Transcript / “Bad Morning to You, Too,” Episode 23, written by Vicki Solá.
All content © 2022 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!
Before I turn it over to my alter ego Nicki, I’d like to dedicate this week’s episode to the memory of my beautiful, beloved shepherd-hound mix Horsey Cookie who took her last breath in my arms and crossed over that Rainbow Bridge three years ago, on January 10th, 2019.
My love for dogs—my pets Sooperflea, Flubbubb, Gneeecey, Horsey Cookie—and my mouse Altitude, and my devotion to animal welfare continue to inspire me as I write my books and podcast scripts. It’s my hope that success with this podcast project will enable me to help all that I care about on a more effective level.
And now, here’s Nicki, in Perswayssick County, ready to share another memory that’s just resurfaced….
SFX: [Magic Spell]
Hey there, Nicki Rodriguez here, looking forward to sharing my newest resurfaced memory with you. As I’ve mentioned in previous episodes, I’ve been experiencing amnesia since traveling back and forth between my planet Earth and Gneeecey’s Perswayssick County—accidentally. Before I tell you about this latest recollection that drifted back into my consciousness, my alter ego Vicki and I want to thank Marysol Rodriguez, Sal Solá, Sandi Solá, Marcellina Ramirez, Rick “El Molestoso” Rivera, Diane L., and Toni Aponte for being generous supporting members of “Perswayssick Radio: Unearthly Comedy” through BuyMeACoffee.com.
Now, I’ve just remembered the first morning that I woke up in Gneeecey’s sloppy mansion. Trapped in his wacko, unearthly dimension of Perswayssick County, I had no choice but to live with and work for the wacky walking and talking Jack Russell-type dog—at least until my severe case of dimension burn cleared up. Attempting a return to my world before I fully recovered could prove deadly. And, there was the matter of my missing maroon portfolio case, containing thousands of my hard-earned dollars—in cash—along with other valuables. I was convinced that Gneeecey had my precious possession stashed away in his debris-filled digs. Anyway, this is how that first morning went….
SFX: [Magic Spell]
Sunlight streamed in through the gigantic picture window, illuminating Gneeecey’s junkyard of a kitchen. I suddenly felt grateful that black holes might, one day, swallow everything up.
“Bad mornin’, Ig,” droned the white-and-black-furred canine-humanoid, peering over the top of his Perswayssick Tims morning paper. (Yep…you heard right…“Tims” instead of “Times.” More on that later.) Its front-page headline cried, “Bakery Bandit Strikes Again—Detectives Follow the Whipped Cream Trail!”
“Bad morning to you, too,” I replied, butterflies fluttering in my stomach. It was my first day of work at Gneeecey’s GAS Broadcast Network. “Bad morning,” “bad afternoon,” “bad night,” and “bad evening” are customary Planet Eccchs and Perswayssick County salutations.
Grunting, Gneeecey reached across the table for his Crack O’- Dawn Cereal. The slogan printed on the box read, “If we don’t wake you, you’re probably dead!” A stupid-looking grinning Crack O’Dawn vampire urged eaters to search for the toy surprise inside.
“Breakfast’s all around ya, Ig—scrape some offa the counter.” You could barely see the gray granite for all the fast-food bags, junk mail, and swatters decorated with squished planes. The latter were actually insects that had long ago mutated, as a natural defense, to appear to be high-flying aircraft. Their bites were excruciatingly awful—much worse than those of Earth mosquitoes.
The scent of newsprint mingled with the bittersweet stench of Merk Perk, Perswayssick County’s famed Freak O’Nature brand gelatinous coffee that you eat with a knife and fork.
Every few seconds, projectile chunks of the chewable java sizzled as they hit the coffee merkolator’s heating element. The triple-beaked appliance, a tip of the hat to Freak O’Nature’s three-headed bird logo, hiccupped atop a high mound of what looked like magazines covering two of the kitchen stove’s four gas burners.
I was hungry…but I wasn’t. “Why,” I asked, hating myself the instant my mouth opened, “is that last S in Tims printed backward? Shouldn’t it read ‘Perswayssick Times’?”
Gneeecey’s newspaper lowered slowly, exposing dark, narrowed eyes. “A vowel saved is a vowel earned—the S keeps the invisible E it saved the resta the word from payin’ for. Keeps it for free if it ain’t showin’! Why save it, then lose it by showin’ it?!”
