Transcript / “Wampum Physics,” Episode 4, written by Vicki Solá.
All content © 2021 Perswayssick Radio: Unearthly Comedy.
Music/Intro: Hi there, I’m author and radio host Vicki Sola, welcoming you to Perswayssick Radio: Unearthly Comedy.
I invite you to escape with me into the bizarre dimension of Perswayssick County, where wackiness rules!
The laughs begin when I morph into my alter ego, radio DJ Nicki Rodriguez and clash with the zany, alien canine-humanoid Gneeecey!
And now, I turn it over to my other self, Nicki….
SFX: [Magic Spell]
Hey there, Nicki Rodriguez here! My alter ego Vicki and I would like to thank Sam Leviatin for co-producing today’s episode, “Wampum Physics.” Sam seriously doubts that Gneeecey and his pal Sooperflea will ever be successful or even competent musicians, and he urges them not to quit their day jobs. Now, Vicki and I also want to thank—SFX: [Doorbell Ring]
N: Yes, who is it?
IS: It’s me, Grrrandma!
N: Oh, our therapist and owner of Inagbore Scriblig’s Veggie Meatball Express, who prefers that we call her Grandma. Come on in, Grandma!
[Door Open]
IS: Vell, Nicki, hello, hello, how doodle you do?
N: Good, thanks, Grandma, and you?
IS: I’m doing wery vell, tanks. I vas just passing tru dee neighborhood and tought I’d pop in to help you tank Marysol Cerdeira Rodriguez, Sal Sola, Sandi Sola, Marcellina Ramirez, and Rick “El Molestoso” Rivera for being generous supporting members tru BuyMeACoffee.com! Vee appreciate your helping to keep us afloat, more dan vords can say!
N: Yes, Grandma! Vicki and I also express deep gratitude to Marysol Cerdeira Rodriguez, Sal Sola, Sandi Sola, Marcellina Ramirez, and Rick “El Molestoso” Rivera for their generous support!
IS: Vell, Nicki, I’ll see you later, ven you brrring Gneeecey to dee terapy session!
N: Yes, Grandma, I’ll be sure to bring Gneeecey!
G: Hey ya lousy Ig—
N: My name’s Nicki, not Ig—and I’m not lousy!
G: Okay, ya lousy Ig, an’ Graaaandma there, that’s stinkin’ Diroctor Gneeecey! How many times do I gotta tell youse two that I’m a lousy doctor an’ county director! C’mon, Graaandma, let’s go!
IS: Yah, yah, alrightsky, Diroctor Gneeecey. Vhatewer…see you later, Nicki!
N: Later, Grandma.
SFX: [Door Slam]
Okay…well, I’ve remembered a whole lot more from my time trapped in the bizarre dimension of Perswayssick County. Its leader is the walking, talking Jack Russell dog-lookalike, canine-humanoid Gneeecey, the guy you just heard, scolding Grandma. Stranded with just the clothes on my back, I had no choice but to stay in his mansion and work at his GAS Broadcast Network until my dimension burn healed and I could attempt a perilous return back to Earth and my old life. Just recalled this one particular night….
SFX: [Magic Spell]
“Let’s take it from the stinkin’ top, Flea,” violinist Gneeecey ordered his pal, pianist Sooperflea. “Your playin’ stinks!”
“Maybe,” shouted Sooperflea, “my playin’ would stink less if ya didn’t keep yer dirty socks in the piano!”
“Jus’ shaadup an’ play, Flea! You’re massacrin’ Shriekensobb’s ‘Plight of the Goonafish’!’ He’d be strollin’ in his grave! Now, c’mon! An’ a one an’ a two an’ a three an’ a four! An’ a five an’ a half!”
SFX: [Piano and violin]
Guess my life wasn’t already wretched enough. I was working thirteen-hour days, eight days a week, then trying to catch a few sorry winks of shut-eye on a lumpy, spring-popping mutant mattress two-thirds the size of my worn-out body.
Now, I had to suffer through Gneeecey’s late-night rehearsals for his upcoming concert honoring the Grand Oogitty-Boogitty. [SFX: piano, violin] I’d seen their treasured religious figure’s official photo. Their Grand Oogitty-Boogitty appeared to be nothing more than a humongous, toga-clad potato, clutching a giant sprig of parsley. The sacred spud was due to arrive, as he did annually, on the tail of a comet, any day, as Gneeecey declared daily, with a mixture of reverence, dread, and certainty.
“C’mon, Flea, our Grand Oogitty-Boogitty will be arrivin’ any day now, any day!” shrieked Gneeecey, almost reading my mind.
SFX: piano, violin] I stuck fingers into both ears and squeezed my lids shut. Somehow, I’d managed to drift off as Gneeecey’s tooth-shattering electric violin howled across the hallway in The Grate Room. Howled as it was murdered by the out-of-tune, two-ton combination laundry hamper of an upright piano that tone-deaf Sooperflea tried to play. Red-caped, black-furred superhero Sooperflea, nicknamed “Flea” and “Fleaglossitty,” was Gneeecey’s childhood BFF from back on their Planet Eccchs. Flea called Gneeecey “Zig,” short for his nickname, “Bizzig.”
