Click.

Heads turn toward the open cafeteria door. Standing there is a woman in a gray business suit. She has short dark hair, narrow horn-rimmed glasses, and her arms clamped around a white, 5-gallon plastic bucket.

“Is this the Competitors Anonymous group?” she says.

“It is indeed,” Tooth says, standing. “Please, join us. Welcome.”

Clutching the bucket with white-knuckle force, the woman slowly approaches. Patch and I slide apart, and Tooth sets up a metal chair. Delicately, she takes a seat.

“What’s your name?” Tooth says.

“Annie,” she says, and looks around. “No other women?”

Tooth grins. The yellow fang in his mouth shines like corn. “You’re the first,” he says.

“Great, I’m a freak,” Annie says.

“Not any more than the rest of us,” Tooth says.

Patch smiles. “Welcome to the Island of Misfit Toys,” he says.

misfit_toys

For the broadway play version of Traveling,
insert musical number here.


Blackhawk nods. “I love that cartoon,” he says.

Annie notices the lot of us staring at the bucket.

“Nausea,” she says.

“Are you sick?” Tooth asks.

“Not the way you think,” she says.

“Well, how then,” Tooth says.

“My daughter-” Annie lowers her head into the bucket and gags. Patch and I lean back to avoid potential blowback. “-came in second for Illinois Earth Princess.”

Tooth wrinkles his brow.

“And that is…?”

“A beauty pageant,” she says.

“Ah,” Tooth says, “and you’re having a physical reaction to her losing?”

Annie adopts a steady, fixed glare. “She didn’t lose,” she says. “She came in second.”

“Well, to you, that’s the equivalent of losing,” Tooth says. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t need a bucket.”

Annie concedes with a shrug.

“Have you been to a doctor?” Tooth says.

“Yes,” Annie says. “There is nothing physically wrong with me.”

“Psychiatrist?” Tooth says.

“Yes,” she says. “Neither the exorbitant hourly rate nor the Xanax prescription helped suppress my urge to vomit.”

This gets a couple of chuckles.

“I’m ferocious at home and work. I’ve moped after losing Pictionary to my kids. I’ve ranted and raved after losing a three-legged race at a company picnic with my husband. Now that I’ve got my daughter in pageants, it’s graduated to nausea,” Annie says. “After the state competition, the feeling won’t go away. It’s been almost a week now.” She taps the bucket. “I’ve had to take this everywhere.”

An older man, probably in his sixties, produces a toilet plunger from behind his chair. I never noticed it before. At least now I know what to nickname him.

“I have to take this with me wherever I go,” Plunger says. “I haven’t been regular for almost six years. Only go about once a week. When I do release, I can overpower just about any crapper.” He looks around at us with a proud smile. “I once put a stress crack in one of those low-flow toilets.”

“Can that be considered a superpower?” Patch says. “Cracking porcelain with your bowel movements?”

super_irritable_bowel


“If it is, then call me Superman,” Plunger says with a sustained, gravelly laugh.

As soon as the residual chuckles subside, a man in a brown shirt and pants is standing dead center of the group.

I think I recognize him.

“Welcome to Yellowstone National Park,” he says.

“Oh,” I say, standing up. “I guess we’re here.”

Annie looks perplexed. “Is it always like this?” she says.

The group, including the Yellowstone guy, nods collectively.

Fascinated, Annie lowers her bucket to the floor.

“I guess I’m in the right place,” she says.

************

Links:
Travelling: Intro / Book Jacket, Chapter 1: Cribbagegate, Chapter 2: Two e-mails, Chapter 3: Pattern, Chapter 4: Shattered, Chapter 5: Hilarious Pee, Chapter 6: Suicide, Chapter 7/8: Coaching High school, Shark attacks and appetizers, Chapter 9: June, Chapter 10: 18 and oh no, Chapter 11: DNA, Chapter 12: Peanut Butter Sandwiches, Chapter 13: Tom Brady and the McGuffin, Chapter 14: Game 1, Chapter 15: Who the H is John Havlicek?, Chapters 16 - 17, Chapter 18: Game 2: Great White, Chapter 19: Pickle, Chapter 20: Marty McFly, Chapter 21 / 22: standard deviation, all the pretty flowers, Chapter 23: Game 3: Black Hills, Chapter 24: Twister, Chapter 25: Game 4, Chapter 26: Patriotic Agony, Chapter 27: Locusts, Chapter 28: skype, Chapter 29: Click, Chapter 30: Superman, Chapter 30: Ass Brunch

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17 Comments:
cool story bruh

Anonymous ROP said...
Can't think of anything negative oin this one. Just wanted to let you know that I'm still here :-)

Anonymous JJ said...
Clogging the crapper is a fun story only if you're not the one unclogging it.

Anonymous cdc said...
i don't understand what the fuck is going on in this story. you're all over the place man.

Blogger Will said...
I just love the thought of a man who goes about his day with a plunger for fear of his porcelain-shattering dumps.

Blogger Evil Ted said...
Thanks, ROP. I knew you would be...and I knew you'd be enjoying yourself.

cdc - not to get all emperor's new clothes on you or anything, but only smart people understand my stuff. And why is the Center for Disease Control reading my story?

Blogger Evil Ted said...
Actually, I take that back. You don't need to be smart. I've seen more sophisticated conceptual material on the Disney Channel. I should be able to express something more complex than "LeBron sucks and here's why" without blowing your gaskets. Seriously.

Blogger Evil Ted said...
Negative stuff, inquiries, or focused ire to: ted.evil@gmail.com

Blogger Evil Ted said...
Pleasant "I love you, man" stuff can go there too.

Anonymous Koggz said...
Can we show you love here still? Porcelain shattering dumps would be pretty sweet.

On a side note, anyone else experience errors while trying to get to the Basketbawful site? Like, it will try to load some random page extension like basketbawful.com/OXyn8 or something then say it doesn't exist and I'll have to manually delete that and reload it to get here, even when I didn't add that page extension myself. Been happening for awhile now... weird.

Blogger Evil Ted said...
Koggs - Love is welcome and preferred.

In fact, at the end of the narrative, I'm going to try to gauge how many people have enjoyed the piece, to serve as inspiration for going forward with other manifestations of the story (a play, a movie, etc.)...I have a long term plan / hope to to do something on film if this isn't picked up by someone with more means.

Regarding errors on the site - I have no insight there.

ET

Anonymous Charlie! said...
I don't know if it counts, but I'm really enjoying the narrative!

cheers from Brasil!

Blogger Evil Ted said...
It counts, Charlie. It counts.

ET

Anonymous Buzz said...
Thanks for laughs and greetings from italy!!

Blogger senormedia said...
Cohen brothers to direct. Only they could cope with the non-linearity and non-literality (yes, I made that up).

Anonymous Panki said...
Enjoying it from Poland (if you are counting countries).

If you made the bucket-lady up I applaud your imagination, but if you actualy met her - I envy your life.

Blogger Wormboy said...
Ha! I was thinking, "how do you tell a guy that you're writing at above the 8th grade level? I mean, you don't want to discourage comments, but...."

Nah, just tell him!

Still here, and I love you man.


PS Dude, you made your wife weep? Conan's greatest joy is to hear the lamentation of de wimmin. That's not the goal of beloved family men.