Transcript / Happy Hatchday, Part 1 – Episode 98, written by Vicki Solá.
All content © 2023 Perswayssick Radio: Unearthly Comedy.
Music/Intro: Hi there, I’m author and radio host Vicki Solá, 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, and the gang….
SFX: [Magic Spell] [Misgivings & Misfortune]
PROFESSOR WILLARD WALLBANG: Ms. Rodriguez, I, Professor Willard Wallbang, assure you that your safety is paramount at our Perswayssick Superhero Academy. Hundreds of our students have successfully matriculated from this venerable institution and, in the process, have managed to remain in one piece rather than several.
NICKI RODRIGUEZ: I—I know, Professor Wallbang…I—I just don’t have a good feeling about this…if…if you could just allow me another moment or two here….
PWW: Very well, Ms. Rodriguez, very well. Just remember, you can fly over this six-foot-tall cinderblock wall if you believe that you can.
N: Yes, Professor….
PWW: In the meantime, to reinforce this notion, we shall have one canine-humanoid, Fleaglossitty Floppinsplodge, otherwise known throughout our fair county as “Sooperflea,” demonstrate this very feat. He is not only a graduate of our esteemed academy but also, I believe, one of your friends and roommates. Mister Floppinsplodge, would you kindly oblige and show Ms. Rodriguez how this is done?
“FLEA” FLEAGLOSSITTY FLOPPINSPLODGE, AKA “SOOPERFLEA”: Of course, Professor Wallbang. Ya see, Nicki, first, ya believe ya can do it, an’ then ya get a runnin’ start from this blue line here on the floor—wit’ both arms extended—an’ then before ya know it, you’re up in the air an’ zoomin’ over that there wall. In addition, most of the time I hum my little superhero melody—
PWW: Mister Floppinsplodge, would you please just do it?
F: Uh, certainly.
SFX: [Cartoon Superhero Vocal Fanfare] [Sneakers Squeaking] [SuperPowerFlyBy] [Boing]
F: Ow!
PWW: All right, Ms. Rodriguez. As your friend is relatively intact after accomplishing this rather elementary exercise, you may now give it a try. Remember, it is simple. You can fly over this six-foot-tall cinderblock wall if you believe that you can.
N: Okay, Professor…. I’ll…I’ll give it a try….
SFX: [Heartbeat] [Sneakers Squeaking] [Crash] [Crash Metal] [Utter Astonish Shock]
F: Nicki!
PWW: Oh, dear. Students, please return to the cafeteria. You may start lunch early.
SFX: [Ambulance Sirens] [Magic Spell] [Angels from Heaven] [Heavenly Drone]
N: Oh…where am I? Am I dead? All I see is this golden light…and I’m floating….
ZINFANDEL: And, so we meet again, my child.
N: Zinfandel! Is that you?
Z: Yes, my dear Nicki. It is I, Zinfandel, leader of Gneeecey’s and Sooperflea’s Planet Eccchs.
N: Am I…am I dead?
Z: Not if you don’t want to be. The choice is yours.
N: I—I have a choice?
Z: Yes, my child.
N: I feel like…like I’ve been through this before….
Z: Yes, you have.
N: Please, Zinfandel, tell me more. You said I have a choice?
Z: This time, rather than choosing whether to return to your old life on Earth, you know, near Hackensack, New Jersey, or to your newer existence in the dimension of Perswayssick County with its stranded Planet Eccchsers, you have yet another choice available.
N: It’s true…last time, I chose to go back to Perswayssick County rather than to my own planet.
Z: Yes, you chose to remain in Perswayssick County to aid your friends “Zig” Gneeecey and “Flea” Floppinsplodge, also known as “Sooperflea.”
N: Lately, I feel more at home there with them than I do on my own planet. But I—I feel guilty even saying that. I mean, my mom…my poor family…maybe I can find a way to travel between both worlds?
Z: Many seemingly impossible things are possible.
N: Now, you said I had a new choice?
Z: Yes. And I do not mean to influence you in any way. Here is your new choice. Rather than returning to Perswayssick County, you may decide to stay here with me, in your true home, where there is no pain. Here, there is only peace.
N: You know, Zinfandel, Gneeecey needs me to run for Grate Gizzygalumpaggis of Perswayssick County because while we were missing in action, the county snuck in an amendment to the constitution stating that he can’t run for another consecutive term. And our county is in real turmoil—lots of bad guys seem to have surfaced. All at once! And poor Flea. If I stay here, he’ll feel guilty for the rest of his life that he encouraged me to fly over that wall.
Z: Ii is my duty to also inform you that from this dimension, it is possible for you to assist those you care about, but it is a bit more challenging.
N: I—I’ve gotta do the right thing! I’ve gotta go back to Perswayssick County!