“I—”
“An’ it’s pronounciated ‘Tims’—why’d the E bother bein’ invisible if the vowel was gonna be long?!” SX: [Table Pound] Pounding his fist on the table, Gneeecey hoisted his vowel-harboring publication back over his snout. “Sheeesh!”
SFX: [Meow] A bereft meow, accompanied by a pungent litter box odor, announced Klunkzill’s arrival. Gneeecey’s motorized pet cat clanked over to his bowl, slurped up a quart of high-viscosity engine oil, then sniffed at some chrome pebbles in his saucer. Wrinkling his silver nose, he clunked out into the hallway.
My dimension burn-weakened legs gave way, and I collapsed into a chair. Gneeecey’s rindom-based toothpaste’s bitter aftertaste made my cheeks suck in.
“Lickin’ your chops, Ig?” he inquired, between thunderous chomps of Crack O’Dawn. SFX: [Explosion] Each mouthful sounded like some kind of explosion. “Noises annoy me when I’m readin’.”
“I’m not the one making noise! It’s you, eating those rocks! And how many freaking times do I have to ask you to stop calling me ‘Ig’? I’m not one of your Planet Eccchs’s legendary clumsy three-legged oafs! My name’s Nicole Rodriguez. Nicki will do just fine.”
“Geez, Ig—where’s my toy surprise?” He poured more rocks into his dish. SFX: [Pouring Rocks] “Y’know,” he mumbled through his gravel-filled muzzle, “his tail will be in our neck of the woods any day now. Any day.”
I tilted my foggy head. “Whose tail?”
“Our spiritual leader’s,” he answered, standing on the seat of his chair.
“Your spiritual leader’s tail?”
“Our spiritual leader’s comet, ya Ig,” he snapped, elbow-deep in his cereal box, fishing around for his toy surprise. SFX: [Rocks] “Every year, when Blirg ends—on Octvember 69th, Grimace Day—our Grand Oogitty-Boogitty arrives on a comet’s tail, from deep in outer space. We have a big concert an’ gigaaantical parade, an’ I get to ride a horsey! A big white horsey!” He belched. SFX: [Belch] “Tol’ ya not to make noise, Ig!”
“You just—”
SFX: [Boing] [Duck Horn]
“Ow! Ya made me fall on my bimbus! An’ looky! Ya stinkin’ made me topple the salt!” Eyeing me with pure disgust, Gneeecey sprang to his sneakered feet and spun around in circles chanting, “Where it goes, nobody knows.” He then hurled the crystal salt shaker over his left shoulder. I ducked as it sailed across the room, shattering against the mountain of pots and pans piled in his triple sink. SFX: [Bang] [Glass Shatter] [Dish Ceramic] “Spilt salt, your fault! Your baaad luck! Not mine!”
Gritting my teeth, I stared through the window into Gneeecey’s spacious backyard. A majestic oak tree caught my eye. It towered over Gneeecey’s white gazebo.
Gneeecey turned on the radio, and crunching contentedly behind his wall of newsprint, SFX: [Crunch] he sang along with what sounded like a bunch of deranged ducks. “We ain’t got no money an’ can’t get no gigs…that’s why we’re livin’ like pigs insteada ducks, quack, quack, quack!”
An unmistakable, grating voice blasted from the kitchen radio’s speakers when the song ended. “Deranged Ducks’ ‘We Ain’t Got No Money an’ Can’t Get No Gigs’ is number two this week here on GAS Radio!” I glanced over at Gneeecey. All I could see was the top of his grimy head and his matching, tabloid-clutching mitts. “If you’re jus’ tunin’ in,” continued the high, nerdy voice, “Bad mornin’, it’s meeee, the Grate One! An’ now, here’s some headlines an’ weather! In today’s news, yesterday. . ..”
“Doctor Gneeecey! That’s you on the radio!”
He punched the table. SFX: [Table Pound] [Bang] [Glass Shatter] [Dish Ceramic] “That’s Diroctor Gneeecey! How many times do I gotta tell ya? I’m a stinkin’ doctor an’ director of this here lousy Perswayssick County!”
“Uh, stinkin’ Diroctor—I mean, Diroctor Gneeecey, is that you on the radio?”
“Yupperooney, it’s meee, the one an’ only Grate One!”
“You prerecord news and weather?”
He threw down his paper. SFX: [Rustling Papers] “Sometimes several weeks in advaaance.”
My jaw dropped.
“Shut’cha big mouth, Ig—planes’ll fly in.”
“But—”
“I rerun news an’ weather too. All the stinkin’ time.”
