C. Mortgomery Byrnes
As a young man of about fourteen, before her condition deteriorated but after her divorce with the cold individual that “raised” him, Mortimer Kjedelig’s mother told him that a bachelor should know how to do the following two things: Cook and clean. As he was charged with vacuuming, washing the bathroom mirrors, and assisting with the seasonal silverware polish, he is very much associated with the latter.
For example, just two days ago he cleaned his bathroom utilizing the highest grade industrial cleaning products. As his mother used to tell him: “The headache means it’s clean”. He had quite a few headaches growing up. Needless to say, his doublewide home smelled like bleach and ammonia for the next two days.
As for the former? One need only look inside his refrigerator and freezer to know the answer. His freezer is typically stocked with Stouffer’s and Hungry Man dinners, his somewhat bare fridge usually has a package of cold cuts (usually turkey, but he might splurge for deli roast beef and salami), American Cheese, and RC Cola.
As far as actually cooking, the Grilled Cheese incident of 2010 where he nearly burned down a small hotel outside of Niagara Falls during “business meeting” with certain French-Canadian “associates” of his cousin, Mikey (Mortimer was there as muscle for “Johnny Clocks” – named for his hobby of collecting antique pocketwatches) – who was the only member of Mikey’s crew that could speak French. He turned away for just a moment and got caught up reflecting on his devastatingly poor audition for an Off Broadway performance of “Glengarry Glen Ross” and hs choice of using an Australian accent, the next thing he knows, his room was covered in smoke, the fire alarm went off, and the phone in his room began ringing off the hook…..
Needless to say, Mortimer was not asked to accompany “Johnny Clocks” to Niagara Falls ever again.
Then there is the scar on the side of left index finger from the time when he attempted to make his then wife a salad and ended up cutting himself whilst chopping a carrot. That dinner was ruined, as was the time he was told to cook his then wife duck for a special anniversary meal and that duck should be cooked at a medium rare. The grocery store he went to did not have duck, so Mortimer, in all of his wisdom (or lack thereof), decided on chicken.
After all, what is the difference between chicken and duck?
Apparently a lot.
Much to his shock, chicken should not be served medium rare and doing so can cause certain foodborne illnesses such as salmonella (which, up until that point, he assumed could only be contracted by consuming undercooked salmon).
And then there was the Noodle Incident of 2008. The less said about that the better.
Since the divorce and his “exile” to North Dakota, he has taken a grilling class and he can now grill steaks, hot dogs, and sausages. His next class will tackle the complexities of grilling burger patties and portobello mushrooms.
But for now, he has a strip steak marinating in a balsamic and garlic mixture and, much to the disappointment of Hank Hill, a fifty dollar charcoal grill he bought from Walmart in the yard.
Mortimer knows you can’t just eat steak for dinner. No, there needs to be vegetables…..so why not top the steak off with a salsa.
Mortimer stands in his cozy kitchen in front of the counter, a black apron with white letters that reads “Sweet Dreams are Made of” and an image of a hunk of cheese beneath it. The kitchen is only slightly larger than his bathroom. The cheap linoleum floor, the counters of a bland beige color, the ambiance reads “nightmarishly dated”.
But it is approaching dinnertime. And Mortimer wants to chef.
Using the Foodie Magick Food-O-Matic 3000 that arrived in the mail that morning, he put in some tomatoes, cilantro, garlic, lime juice, jalapenos, and a touch of mango. He plugged the food processor into the outlet nearest to the microwave. Mortimer felt a slight twinge of excitement beginning to stir in his stomach. The setting was set to “CHOP”. To no one he announces….
MORTIMER KJEDELIG: And awaaaaaaaaay we go!
With a slight flourish and an ounce of panache he waves his finger in the air and dramatically presses the “START” button to the food processor. It begins to hum and whir as the blades begin to work their magic and then….
….with a pop….
….and a crackle….
….and a snap…..
