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mirror man
Senior Member
since 2001-01-08
Posts 814


0 posted 2003-07-20 03:16 AM



Cool Universe
by
mirror man

Chapter 13



     For the next two days, Abnorman stayed home and worried about what he was going to do for his end-term project.  He decided he would start by watching TV and old movies.  
     Contrary to what a lot of dudes believed, TV could be, Abnorman thought, almost intellectually stimulating.  It often raised interesting questions, such as “Does she, or doesn’t she?” (he thought so, but he was never sure) and “If a little dab’ll dooya, then why not a great big gob?” (it looked like a great big gob to him, judging by how greasy the guy dude’s hair was on TV) and “Where does the yellow really go when you brush your teeth with Whatzitz toothpaste?”
     All these questions, as he saw it, were perfectly legitimate questions that deserved legitimate answers.  And he would often wonder about the best way to approach that certain scrumptious dudette to ask her if she did.  They even told him where to start: her hairdresser.  From there he could ask the girl herself how she liked to do it best.  And from there he could ask her why she did it.
     The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like a good idea.  But when he asked the hairdresser, it turned out that the hairdresser was more interested in Abnorman than the scrumptious girl.  And when he asked other dudes, it turned out that Cousin Id was already working on it.  So that was out.
     As for the hair dabs, tooth paste, mouth wash, and under arm deodorants, he wasn’t very interested in that.  The television dudes seemed to have all that stuff figured out already, and it seemed to him that all that gunk these various things removed went down the drain sooner or later anyway, which was why all rats had dandruff, yellow teeth, bad breath, and BO.  
     Other questions, such as “How did Amazon lady dudes get on the Moon?” and “If this is the Thin Dude, then why isn’t he thin?” eluded any answer.  If Amazon lady dudes were on the Moon, it seemed to him, they ought to be called Moon lady dudes, not Amazon lady dudes.  And if the Thin Dude was thin, then so were a whole lot of other dudes, in which case thin was normal, and then thin wasn’t thin any more.  Such mysteries were not only beyond speculation, but they were unresearchable.  No information existed on them in the public library, and no one knew anything about them.  It was very disappointing.
     Thus did Abnorman languish for two days.  Scholastic death seemed imminent and repetitively painful.  So when Mama Cool suggested that he go to Californaheim to visit his Cousin Schizotonic, it seemed like a good idea.
     “Gee, do you think he’ll mind?” Abnorman said.
     “Nah, he won’t mind,” said Daddyo.
     “Maybe I should ask first,” said Abnorman.  “I wouldn’t want to be a bother.”
     “A bother?” said Daddyo.
     “Yeah.  You know,” said Abnorman.  “Maybe he’s working, or he has something to do.”
     “Oh, I see,” said Daddyo.  “You don’t want to bother Cousin Schizotonic, but you’ll hang around here all day using electricity and eating food---”
     “Now now,” said Mama Cool, “he’s not a bother.”
     “---and wearing down the carpet,” said Daddyo.  “You know, every time you walk across the carpet you break the fibers.  Did you know that?”
     “No, I didn’t know,” said Abnorman.  He’d keep it in mind.
     “Oh, a little wear on the carpet---” said Mama Cool.
     “A little!” said Daddyo.  “Maybe it seems like a little now, but all you have to do is walk across the carpet in the same place ten thousand times and you got a hole.”
     “Well, then we’ll just replace the carpet,” said Mama Cool.  “Now about Cousin Schizotonic---”
     “Oh!  That’s easy for you to say,” said Daddyo.  “You don’t have to pay the bills, you don’t have to sweat all day in a hot office working with a bunch of ingrates, and you don’t have to replace the carpet.  You know how much that carpet cost?”  He looked at Abnorman.
     “No,” said Abnorman.
     “This carpet cost me fifty cents a square yard,” said Daddyo.  “That’s almost five dollars, just for your room.  That’s not counting the rest of the house.  There’s the dining room, the living room---”
