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“La la, la laaa… dee dee de-de-de-deeeeee… Allli-oop! D’agh, rats. Duhhh… He shoots! Aaaand! …Negh. Closer. Uhhh…”
Scoutmaster Lumpus was tipped back in his office chair, legs rested on his desk, balling up wads of paper and chucking them at the waste basket near the door. He had made twenty or so missed throws and not a single dunk, but he seemed unbothered. He was just about to squash up the next one when its elaborate heading and borders made him stop and read it first.
“Nyeh? Wuzzis. It looks money-related.”
He tipped down his glasses and squinted.
“‘I, Mark Slimedon Slipzgerald Slinkman, age 41, being of sound body and mind, do decla—‘Blah blah BLAHHHH, I don’t CAREEE.”
Crumple, crumple.
“C’monnn… Baby needs a new pair’a SHOES! NYAGH!”
“Uh, excuse me s—OWW! SIR!”
“D’YAGEH!” Lumpus fell out of his chair and landed on the floor in a pathetic, arthritic pile. He feebly picked himself up, adjusting his campaign hat. “Pshoo. Uhh… Ah! Hello, Slinkman. I was just, uhhh. Y’know. Systemizing.”
The banana slug entered the office, looking put upon and with one hand cupping a closed peeper. “Sir, with all due respect, don’t you have anything better to do?”
The old moose smirked indifferently and leaned an elbow on his desk. “As a matter’a fact, I do! Go fix me a glass of ginger ale, and I’ll show ya.”
Slinkman scoffed. “Fine. On the rocks or straight?”
“Surprise me.”
His assistant grumbled and disappeared. There was banging, clattering and slamming from the kitchen as Slinkman went about his task while being rough with the cabinets, glasses and refrigerator door. Three loud clinks followed, and he returned with a fizzling glass of caramel-colored soda. Lumpus stood to attention at the sight.
“Here.” Slinkman handed it over almost hard enough for it to spill over.
“Thank you, Slinky, you’re a peach.” He took a few long gulps.
Slinkman’s uninjured eyestalk twitched. “…Well?”
“There.”
“‘There’ what, sir?”
Scoutmaster Lumpus shimmied his eyebrows and grinned like a cat that had stolen the cream. “…That was the ‘anything better’ thing to do, Slinkman. Come on, keep up…”
Slinkman growled and kicked the waste basket amid the mounds of smushed paper as he stormed out.
Lumpus drank the glass down to the three ice cubes, belched heartily, and propped his feet back up again.
“Ahh… It’s good bein’ the top dog…”
Just then, the telephone rang. Algonquin stretched to reach it.
“Ooh, wonder who that can be. Mama and Papa Slinkman explaining why their son needed two middle names?”
He picked up the red receiver and held it with his shoulder. “D’yellooo? Algonquin C. Loompus here?”
“YOOOO-hoooOOoo!” sang a Minnesotan woman at the other end.
‘Mom?’ Lumpus thought, ‘I ain’t heard from her since ‘88…’
“Ohhh, don’t act like you don’t know who I yammm! Silly Al!”
“…Jane?”
“DING DING DING! THAT’S RIGHT! It’s me! Mrs. Jane-Doe Lumpus, you won the grand prize! Ah-HAH! Ohh, I love it.”
Lumpus put his feet on the floor and sat more decently. “That’s uh… Doe-Loompus, dear…”
“SoOoOo? How are youuu? Mr. Married One Week and Myastering Scouts Across The Lake?”
“Uh,” Lumpus scratched the back of his head, “…Good? I gotta… ginger ale here…”
“OHHH, I haven’t had ginger ale since Aunt Rosemary sent me a bahttle for my graduation! Did I ever tell you that story?”
“…I mean, I think.”
“Ah-HAH! Ohh, my memory’s going. You really just fall apart when ya tie the knot, dontcha?! Ohhh, if my mother heard that, she’d… AGREE with me! Ahahahahaha! Ohhh, I am a RIOT!”
Scoutmaster Lumpus held his right fingernails to his eyes and checked them for lint.
“…Yeah… Uhh. So, uh, whatcha doin’? Besides, y’know. Talking to me?”
“Ohhhhh, you cut right to the chase, dontcha?! Well, if you must know, I’m having a bubble bath! And I’m on the PHONE as I do it! Isn’t technyology magical?! Ahah!”