SFX: [Piano and violin, stopping abruptly]
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeks!” shrieked Gneeecey, jolting me out of my cacophony-induced coma.
“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa—” counter-shrieked Flea, in a nerdish voice that, except for being slightly lower, bore an eerie resemblance to Gneeecey’s.
“That stinkin’ treeee out there! I swear, Fleaglossitty, he’s stalkin’ me!”
“Jus’ keep playin’ your violin, Zig. Let’s take it from where the kazoos come in wit’ the resta the orchestra—”
“I caaaaan’t keep playin’ my voaline! Mister Tree out there, he’s watchin’ my every move—like a police! Looky! He’s walkin’ ’round the yard—starin’ at me right through the kitchen window!”
Flea leaped off the piano bench. “I don’t see anyone.”
At that moment, Gneeecey’s combination-locked refrigerator’s overly sensitive, motion-detecting alarm screeched. SFX:[Alarm beep] The one that always detected rogue shadows the moment I fell asleep.
Gneeecey jumped six feet into the air. “Hear that? Mister Tree’s in the backyard again!”
Flea flinched. “Probably jus’ your Redecoritis flarin’ up. Are ya takin’ your meds?”
Gneeecey pointed to my cracked door, which I could actually see through. So much for privacy. “The lousy Ig there proboobably forgot to remindicate me. But them pills don’t help anyways—how can they take away a whole stinkin’ tree? Listen—he’s laughin’ at me again! Laughin’ so hard he’s coughin’!”
“A coughin’ tree?”
“Don’cha hear peals of coughter comin’ from the backyard?”
“How d’ya know it’s the tree? In fact, how d’ya know the tree’s a tree?”
Gneeecey scratched his noggin. “Once my friend Mark, y’know, the cop wit’ the blond hair an’ big nose whose fraternically identical twin brothers got smaller noses an’ brown hair—”
“Zig, I wouldn’t trust any of those guys—I don’t think they’re your friends. I’ve tol’ ya before, they’re after somethin’—”
“They like me for who I really aaaaaam!”
Oh, this was good. Dog-tired as I was, I dragged myself up off my pathetic excuse for a mattress and traipsed over to the door to watch and listen.
Sighing, Flea flopped into an orange beanbag chair.
SFX: [Cell Phone Ring]
“Smello?” answered Gneeecey. “Who’s this, callin’ so stinkin’ late?”
SFX: [Scary Ambience]
“It ain’t late,” replied the gravelly voice at the other end. “It’s early! Early in da mornin’. Hah, hah, hah.”
“M-m-Mark,” spluttered Gneeecey. I recognized the voice, could hear it all the way from where I stood. It was Redheaded Broken-nose Mark, one of the evil, alien Markmen. They slathered mierk—the mucky, toxic substance coating the banks of the Perswayssick River—all over their invisible bodies to give themselves form, otherwise they’d just appear to be a bunch of floating eyeballs. They were all named Mark—except for their leader Bob, who wore argyle socks that lit up and flashed.
“We like your purdy music, Doc, hah, hah, hah! Good for, y’know, daaancin’! We can hear it real good! See ya real soon! Guh-bye! Hah, hah, hah.”
“Heh, heh, Guh-bye, Mark. Glad we’re not, y’know, disturbicatin’ ya!”
“Zig, like I said, if I were you, I wouldn’t trust any of those guys—they’re not really your friends. They creep me out—I told ya, they’re after somethin’—”
“They stinkin’ like me for who I really aaaaaam! Now, Fleaglossitty, before the phone rang, I was trynna tell ya—once Mark was a tree that wasn’t a tree!”
“Huh?” Flea’s glazed eyeballs spun in opposite directions.
“He went, y’know, incognizant—as a tree—to one of them costume parties. So, he was a tree that wasn’t a tree.”
“Zig, my question was rheumatical. How d’ya know the tree’s really a tree?”
Gneeecey smacked Flea’s head with his frayed moose hair bow.
“Ow!” exclaimed Flea. “An’ if the tree coughs, an’ no one’s around to hear it cough, is it really coughin’?”
Gneeecey stared at Flea, puzzled.
“I mean,” continued the superhero, “what if it’s like they say, y’know, that matter can be either energy waves or particles, dependin’ on whether or not it’s bein’ observed?”
Gneeecey grinned. “Wampum physics?”
“Now y’got it.”
Gneeecey’s smile disappeared. “Well, if particles can wave at’cha, then so can trees!”
“No, Zig—I meant, maybe it ain’t really a tree when no one’s lookin’ at it. So don’t look at it. Then it can’t hurt’cha.”
“What I wanna know is, if the tree ain’t lookin’ at me ’cause I ain’t lookin’ at him, does that stinkin’ mean I don’t exist?”
“Well, Zig, when I’m not lookin’ at someone or thinkin’ of ’em, they don’t exist for me at that moment.”
