Wednesday, September 24, 2008

A Turn for the Worse

A Turn for the Worse

Mervis Teels had spent a rather frustrating day as deli counter guy at
the local Hank's Food Shop. Order after order... day without end.

"I need two pounds of Vienna Bologna, sliced
kid's-lunch-sandwich-thin" or "twenty pounds of salami loaf, cut into
cubes." It didn't help matters that the `pick a number' machine had
three times dispensed duplicate numbers, causing Mrs. Sasselback to
experience hyper-ventilation when she attempted to order roast turkey
at the same time Gloria Zapf was clamoring for lime Jell-O pasta salad.

Mervis was considering the repercussions of going `postal' from behind
the deli counter... he wasn't good at dealing with stress. But
thankfully, the day soon came to an end... it was time to go home.

The only thing stopping Mervis from decompressing was the daily
commute. And today was no exception. It took only 30 seconds for
Mervis to make an amazing transformation from mild-mannered deli guy
to stark-raving road rage idiot. And all it took was for the lady in
front of him to decide she wasn't going to use her turn signal.

Mervis let loose a string of profanity through his rolled up windows
that would make a construction worker blush. Feeling bolder, he
continued on with his journey. It was the unfortunate second driver
that felt the full force of Mervis' wrath.

Little Jenny Darsnipple was proud of her new driver's license. She had
been on it for just four days. That fact wasn't enough to impress an
irate Mervis in the least.

For when Jenny failed to signal a left turn, Mervis stayed with her.
He bumped the back end of her car and furiously gestured with his
hands for her to pull over. Out of fear and lack of thinking, Jenny
complied.

Mervis stomped up to the driver's side window and motioned for her to
roll it down. Timidly, Jenny did. And without a word, Mervis reached
into her car, yanked on the turn signal arm, and ripped it off the
dash. Jenny screamed, Mervis smiled... the whole thing was over in
fifteen seconds.

And that's how it worked for the next ten cars that Mervis pulled over
that day. He even ran into Mrs. Sasselback and after he ripped out her
turn signal, he wished her a good day. Mervis was starting to feel better.

So it was quite the talk of the town when deli customers came in to
Hank's Food Shop the next day to find a thirty pound Spam sculpted
into the shape of a small animal sitting on top of the deli counter.
Arranged neatly on the Spam body were eleven automobile turn signal arms.

Mervis called it his little porcupine of shame... at least that's how
he explained it to the police.

copyright 2008 Mark A. Kwasny

2 comments:

Monette Satterfield said...

Mark, your blog is very entertaining. Congratultions on your 30 minutues a day pledge. I especially liked the inked tree.

The Victorious place said...

Liked the story. I could see the word pictures in my head as I read it. The spam porcupine look real funny. Maybe a drawing of that would be kinda neat, Ah?