SG: Sporkman #7 - A New Habit

Greg Fishbone greg at gfishbone.com
Sun Nov 25 22:00:58 PST 2007


     "Hey, pretty young thing, why so glum?" asked Michael Jackson, as
he claimed the seat next to Britney Spears at the airship's roulette
table.

     "Michael, do you think I'm a bad parent?" Britney asked.

     "Of course not! Why would you even say such a thing?"

     "Well, let's see... I routinely abandon my young children to go
partying, feed them nothing but junk food, and use them as human
airbags when I drive."

     "Hmm," Michael considered. "Have you ever given your children
embarrassing public nicknames like Blanket, Comforter, or Washcloth?"

     "No..."

     "Have you ever dangled a child from a hotel balcony over a pack
of rabid paparazzi?"

     "No..."

     "Have you ever been accused of inappropriate bedtime activities
with children, either your own or those you invite to your private
amusement park specifically for that purpose?"

     "No..."

     "Then I'd say that, relatively speaking, you are a wonderful parent."

     "You're right," said Britney, filled with newfound confidence. "I
am a wonderful parent, and I should totally trust my parenting
instincts." She removed a 12-month-old infant from the basket at her
feet and placed it on the roulette table. "Put this baby on 19-Red and
let it ride!" she announced.

     Paris Hilton stumbled drunkenly over and wrapped her arms around
Michael's neck to keep her balance. When she spoke, her alcohol breath
seemed at least as flammable as a butane torch. "Hey, does anyone here
wanna join the Paris Hilton Mile-High Club?"

     Britney pulled a card from her pocketbook, with "Paris Hilton
Mile-High Club Member" printed on it in swirling pink letters.
"Already got one," she said.

     "Me too," said Michael, showing his own card.

     Paris examined his face. "I don't remember--"

     "It was two noses ago," Michael told her.

     "Oh, right." She looked around and struggled to focus her eyes.
"Maybe that Seacrest guy..."

     "19-Red! Winner!" the roulette attendant announced. He used a
large stick to push thirty-five squalling infants toward Britney
Spears.

     "Aw, crap," said Britney. "I was playing to lose!"


*****************************************
**  The Sporkarific Sporkman
**  Episode #7: A New Habit
**  By Greg R. Fishbone
**
** Lemurs on a Dirigible #2 of 6
*****************************************


     Samuel L. Jackson sat at a barstool, ignoring the whiskey sour at
his right elbow as he studied the lines for his script of the "Snakes
on a Plane" one-man show. Jeanette dropped herself onto the barstool
next to him and said, "So, what was eet like to work with Yoda?"

     "Jeanette!" exclaimed Mickey, face red with embarrassment. "Can't
you see that the guy is working?"

     "Nah, it's all right." Samuel flashed Jeanette a smile. "I always
have time for a Double-Plus-Plus-Diamond fan. Yoda was one tough
motherfarker--all business during the shoot, but a motherfarkin'
wildman after we kicked off work. When we were filming in Tunisia, the
little dude was all into the motherfarkin' spam bars."

     "Spam bars?" asked Mickey.

     Samuel raised an eyebrow. "You ain't never heard of spam bars?"

     "No," said Jeanette. "Please, tell us about zee spam bars."

     "Okay, watcha wanna know?"

     "Spam is legal in Tunisia?" asked Mickey. "Like, right now?"

     "Yeah, it's legal, but it ain't 100% legal," Samuel told him. "I
mean, you can't just walk into a motherfarkin' restaurant, open a can,
and start munching away. They want you to use it in your home or
certain designated places."

     "And those are spam bars?"

     "Yeah, it breaks down like this, okay? It's legal to buy it, it's
legal to own it, and if you're the proprietor of a spam bar, it's
legal to sell it. It's legal to carry it, but that doesn't matter,
because--get a load of this--if you get stopped by a cop in Tunisia,
it's illegal for them to search you. I mean, that's the right the cops
in Tunisia don't have!"

     "Zhat is hard to believe," Jeanette scoffed. "Even in Paris, zee
police have zee spam-sniffing dogs."

     Samuel rolled his eyes. "Don't get me started about all the funny
things y'all do in Europe."

     "What do you mean, funny?" asked Jeannette, visibly offended.

     "It's the little differences," said Samuel "I mean, you got the
same motherfarkin' stuff over there that we got in America, but it's
just a little different."