“Fleaglossitty, this here has real implooplications. What I asked before, ’bout me not existin’ if the tree ain’t lookin’, was jus’ hypoopotheatrical. He’s always lookin’ at me, so I don’t gotta worry for myself—”
“Huh?”
“But if yooou say the lousy tree don’t exist, that means he can’t see you neitherwise, so yooou don’t exist. Aha! I jus’ proved yooou don’t stinkin’ exist!”
Down the hall—in his prized Hall of Clox—a couple of Gneeecey’s latest acquisitions—a replica of Rodin’s Balzac, complete with an analog clock implanted in his belly, and a life-sized chrome motorcycle that sported a similar timepiece in its stomach— rumbled SFX: [Stomach Rumble] and vroomed SFX: [Motorcycle vroom].
Flea glanced at his watch. “Four-thirty a.m.—gotta go. Some of us gotta get up for work in the mornin’.”
Gneeecey smashed the piano lid down. SFX: [Piano Bang] Startled, his exotic orange-and-green-checkered monotony birds squawked. SFX: [“Bore, bore, bore, bore, monotony! Monotony!”]
Gneeecey ripped off a red high-top sneaker and hurled it at their gilt cage. SFX: [Bang] The birds were stunned into silence.
Head shaking in disapproval, Flea whisked his music back into his briefcase.
Gneeecey crouched down and yanked a filthy piece of loose rubber off his other sneaker. “Y’know Fleaglossitty, if ya go home, ya won’t be here to play that lousy piano. An’ if ya don’t play that lousy piano, I don’t gotta look at’cha. An’ then I won’t gotta thinka ya neitherwise.”
“So?”
“Outta sight, outta mind!” declared Gneeecey.
Flea shuffled out of the room. “Bad night, Zig,” he said, using Planet Eccchs’s and Perswayssick County’s customary salutation.
“Bad night, Fleaglossitty. Y’know, I usually only thinka myself. Now, I’ll thinka myself even more. Then I’ll exist forever!”
The door slammed shut. SFX: [Door Slam]
“Heh, heh, I sure fixed that Sooperflea,” laughed Gneeecey, snatching his stuffed bear Yammicles off the couch. “I’m a PUNI graduate—ya really can’t argue wit’ meee or anyone wit’ a degree from Perswayssick University of New Ideas. We can argue both sides ’cause everythin’ in life’s fifty-fifty! PUN! PUNI! Rah! Rah! C’mon, Yammy, let’s go to bed.”
SFX: [Scary Ambience]
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeks!” screamed Flea from outside.
Gneeecey froze. “What the stinkin’—”
“Tree is movin’,” shouted Flea, pounding his fists on the side door and ringing the doorbell. SFX: [Door Bell Ring] [DoorPound] “Dancin’—wit’ a buncha floatin’ eyeballs!”
Gneeecey’s teddy slipped through his trembling hands.
“Lemme in, Zig! Lemme back in!” SFX: [Door Bell Ring] [DoorPound]
“Not on your stinkin’ life!” screamed Gneeecey as he tore into the kitchen and dove under the table.
SFX: [Door Bell Ring] [DoorPound]
I bolted out of my room to go save Flea. Didn’t have to go far. SFX: [Door Open] He was right at the door, eyeballs bulging and mouth hanging open. I managed to carry him over to the couch.
SFX: [Magic Spell]
The following morning found me outside on Gneeecey’s driveway, reeling with exhaustion.…
“C’mere, Ig, got a stinkin’ surprise for ya!” shouted the canine-humanoid, waving his four-fingered furry white hands.
My jaw dropped so far down, it darned near fractured my collarbone when I beheld the gargantuan orange-and-purple hunk of dented-up metal cringing on Gneeecey’s driveway.
I hadn’t seen fins like those since the day my grandfather dumped his old ‘57 Plymouth. Now, years later, this psychedelic dinosaur of a vehicle sat in front of me, sagging mournfully on four bald, colorfully patched tires of various heights and widths.
The old wreck’s cross-eyed headlights gazed heavenward, and its toothless grille grimaced as if gasping for oxygen.
“Ya like it, Ig?”
“Isn’t that Altitude’s old delivery car?” I asked. “You know, the one he uses for your Gneeezle’s Restaurant?” I’d never seen it close up. Gneeecey’s young assistant Altitude was a mouse-humanoid, one with a real attitude problem, and a, well, poor driving record.
“Not no more, it ain’t Altitude’s. It’s yours, now,” replied Gneeecey, with that usual ain’t-I-wonderful look plastered all over his unwashed kisser. “Ya can even start drivin’ it today. Take Fleaglossitty home—if he ever wakes up.”
“I—I don’t understand,” I mumbled, still freaked out, remembering how a catatonic Flea had fallen through the door, right into my arms, only hours earlier. The superhero was still half-asleep, mumbling something about a tree dancing with a bunch of floating, disembodied eyeballs.
