*** Recipe Included: Cast-Iron Pizza***
“If you don’t think life is absurd or unfair, go see my therpist. When I asked her what she was writing as I relaxed on her crimson leather couch and spilled my soul to her, she said, ‘Just making a few notes, nothing to worry yourself about, but since I’m a progressive therapist, I’ll give you a sample’…this guy is a psychopath; he’ s selfish, ignorant, godless, funny-looking, pretenious, unsanitary, vertically, mentally, and phyically challenged, pungently fragranced, lacking cells on both sides of the brain, profane, overly passive aggressive, overly active agressive, and just an all-around dull turd!”
Anynomous Foosball Champion
*** Death and Love on the Run***
“Now, we’ll take a look at what has the Diamond King sweating carbon… this one didn’t irritate him and his online pals as much as the cat video. We’ll view that later, “ said Prollen. He dimmed the lights with the remote and hit play.
The video began with a black screen and a caption in bright white letters reading, “How Love (and Diamonds) Can Conquer Anything.” The screen faded into a black-and-white scene showing a young couple grinning at each other as they sat together in the darkness.
Their toneless skin suddenly had a spotlight shining on it, and it made the sad pair glow like they were on a stage. You could vaguely see the bench they were sitting on, but the rest of the frame lacked definition. They were a glimmering, slightly depressed couple floating in a pitch-black universe.
Jarvos couldn’t wait until the end of the clip and blurted out, “Did he borrow Stephenson to shoot this?; It looks just like the Jaylene video. He’s not cheap, and this looks like his style.
“He even found a similar actor; she looks like the crybaby from the original commercial. That’s crazy. How would the Butttruth afford someone like Stephenson?”
Prollen glared at Jarvos and calmly said, “Yes, as I said, the similarities are obvious. It’s not the work of a single amateur with a few dollars to spare. This one is well-produced; a team had to make it. Not just an average wannabe, and no, Stephenson didn’t shoot it.”
“I talked to him this morning, and he seemed offended that I accused him of working for someone else. After telling him we were looking into other production companies for Jaylene’s commercials, he became much friendlier. But I believe him. I don’t think it was him.” Prollen unpaused the video.
The woman in the clip stopped smiling and looked sadly at the camera. “This ring has been in my family for generations,” she said. “It’s not just a diamond sitting on precious metal. It’s a gift from God. I can’t tell you how many times it’s comforted someone in my family when times got tough.”
With her eyes welling up with tears, her husband reached over and put his arm around her to comfort her. She said, “This ring shows that love and a little luck can overcome just about anything.
“Well, they can’t conquer death, but they sure helped my family survive. The story of how this diamond wound up in my family began many years ago when my grandfather was clipping his toenails on the front porch.
“He always said dirty nails were good for the soil and made sure he swept the clippings into the lawn.” She smiled for a second, possibly thinking fondly of her grandpa’s grooming routine.
“He heard a car racing down the road to his house, and he walked down the driveway to see what was going on.” The screen flashed white and then showed a black muscle car barreling down a dirt road with a dust cloud in its wake.
“The driver was going too fast and lost control around the curve by the driveway and crashed into the woods. My gramps said the concussion shook his birdhouse off the oak.
“He ran to the wreck and found a dying man and his bride lying by the smoking car. They were covered in blood and pieces of glass from the windshield, and my grandpa said the bride looked much worse than the groom.”
“I guess they weren’t wearing their seatbelts when they plowed into the tree, but it was more than just that. They had lost a lot of blood before they even got in that wreck. “
“Gramps found out later all about the couple’s story, but he sure didn’t mention to the cops that he had grabbed the wedding ring off the bride’s bloody finger. I don’t think she was completely dead at that point, but I don’t hold that against him.”
“Well, the story was that Martha and Johnny had been married that morning and decided to rob a bank for their honeymoon. They got plenty of money, but the getaway didn’t go well since they didn’t plan on an off-duty security guard coming to retrieve the jacket he’d left on his last shift. This is how it went down…”
The screen faded away and showed a security guard walking into the bank parking lot. He paused to scratch his butt, and he turned his head and saw a well-dressed, masked couple, both with bleached blonde hair, with large white bags running toward a black car.
He later told the cops he had reacted quickly with his gun (and bragged he had used an extended clip: fifteen rounds in his 9-millimeter), but actually, Hank Besper had froze and waited until they started out of the lot before he unloaded on them.
He knew it was his moment to shine; hopefully, he’d get on the force after doing this. No more security work and no more disrespect. Remember your training, he thought, and everything will work out. The scumbags will be dead, the money will go back to the bank, and you’ll be a hero. It’s almost Miller time, buddy; just hang in there and shoot straight.
The car screeched out of the parking space and roared towards the exit (and Hank) at high speed. He pulled the trigger quickly and managed to shatter the drive-thru window of the fast food restaurant across the street with one of the 13 bullets that missed their targets. Two more “known” bullets grazed the car’s roof and damaged the brick of a nearby church.
