Fakebook post, loaded with the hashtag #RichPeopleProblems. Terry cannot wait to take photos of her legs and feet.
Pat Splatt hopes to buy an overly lifted truck to compensate for his lousy personality with all the money he makes spamming on behalf of the dysfunctional former leaders of the Mathew B Johnson School of Intrepid Arts. Brandon Dixon’s imbecile machine lot is booming with their end of year sales and Pat hopes to wheel-and-deal himself one.
While Scary Barry and Terry Reynolds spend loads of money they got from who-knows-where, seeing the sites of Australia, email junker Pat Splatt is busy sliding unwanted emails into the inboxes of college students all over the USA. Pat spams on behalf of disbarred college president Reynolds about the wonders of PSI Balls and how Barry Reynolds can teach them to defend themselves from psychic attacks. A second wave of spam stinks up the computer mailboxes of students at UCLA, Yale, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Colgate, Boston University, Loyola, Olivet Nazarene, Baylor, Kent State, Oregon State, Nebraska and Iowa City, spewing propaganda to try and connive random students into taking Barry’s online martial arts courses “because he is a nice guy who does a lot for the community.”
A sleeping Barry is awakened by an unexpected phone call.
“This is the Albion Health Department. We have received multiple complaints about a cockroach infestation at your compound.”
“It’s 3AM. Who the heck is this?”
“Huh? I don’t know where you are or what you’re talking about. We need you to rectify the infestation or we are going to have to condemn your property.”
“I’m in Australia on vacation with my wife.”
“Must be nice. I have not had a vacation in 21 years.”
Barry hangs up the phone and goes back to sleep. The Reynolds spend the day at their exclusive resort on Australia’s Gold Coast taking pictures of themselves and braggity-boasting on their Fakebook pages.
A month later, the relaxed, but tired couple heads home to their Albion McMansion. Several “Condemned” signs are seen posted all over their estate.
“What the heck now? After all we do for this county? This state? The entire Universe?”
Beep-Beep-Beep goes the Avelli Truck, lowering a shipping container on the grass outside the massive, now-condemned Reynolds residence.
“What’s this?” a stern Barry asks.
“Your new home. There’s even room for your desk.”
A truck from Peppi’s Portapotties pulls up, “King and Queen of the Throne” its lettering reads below a smiling cartoon depicting owners Bern and Peppi Cacca.
“His and Hers,” Peppi says to the Department of Health worker overseeing the Reynolds property seized by the City of Albion, Indiana as he sets up the two portable toilets.
“We are NOT going to sleep in there.” Barry says with his nose to the air, walking away from the metal shipping container.
“You can live in a dumpster. We won’t judge.”
Barry checks his bank account, hoping to stay in a swanky hotel. The robobank announces “Negative Forty-Nine Thousand, two-hundred twenty-four dollars.”
“Paaaaaaaaat!” Barry and Terry exclaim as they fall to their knees in unison, mad because their goose is cooked.
Deerfield-born ladies’ man, drugstore owner and wacky inventor Wally Green wants all his customers to know he cares. After partnering with corrupted contractor Terry Reynolds of Albion, Indiana, he is doing some “CONSTRUTION” to renovate his stores.
FART CARTS
These shopping carts play the brown note when you get within 10 feet of the store’s door, making you crap your pants to punish you for not putting the cart away
404 COUPONS NOT FOUND
These 404 page coupon booklets are designed with only some pages numbered, confusing Wally’s customers on purpose because Wally hopes they will give up and die trying before finding their coupon of choice.
CLICKETY-CLAPPETY INTERCOM MUSIC
Do you like hearing the same 15-second piano loop every time you call Wally Green’s pharmacy? Wally partnered with the same firm who produced every single commercial that ran on television for the past three years to create 30-second loops using only finger snaps, hand-claps and “boom” sounds…the latter lifted from the Queen song “We Will Rock You.” It is the only music more repetitive than that of pop singer John Mayer. Marshall Stacks will be installed outside every store to make sure his neighbors hear it too.
TRAP DOOR CHILD SEATS
In an effort to save the almighty dollar, Wally Green’s is ceasing to repair the child-seat straps in their carts. At random, your coffee, purse or child will get trapped in the cart, or maybe even your fingers! We promise to keep delivering our buy one, get one half off (but never free) sales, and cutting expenses at all costs enables us to keep offering these sales to our beloved customers!
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 faed 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. .
And now we get to learn about the psychic attack crap. Back in 2001 (No not 1991, sorry Greg Snyder), I received this junk mail:
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.
The ever-miserable “Scary” Barry Reynolds and his equally grumpy wife “Terrible” Terry Reynolds will do just about anything for money here in Kankakee. Just what are they doing with that Weggy…umm…Ouija Board anyway? Are they necromancing Luigi after he fell into the garbage too many times?
Find out how these two partners in crime try to one-up the denizens of the Moroniverse upcoming novel “This Tale Stinks!”
Damien Hurlbutt’s birthday is coming up on August 10th. To celebrate his birthday, I would like to share some early concept drawings of him and other morons.
Below is an early character design for an unnamed Dale Davis.
The next few drawings I created early on for a previous series which I merged into MoronicArts. Look for them in my forthcoming novel.
MoronicArts 
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