“How can you possibly—”
“All has to do wit’ mathemetratical proboobability! In my News Guessin’ seminars, I learnt everything’s fifty-fifty—either somethin’ll happen or it stinkin’ won’t. I’m a senior news guesser! Got a certificate statin’ so!” An unidentified morsel of something gross dangled from his shiny black lower lip. It waved up and down with each syllable.
“Uh,” I ventured, “you’ve got something on your mouth.”
He whisked his wrist past his yapper and caught the offending blob on his watch. “Always bein’ half-right’s priddy good—an’ bein’ only half-wrong ain’t bad neitherwise.”
“What about reruns?”
He pounded his fist on the tabletop again. SFX: [Table Pound] [Bang] [Dish Ceramic] “How many times do I gotta igsplain this to ya?! Stuff happenin’ again’s fifty-fifty, too! Either stuff’ll happen again or it stinkin’ won’t!”
“But—”
“If somethin’ fifty-fifty happens again, I’ll be twice as right, an’ if it don’t, only a quarter as wrong.”
“Surely,” I argued, “there’s less than a fifty-fifty chance that, say, a five-hundred-pound purple pelican will fly out of the skies with a policy in its beak and try to sell me life insurance today, isn’t there?” I crossed my arms and waited for an answer.
“Ya never know, Ig, ya never know. It’s all fifty-fifty. I got proof! Ain’t somethin’always either happenin’ or not happenin’?”
The disgusting glob of whatever had migrated to the crook of his right arm.
“Turnin’ to the weather,” screeched the-Gneeecey-on-the-radio, “this mornin’s torrentializin’ rains will continue all day! So far, this month of Octvember, we’ve had ten inches of rain—that woulda been fifteen feet of Merk Perk, the only coffee ya eat wit’ a knife an’ fork! Heh hah, heh haah!”
Biting my tongue, I shook my head.
“An’ when barometers fall, it’s easier for yooou to fall—there’s less air pressure to help ya staaand up! Now, be carefoofal in all that rain—we got reports of a crash on Sciatica Street, an’ a multi-vehikookular pile-up on the Laconic Highway.”
I jumped up. “The sun’s shining! Brightly! Look out your freakin’ window over there!”
“Coulda rained today—an’ if it did, I’da been covered. Am I wastin’ my bad breath on ya? Everything’s fifty-fifty!”
My barometric pressure had sunk to an all-time low. I flopped back into my seat. A half-stuffed brown teddy, slumped over in what I’d thought was an empty chair, caught my attention.
“Forgot to introducerate youse two. Yammicles, meet the Ig. Unfortoonately, she’ll be stayin’ awhile. An’ Ig, meet Yammicles. He’s better than a imaginary friend—ya can actually see him.” The bear’s permanently-crossed peepers gazed crookedly into space. “Oh—an’ that dopey Flea said to give ya this here crummy junk.” Flea, also known as Sooperflea and Fleaglossity, was Gneeecey’s childhood pal. The red-caped, black-furred canine-humanoid was a local superhero and had come to my aid, saving my life, the first time I accidentally ended up in Perswayssick County. My red ’64-and-a-half Mustang had been shoved off the Perswayssick River Bridge by some invisible force. Flea had managed to zoom beneath my car and hoist it back into the air split-seconds before it—and I—would’ve made impact with solid ground.
“Wake up, Ig!” Gneeecey tossed a gold Seemingwhale’s shopping bag into my lap. It was bursting with goodies. Turtlenecks—my favorite colors, maroon, midnight-blue, and black—plus jeans and a down-filled, navy jacket trimmed with silver zippers and too many inner and outer pockets to count. And, thank the heavens above—or wherever they were here around here—a new, unused toothbrush. “Wow! ‘Face-in-a-Bag’! Make-up—to cover my purple dimension-burned face!”
“What’cha want wit’ make-up? Made-up junk ain’t real.”
“You should talk.”
“An’ you stinkin’ shouldn’t.”
Out of spite, I read Flea’s note aloud. “Nickels, here’s some stuff to get you started. Before you leave Perswayssick County, you can take me out to lunch— wherever you choose. Your friend, Flea.” I smiled. “Aww, how sweet—how thoughtful.”
Gneeecey screwed up his snout. “Ugh! Hope nobody nebberd-kinnezzard says nuthin’ like that ’bout meeeee.” Nebberd-kinnezzard means extra-never on Planet Eccchs and in Perswayssick County.