One whizzed over the passenger side mirror and shattered the plastic tire of a toddler’s Big Wheel while the three-year-old rolled beside his father on the sidewalk. Martha was shot in the neck through the windshield, and Johnny was hit in the shoulder.
His last “identified” round cruised to the left of its target and blew off the Dodge’s side mirror. Two out of fifteen isn’t bad, I guess, Hank thought. The scene faded back to the melodramatic wife.
“It’s very romantic when you think about it, but Gramps said the inside of that crumbled car was a sight. That was back before everyone was snapping pictures from their phones. “
She paused for a second, caught in her memory, and smiled. “He painted a picture of the accident scene and titled it Plush Interior Crime Scene. It made my grandma gag whenever he pulled it out to show it to people.”
“It’s probably good that they’re dead because, for God’s sake, before the robbery, Martha was wanted for killing a door-to-door salesman with a wiffleball bat. She knocked him off the 5th-story balcony of her apartment into the windshield of a Buick. “
“The poor guy was only hawking pop-up bibles and trying to make a living. And Johnny, well, he was wanted for assault and torturing his kidnapped victims with an enema kit. He supposedly got the idea from some pervert in Illinois.”
“After the guts and brain matter were removed from my grandfather’s property, the soil still looked stained. You’ll see it if you return to the same spot today. We used to call it the ‘Lovers’ Last Stand.'”
She teared up while smiling, but her husband gave her a confused look. “Weird, huh? But it’s also kind of beautiful.” She wiped away another tear.
“Anyway, the ring’s been in my family ever since, and anytime life takes a massive dump on one of us, the ring is shared. I gave it to my sister last year when she was going through a rough patch.”
She looked at her husband with puppy-dog eyes and blew her nose into a Kleenex; a small piece of it, aided by mucous, flew between his incredulous eyebrows.
“She’s struggled with a glue-sniffing addiction for years, and it’s taken a toll on her. Besides her lungs being all gummed up, she kept gluing the tube to her face when she nodded out.”
“My sis fought through it, though, and with the Lord’s grace and this blessed ring, she went from huffing rubber cement to Elmer’s. She even stopped snorting the keyboard cleaner. Now she’s doing great. Everything she huffs, smokes, snorts, or injects is organic.”
Her husband smiled and pulled her closer into a hug. After a kiss on her head, he asked, “where does the ring stay when no one’s in trouble?”
“What do you mean, Elliot?” she asked.
“Well, you pass this ring around to everyone in the family who’s had a loss or is a screwup like glue-baby Jill, and it makes them feel better, right? But how does the family decide where the ring is stashed when everybody is happy?”
“Do you rotate it around, or maybe you have a time when, let’s say, your sister is pulling from the ring’s immense power to make her drop that epoxy tube, and she’s had it too long, do you have to confiscate it?”
“Have you had to say, sis, you’ve had your time with the ring, but now it’s time to give it to your uncle Davis cause his hemorrhoids are acting up, and he needs some diamond voodoo?”
With her face turning red and her fists clenching, she tried to keep her cool; she took a deep breath and resisted the urge to slap him.
“Those are all valid questions, Sherlock, but should I have passed it to you when you were fired from your last job—when you were caught on film sneaking into the boss’s office and licking her keyboard?”
*** Dirty Digits ***
Jarvos covered his mouth to stifle his giggles, but his boss still noticed his eyes filling with water.
“All right, I’m glad you think this is all so comical, but we’re not finished. I think Jaylene’s commercials are overly dramatic and maybe cheesy, but they’re not as pretentious or …elitest as the ones in the ‘80s and early ‘90s.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” said Jarvos trying to wipe away his happy tears and struggling to catch his breath. “It’s just, the Butttruth’s models are right on. She’s the spitting image of the sad mama from the diamond ring ad, and her husband . . . looks just like the guy Jaylene hired, the one with the eyebrow deformities.”
“And the background music. It’s public domain stuff but sounds like he had an orchestra.”
Prollen doubted that his star joker really masterminded the videos, but he had to ask since so much was on the line, and it wasn’t about their reputation; their lives were at stake.
“Jarvos, did you have anything to do with this?”
“What? No, sir, I’m not that creative.” His colleagues all grinned in unison, everyone but Prollen. “I just think it’s funny. I don’t have the time or money to pull off something that looks that good. The film quality is much fancier than anything on my website.”
“Your website?”
“Yeah, but don’t worry, I don’t have my name or any connection to Nelters on the site. I only designed it to win a bet.”
“What was the bet?”
“Well, first, I have to say that I won the bet. Please, no applause, everyone. Anyway, Mel, my neighbor, told me one night that he couldn’t believe his cousin was getting rich from selling online courses on how to make hemp clothing for injured cats.”
“Just injured cats?” asked Prollen.