“…Interesting,” Lumpus stared intently at the map of Leaky Lake behind him.
“Ahah! ‘Interesting’ he says! Oh, Algonquin, that’s why I love you!”
“…Because I call things interesting?”
“Ah-PFFFFFT-Ahahahahaha! Ohh, you kill me, you kill me. …Ope. Gatta go! Got another call comin’. Don’t you stop being my hyandsome fella! Love yaaa! AU REVOIR!”
~~~
“Hyelloooo? Mrs. Jane Doe-Lumpus, hyappily married!”
Edward sat on his bunk dressed in a magenta bathrobe, a single blue curler wound into his bangs. He blew on the freshly-painted nails of his right hand and twirled the coiled cord with his dry left one. His Veronica doll rested beside his hip, a sleeping mask over her eyes.
“Jane. Sweetheart. It’s me. Eddie. And you will NOT. Believe. The day I’ve had, sister.”
The doe gasped and sat up straighter in her cloud of pink bubbles. “Nooooo, what HYAPPENED?!”
“Well, first of all… Ugh. Mmf. Sorry. These friggin’ Squirrel Scout Thin Mints are gonna be the death of me. FIRST OF ALL, Chef McNitwit decided to serve us waffles befooore checking if he had enough syrup. And, UH OHHH, HOLD DUH PHONE, he didn’t!”
“Get out!”
“Nope! Swear on my mother’s braciole: he forgot. DEN, after I force-fed myself dry waffles like some uncultured cretin, I go for my morning swim, right? Warm up my hamstrings, look beautiful, y’know?”
“Yeah? What hyappened?”
“Will you believe me if I tell you these scumbags didn’t have any clean swim caps for my hair?!”
“I WON’T!”
“Welllll, ya gotta! They didn’t!”
“Oh my goodness, how awfulll.”
“I knowww; I know,” he sighed wearily, “…I dunno, whaddya gonna do, huh? Oh. Get this. You-Know-Who called me cute todaaAAayy!”
“PING PONG?!”
“Uh huh! Great to know he’s not blind, ain’t it? AHAHAHAHAHAHA! Ohhh... I tell ya, Jane-baby. I really think. He’s. The one. Y’know?”
“I am so. Hyappy for you twoooo. Ah! Someone’s callin’ me. I’ll call ya back tonight after the marshmallow roast, okay galpal?”
“I’ll be here, Jane-honey! Ciaooo!”
The little platypus hung up. Satisfied that the paint on his right hand fingernails was dry, he reached for the sleeve of Squirrel Scout Thin Mints once again. He held the dark brown, chilly little wafer to the light.
“Here we go again, right to my thighs… Numf.”
“Hey, Edward,” broke in one of the Dungs from the door, “Can we have some?”
Edward screeched and began throwing whatever he could reach besides the doll in their direction.
“GET OUT!! GET OUT!! YOU DIDN’T SEE NOTHIN’!! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOUUU!”
Chip and Skip held their hands over their clouds of flies and hastily retreated.
“All he had to say was ‘no,’” griped Chip, leaping so that a flying hairdryer didn’t smash his ankles as they ran.
~~~
“You’ve reached Mrs. Jane Doe-Lumpus! Talk to meeEEEeee!”
“Hi, Denmother!” a familiar voice bubbled.
Jane splashed her free hand into the water with glee. “Patsyyy! How’s the camp archery champion, huh?!”
“I’m goooood,” the mongoose replied cheerily.
Patsy was in the woods with her little white flip-phone. She was sitting prettily on a wild bear that was hogtied and looking afraid for his life. “Just, uh… ironing my badge sash.”
“And it is a FULL-looking sash; I would know! Ahah! So what’s up, my little star?”
Patsy stood up, causing the bear to grunt with pain. She put one hand on her skirt and looked thoughtfully up at the shafts of sunlight through the tree branches. Her smile faded.
“Ohh, it’s just. I dunno.”
“Something wrong, sweetie? Too much starch on your sash?” Jane’s own beam vanished at Patsy’s change in tone.
Patsy gulped. The bear did too. She shivered and bit her lip.
“Do-you-think-Lazlo-likes-me?” the words positively rocketed out of her mouth.
