We bought the boy a foosball table for Christmas. He's 14 now, and when his friends come over, especially in the dead of winter, they need stuff to do. Plus, I would have loved one when I was his age.
The foosball table inspired a large-scale cleanup of the basement, which we finished off before he was born, figuring we'd need the space in time. And, boy, do we use it. My office is down in the basement, as well as a TV room, my library, and the ping pong table. And way, way too much crap. Well, a lot less now than there was two weeks ago. We shifted a roomful of furniture around New Year's thanks to a Salvation Army pickup. And toys. They got a cabinet full of Bat caves and all the little superhero figures that went with them.
I turned my attention to the random containers of art supplies, stickers, and papers today. Dump it, dump it, dump it, was the motto. But I'm not stonehearted enough to do it en masse. (Maybe if I were it wouldn't have all piled up on us like it did.) In one particular box, I found a treasure trove of 8.5 x 11 paper, including an eight-chapter story my son wrote back in second grade. ("Chapters" being a loose term here, though that is what he called them, and I'll defer to the author on such matters.) That was preserved in the file cabinet. You can take that one out of my cold, dead files in about 50 years. (Yes, I'm living to 104.)
And just beneath that, I found three pages of my own handwriting. An unfinished story I had completely forgotten about. I can't pinpoint when it was written, but it was probably about the time he penned (penciled?) his. And it was clearly written to entertain him. As sketchy as I am on the details, I do think I wrote it all in one sitting. And, man, do I wish now that I had finished it, because it makes me laugh. At least I entertained my own future self.
On the off chance it will entertain anyone else, here it is, in all its glory. I didn't title it back then, but let's call it "The Adventures of Apple Butt." For reasons that will soon be obvious.
Monroe Applebottom had had enough. Every day for two weeks his new boss at the Chicken Shack had called him Apple Butt. "Apple Butt, clean out the fryer!" he yelled.
"Apple Butt, empty the mouse trap!"
"Apple Butt, scrub the restroom!"
All of Monroe's co-workers had started calling him Apple Butt, too. If it was okay for the boss, it must be okay for them. So they stopped calling him Monroe, and started referring to him only as Apple Butt.
As Monroe rinsed off plates and glasses to put into the dishwasher, another kitchen worker named Edgar came up and said, "Hey, Apple Butt, boss man wants you." Monroe glared at Edgar as he dried his hands on his apron. He could feel the sweat trickling down his forehead. The last thing he wanted to do was go talk to his boss, who on top of calling him names also liked to give him all the chores no one else would do.
Monroe walked out of the kitchen and down the hall toward Burt's office. Two waitresses, who were leaning against the wall filing their nails, stopped talking and started giggling when they saw him. "I should just keep on walking," thought Monroe. "I should just go straight outside and not stop until I get to the bus stop." That was another thing his co-workers made fun of. Monroe always took the bus to work. His mom used to drop him off, but they laughed even harder about that, so he took the bus instead.
Burt was sitting in his office with his feet up on his desk, sipping on a bottle of Coca-Cola. "Ah, Apple Butt," he said. "I got a job for you."
"I'm not caught up on the dishes yet," Monroe said.
"Dishes can wait. I got something more important." Burt jerked his thumb toward the chair in the corner, upon which sat a large, white box. "I need you to put that on and go pass out coupons."
Monroe lifted the lid on the box. Inside was a fluffy, yellow suit, with a huge chicken head. "Very funny," he said. "Now, if you're done joking, I'll go back and finish the dishes."
"Oh, I'm not joking." Burt cracked a wicked smile. "We need to drum up business, and we all have a role to play. Your role is Mr. Clucks."
"No thanks." Monroe turned to leave Burt's office. "I think Edgar is your man."
"Oh, I think not," retorted his boss. "Suit up, or you're fired."
Monroe hated his job. Being fired didn't sound so bad in some ways. But he really needed money so he could afford to go to Batavia for the comic convention. When he wasn't toiling away at the Chicken Shack, Monroe spent all his time reading and drawing comics. His favorites were superheroes, who always dealt out justice to bullies like Burt. In fact, Monroe had written a new comic just last night about a hero called Megazon who used electromagnetic power to stick Burt to the side of the town water tower. He thought of the terrified expression on water-tower Burt's face as his boss watched him put on the chicken suit.
"Perfect," Burt cackled when Monroe pulled the chicken head on. "You're a real chicken, Apple Butt. Now take these coupons and pass them out to people on the street. And don't just dump them all in the trash. Because I'll be watching."
Monroe stuck his tongue out at Burt, but his boss couldn't see through the beak of the chicken head. He took the stack of coupons in his yellow glove and walked outside. Burt followed, filming everything on his cellphone. "Hey guys," he laughed. "Check out our new mascot, Mr. Clucks. Or as you all know him, Apple Butt."
Monroe wanted to karate kick the phone right out of Burt's hand, just like one of his heroes, Chop Sooey, a pig with a black belt. But he couldn't lift his leg high enough to kick, so he pretended he didn't hear him. He handed a coupon to a woman on a Hoveround.
"What the heck is this?" she demanded. "I ain't gonna eat at Chicken Shack. My sister got E. coli there." She crumpled up the coupon and threw it back at Monroe so hard it bounced off his big plastic googly chicken eye and landed in the gutter. For a lady on a Hoveround, she had a good arm.
He decided to try the bus stop next. A lot of people on the bus smelled like fried chicken, so maybe they would like the coupons better. Without saying anything, he handed coupons to six people standing in the bus shelter. Five of them dropped to the ground. The sixth person used it to blow his nose on.
"Dang it, Apple Butt, they aren't using them," Burt yelled. Monroe had actually forgotten his boss was following him. "Give out some more, and make sure they go to actual customers this time."
Just then, Monroe heard a scream. He looked up the sidewalk and saw the old lady on the Hoveround swinging her cane at a man dressed all in black with a black balaclava over his head. "Give me back my purse, you scumbag!" she yelled.
The robber, for he was indeed a thief, ripped the cane out of her hands and began running up the sidewalk, straight toward Burt and Monroe. Burt held his cellphone up to film the getaway, but as the thief ran past, he snatched it right out of Burt's hands.
"Hey, that's mine!" Burt shouted. "He stole my phone. Help, police!"
But there were no police to be seen, because it was free donut hour as the Les Donuts House on the other side of town. Monroe thought to himself, this is surely a job for Megazon or Chop Sooey, who were always foiling crimes like this. But Megazon was probably back on his home planet of Gorkawow, and Chop Sooey was probably at Les Donuts House, because he loved donuts, too. "If no one else will help, it's up to me," thought Monroe.