SFX: [Closing] [Magic Spell] [Cuckoo Clock] [Sneakers Squeaking]
DIROCTOR BIZZIG “ZIG” GNEEECEY: Is she better? Is she better? Is she better? I neeed her to hit the campaign trail for me! This lousy election’s in less than a fartnight—
F: A fortnight, Zig—
G: That’s what I stinkin’ said, Fleaglossitty! Now, is the Ig better yet?
F: Zig, her name is Nicki. An’ we’re really very fortunate—
G: How’s thaaat?
F: We almost lost Nicki! For a while, it was touch an’ go—she almost didn’t make it after that head injury.
G: Yeah. Poor human. Them doctors at Holy Krapp said she had a severe discussion in her head.
F: You got discussions in your head.
G: Don’t get intelligent wit’ me, Fleaglossitty.
F: Okay, but, uh, that would be a severe concussion she had, Doctor Gneeecey—
G: How many times do I gotta tell ya, that’s Diroctor Gneeecey—I’m a dopey doctor an’ director of this here lousy county?
F: Anyway, Diroctor Zig Gneeecey—
G: Don’t say it so snarkastic!
F: As I was sayin’, Zig, our Nicki had a severe concussion. An’ I feel so bad, so guilty, ’cause I encouraged her to try an’ fly over that wall.
G: I’m payin’ her lousy tuition at the superhero academy so’s she can learn enough to help me, but I certaintaneously ain’t payin’ for her to get hurt or seriously kilt!
F: I know, Zig. We’re lucky Nicki was taken to Holy Krapp an’ not Florence Ferguson Memorial Hospital where that creepy Doctor Frombilagonga an’ that horrible Nurse Maudlyn work. An’ we’re also very fortunate that when she was discharged home here, Doctor Idnas agreed to take turns wit’ me, nursin’ her back to health.
G: Yeah, that was unlousy of Doctor Idnas. I’m gonna go upstairs now an’ see if the Ig is better yet! I got some priddy music that might make her feel better, an’ then she can help me—
F: No, Zig—no!
SFX: [Door Pound] [Doorbell Ring]
F: Now, what?
G: What an incornvenient time for visitors. Get the door, Fleaglossitty!
F: Okay, okay. I’m goin’….
SFX: [Door Open] [Scary Ambience]
REDHEADED BROKEN-NOSED MARK: Hey, it’s me, Dorothy. Y’know, from the Perswayssick Girls Club?
F: So, what can we do for ya today, Dorothy? We’re really kinda busy right now.
M: Well, I see youse guys are back from the hospital, so maybe youse can finally pay for them forty bags of them eat-now-pay-later Freak O’Nature snacks I sold youse that youse ain’t, y’know, paid for yet.
F: Well, Dorothy, them forty bags of eat-now-pay-later Freak O’Nature snacks were tainted.
SFX: [Sneakers Squeaking]
G: Yeah! They made me light up neon-blue—I hadda go to the lousy hospoopital ’cause of you an’ them dopey snacks! Ain’t gonna pay for thaaat!
M: So, who told ya to eat ’em all at once? An’ ya ain’t blue no more. Now, lemme try guiltin’ youse before I gotta get nasty. See this little old lady here?
G: Yeah. Whuddabout her?
M: Your money goes to us guys at the Perswayssick Girls Club, y’know, to do nice community junk like helpin’ little old ladies like her cross the street!
SFX: [Hit, Smack]
G: Hey! Stop! Why’s she hittin’ me wit’ that gigaaantical handbag of hers? Ow!
LITTLE OLD LADY: Hey, mister, I recognize you from Episode One, “Kiss My Left Foot”! Remember you tried to help me cross the street when I didn’t want to! How many times do I have to tell all of you I don’t wanna cross the lousy street?
SFX: [Hit, Smack]
G: Ow! Stop! Okay! Okay! Get her offa me!
M: Okay, Doc. We’re goin’ now, but remember, interest on what’cha owe us is compounded daily.
G: Compounderated daily?
M: Yeah. Guh-bye…heh, heh….
SFX: [Door Slam] [Fail Horn] [Orchestra Cliffhanger] [Magic Spell]
G: Okay, Fleaglossitty. As I was sayin’ before I was so rudely interrupticated by that Dorothy, I’m gonna go upstairs an’ see if the Ig is better.
F: No, Zig, I wouldn’t. Doctor Idnas is wit’ her now. Nicki needs peace an’ quiet. You ain’t no good at providin’ neither.
G: Don’t tell me what I can or cannot stinkin’ provide in my own four-story mansion, Fleaglossitty! Here I go, upstairs!
SFX: [Human Walk Upstairs] [BodyFall] [Slip] [Slip & Fall] [Fabric Tear] [Duck Horn]
G: Yaaaaah! Jus’ fell on my bimbus—an’ busted my new trousers! Think I busted my lousy tail, too!