     “Okay,” said Abnorman.  “I won’t walk on the carpet.”
     “---the master bedroom, the kitchen, the bath---”
     “The kitchen and bath don’t have carpet,” said Mama Cool.  “It’s linoleum.”
     “Linoleum wears too,” said Daddyo.  “And that’s another thing.  You’re using too much water.  Every time you  walk on the linoleum to get a drink or flush the toilet, that’s another gallon of water I gotta pay for.  You know how much water costs?”
     “No,” said Abnorman.
     “Almost a penny a gallon,” said Daddyo
     “Really,” said Mama Cool impatiently.
     “Yes, really,” said Daddyo.  “I figured it out.  Every time you flush the toilet, that’s five gallons down the drain.  That’s five cents.  And every time you get a drink of water, that’s a pint, and there’s eight pints in a gallon, and that’s another penny.  And you know what?  That goes down the drain too.  But it doesn’t go down all at once, it goes down in pints.  That means for every pint of water you drink, you flush the toilet at least once.  That’s eight flushes for every gallon you drink, and that’s forty gallons flushed for every gallon you drink, and that comes to forty-one gallons down the drain, and that costs forty-one cents!”
     “Okay,” said Abnorman.  “I won’t drink any water, and I won’t flush the toilet.”
     “Oh no,” said Mama Cool, “you should always flush the toilet.”
     “Then I won’t use the toilet,” said Abnorman.
     “That’s better,” said Mama Cool.
     “And then there’s the electricity,” said Daddyo.  “Electricity costs money too, you know.”
     “I never really thought about it,” said Abnorman.
     “Yeah, well you should,” said Daddyo.  “Every time you turn on a light or watch TV, it costs money.  Light bulbs cost money too, ten cents each.  And each light bulb uses thirty watts.”
     Actually, Abnorman had been noticing how dim the lighting was in their house lately.
     “A kilowatt of electricity costs almost half a cent,” said Daddyo.  “Thirty into a thousand is thirty-three and a third.  That means every time a light bulb is on for thirty-three and a third hours, it costs half a cent.”
     “Okay, I won’t use the lights,” said Abnorman.
     “And the TV,” said Daddyo.  “It uses almost two hundred watts.  Two hundred watts!  Two hundred into a thousand is only five. Five hours! and there goes half a cent.”
     “Okay,” said Abnorman.  “I won’t use the TV.”
     “Maybe if he just turned down the brightness,” said Mama Cool encouragingly.
     “No,” said Daddyo.  “Every time you turn down the brightness, you wear down the knob.  You know how much knobs cost?”
     “Mom,” said Abnorman.  “Can I go visit Cousin Schizotonic?”
     “Why yes,” said Mama Cool.  “That sounds like an excellent idea.”
     “Maybe he can help me with my end-term project,” said Abnorman.
     “Well, if he does,” said Daddyo, “I don’t want to hear any whining about how much it cost.  End-term projects aren’t cheap either.”
     “I guess I better get packing,” said Abnorman.
     “You’re all packed,” said Mama Cool.
     “I am?”
     “Yes,” said Mama Cool.  “We thought it was such a good idea, I knew you’d want to go, so I packed your bags for you.”
     She handed him his suitcase.
     “Oh...thanks.”  Abnorman didn’t know what to say.  But it did seem as if things were happening awfully fast.  He picked up his suitcase and said, “Well, then I guess I’m going.  How will I go?  By bus or airplane?”
     “Airplane!” Daddyo yelled.  “You know how much airplanes cost?”
     “Okay,” said Abnorman.  “Then I’ll take the bus.”
     “Bus!” Daddyo screamed.  “You know how much a bus costs?”
     “Okay, okay!” said Abnorman.  “Then I guess I’ll walk.  Sheez!”  Then, “How far is it?”
     “Two thousand miles,” said Mama Cool.
     “Two thousand miles!”
     “Ah, listen to you, you wimp,” said Daddyo.  “You make it sound like it’s the other side of the world.”
     “It is!” said Abnorman.
     “No, it’s not,” said Daddyo.  “It just so happens that Planet Cool is twenty-five thousand miles in circumference.  That means the other side of the world is twelve and a half thousand miles away.  That’s twelve and a half thousand miles, not two thousand.  Now which would you rather have?  Twelve and a half thousand miles, or a measly two thousand?”
     “Oh,” said Abnorman uncertainly.  “I never thought about it like that.”