“Look, Ig, Altitude ain’t gonna be usin’ this here very nice automobile no more. He’ll be ridin’ his bike for the forstinkable future. Traffic court jus’ regurgitated his license.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off the old jalopy.
“So, I thought, why should this ol’ bomb—I mean, this lovely 1975 Splodge—jus’ be sittin’ here, uglifyin’ my beaudiful new driveway—”
“What?”
“Uh, I mean, why should it, y‘know, jus’ be sittin’ here feelin’ unwanted when I could be makin’ a profit—I mean, jus’ be sittin’ here when a transpooportationally challenged Ig like yooou could drive it? Ya can’t afford nuthin’ else anyways.”
Three words somersaulted from my nearly paralyzed vocal cords. “Does it run?”
“Haaaah? Whaaaa’? Speak up, Iggleheimer, speak up! I know you’re overchrome wit’ emotion.”
Chrome is certainly more than the ol’ Splodge had. Clearing my throat, I tried again. The words tripped hoarsely from my lips. [clear throat] “Does it run?”
“Only when ya drive it.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, I meant—”
“Well. it don’t jus’ take off wit’out’cha. Usually it waits for ya to start it up. Wit’ jumper cables. Or that concraption I invented, y’know, out in the garage there.”
I wondered if I’d ever see my red Mustang again, or even my own planet, for that matter.
“Look, wit’ any car, there’s never no quarantine that nuthin’ll never go wrong wit’ it, no matter how ol’ or new it is, y’know, Ig, y’know?”
I knew. I knew.
Gneeecey strutted over to the rusty old rattletrap. “Don’t brush a gift horse’s teeth—I’m givin’ it to ya.”
“Giving it to me?”
“For a price, of course—everythin’ comes at a price.”
“Well then you’re not giving it to me, are you?”
“I aaam, Ig—I’ll jus’ take a little more outta your paycheck each week.”
“I only get paid—if you can call it that—every two weeks.”
“Well, if I take somethin’ out every week, then you’ll pay it off twice as fast.”
“Oh, geez—”
“It’s this, or walk, Ig.”
So, it was this, or walk. Mass transit in Perswayssick City was so unreliable. If you missed a bus or train, you might have to wait a couple hours for another one. And out in suburban areas like St. Bogelthorpe Parke, where Gneeecey’s mansion was, public transportation was practically nonexistent.
I just stared. My tear ducts had long gone dry.
“Altitude won’t be drivin’ this thing for six whole months. This ol’ heap—I mean, very nice automobile—will proboobably be in pieces by then.”
He kicked one of its tires, and a loose piece of fender crashed to the pavement as if to punctuate his sentence.
SFX: [Bang]
SFX: {Fail Horn]
I did end up driving the ol’ Splodge that day—to a much-needed therapy session. Flea really felt that he needed to talk to someone, so he accompanied us to the office of Ingabore Scriblig, otherwise known as Grandma.
N: Hi Grandma, thanks so much for seeing the three of us on such short notice.
IS: Vell, then, bad afternoon to dee tree of you!
F: Please, Mrs. Scriblig, don’t say tree. Oh no, I jus’ said it!
IS: Sooperflea, please call me Grrrandma! And I’m sooo sorry, I said tree, not tree!
F: There, ya did it again, Grandma!
IS: Did vhat?
N: Flea, where are you going?
F: Under the couch, where Zig’s hidin’!
G: How stinkin’ stooopid of ya, Flea!
IS: Vhat is stupid, Diroctor Gneeecey? And vhy do you call your best frrriend Sooperflea stupid?
G: That stinkin’ evil Mister Tree musta followed us here! An’ now, Flea here jus’ gave away my hidin’ spot! I am sooo outta here! An’ Graaandma, I’ll save ya the trouble of askin’ me what lousy lesson I learned from all this. Youse can lead a horse to water, but youse can’t make it take a shower!
F: I’m outta here too!
SFX: [Door Slam]
N: Grandma, I’m so sorry! I’d better go after those two before they get into real trouble! I’ll call you later!
IS: Alrightsky, den!
SFX: [Fail horn]
I sprinted two city blocks down Murgatroyd Avenue before I finally caught up with the two spooked canine-humanoids. Twisted my left ankle in the process. Drove Flea home to his studio apartment on Veggie Burger Avenue, and Gneeecey and myself back to his mansion up on Bimbus Crack Drive, in Saint Bogelthorpe Parke. My wonderful gift, my lovely eyesore of a new ride, the ol’ Splodge, lurched and backfired the entire time.
Speaking of time, it’s time for me to catch my breath, ice my throbbing ankle, and turn it back over to my alter ego, Vicki.
SFX: [Magic Spell]
Music/Outro: Thanks, Nicki! Vicki here again. Thanks so much for tuning in to “Perswayssick Radio: Unearthly Comedy.” We hope you enjoyed traveling to this loopy dimension with us and that you’ll come along again! Our new episodes drop every Tuesday morning! Please make sure to subscribe and tell a friend! And keep on laughing!