F: Instant karma, Zig!
G: Shaddup, Fleaglossity! Here I go!
SFX: [Human Walk Upstairs] [Sneakers Squeaking] [Door Open]
G: Hiya, Doctor Idnas! Is she better? Is she better? Is she better?
DOCTOR ALEXANDRA C. IDNAS: Sssssh—qviet, Diroctor Gneeecey, please! She ees still a bit disoriented and, you know, dazed. She’s been talking about some birtday party you gave her pretty soon after she first arrived here in Persvayssick County. A vary strange party.
G: Yeah, I remember. Very nice of me. An’ by the way, early Happy Hatchday to ya, Ig! If ya get well quick, I’ll give ya another beaudiful party. Now, Doctor Idnas, when will she be normal again—well, y’know, normal for an Ig?
DI: Eet could take two or tree veeks, Diroctor Gneeecey. I’m going to ask Grandma to come help us vatch over her. Vee vill need anudder person.
G: Two or three weeks? I don’t got no two or three stinkin’ weeks! Election’s in less than a fartnight! Here! I brung a recordin’ of some priddy music me an’ Flea recorded. Y’know, Zirbert Shriekensobb’s “Plight of the Goonafish”? That should help soothe the Ig here!
SFX: [Metal Click 4] [Plight of the Goonafish]
N: Ugh—what’s that horrible music? Where’s it coming from? Where am I? Make it stop—please! Am I dead? If I am, this must be hell….
DI: Diroctor Gneeecey, please. I know you had good intentions—and I am giving you here dee benefit of dee doubt—but please, turn dis music off, now. Eet ees upsetting her greatly.
G: Awstinkin’right…. SFX: [Metal Click 4] But if the Ig ain’t gonna be ready to hit the campaign trail no time soon, I gotta come up wit’ another plan. An’ quick!
SFX: [Sneakers Squeakimg] [Human Walk Downstairs] [BodyFall] [Slip] [Slip & Fall] [Duck Horn]
G: Yaaaaah!
SFX: [Bed Moves] [Heavenly Drone]
N: Oh…oh no….
DI: Nicki, dis ees Doctor Idnas here vit you. Everyting vill be all right. I promise you.
N: Oh, Doctor Idnas, I’m seeing it all again. And hearing it again.
DI: Hearing and seeing vhat, Nicki?
N: That birthday party Gneeecey gave me. It’s still in my head…like some kind of weird movie…it’s like—like I’m reliving the whole thing….
DI: Vould you like to tell me about eet, Nicki?
N: One by one, they filed in through the first-story window, bearing gifts. “Into the dinin’ room,” ordered Gneeecey. “Ain’t got all mornin’—let’s move!” And, so they did, obediently—Flea, resplendent in his satin-caped dress uniform, followed by golden dopey-but-handsome canine-humanoid Flubbubb, glowing in his new save-the-goonafish shirt, and dorky Stu Pitt, decked out in his usual mustard, geek-chic sartorial splendor.
Always trying to score points, the intern strained visibly when he saw Gneeecey watching him push Freak O’Nature Foods Chairman of the Board, B.M. Bonbeeederhead, down the hallway. Bonbeeederhead was an actual chair, mind you—a living, kvetching hunk of oak. His soulless cue-ball eyes protruded from a saggy-jowled backrest, presiding over a stump of a nose and a down-turned mouth. And a splintery seat. One nobody would dare sit in—or want to.
A chrome-yellow numeral, known simply as Nine, marched in behind him on nearly invisible legs. The dapper digit sported sheer tails and a gleaming smile. He tipped his transparent top hat and presented me with a crystalline rose.
Bringing up the rear, paying tribute to his favorite team, wearing his dilapidated Gnorks jersey, was the only guest who’d arrived empty-handed—Gneeecey’s protégé, the sulky giant mouse Altitude. He had no last name. Couldn’t afford one.
“Uh, where’s Cleve?” I inquired, trying to sound casual as I wondered about my colleague—a good friend and also fellow Earthling. A really cool guy. Gneeecey grinned. “Ain’t comin’.” My heart sank.
“Cleeevoooveland’s workin’ through breakfast, past bedtime, an’ into the enda dinner.” It was Blirg, the season where time itself ran backward….
“Doesn’t Cleve deserve a little—”
“If Cleeevoooveland came, Stu couldn’t have. Someone gotta reap the grim harvest while the mice make hay. Y’know, a stitch in time saves—” Nine flinched. “What I’m trynna say,” explained Gneeecey, “is that unpaid overtime is a most noble pursuit. In our spiritual leader, the Grand Oogitty-Boogitty’s Grand Bookitty of Sayin’s, he says other people workin’ hard is character formulizatin’.”