Moos, oinks, roosters, bells, sirens, and the clock-bellied cuckoo’s looney cries from Gneeecey’s nearby Hall of Clox drowned out my reply. SFX: [Barnyard] [Donkey] [Bells] [Siren] [Cuckoo Clock]
Gneeecey glanced at his watch. “Eat, Ig—you’ll be workin’ hard today.” Gneeecey threw a cellophane package at me. “Here. Try some flummery.”
“Flummery?”
“Rehydrated flumm gizzards.”
“Think I’ll skip breakfast.”
“Your decision.”
“And how many times do I hafta tell you—will you freakin’ stop calling me ‘Ig’?”
“’Kay, Ig.” Gneeecey pitched his mug at the sink. SFX: [Bang] [Dish Ceramic] [Glass Shatter] “Now, c’mon, Ig—you’re stinkin’ makin’ me late again!” Suddenly, his body went rigid.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, not really wanting to know.
He pointed to the window. “Looky! Mr. Tree’s jus’ snuck closer to the gaze bow!”
“How can your tree move closer to your gazebo, or to anything else?”
“He ain’t my tree—an’ he’s stalkin’ me! Watchin’ my every move—gettin’ ready to get me!”
Looked like Gneeecey’s Redecoritis, a neurological disorder caused by contact with Perswayssick County’s mierk—a highly toxic brown substance—was worsening. The sticky manufacturing byproduct coated the banks of the murky Perswayssick River and seeped into just about everything imaginable, even foods.
“Gotta call my nervologist. Gotta make her describe me a higher dose of my Bumpex, y’know, one of my lousy medicines. That usually helps keep Mr. Tree away—better than a restraineratin’ order!”
SFX: [Dialing Phone] [Ringing Phone]
“Hallo, Doctor Idnas speaking. I am either avay from my desk, out of dee office, or doing rounds at Florence Ferguson Memorial Hospital. If dis ees an emergency, please call vun vun nine. If not, please leave your name, number, and message at dee sound of dee beep, and I vill get back to you as soon as possible.” SFX: [Beep]
“Heya, Doctor Idnas, this here is Diroctor Gneeecey. Gimmee a call as soon as possibooble. Ya awready got my lousy number. Guh-bye…Stinkin’ people are never around when ya stinkin’ need ’em…lemmee try my therapoopist, Graaandma.”
SFX: [Dialing Phone] [Ringing Phone]
“Hello, you’ve reached dee office of terapist Ingabore Scriblig, also known as ‘Grandma.’ How doodle you do?”
“Ain’t doin’ too good, Graaandma, I need to see ya today—”
“I am not available to take your call. Please leave your message at dee sound of dee beep and I vill get back to you as soon as I can.”
“Frumblesnoxx! Ain’t even gonna bother leavin’ a stooopid message. Everystinkin’one’s availavoolability stinks—no one’s never around when I need ’em!”
SFX: [Cuckoo Clock]
Gneeecey’s angry, bulgy eyes settled on me as he tossed a bunch of brown plastic bottles in my flinching face. SFX: [Clunks] “Ig, one of your jobs is to remindicate me to take my meds. An’ make sure I take ’em all on time, the right way!”
I groaned. The night before, in Gneeecey’s bathroom, I’d read the directions on a few of his five zillion prescription bottle labels. Some meds were to be taken several times a day with meals but not with other meds, and some on an empty stomach with other meds. And some with meals and other meds, and some to be taken alone...I felt a migraine coming on….
“Ya understaaandicate, Ig?”
I groaned again. “If I cooperate, I suppose you’ll return my uh, missing and most likely, uh, stolen maroon portfolio case, plus you’ll help me contact my mom and my landlord—and my bosses so they’ll know I’m still alive—”
“I’m your boss now.”
SFX: [Fail Horn] [Magic Spell]
Nicki Rodriguez here again! We hope you enjoyed this week’s episode of “Perswayssick Radio: Unearthly Comedy!” Thanks for listening! Please help us spread the word—please tell someone about us! We very much appreciate every single download! And again, thank you, Marysol Rodriguez, Sal Solá, Sandi Solá, Marcellina Ramirez, Rick “El Molestoso” Rivera, Diane L., and Toni Aponte, for being generous supporting members through BuyMeACoffee.com!
Time now to turn it back over to my alter ego, Vicki. Until next time, be well and stay safe!
SFX: [Magic Spell]
Music/Outro: Thanks, Nicki! Vicki here again. Thanks so much 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 subscribe and tell a friend! And keep on laughing!
Frank: It’s a Gneeecey thing! [SFX: Door Slam] ###