…..an ominous series of noises of an apocalyptic bowl of Rice Krispies begin emitting from the Foodie Magick Food-O-Matic. Sparks begin to fly, there is a burning stench in the air, and smoke begins to come out of the food processor. Excitement turns to panic and Mortimer lunges towards the cabinet under the sink where he keeps his fire extinguisher and just as he reaches the handle, his foot gives out….
…..slipping on a wee puddle of mango juices….
….his head cracks against the side of the counter. One would think that a mask could cushion such impacts. Alas, it does not and Mortimer hits the floor, his fingers twist in the narrow handle of the cabinet. The fire alarm begins sounding with thunderous high pitched beeps.
And then…..
…..maybe it is acknowledgment that when he cooks vegetables they end up mushier than baby food….
…..maybe it is the fact that after he finally won his first match in PRIME, he was ambushed by Tony Gamble, left feeling humiliated after being assaulted with nacho cheese and tortillas….
…..or maybe it is the sharp pain emanating from his orbital lobe after hitting the counter….
…..he snaps.
Mortimer gets up from the ground and glares at the food processor like it just beat him out of a starring role in a Martin Scorcese film.
MORTIMER KJEDELIG: You motherfucker piece of SHIT COCKSUCKER!!!!!
Mortimer yanks the the food processor out of the outlet wall, as the lingering smoke burns his eyes and lungs, he raises it over his head and realizes at that inopportune moment that it is overheating and his hands now feel like they are touching a furnace cranked up to four hundred fifty-one degrees fahrenheit, so, reflexively he lets go and it falls on his head.
The top of his head begins to throb, he waves his hands in and then blows on them to cool them off. His eye catches the cursed Foodie Magick on the floor…..
…..mocking him.
MORTIMER KJEDELING: Oooo! You! Faaaaaaaah! Sovubitfuuuuuh!!!!
Incoherent obscenities stream out of his mouth like an erupting volcano. Mortimer Kjedelig storms out of the kitchen and storms off from the linoleum to the shag carpeting, down the hall into his bedroom. He retrieves a baseball bat. Not just any baseball bat. It’s a wooden Louisville Slugger he’s had sing he was seven years old with an imprinted signature of number seventeen himself, Keith Hernandez.
Mortimer returns to the kitchen and wails on the food processor repeatedly, each strike garnering one measure of satisfaction until it becomes an indescribable pile of metal and plastic.
********************************
They say there’s one born every minute, right?
I guess that makes me a big sucker, don’t it?
How the fuck did I become the PRIME’s biggest sap?
Did some asshole come into my house in the dead of night and tattoo it on my forehead?
My time in PRIME ain’t been, you know, all that promisin’. Which is why a couple of weeks ago, when I beat that Boxin’ Glove guy, I was struttin’ like John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever”, all’s I was missin’ was a couple of paint cans. Then I was jumped by that shifty fuck, Tony Gamble and he began beatin’ on me.
That witch’s twat left me bleedin’ and covered in nacho cheese!
But that’s how it’s been for me, ain’t it?
No fuckin’ respect. Not one iona.
And if my professional life isn’t bad enough, it has to trickle through to my personal life with that piece of fuckin’ shit Mister Foodie Maniac Whatever-the-fuck crappin’ out on me.
I paid good money for that piece of shit!
There can only be one of two explanations.
Sabotage! It is entirely within the realm of probability that snake in the grass, Tony Gamble, surmisin’ my interest in that product, greased a few palms, blackmailed a few delivery people, and fucked with the machine’s flux inhibitor or somethin’ causin’ it to go ape shit in an attempt to burn me alive because he fuckin’ knows that I am gonna throttle that fuck into next week.
But maybe, just maybe, the simpler and more prescient explanation is that Kenny fuckin’ Freeman, and that multiversally big mouth of his, is promotin’ a defective product.