     “No, you didn’t,” said Daddyo.  “And you know why?  Because you spend all your time watching TV, walking on the carpet, and drinking water.  When I was your age, we didn’t have those things.  No TV, no carpet, and if we wanted a drink of water, we went out back to the pump and pumped it ourselves.  And it didn’t cost nothing.”
     “Nothing?”
     “Nothing,” said Daddyo.  “Water was free.”
     Abnorman thought about this and said, “Well, what about the pump?”
     “What about it?” said Daddyo.
     “The pump had to cost something,” said Abnorman.  “And then there’s all that wear on the pump---”
     “I didn’t wear out that pump!” said Daddyo.  “Who told you that?  Have you been talking to Grampa Dude?”
     “No,” said Abnorman.  “I just thought---”
     “Well, for you information, we made the pump ourselves,” said Daddyo.
     “Really?”
     “Really,” said Daddyo.  “Times were rough.  But did we whine?  No.  We weren’t allowed.  We didn’t have time.  We had to get up every morning and feed the chickens and milk the cows.  And then we ate breakfast.  And we ate whatever we had.  And if all we had to eat was cow hooves and chicken heads, then that’s what we ate.”
     “You ate chicken heads?” said Abnorman.
     “Sure we did,” said Daddyo.  “And when we went to school, we walked.  We didn’t have a bus.  And if we had to walk ten miles to school, we walked ten miles.  And if we had to walk a hundred miles, we walked a hundred miles.  And if we had to walk a thousand miles---”
     “Okay, okay,” said Abnorman.  “I get the picture.”  He walked through the living room, dragging his suitcase behind him, and opened the front door.  “I guess if you can eat chicken heads, I can walk two thousand miles.”
     “Now you’re talking,” said Daddyo.
     There was a long silence.
     He looked out the door and looked back.  “Well, I guess I’ll be going.”
     “See ya,” said Daddyo.
     For some reason Abnorman felt terribly guilty.  He looked at Mama Cool.  “Good bye, mom,” he said.
     Mama Cool waved to Abnorman from across the room and said, “Have a nice walk.”
     Abnorman didn’t know what else to say.
     “Bye,” he said, and he stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind him.
     He stood there for a while and thought.  He never knew, until then, what a rotten childhood Daddyo must have had.  No TV, no carpet, pump water, cow hooves, chicken heads, and walking a thousand miles to school.  It must have been awful.  Nearly as awful as Abnorman felt at that moment.
     And so it was at exactly that moment that a great epiphany fell upon him which would change the course of his guilt-ridden life.  Maybe he couldn’t do anything about all the rotten things he had done before, but if walking two thousand miles instead of taking a bus would save Daddyo from ever having to eat another chicken head, then that’s what he would do.
     Later, he heard someone inside walk across the carpet, get a drink of water, flush the toilet, turn on the light, turn on the TV, and say, “I didn’t wear out that pump!”
     So Daddyo was guiltless also.
     Abnorman smiled.  He felt better already.


     copyright 1998, 2000

     Author’s note: this is a work of fiction.  All characters and events portrayed in this work are fictional, and any resemblance to real life hypocrites, bullies, and liars is merely coincidental.

[This message has been edited by mirror man (07-20-2003 03:23 AM).]

© Copyright 2003 mirror man - All Rights Reserved
mirror man
Senior Member
since 2001-01-08
Posts 814

1 posted 2003-08-05 01:06 AM


To anyone reading this:

Author's unpleasant note: this is the final and only version of this novel that I have released to the public.  However, this novel has been copied and used by others without my knowledge or consent.  So if you should happen to come across another copy of this novel, under this name or another, in any medium, on the web or not, it is not released with my knowledge and consent and so is pirate.  Or plagiarism.  Or both.

mirror man
Senior Member
since 2001-01-08
Posts 814

2 posted 2003-08-09 08:34 AM


Special note to teachers, educators:

This novel, this version, may be copied and distributed in any medium as needed for classroom study.

-- mirror man


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