Bonbeeederhead nodded. “For them.”
“An’,” continued Gneeecey, “his tail will be in our neck of the woods any day now.”
“That’s as sure,” stated Flubbubb, “as the fact that pie are square.”
“Pies can’t never be square,” argued Gneeecey. “They’re fulla round three’s.”
Flubbubb scratched his head. “But, in math class—”
“Forget school,” interrupted Gneeecey. “I seen a piece of molderberry pie under one of them new subanatomical moleculizatin’ telescopes, an’ it was made up entirely of stringy green round threes.”
A green string theory might certainly explain things. I bit my lip.
“What’chooo laughin’ at, Ig?”
“Uh—”
“Speakin’ of threes an’ their multipooples, I invited Nine here to entertain us.”
“Merriment is not cost-efficient,” grumbled Bonbeeederhead, his knotty legs screeching as Stu shoved him down the corridor.
“I’d never pay anyone to amuserate us,” replied Gneeecey. “‘Specially not at a Ig’s party. Nine here owed me.”
“Yep,” agreed the six-foot-high number, twirling his chrome-yellow cane.
“Ya see,” continued Gneeecey, eating a paperclip, “when I updated my menus—y’know, hiked prices for no reason—I didn’t round nuthin’ off to zero. Didn’t eliminizate any nines. Real incornvenient—means I gotta use my dopey head. Plus, now I gotta keep purchasin’ batteries for my lousy calcoocoolator. but I done it all for Nine, outta sincere friendshipperism.”
“Business and friendship,” scowled Bonbeeederhead, “don’t mix.”
“Let’s get this over wit’,” said Gneeecey, as the eight of us gathered in front of the dining room’s stone fireplace. “Happy Hatchday, Ig. An’ here’s to Esophagus, the Greek god of swallowing.” Raising delicate Booolabeeezian crystal champagne glasses high above their heads, all chanted, “There, there! Where, where? Here, here!” and guzzled their sky-blue fizzy drinks noisily.
The cautious sip I took set my sinuses ablaze.
“I love carbonated rindom!” exclaimed Stu, his seven chins shaking. “Happy Birthday, Icky!”
“Uh, that’s Nicki.”
“Oh, and Icky, today I redid that music bed on that commercial you produced. Y’know—the one everyone including our client hated.”
“Okay folks,” shouted Gneeecey, knocking back the rest of his bubbly. “An’ a one an’ a two an’ a three—” On the count of three, following their host’s lead, Flea, Flubbubb, Altitude, Stu Pitt, Nine, and Bonbeeederhead smashed their fluted vessels against the fireplace.
SFX: [Crash] [Glass Shatter] [Glass Debris] [Dish Ceramic]
The fireplace collapsed. As elephantine gray boulders tumbled and charcoal clouds of ash swirled toward the ceiling, the goblets rolled about, not so much as a stem broken—even though it sure sounded like the delicate glassware had shattered.
“Your—your—fireplace,” I stuttered. Gneeecey laughed. “Trick glasses, Ig. Heh hah, heh haah!”
SFX: [Door Open] [Sneakers Squeaking]
G: Thought I heard some glaaass breakin’ up here. Is everythin’ okay? Is she better? Is she better? Is she better?
N: How could you even hear what I was describing? I—I don’t understand…where am I? Oh, no…. There are two Gneeeceys here now…. I’m so dizzy….
DI: No, Diroctor Gneeecey, she ees not better. Now, vould you please—
G: Jus’ came upstairs to see if she was better yet, an’ to reassure youse in case she ain’t, I, brilliant genius that I am, have come up wit’ a diaboliboobical plan to save the day by delayin’ the election if the Ig don’t recover in time to campaign! Flea don’t approve of my plan. Says it could even be real dangerousical. But I don’t care. I’m gonna do it anyways! An’ he’s gonna help me! What are best friends for?
DI: Diroctor Gneeecey, please—vee need you to be qviet!
G: Ya ever heard of General John J. Krapp?
DI: Isn’t he a Planet Eccchs hero of some sort?
G: Yupperooney!
SFX: [Sneakers Squeaking]
G: Yeeee-haaaaaw!
SFX: [Human Walk Downstairs] [BodyFall] [Slip] [Slip & Fall] [Duck Horn]
G: Yaaaaah!
SFX: [Magic Spell]
We hope you enjoyed this week’s episode! We thank Marysol Rodriguez, Sal Solá, Sandi Solá, Marcellina Ramirez, Rick “El Molestoso” Rivera, Diane L., Brunie Cariño, Toni Aponte, and Aileen Bean for being generous supporting members through BuyMeACoffee.com.
And thank you 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 tell a friend! And keep on laughing!
Frank: It’s a Gneeecey thing! [SFX: Door Slam] ###