Jane on the other end of the call froze despite the warm, warm bath surrounding her. One of her hair curlers popped free and vanished into the fog bank of pink bubbles on her left. She looked urgently around the bathroom as if for an escape like she usually did whenever “Patsy’s Old Question” reared its ugly head.
“Uhhh. Welllll, I’d say… y’know… Um, OOH! GATTA DASH! My ice cream is burning! Bye!”
She ended the call and sank further into the suds with relief.
“Ughhh. I am NOT. Ready for that talk. …I suppose it’s not her fault all the good ones are… like him.” She flung her soapy wrist.
Patsy held the phone despondently and clapped it shut.
“Ice cream doesn’t burn…”
Her gargantuan furry catch squirmed beneath her hiking boots. Patsy peered down, forlorn.
“…Do you think Lazlo likes me?”
~~~
Jane drained out some of the bath as the water was getting tepid. Then she added a fresh stock of hot water on top, and huffed with content. She fetched some sliced cucumbers on a saucer at her tubside, and placed them on her eyelids.
“…Whoever thought this up was a genius. And very, very inquizitive.”
The overworked rotary telephone, a beautiful white ivory with brass accents and a pink poodle sticker on one side, again rang. It sounded slower than usual; that was because its innards were slowly melting with exhaustion.
“Ahahaha-oh’wee! Aren’t I popular today?!”
She made a few blind snatches before successfully getting the receiver in her paw.
“Mrs. Jane Doe-Lumpus! I have salad on my eyes but NOT in my mouth; talk to me!”
The caller groaned dourly. “He prefers Loom—… Oh, whatever.”
“Slinkman? What’s wrong, hon? You sound like you’re at the end of your slime trail.”
“Ohhh, it’s just. Work, y’know.”
Jane stirred the bubbles around with her other paw. “Awww, there, there. Lay it on me, Slinkypoo. Jane’ll fix it.”
Slinkman sat miserably on the edge of his bunk, watching his feet as he kicked them to and fro.
“It’s just the same old, same old,” he lamented, “I do all the work for none of the appreciation. It’s nothing I haven’t told you before.”
“You can tell me again,” promised Jane, plucking one cucumber away and nibbling it, “…Hmf. Crishp. I’ll never get tired of validatin’ you and letting you vent, Slinkypie, you have my Squirrel Scout’s honor!”
Slinkman smiled meekly. “…You always were there for me. Remember when we were scouts and you beat up those boys for salting me in my sleep?”
“How could I for-GET? The only way I didn’t get expelled was making them say a coyote did it! …Of course, I had dispatched them so thoroughly, I could’ve made them agree to anything at that point. Ah-HAH! Ohhh, Slinkman. I can’t beat people up anymore! I can’t, I can’t, I can’t! I’m like a giant steam hyammer that only knows pounding, pounding, pounding!”
Slinkman chuckled. “Yeah… You really go all-out. You’re so cool…”
Jane gasped and her fist hit the water, catching her violet toy boat in a tidal wave. “Shut UP! YOU’RE cool!”
“Awww, stop,” Slinkman batted his hand, “…I feel better. Thanks, Jane.”
“Any. Time. You take care’a yourself, and I’ll take care’a whoever needs taking care’a.”
“Hehehe. Classic Jane. Alright, I’ll letcha go. See ya.”
“Au revoir, Slinkyyy!”
She put the receiver down and ate her other cucumber slice once she had washed the pink foam from her hand.
“…Ugh. That poor fella…”
The bathroom door was knocked on seven furious times, but Jane didn’t startle. She knew who it was.
“WHAT’S UP, RUBES?”
Ms. Mucus was in the hallway, clutching a piece of paper and red in her snouted face.
“Woman. Are you aware thuh phone bill fer June was SEVENTEEN-HUN’RED DOLLARS?!”
Jane scoffed. “Does it really matter when I willingly pay for it with my own money?”
“Who d’ya even TALK to in there?!”
“Just people, hon, it’s no big deal.”
“Y’can come out once in a while and look after these scouts too, y’know!”
“Ohhh, don’t exaggerate. You know I only do my Talky Baths once a week.”
Ms. Mucus took her hat and wig off, slapping her scalp with exasperation, “Would ya say yer DONE then?!”
“I yam, I yam, keep your hair on. I’m getting out.”
Ms. Mucus replaced her hat and wig, and did.