     "Example?" Mickey wanted to know.

     "All right, well, you can walk into a movie theater in Amsterdam
and buy a spray-can of cheeez. And I don't mean just motherfarkin'
fake cheese in a pressurized can. I'm talking about the
altiverse-bending substance that sprays out in a motherfarkin' blast
radius. And in Paris, they don't wear shoes."

     "What do you mean by zhat?" asked Jeanette.

     "You know, because you got the metric system. You don't even know
what feet are, so how could you wear shoes on them?"

     "Zhat is a good point." Jeanette looked down at her bare feet.

     "That's crazy," said Mickey. "Of course they know what feet are.
They're a part of human anatomy!"

     "Not when you're on the motherfarkin' metric system." Samuel
turned to Jeanette. "What do you French folk call those motherfarkin'
things at the ends of your feet?"

     Jeanette blinked. "We call zhem five-toed royales with cheese, of course."

     "With cheese?" asked Mickey.

     "But of course!" She stooped to pick at the lint between two of
her toes. "Eet builds up over time, especially if you're not wearing
shoes."

     Mickey turned green in the face. "So all that cheese in all the
shops in Paris... That was toe-cheese?"

     "Nah," said Samuel. "In the United States we'd call it
toe-cheese, but in France it's Le Toe Cheese."

     "I think I'm going to be sick," Mickey stated.

     "That's not the worst of it," said Samuel. "In Holland they drown
their fries in motherfarkin' mayonnaise--and I'm not even going to
tell you what they make that from!"

* * *

     At the poker table, Rudy Giuliani slammed his cards down in
disgust. "Those aren't the rules we agreed to. Hilary Clinton is
supposed to remove an article of clothing when I win a hand and Ted
Kennedy is supposed to put one back on!"

     "Strips of bacon should count as, ah, articles of clothing," Ted
insisted. "Why else would they, ah, call it strip poker?"

     "You're pissing me off, Ted," said Dick Cheney. "And if there's
one guy you don't want to piss off, it's Dick Cheney. Even when I'm in
a good mood, on vacation with long-time friends, I have a habit of
shooting them in the face."

     "What, ah, ever." Ted stood up and shook his amble bacon-covered
belly. "I've got to hit the, ah, can."

     Outside the lavatory door, Paris Hilton sidled up to him.
"Oooh... All that bacon grease is getting me hot! Wanna join the Paris
Hilton Mile-High Club, Senator?"

     The senator showed her a silver card. "I've already got a
frequent-flyer card--with franking privileges."

     "How 'bout an upgrade to platinum?"

     "You, ah, had me at 'bacon grease'," said Ted.

     The two of them slipped into the lavatory and, at that moment,
the music started up for Samuel L. Jackson's one-man show. If the live
band weren't so loud, other passengers might have heard the sound of a
U.S. Senator and hotel heiress screaming their heads off. They might
have heard a call that sounded something like, "Frink! Frink-p'tang!
Woo-woo!"

     They might even have heard the sound of tiny teeth crunching human bones.


WHAT ELSE MIGHT THE PASSENGERS HAVE HEARD?

COULD IT HAVE BEEN THE SOUND OF THE AUTHOR FLIPPING THROUGH A "PULP
FICTION" SCRIPT?

COULD IT HAVE BEEN THE SOUND OF QUENTIN TARANTINO FILING AN INJUNCTION?

Find out in the next Sporkarific court filing, only on SUPERGUY!


AUTHOR NOTES:

[1]  We have our first casualties of the storyline! I'm sorry to see
Ted Kennedy go, since I voted for the guy and feel that he's done a
decent job of representing my home state of Massachusetts, but what
can I say? The flow of the story required him to be gnawed to death by
lemurs in an airship lavatory, and I have to let the story flow the
way the story flows.

[2]  On the other hand, Paris Hilton had it coming.

[3]  You may have noticed that I've given this story arc a name and an
estimate of how many episodes it should take to wrap up. Or maybe the
word I'm looking for isn't ESTIMATE, but THREAT.  :D

-- 
Greg R. Fishbone - http://gfishbone.com
* Author: THE PENGUINS OF DOOM - http://septinanash.com
* President: Class of 2k7 - http://classof2k7.com
* ARA: New England SCBWI - http://nescbwi.org


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