Friday, May 21, 2010

How Captain Clueless Got Banned From The Donut Shop (a work of fiction)



The cape came from a stage magician's yard sale. The Great Gambini, I think he called himself. Anyway, I donned it for an afternoon with every intention of fighting crime and righting wrongs, when I got a craving for blueberry cake donuts and then I forgot about the whole thing.
All I wore besides the cape was a pair of y-front Fruit of the Looms. This might have gotten me arrested, had it not been for the privacy of the video poker booth I was sitting in. A mosquito buzzed around my neck. I slapped it hard. I looked at the obliterated insect carcass and the spatter of my blood on my palm, and pondered how closely it matched my cape. Then I heard a sound.
It was the anguished cry of one of the regular customers of Sweet Things and Grill. The woman had apparently just discovered that she was the reincarnation of St.Francis of Assisi, and she felt the pain of the mosquito's violent death by my hand.
"Murderer!", she screeched in a very unsaint-like manner, "You killed an innocent!"
"Ah, shaddap, ya crazy old broad!", bellowed another one of the regulars, a portly gray-haired chap who went by the name of Huggaboo, "She went off on my brutha yestiday fo' sprayin' dem roaches dat came outta da kitchen, an' now ya can't even defend yaself from dem muskitas! Whydoncha go back ta church an pray da rosary or somethin'?"
While sipping the last of my chocolate milk, I mulled over the irony of wearing a cape and tight underwear for the sake of fighting crime, and yet here I was accused of murder. The regulars and I entered into a discourse about the nature of good and evil and whether or not pests such as mosquitoes were truly God's creatures. Then after the crazy woman calmed down, the regulars took note of my unusual garb.
I explained to them that the cape was procured at the yard sale of the Great Gambini, and that it only cost me about two dollars. I have a tendency to regale strangers with even the most minute details of my daily experiences, which I am aware they usually don't want to hear about. Perhaps that is why I have so few friends.
Finally, the cook emerged from the kitchen and told me that I had to either find a pair of pants and a shirt or leave. Really, does Namor The Submariner ever endure such indignity at the hands of those he protects? I think not. Unfortunately, after I cried, "Imperious Rex!", and took down the glass display case containing many appealing jelly donuts, I was banned for life from Sweet Things and Grill.
To be perfectly honest, I felt worse about that than after I killed the mosquito.

(This is what my life would probably be like if I hadn't met Jeanne.)

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