BANDICOOT IN HELL
One fine morning, Coco is sitting in the office of a stress therapist.
Therapist: What exactly is it that is causing you stress?
Coco: To put it simply, it's my brother Crash. Not so very long ago I asked him to help bring the shopping bags in and take the bags of rubbish out for the dustman. To sum up, it wasn't long before a load of rubbish was sitting in bags in the kitchen whilst a refuse truck was disappearing into the distance with a weeks' worth of shopping. Then there was the time Crash ended up stark naked in the middle of the town square. There was the time when he soaked the carpet in tizer after he tried to see how much tizer he could fit into pairs of underpants.
Therapist: That sounds terrible. (the therapist is, by now, certain the other must be making all this up. It just sounds too crazy to be real).
Coco: Then there was the time he flooded with sofa with milk. And when we were back at school years ago he....it's so disgusting I don't even want to think about it. But all the girls in the hockey team saw him do it.
Therapist: Er, maybe you ought to write to someone. Try Dingodile Jones' agony column.
Coco: (glances at the column in the paper) Isn't she familiar? Just imagine her without that wig and those horn-rimmed spectacles and....oh, never mind. I'll write to her with my every problem, find out what advice she can give me.
At home later that day, Crash is making his bed when Coco appears.
Crash: Uh, hi. (not looking what he is doing, he doesn't notice he is holding the pillow the wrong way. As he shakes it to straighten it, the inside of the pillow falls out of the pillow case. Putting the case on the bed, he is perplexed to see the pillow has gone, starts opening up the pillow case to look for it).
Coco: Crash, I was wondering.... (she enters his room to find him looking into an empty pillow case with a telescope) Where is today's paper. (then she spots the paper figures he has been making) Is that today's paper?
Crash: Uh, what? Oh yeah. Sorry. So what did the therapod say?
Coco: The therapist advised me to write to Dingodile Jones (finally, an agony aunt with a vaguely sensible name). So I will, and I've already got a few things to write to her about.
Coco returns home later that day to find the sofa and armchairs are nothing but ashes.
Coco: What's happened?!
Crash: Uh, you said you could fix that light in the front room that stopped working. I thought I'd save you the bother, and called this man. (hands her a poster) Uh, all he did was start spitting lightning and stuff.
Coco: (looks at the poster, groans) Electric Ian.
Crash: Uh, I thought it was one of those blokes who fixed electrics and stuff.
Coco: That's an electrician. Electric Ian is a novelty circus act who can swallow and then spit bolts of electricity. (looks in dismay at the remains of the furniture).
That evening, the three bandicoots are sitting on upturned crates.
Crash: Uh, so why isn't the telly working?
Coco: It might be something to do with the fact you took all the insides out.
Crash: I wanted to pretend I was on the telly.
Coco: And that TV was rented. I suppose I'm going to have to pay for it.
Crash: What'll we do until we get a new telly?
Coco: Perhaps we could try - horror of horrors - talking to each other, having an intelligent conversation.
Crash: (thinks hard) Uh, okay. Remember when we were at school? Thrasher Hewitt once tied my nose in a knot. I got revenge on him, though. I went for a plop in his gym shorts. He didn't realise it was there, spent the whole PE lesson shuffling about. In the end it fell out when he was doing the high-jump. Everyone thought he'd done it because he was scared. We all laughed till we nearly pooed our own pants.
Bang: You remember Mr Meadows?
Crash: Uh, yeah. I remember what he wrote in my school report. Never seen someone use the word 'bumbrain' twenty-seven times in one sentence before.
Bang: What did the rest of the sentence say?
Crash: Uh, nothing. Just 'bumbrain' twenty-seven times, and my name at the beginning of it. Uh, remember that cookery teacher? Stinky Bostock reckoned she sometimes never wore underpants. I once went into a shop to buy something, and I wasn't wearing any underpants at all. The girl behind the counter never knew. (laughs) Hey, it was really exciting.