Frank: It’s a Gneeecey thing! [SFX: Door Slam] ###
All content © 2021 Perswayssick Radio: Unearthly Comedy.
Music/Intro: Hi there, I’m author and radio host Vicki Sola, welcoming you to Perswayssick Radio: Unearthly Comedy.
I invite you to escape with me into the bizarre dimension of Perswayssick County, where wackiness rules!
The laughs begin when I morph into my alter ego, radio DJ Nicki Rodriguez and clash with the zany, alien canine-humanoid Gneeecey!
And now, I turn it over to my other self, Nicki….
SFX: [Magic Spell]
Hey there, Nicki Rodriguez here! My alter ego Vicki and I would like to thank Sam Leviatin for co-producing today’s episode, “Wampum Physics.” Sam seriously doubts that Gneeecey and his pal Sooperflea will ever be successful or even competent musicians, and he urges them not to quit their day jobs. Now, Vicki and I also want to thank—SFX: [Doorbell Ring]
N: Yes, who is it?
IS: It’s me, Grrrandma!
N: Oh, our therapist and owner of Inagbore Scriblig’s Veggie Meatball Express, who prefers that we call her Grandma. Come on in, Grandma!
[Door Open]
IS: Vell, Nicki, hello, hello, how doodle you do?
N: Good, thanks, Grandma, and you?
IS: I’m doing wery vell, tanks. I vas just passing tru dee neighborhood and tought I’d pop in to help you tank Marysol Cerdeira Rodriguez, Sal Sola, Sandi Sola, Marcellina Ramirez, and Rick “El Molestoso” Rivera for being generous supporting members tru BuyMeACoffee.com! Vee appreciate your helping to keep us afloat, more dan vords can say!
N: Yes, Grandma! Vicki and I also express deep gratitude to Marysol Cerdeira Rodriguez, Sal Sola, Sandi Sola, Marcellina Ramirez, and Rick “El Molestoso” Rivera for their generous support!
IS: Vell, Nicki, I’ll see you later, ven you brrring Gneeecey to dee terapy session!
N: Yes, Grandma, I’ll be sure to bring Gneeecey!
G: Hey ya lousy Ig—
N: My name’s Nicki, not Ig—and I’m not lousy!
G: Okay, ya lousy Ig, an’ Graaaandma there, that’s stinkin’ Diroctor Gneeecey! How many times do I gotta tell youse two that I’m a lousy doctor an’ county director! C’mon, Graaandma, let’s go!
IS: Yah, yah, alrightsky, Diroctor Gneeecey. Vhatewer…see you later, Nicki!
N: Later, Grandma.
SFX: [Door Slam]
Okay…well, I’ve remembered a whole lot more from my time trapped in the bizarre dimension of Perswayssick County. Its leader is the walking, talking Jack Russell dog-lookalike, canine-humanoid Gneeecey, the guy you just heard, scolding Grandma. Stranded with just the clothes on my back, I had no choice but to stay in his mansion and work at his GAS Broadcast Network until my dimension burn healed and I could attempt a perilous return back to Earth and my old life. Just recalled this one particular night….
SFX: [Magic Spell]
“Let’s take it from the stinkin’ top, Flea,” violinist Gneeecey ordered his pal, pianist Sooperflea. “Your playin’ stinks!”
“Maybe,” shouted Sooperflea, “my playin’ would stink less if ya didn’t keep yer dirty socks in the piano!”
“Jus’ shaadup an’ play, Flea! You’re massacrin’ Shriekensobb’s ‘Plight of the Goonafish’!’ He’d be strollin’ in his grave! Now, c’mon! An’ a one an’ a two an’ a three an’ a four! An’ a five an’ a half!”
SFX: [Piano and violin]
Guess my life wasn’t already wretched enough. I was working thirteen-hour days, eight days a week, then trying to catch a few sorry winks of shut-eye on a lumpy, spring-popping mutant mattress two-thirds the size of my worn-out body.
Now, I had to suffer through Gneeecey’s late-night rehearsals for his upcoming concert honoring the Grand Oogitty-Boogitty. [SFX: piano, violin] I’d seen their treasured religious figure’s official photo. Their Grand Oogitty-Boogitty appeared to be nothing more than a humongous, toga-clad potato, clutching a giant sprig of parsley. The sacred spud was due to arrive, as he did annually, on the tail of a comet, any day, as Gneeecey declared daily, with a mixture of reverence, dread, and certainty.
“C’mon, Flea, our Grand Oogitty-Boogitty will be arrivin’ any day now, any day!” shrieked Gneeecey, almost reading my mind.
SFX: piano, violin] I stuck fingers into both ears and squeezed my lids shut. Somehow, I’d managed to drift off as Gneeecey’s tooth-shattering electric violin howled across the hallway in The Grate Room. Howled as it was murdered by the out-of-tune, two-ton combination laundry hamper of an upright piano that tone-deaf Sooperflea tried to play. Red-caped, black-furred superhero Sooperflea, nicknamed “Flea” and “Fleaglossitty,” was Gneeecey’s childhood BFF from back on their Planet Eccchs. Flea called Gneeecey “Zig,” short for his nickname, “Bizzig.”