Let us allege that I might’ve heard of a guy, let’s call him “Ned”. “Ned”, let’s assume “Ned” was involved with certain business dealin’s of a pharmaceutical nature and sampled some of his own product. Hypothermically speakin’, let us deposit that “Ned”, after realizin’ that maybe he shouldn’t’a done that put some other powder in said pharmaceutical wares of which he was sellin’. Let us also, for the sake of argument, assume he was not in the rightest of minds when he did that. Maybe he was thinkin’ it was bakin’ powder or all purpose flour and not, say, Ajax Bleach or some other toxic substance. Anyways, “Ned”, presumably, sells said “defective medication” to an unsuspectin’ family member of someone who may or may not have had an affiliation or some such to a respected member of a certain underground casino operation in Boston. Now, “Ned”, he had no idea to whom he was sellin’ and by all accounts he was preachin’ the top qualityness of his medication, knowin’ for a fact, that it was not as “ready for consumption” as he let on.
Now, this alleged family member was goin’ to college, sophomore, and was partyin’ as some college kids do, and this family member and their friend ended up gettin’ poisoned. Well, “Ned” had his head in the fuckin’ clouds and when certain favors were called in, well, “Ned” was vanished.
Maybe “Ned” was forcibly taken to a rehab clinic and got his act together. Maybe, at this moment, “Ned” is married, has a couple of rugrats runnin’ around, playin’ with their dog, maybe a shin tzu or somethin’, and has a very stable and lucrative career as data analyst for some big computer company.
I happen to believe….maybe that’s not what happened to “Ned”.
Kenny Fuckpants, in case you didn’t know, that parable was for your ears. And you are “Ned” in this particular story, in case you missed it, and you fucked up because this sucker is pissed the fuck off.
And sayin’ all proceeds are goin’ to charity? I have to wonder if said “Charity” specializes in pole dancin’ and lap dances.
Degenerate fuck.
See, here’s what’s gonna happen, Captain Fuckpants. I’m gonna kick your ass so hard, it will send you so far into the future not even Anna Daniels will be able to find your sorry ass. And then, I will bounce to every little fucking multiverse you got and kick every iteration of you that I can until I find the one where your mother is a fuckin’ hottie, I will marry your mother, become your father, go to nearest Western Apparel store, buy the biggest fuckin’ belt with the biggest fuckin’ belt buckle, maybe one with one of them cartoonish grinnin’ buffalos on it that, and proceed to wail on you until you are crippled, and then I will promptly divorce your mother citin’ irrevocable differences at which point, I will show a photo of her gettin’ it on with one of them My Little Brony Fuzzy guys, and no judgment, you like what you like, and I will take everything she’s got in the divorce proceedin’s, and I will bulldoze that house, cover it in kerosene, and light it on fire. And then, once fire is out, I’m gonna down a gallon of water and then take a long piss on the remains of whatever childhood memories that version of you might have had. Once I am finished with all of that, I will return to this multiverse, at which you will be landin’ into that future of which I kicked you into, thus makin’ it the present…..
<deep breath>
Once you land, I will be waitin’ with that same Texas belt. I will wrap it around my hand, and punch you so fuckin’ hard, there will be an imprint of that buffalo with the stupid fuckin’ smile on your ugly fuckin’ forehead so deep, you’ll need the same plastic surgeon that works on the Real Housewives to get it removed.
But you won’t be able to afford that shit because I will torch everything you fuckin’ own to the fuckin’ ground!
YOU DO NOT SELL ME SHITTY FUCKIN’ MERCHANDISE! YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU SELL ME SHITTY FUCKIN’ MERCHANDISE???
HUH?????
DO YA, TOUGH GUY????
YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS??!?!?!?
I WILL FUCK YOUR SOUL, MOTHERFUCKER!
I WILL FUCK YOUR EVER-FUCKING SOUL!
<clears throat>
Ahem…..
In other words, Kenny Fuckpants….
Fuck you.
And fuck your multiverse bullshit.