“Yeah, you know, sweater patterns for three-legged cats and ones with bulbous heads. The guy is making a killing off it. Well, I said, Mel, anyone can make money selling useless products or information online, and I bet him I could come up with something ridiculous to back up my claims.”
“The bet was for $500; if I lost, I had to buy $500 worth of merchandise from CrippledKittyHempFantastique or whatever it’s called. I created Switchingoffthemlights.com, won the bet, and continue to profit from my site.”
Prollen stared at him for a second and considered moving on, but he had to know what the fool had created in his downtime. “Ok, before we move on, enlighten us. What is the switching the light thing about?”
“Exactly what you said. It’s mostly just photos and short films of my finger switching the lights on and off. But I keep it interesting, and I always change the setting and sometimes disguise or modify my finger.”
“Last week was Thumb Week, and all the switches were manipulated by my left thumb.” Jarvos held up his thumb and slowly turned it for his audience like he was doing an ad for a hand model agency.
“The nail looks better on this one than the one on the right, and I like to keep things up-to-date and polished on my site. During the Dirty Digits week, I purposely jam coffee grounds in my nails before hitting the switch, and the one where I wear a dirty bandage is especially popular.”
“I got thousands of views and now have a skincare startup paying me for their ads. I also sell a course on light switch remodeling. I didn’t think anyone would ever download it, and no one did at first.”
“But after about three weeks, it started picking up. You know, when that storm hit the coast a few months ago, well, somehow, that helped boost my course purchases.”
“You wouldn’t think people whose homes were nearly destroyed would care about their light switches or the covers or the best lighting to photograph light switches, but they apparently put it high on their list of remodeling projects.”
“It’s nuts, but I’m glad. I was able to go to Paris because of it, but man, it’s an insane world, isn’t it?”
His colleagues stared at him in disbelief, but in the back of each of their minds, they weren’t surprised. Although he was talented and well-liked by most, his sense of humor sometimes rattled the traditionalists in the organization.
“During Halloween, I’ll have monster fingers, bloody fingers, sexy fingers, fingers smeared with chocolate, greasy fingers, fingers with the bone poking out, and, you know, stuff related to the holiday.”
“I play scary music in the background, something creepy like ambient music from the 80s, and in one film, I have a fake hand getting stabbed when it reaches for the switch. Oddly enough, my most popular film is one of a hand getting slapped with a slice of pizza before it turns the light off.”
“Last month, while I was waiting for my car to get fixed, I wandered into the garage and took a few shots and videos with more industrial-looking switches. Most of them look like gigantic versions of the ones you’d see in a circuit breaker panel.”
“But man, that place was dirty. I understand a garage isn’t gonna look like an operating room before they start slicing patients up, but I expect a little more from a European auto shop. I mean, some dude’s whitey tighties, soiled, I might add, were hanging out of the garbage can.”
“But it’s not surprising, considering how things turned out. The mechanics were pissed when I started messing with the lights. I have to click them back and forth quickly when I make short films, and I heard one of the guys yell, ‘ You can’t pop them on and off like that idiot. You’ll blow the breaker!’ I think that’s why my Porsche smelled like sauerkraut.”
Marshall smiled and wondered why a garage would have sauerkraut on hand. Maybe they keep a jar in the back in case they encounter someone obnoxious like Jarvos, or they could have dismantled a Reuben and smeared the fermented cabbage under his leather seats.
“I want to get some in a manufacturing plant or something like it, but I’m trying to avoid getting arrested. Oh, one more thing, during Safe Sex Week, I wrap a condom around my finger…”
“That’s enough! Thank you so much for considering our reputation, Mr. Snoyner. Please avoid flicking the lights around here. You can do that in your downtime when you’re creeping around a paper mill or slaughterhouse.”
“We’ll look at this next masterpiece if there aren’t any more interruptions. It’s not a parody of a specific Jaylene ad, but, as you’ll see, it mocks Darden directly and pokes fun at the company’s failed pet jewelry line.”
“I’m not sure why my predecessor would allow one of our subsidiaries to embark on such a ridiculous concept, but luckily, Jaylene recovered from that disaster. And I have to say, when Darden took over Jaylene after Serinno left, he did an incredible job rebuilding the company’s image after so many deaths. “
“At the end of the video, the Darden impersonator exaggerates the number of pet fatalities even though the actual figure is pretty shocking. It wasn’t 1,700, but at least 50 animals died from the toxic jewelry, and, incredibly, Jaylene survived it, and we, in turn, survived it without dumping them.”
“Maybe it was unfair of the filmmaker to target Darden since he came in after the scandal, but these videos are for entertainment, not for toppling the king of diamonds and his ego.
“And everyone who’s familiar with him knows he’s a good ‘ol boy from his online videos, so they parodied him instead of Serrino. I think that bothered Darden and his fury has animated several of his online fans, but we’ll get to that later . . . let’s watch the next film.”
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