SFX: [Piano and violin, stopping abruptly]
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeks!” shrieked Gneeecey, jolting me out of my cacophony-induced coma.
“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa—” counter-shrieked Flea, in a nerdish voice that, except for being slightly lower, bore an eerie resemblance to Gneeecey’s.
“That stinkin’ treeee out there! I swear, Fleaglossitty, he’s stalkin’ me!”
“Jus’ keep playin’ your violin, Zig. Let’s take it from where the kazoos come in wit’ the resta the orchestra—”
“I caaaaan’t keep playin’ my voaline! Mister Tree out there, he’s watchin’ my every move—like a police! Looky! He’s walkin’ ’round the yard—starin’ at me right through the kitchen window!”
Flea leaped off the piano bench. “I don’t see anyone.”
At that moment, Gneeecey’s combination-locked refrigerator’s overly sensitive, motion-detecting alarm screeched. SFX:[Alarm beep] The one that always detected rogue shadows the moment I fell asleep.
Gneeecey jumped six feet into the air. “Hear that? Mister Tree’s in the backyard again!”
Flea flinched. “Probably jus’ your Redecoritis flarin’ up. Are ya takin’ your meds?”
Gneeecey pointed to my cracked door, which I could actually see through. So much for privacy. “The lousy Ig there proboobably forgot to remindicate me. But them pills don’t help anyways—how can they take away a whole stinkin’ tree? Listen—he’s laughin’ at me again! Laughin’ so hard he’s coughin’!”
“A coughin’ tree?”
“Don’cha hear peals of coughter comin’ from the backyard?”
“How d’ya know it’s the tree? In fact, how d’ya know the tree’s a tree?”
Gneeecey scratched his noggin. “Once my friend Mark, y’know, the cop wit’ the blond hair an’ big nose whose fraternically identical twin brothers got smaller noses an’ brown hair—”
“Zig, I wouldn’t trust any of those guys—I don’t think they’re your friends. I’ve tol’ ya before, they’re after somethin’—”
“They like me for who I really aaaaaam!”
Oh, this was good. Dog-tired as I was, I dragged myself up off my pathetic excuse for a mattress and traipsed over to the door to watch and listen.
Sighing, Flea flopped into an orange beanbag chair.
SFX: [Cell Phone Ring]
“Smello?” answered Gneeecey. “Who’s this, callin’ so stinkin’ late?”
SFX: [Scary Ambience]
“It ain’t late,” replied the gravelly voice at the other end. “It’s early! Early in da mornin’. Hah, hah, hah.”
“M-m-Mark,” spluttered Gneeecey. I recognized the voice, could hear it all the way from where I stood. It was Redheaded Broken-nose Mark, one of the evil, alien Markmen. They slathered mierk—the mucky, toxic substance coating the banks of the Perswayssick River—all over their invisible bodies to give themselves form, otherwise they’d just appear to be a bunch of floating eyeballs. They were all named Mark—except for their leader Bob, who wore argyle socks that lit up and flashed.
“We like your purdy music, Doc, hah, hah, hah! Good for, y’know, daaancin’! We can hear it real good! See ya real soon! Guh-bye! Hah, hah, hah.”
“Heh, heh, Guh-bye, Mark. Glad we’re not, y’know, disturbicatin’ ya!”
“Zig, like I said, if I were you, I wouldn’t trust any of those guys—they’re not really your friends. They creep me out—I told ya, they’re after somethin’—”
“They stinkin’ like me for who I really aaaaaam! Now, Fleaglossitty, before the phone rang, I was trynna tell ya—once Mark was a tree that wasn’t a tree!”
“Huh?” Flea’s glazed eyeballs spun in opposite directions.
“He went, y’know, incognizant—as a tree—to one of them costume parties. So, he was a tree that wasn’t a tree.”
“Zig, my question was rheumatical. How d’ya know the tree’s really a tree?”
Gneeecey smacked Flea’s head with his frayed moose hair bow.
“Ow!” exclaimed Flea. “An’ if the tree coughs, an’ no one’s around to hear it cough, is it really coughin’?”
Gneeecey stared at Flea, puzzled.
“I mean,” continued the superhero, “what if it’s like they say, y’know, that matter can be either energy waves or particles, dependin’ on whether or not it’s bein’ observed?”
Gneeecey grinned. “Wampum physics?”
“Now y’got it.”
Gneeecey’s smile disappeared. “Well, if particles can wave at’cha, then so can trees!”
“No, Zig—I meant, maybe it ain’t really a tree when no one’s lookin’ at it. So don’t look at it. Then it can’t hurt’cha.”
“What I wanna know is, if the tree ain’t lookin’ at me ’cause I ain’t lookin’ at him, does that stinkin’ mean I don’t exist?”
“Well, Zig, when I’m not lookin’ at someone or thinkin’ of ’em, they don’t exist for me at that moment.”
