It's been a fortnight since last I cast my gaze upon the bottom of my kitchen sink. I've watched in horror as layer upon layer of used plates, bowls, silverware, pots, and pans methodically reached towards the stars like an undersea volcanic vent spewing forth magma to create a new landmass. Scraps and splatters of what had once been edible material full of wholesome goodness have coalesced into ragged clumps of biological refuse. Not only is the mound an eyesore, but it seems to enjoy smelling like something different every day. On Monday, it was bologna on rye. On Tuesday, it was a Worcester girl after a long night at Sh'booms. Today, it seems to be doing its best impersonation of Matthews Arena.
"But Scott Colby," you are surely asking by now, "how difficult is it to wash a few dishes?" While it is true that washing dishes is one of the favorite occupations of those who failed to complete high school, and as such is ridiculously easy, that is not the point. Other people's dishes are other people's dishes.
Still, as the days passed, the urge to destroy the mound with a torrent of hot water and soap became stronger and stronger. Often while sitting in a classroom I would find my right hand making a circular scrubbing motion on its own accord, and I would grab it with my left and slam it down on the desk and hope that no one thought I was a retard. Sometimes I could even feel the soft underside of a soapy sponge tickling my palm. I decided that the source of my distraction must be eliminated, lest it ruin my ability to operate amongst normal people with clean sinks. I was truly a man on a mission when I burst into the room and stalked stoically toward the mound.
Imagine how shocked I was when I heard it singing.
Unfortunately, the high-pitched melody stopped abruptly before I could recognize the tune. Thousands of tiny feet could be heard scrabbling for purchase amidst the cookery, accompanied by a few distressed whines and moans. And then all of a sudden the mound returned to its naturally quiet state.
I stared at the pile in utter disbelief for what seemed like 2 hours but was really about a minute and a half, trying to determine if I'd actually heard what I thought I'd heard or if that fat girl at Foggy Goggle had slipped me a mickey again. I scratched my butt a few times, but that didn't help. The only way I was going to determine what was going on would be to investigate the sink.
After putting on a breath mask and duct taping a flashlight to the side of my head, I cautiously approached the steaming mound. With my roommate's toothbrush I carefully lifted the topmost layer of crud and examined the mound's interior. A wispy cloud of greenish vapor that reeked of dirty sweatsocks wafted into the air, but I ignored it and focused my attention on the crusty landscape before me. A thorough examination of the mound revealed no evidence of anything that could've been singing. It seemed that Shavonda was up to her old tricks again.
But then I saw it, a thin sliver of blue in a dingy brown clump of week old guacamole. I carefully retrieved the tiny fiber with my roommate's nose hair tweezers and held it up to the flashlight at my temple. My mind whirred and spun as I dove through my memories of ninth grade biology.
And then it clicked. The singing, the blue hair...it could mean only one thing.
Here be fraggles.
No, that's not a misprint. All evidence pointed to a community of fraggles living in the filth that used to be my kitchen sink. "But Scott Colby," you're whining again, "Fraggles live in a hole in the wall that leads to Fraggle Rock, not Fraggle Dish Pile." Well, you'd be correct, if it was 1986. But the modern fraggle lives a much different lifestyle than those who filled our childhoods with song. The onset of global warming led to the extinction of the Dozers, the manufacturers of their one and only food source. The Dozers were extremely sensitive to temperature; their spleens stopped spleening, and they all keeled over and died. The only fraggles that survived the food shortage were the ones that turned to eating dish gunk. Their whole way of life changed; the carefree days of singing songs about sharing and friendship are gone forever, replaced with a filthy existence that can only be expressed through late 80's power ballads. The state of the modern fraggle is truly a sad one, and President Bush doesn't want you to know any of this.
I wanted to see them. I knew that I would have to wait until the late evening, when they would feel safe enough to show themselves. I also knew that fraggles are extremely sensitive to the biorythms of other creatures. For those of you with a fourth grade education, that means that they would be able to hear my heartbeat and thus would keep themselves hidden. In order to observe them, I would have to place myself in a near comatose state. So I went down to the Fuentes Market, plunked down $3.75 for a 30 rack of Natty Light, and drank myself into a stupor on the aptly named Ol' Stinky.
They appeared around 3 a.m., a horde of bedraggled little muppets moping pathetically across the floor like Scott Colby after he's spent an entire graphics class thinking about depressing things he knows he shouldn't be thinking about but which he thinks about anyways because Laterza is stupid and there is nothing better to do. They didn't laugh or dance or play or do any of the things you'd expect fraggles to do. They did, however, perform the saddest, most touching rendition of "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" that I have ever heard. And then I passed out.
And no, the fraggles were not a side effect of the beer. Everyone knows that Natty Light makes you hallucinate snorkels, not fraggles.
I'm bored with this. The end.
P.S. I Stole Your Lunch thanks Mike Brilla for eradicating the disgusting pile of dishes. The Environmental Protection Agency, however, does not approve of the destruction of fraggle habitats. They do not care that he is an Important Businessman. They've dispatched a squad of delta force tree huggers to sing him happy songs and recycle his paper. Run, Mr. Brilla. Run like the wind!
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