GARBAGE IN GARBAGE OUT
by DanKitti & KC
(to hear the story, click "open external link" at the right-hand side of the page.)
Alan Karnes and his grandmother liked to take the bus to Sow City on Saturdays to do their shopping. Today was just like any other Saturday until Alan and his grandmother had taken their seats in the bus. Alan looked over and noticed for the first time that his grandmother was wearing a garbage bag with holes cut for the head and arms.
"Grandmother," said Alan, "isn't that a new style you're wearing?"
Alan's grandmother smiled proudly and said, "Why yes, Alan, it's the latest Paris fashion, which all the sophisticated people are wearing!'
Alan looked around and noticed several other people were indeed wearing these bags.
Several minutes passed, and a chant started going around the bus. "Hefty Hefty Hef-Tee!!" some would cry. "Wimpy Wimpy Wim-Pee!!" others would respond.
When they arrived at the mall, a medium-sized crowd passed Alan, and he felt depressed as they were all wearing some sort of garbage bags. They looked at Alan and smirked. How could anyone be *so* out of style? Alan ran to the Divine Diamond Discount Store, to the Garbage Bag section. He'd show everyone that he could be just as trendy as everyone else. He grabbed a box containing ten Glad Trash Bags and took it to the counter.
"That will be $1500 please," said the cashier, who was running her hands over the dark green garbage bag she had on.
Alan gasped as he looked down at the price tag on the box of Glad Trash Bags. The cashier waited indignantly for Alan to pay. The trauma was too much, and he fainted right then and there.
When he regained consciousness, Alan saw his grandmother standing over him, with an embarrassed look. Here she had come to the mall i high fashion, only to have Alan make a spectacle of himself.
"He's just a lost orphan I was paid $20,000 to baby-sit," she explained to the crowd as she hurried Alan back to the bus.
On the bus, everyone resumed their "Hefty Hefty... Wimpy Wimpy..." chants, which did nothing to raise Alan's spirits. Then he noticed that the man in the seat across the aisle was dressed in out-of-style cloth clothes like Alan's. He looked over at Alan and said, "Don't worry son, I've got a box of garbage bags hidden in my garage. Neither you nor I will have to endure this humiliation much longer."
The man got off at the next stop, and Alan followed him, much to his grandmother's relief.
But when Alan followed the man into his garage, the man gave Alan a sign to keep quiet. In the garage was a huge sleeping cat. The man pulled a garbage bag from a secret hiding place and held it in front of the cat.
"Now watch," he said as the cat began to awaken. When the cat opened its eyes, it gave a little meow. The sound waves caused the garbage bag to turn into bubble gum.
Alan laughed with glee. He and the man put the huge cat on a leash and headed for the bus stop.
Alan and the man reached the bus top at exactly 7:32 PM, just as a space warp caused several large spaceships to appear, all of them filled with space creatures, mostly space cows from the planet Diana. Naturally, there were pictures of Diana all over the ships, and of course, plenty of Diana comics.
Alan, the man, and the cat beamed aboard the flagship, the giant Intergalactic Spaceship Bossy, or I.S.S. Bossy, and explained the problem of the garbage bags. The space cows understood the situation, and allowed them to use the spaceship communication system which would break into every TV and radio signal on Earth.
The cat meowed, turning billions of garbage bags into bubble gum, and some into breath mints.
The man then talked over the microphone, saying, "People of Earth, why do you follow worthless fads and trends? After all, if you didn't wear those stupid garbage bags, you wouldn't be covered with bubble gum!"
But it was to late -- the gum-trend had immediately been established, and now, suddenly, all the "in" people were covered with bubble gum, and, in fact, you couldn't get a decent seat in a restaurant if you weren't all covered in bubble gum.
Then suddenly one day, a giant image of Ed McMahon appeared in the sky, holding an envelope. The entire planet had won the Intergalactic Clearing House sweepstakes. But the image of Ed McMahon said that in order to collect the prize, everyone must stop wearing either bubble gum or garbage bags or anything totally stupid. Of course the image was actually a hologram projected by Alan and the man, but no one knew that, and they did what the image of Ed McMahon suggested.
The cows in the spaceships were much impressed.
the end