“Fleaglossitty, this here has real implooplications. What I asked before, ’bout me not existin’ if the tree ain’t lookin’, was jus’ hypoopotheatrical. He’s always lookin’ at me, so I don’t gotta worry for myself—”
“Huh?”
“But if yooou say the lousy tree don’t exist, that means he can’t see you neitherwise, so yooou don’t exist. Aha! I jus’ proved yooou don’t stinkin’ exist!”
Down the hall—in his prized Hall of Clox—a couple of Gneeecey’s latest acquisitions—a replica of Rodin’s Balzac, complete with an analog clock implanted in his belly, and a life-sized chrome motorcycle that sported a similar timepiece in its stomach— rumbled SFX: [Stomach Rumble] and vroomed SFX: [Motorcycle vroom].
Flea glanced at his watch. “Four-thirty a.m.—gotta go. Some of us gotta get up for work in the mornin’.”
Gneeecey smashed the piano lid down. SFX: [Piano Bang] Startled, his exotic orange-and-green-checkered monotony birds squawked. SFX: [“Bore, bore, bore, bore, monotony! Monotony!”]
Gneeecey ripped off a red high-top sneaker and hurled it at their gilt cage. SFX: [Bang] The birds were stunned into silence.
Head shaking in disapproval, Flea whisked his music back into his briefcase.
Gneeecey crouched down and yanked a filthy piece of loose rubber off his other sneaker. “Y’know Fleaglossitty, if ya go home, ya won’t be here to play that lousy piano. An’ if ya don’t play that lousy piano, I don’t gotta look at’cha. An’ then I won’t gotta thinka ya neitherwise.”
“So?”
“Outta sight, outta mind!” declared Gneeecey.
Flea shuffled out of the room. “Bad night, Zig,” he said, using Planet Eccchs’s and Perswayssick County’s customary salutation.
“Bad night, Fleaglossitty. Y’know, I usually only thinka myself. Now, I’ll thinka myself even more. Then I’ll exist forever!”
The door slammed shut. SFX: [Door Slam]
“Heh, heh, I sure fixed that Sooperflea,” laughed Gneeecey, snatching his stuffed bear Yammicles off the couch. “I’m a PUNI graduate—ya really can’t argue wit’ meee or anyone wit’ a degree from Perswayssick University of New Ideas. We can argue both sides ’cause everythin’ in life’s fifty-fifty! PUN! PUNI! Rah! Rah! C’mon, Yammy, let’s go to bed.”
SFX: [Scary Ambience]
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeks!” screamed Flea from outside.
Gneeecey froze. “What the stinkin’—”
“Tree is movin’,” shouted Flea, pounding his fists on the side door and ringing the doorbell. SFX: [Door Bell Ring] [DoorPound] “Dancin’—wit’ a buncha floatin’ eyeballs!”
Gneeecey’s teddy slipped through his trembling hands.
“Lemme in, Zig! Lemme back in!” SFX: [Door Bell Ring] [DoorPound]
“Not on your stinkin’ life!” screamed Gneeecey as he tore into the kitchen and dove under the table.
SFX: [Door Bell Ring] [DoorPound]
I bolted out of my room to go save Flea. Didn’t have to go far. SFX: [Door Open] He was right at the door, eyeballs bulging and mouth hanging open. I managed to carry him over to the couch.
SFX: [Magic Spell]
The following morning found me outside on Gneeecey’s driveway, reeling with exhaustion.…
“C’mere, Ig, got a stinkin’ surprise for ya!” shouted the canine-humanoid, waving his four-fingered furry white hands.
My jaw dropped so far down, it darned near fractured my collarbone when I beheld the gargantuan orange-and-purple hunk of dented-up metal cringing on Gneeecey’s driveway.
I hadn’t seen fins like those since the day my grandfather dumped his old ‘57 Plymouth. Now, years later, this psychedelic dinosaur of a vehicle sat in front of me, sagging mournfully on four bald, colorfully patched tires of various heights and widths.
The old wreck’s cross-eyed headlights gazed heavenward, and its toothless grille grimaced as if gasping for oxygen.
“Ya like it, Ig?”
“Isn’t that Altitude’s old delivery car?” I asked. “You know, the one he uses for your Gneeezle’s Restaurant?” I’d never seen it close up. Gneeecey’s young assistant Altitude was a mouse-humanoid, one with a real attitude problem, and a, well, poor driving record.
“Not no more, it ain’t Altitude’s. It’s yours, now,” replied Gneeecey, with that usual ain’t-I-wonderful look plastered all over his unwashed kisser. “Ya can even start drivin’ it today. Take Fleaglossitty home—if he ever wakes up.”
“I—I don’t understand,” I mumbled, still freaked out, remembering how a catatonic Flea had fallen through the door, right into my arms, only hours earlier. The superhero was still half-asleep, mumbling something about a tree dancing with a bunch of floating, disembodied eyeballs.
