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I watched his pudgy face devour the ho-ho. The cream filled kind. The tubby little man did not even stop to savor the ho-ho; I wasn’t even sure he was enjoying it. He didn’t love the ho-ho. I loved the ho-ho. He just ate them; like a savage.
“Hey pal,” I said, making sure to make eye contact. His beady little eyes widened.
He quickly brushed away the crumbs that had collected on his lips. I watched as the crumbs fell slowly to the floor, my eyes following their trajectory until their eventual collision with the white tiled floor. My gaze returned to his fat mouth as he began to speak.
“What is…”
His mouth opened and closed, like a fishing gasping for air. I could see the ho-ho crumbs on his upper lip, the portly bastard.
“…the problem?” he said in an agitated voice.
The bastard, the fat little dildo had the nerve to front an attitude with me. He turned his back to me, and began to walk away, further down the snack aisle. I could sense where he was heading next, tasty cakes.
Tasty cakes have long been the cream of the snack food proverbial crop. They’ve always been high on the ladder. Manufactured in Philadelphia they’ve become a cultural sensation; their influence stretching all the way to Japan. Yes, even the Japanese like the taste of a tasty cake. The world likes tasty cakes.
To my right the surviving ho ho’s huddled together, screaming, “Kill him!”
On the left the Twix bars pleaded with me to stop the pudgy fat man. Their logic was they were inevitably next on the man’s shopping list.
He waddled down the aisle, the fluorescent lights coating his balding head like a glazed donut, which were, by the way, yelling for help.
“HELP!”
I stood frozen, nervous at what my next course of action would be. Down the aisle a little ways the Snicker bars were melting in fear, the Milky Ways trying to hide. He continued to walk down the aisle, his fat little body bobbing up and down like a big lollipop. Suddenly he stopped near the end of the aisle, his eyes spotting the monarchs of all snack foods. The Tasty Cake Chocolate Muffins, with cream in the center.
Nearby the Charleston Chews, packed like sardines in their box, pleaded for someone, something to stop the fat man from devouring the muffins.
“He does not deserve them!” the Charleston chew’s yelled desperately, “He can take us, let him take us!”
The fat man stared blankly at the tasty cakes.
The whole aisle was erupting into chaos. Snack foods were pleading, screaming, begging me to assist them. They had chosen me as their protector.
I knew full well the fat little man would not appreciate a morsel of the cream-filled chocolate muffins. Just like he destroyed the ho-ho’s, he would destroy the chocolate muffins. His blubbery body hardly gave a thought to what he was eating; he was just an animal not capable of appreciating the true delicious chocolaty creamy taste of the chocolate cream-filled muffin. Worst yet, because of his gluttony someone would be without their chocolate cream filled muffins. He was about to take those chocolate muffins away from someone; I didn’t know who that someone was, but I was still haunted because…
I knew they were out there.
And I knew I could not let him get away with this.
Slowly his fat arm reached out to the package of chocolate muffins, his sweaty hand quickly coiling itself around the package. The muffins were screaming inside their plastic seal. They knew full well they were meant to be eaten; but to not be appreciated, savored, truly enjoyed; their life would become meaningless. So they screamed in agony, hoping someone was nearby to respond. Luckily someone was.
He started to peel away the plastic, the clock was ticking and it was time for me to act.
My pace quickened as I began my descent upon the fat vulture, soon I was barreling towards him. As I ran the aisle erupted into a chorus of cheers and applause. The Milky Ways, the Snickers, the Lollipops, the Twix, the Tic-Tacs, all screamed in wild delight as they saw their self-proclaimed vigilante leap into action. As I ran I pushed my hands out to my sides, like I was a plane, catching the high-fives from the snack foods. The fat little vulture suddenly saw me hurdling towards him in the corner of his eye. His beady little eyes darted back and forth. His sweaty pot-bellied-pig body swiveled around and he began to run.
So the chase began.
There I was, rushing through the meat aisle after this fat portly man carrying a package of chocolate muffins. Every so often he would turn his jabba hutt head around to see how far away I was. We ran past all the cashiers, and I could hear the delighted screams of the Caramellos as I passed by.
I was closing on him and he was desperate; but he knew exactly how to stop me. It took me a second to realize he was pelting me with chocolate muffins.
First one to the face, then another to the leg, I tried to catch the muffins to save them before they fell. I was too late though and they shattered like glass against the tile, breaking apart. I could see their creamy white innards, spilled out all over the floor. I crouched down, cradling one of the muffins in my hand, soothing it.
“Your gonna be all right little buddy, your gonna be all right,” I said, trying to scoop his innards and stuff them back in. But he wasn’t going to be okay, and I knew that. I knew all four of the muffins were about to fade away, and at that moment a tear leapt from my eyelid. Looking down I could hardly bear to witness the massacre.
Four muffins, intestines spilled out onto the floor, split in two, lie there at my feet.
Gulping a load of saliva, I slowly crushed each muffin with the heel of my boot. They didn’t have a chance to live; and to let them crumble away slowly would be inhumane. Four muffins were gone, and more would soon disappear if I did not find the fat man quickly. I thought to myself, where would I least expect to find a short, fat portly little man.