Coco: (looks skywards in dismay) Maybe I could have a more intelligent conversation with someone else. (turns to nearby flower pot). Hello, Mr Flowerpot. How are you today? (she nudges it, and it makes a scraping noise as it moves) That's the most intelligent thing anyone's said to me all evening.
Crash: (looks worried) Uh, do you think my sister's alright?
Bang: Alright? I'll bet she's like a tigress between the sheets.
Crash: (thinks for a bit) Would you have it off with a woman who used to be a man?
Coco: What?
Crash: Uh, it was Bang I was talking to. Would you, then?
Bang: Sorry?
Crash: You know, if she used to be a man. How do they do that anyway?
Coco: Do what?
Crash: Suddenly turn into a woman.
Coco: I'll explain some day. Preferably after I've died of old age. Oh well. At least I'll have a lot to write to my agony aunt now.
Early the next morning, Coco is on the telephone.
Coco: Well, what in hell's name is going on? You may recall that some months ago I ordered an easy-to-assemble coffee table from your very catalogue. So why have I been sent an inflatable dinosaur? I even had to pay to get it out of the post office because the stamps had fallen off! I've been waiting six months for this order! How exactly can it take so long to post something? Where you sending it via a depot on Neptune? (pause) And to you! (slams the phone down) Oh, give me strength. Well, they haven't heard the last of this!
Crash: Uh, morning.
Coco: Why are they digging up all the roads out there?
Crash: Uh, dunno.
Coco: Thanks to them I couldn't sit my university exam yesterday, after they cut through a power line and blocked out half of East Street. And I nearly got run over as I left on my bicycle.
Bang: The council told the workmen to put up new lamp posts in East Street.
Coco: Yes, and they've put them in East Street alright. Literally IN East Street, in the middle of the road! It's only a narrow little road as it is after they pedestrianised half of it for no apparent reason. That council will be getting a piece of my mind, mark me.
Crash nods and, after hunting through a pencil case, pulls out a marker pen and draws a big red cross on Coco's t-shirt.
Coco: (looking down in horror) What are you doing?!
Crash: Uh, you said to mark you. That's how teachers at school used to mark my work.
Coco: You complete and utter....oh, give me strength! This is the only top I've got after that useless laundry van lost all those clothes of ours. I said going to them was more trouble than it was worth, but oh no, you knew best. Now what am I going to do?
Bang: Go topless? (wiggles eyebrows)
Coco: Har har. What a wit. (pulls on a denim top over her t-shirt). And of course it's stifeling hot out there, so I'll roast alive. The one day in January when you don't want it to be hot! Give me strength. (goes to the front door) What in the name of....
(A short while later she is having an argument on the telephone).
Coco: Those workmen who installed all those miniature windmills, for reasons than escape me, have left the street in a right mess. There's a huge pile of rubble in front of my garden gate. And what's the meaning of that new lamp post? How many sets do we need in one street? I'll tell you what the problem is! Its pointing the wrong way! And it's too far away from the road to be of any use anyway. And I don't care if it is six metres tall. It's not the size of your column that counts, it's where you put it. Yes, and the same to you! (shortly, Coco manages to clamber over the hill of rubble outside the gate, negotiate her way past the poles which will one day have windmill blades on them, makes her way to college) During my break I'll write to my agony aunt about all this.
That evening, the bandicoots are watching TV, viewing a TV prog dealing with the problems of ordinary everyday folk. A woman in a fetching blonde wig and glasses appears. She is also clad in a quite alluring dress.
Veropithascoobiebywayexawanderingminstreliboingboingcardboardboxflippyfloppyfloo: (an agony aunt with a quite sensible name, thankyou all the same) So what is your problem, young lady.
Dingodile Jones: Well, mate....er, I mean Mrs V. I've got this person who keeps deluging me with letters complaining about everything under the sun. It's costing me a fortune to answer all her letters!
Mrs V: (as Dingodile Jones starts blubbing) There there, dear.
Crash and Bang glance at Coco, who can only return a stare of innocence.
THE END
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