“Look, Ig, Altitude ain’t gonna be usin’ this here very nice automobile no more. He’ll be ridin’ his bike for the forstinkable future. Traffic court jus’ regurgitated his license.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off the old jalopy.
“So, I thought, why should this ol’ bomb—I mean, this lovely 1975 Splodge—jus’ be sittin’ here, uglifyin’ my beaudiful new driveway—”
“What?”
“Uh, I mean, why should it, y‘know, jus’ be sittin’ here feelin’ unwanted when I could be makin’ a profit—I mean, jus’ be sittin’ here when a transpooportationally challenged Ig like yooou could drive it? Ya can’t afford nuthin’ else anyways.”
Three words somersaulted from my nearly paralyzed vocal cords. “Does it run?”
“Haaaah? Whaaaa’? Speak up, Iggleheimer, speak up! I know you’re overchrome wit’ emotion.”
Chrome is certainly more than the ol’ Splodge had. Clearing my throat, I tried again. The words tripped hoarsely from my lips. [clear throat] “Does it run?”
“Only when ya drive it.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, I meant—”
“Well. it don’t jus’ take off wit’out’cha. Usually it waits for ya to start it up. Wit’ jumper cables. Or that concraption I invented, y’know, out in the garage there.”
I wondered if I’d ever see my red Mustang again, or even my own planet, for that matter.
“Look, wit’ any car, there’s never no quarantine that nuthin’ll never go wrong wit’ it, no matter how ol’ or new it is, y’know, Ig, y’know?”
I knew. I knew.
Gneeecey strutted over to the rusty old rattletrap. “Don’t brush a gift horse’s teeth—I’m givin’ it to ya.”
“Giving it to me?”
“For a price, of course—everythin’ comes at a price.”
“Well then you’re not giving it to me, are you?”
“I aaam, Ig—I’ll jus’ take a little more outta your paycheck each week.”
“I only get paid—if you can call it that—every two weeks.”
“Well, if I take somethin’ out every week, then you’ll pay it off twice as fast.”
“Oh, geez—”
“It’s this, or walk, Ig.”
So, it was this, or walk. Mass transit in Perswayssick City was so unreliable. If you missed a bus or train, you might have to wait a couple hours for another one. And out in suburban areas like St. Bogelthorpe Parke, where Gneeecey’s mansion was, public transportation was practically nonexistent.
I just stared. My tear ducts had long gone dry.
“Altitude won’t be drivin’ this thing for six whole months. This ol’ heap—I mean, very nice automobile—will proboobably be in pieces by then.”
He kicked one of its tires, and a loose piece of fender crashed to the pavement as if to punctuate his sentence.
SFX: [Bang]
SFX: {Fail Horn]
I did end up driving the ol’ Splodge that day—to a much-needed therapy session. Flea really felt that he needed to talk to someone, so he accompanied us to the office of Ingabore Scriblig, otherwise known as Grandma.
N: Hi Grandma, thanks so much for seeing the three of us on such short notice.
IS: Vell, then, bad afternoon to dee tree of you!
F: Please, Mrs. Scriblig, don’t say tree. Oh no, I jus’ said it!
IS: Sooperflea, please call me Grrrandma! And I’m sooo sorry, I said tree, not tree!
F: There, ya did it again, Grandma!
IS: Did vhat?
N: Flea, where are you going?
F: Under the couch, where Zig’s hidin’!
G: How stinkin’ stooopid of ya, Flea!
IS: Vhat is stupid, Diroctor Gneeecey? And vhy do you call your best frrriend Sooperflea stupid?
G: That stinkin’ evil Mister Tree musta followed us here! An’ now, Flea here jus’ gave away my hidin’ spot! I am sooo outta here! An’ Graaandma, I’ll save ya the trouble of askin’ me what lousy lesson I learned from all this. Youse can lead a horse to water, but youse can’t make it take a shower!
F: I’m outta here too!
SFX: [Door Slam]
N: Grandma, I’m so sorry! I’d better go after those two before they get into real trouble! I’ll call you later!
IS: Alrightsky, den!
SFX: [Fail horn]
I sprinted two city blocks down Murgatroyd Avenue before I finally caught up with the two spooked canine-humanoids. Twisted my left ankle in the process. Drove Flea home to his studio apartment on Veggie Burger Avenue, and Gneeecey and myself back to his mansion up on Bimbus Crack Drive, in Saint Bogelthorpe Parke. My wonderful gift, my lovely eyesore of a new ride, the ol’ Splodge, lurched and backfired the entire time.
Speaking of time, it’s time for me to catch my breath, ice my throbbing ankle, and turn it back over to my alter ego, Vicki.
SFX: [Magic Spell]
Music/Outro: Thanks, Nicki! Vicki here again. Thanks so much for tuning in to “Perswayssick Radio: Unearthly Comedy.” We hope you enjoyed traveling to this loopy dimension with us and that you’ll come along again! Our new episodes drop every Tuesday morning! Please make sure to subscribe and tell a friend! And keep on laughing!
Frank: It’s a Gneeecey thing! [SFX: Door Slam] ###