There he stood, leaning against the cool glass freezer encasing the Betty Crocker TV dinners, surrounded by strange vitamins and herbs, steroids and pre-packaged nutri grain bars. He was in the health food aisle, just as I had expected. He was trying to catch his breath, his chest pumping up and down, trying to digest his fat. I looked for the muffins to see if they were okay, but all I saw in his hand was an empty package and little dark crumbs on his lips. On the floor lie one muffin, carelessly dropped, its innards spilled out like the others.
He had not noticed me yet; he was too busy staring at the muffin at his foot, probably wondering whether or not he should pick it up and eat it.
As I came closer he still had not noticed. When I was about five feet away he suddenly looked up at me, fear and terror deep in his eyes. He knew full well what he had done.
“What did I do?” he cried desperately.
The man was guilty, and I was going to punish him for his crimes.
He looked helpless. His eyes widened, and his fat cheeks began to quiver as tears dripped down his face. I forget to mention why he was crying.
In the palm of my hand I was carrying The Vindicator, a .35 caliber high-powered pistol. I raised the gun high above my head as I prepared to strike justice down upon his man. He fell onto his blubbery ass, his hands helping to backpedal him away slowly in complete revere. I held the gun firmly, basking in the glory only justice can provide. The fluorescent lights shone down upon me, and I felt like Zeus about to unleash my thunder.
My nerves tightened up, like the viscous insides of a Charlestons Chew; I wrapped my finger around the trigger.
I slowly lowered the gun until it was aimed directly at the man. He was really crying now, the pathetic s.o.b. His whole body was shaking and quivering uncontrollably as he fully realized the atrocities he had committed, and the justice that was about to take place.
The overweight man collapsed against the cold freezer window as one bullet spiraled into his chest cavity, crushing an artery and tearing through lung tissue. The next bullet, aimed for the gills, slid nicely into the soft flesh of his neck, causing blood to erupt like a volcano. The third bullet was meant for his forehead, but sadly went awry and struck him in the cheek, burrowing itself a deep smoking hole through his fatty flesh, exiting out the back of his head and into the glass freezer windows with a crack. He stood there, in a daze as the bullets tore through his body. Twenty in all. The gun whistled with glee as it threw thunderbolt after thunderbolt into the man’s riddled body.
Bullet 4: I entered his left calf, splitting apart the meaty tissue and tearing myself a new home.
Bullet 5: I had a lot of arc, so I managed to tear into his right shoulder with a crunch, fracturing the bone and causing some extensive damage I imagine. I was proud of myself.
Bullet 6: I went right into his gut and managed to burrow to the back of his spine, which I pierced nicely. Fluids surrounded me and eventually I was jettisoned out of the stomach and onto the tile, but I had a nice run.
And so on…
It was disgusting, watching his bloated corpse quiver and jiggle as each bullet slid deep into his flesh. I loved the sound though; it reminded me of the first bite of my first ho-ho.
The glory.
The portly man collapsed to the tile and I could hear the screams erupting in the grocery market. Cashiers ducked, children hid behind their mothers, and a fat man lay bleeding in the health foods section, aisle F.
I walked away, holding my gun loosely with my right hand, letting it tap against my leg as I walked on by. The whole store had become paralyzed, and each of them gawking and staring at me in a dazed wonder as I sallied onwards.
As I trotted towards the exit, every snack food applauded: Snickers, Milky Ways, Twix, Ho Hos, Tasty Cakes, Tic Tacs, Rolos, Caramellos, Butterfingers, Charleston Chews, even the sugar-free bubblegum.
The fluorescent lights added to my glory, shining the good parts and shading the bad parts about me. I walked out of that store with my head held high and proud, amidst the wild cheering.
“Remember the chocolate cream-filled muffins!” I yelled.
And with that I trotted lightly to my car. I sat in, and drove away, leaving the fat man in the aisle rotting, my ego booming, and later I learned, tabloids sitting close by. I made an oath, there and then, I would never let another person take advantage of a ho-ho in my presence.
The next day I found myself in the same situation, in a different grocery store, with this waif who didn’t appreciate her ho-ho. I did the right thing, I murdered her before she could cause more harm. That was when my life turned around for the better. The next day, after I was arrested for double homicide, I was on Oprah.
“He appears to have been abused,” she said.
And people traced my family history. They saw that my father was an alcoholic, that my mother became a lesbian, and immediately I was a martyr.
“He grew up in a home of alcoholism and homosexuality,” Dr. Laura Scheisslinger said.
I talked to Sally, Barbara knew me by my first name, O’Reilly crucified me. Too busy for Maury, but not too busy for Bryant. The Christian Coalition were disgusted with me, I went on some teenager’s walls. I preached innocence, I started riots, and rallies, I wrote a book, and all along the ho ho’s sang.
I had book signings, I met a few celebrities, a movie deal was worked out, I was Time’s Man of the Year. I told them about my past, and how my cousin had touched me when I was little.
“It always stuck with me throughout the rest of my life.”
And they nodded, eating it up like you eat a cream-filled chocolate muffin, savoring the insides. They liked the taste; and soon they became obese. Yet they hungered for more, so what was I supposed to do? I fed them more muffins.
Anyway, so the ho ho’s and I had a big parade, singing our song, the fat cholesterol song. We were happy, and we lived happily ever after. The great part is; I don’t feel the least bit guilty.
I mean, I was the victim after all, right Sally?
