Post by Basil on Apr 3, 2010 20:42:09 GMT -5
This is a parody of a book called "Odd Thomas" that I read in Australia, back in 2009, and found so exasperating I felt the urgent need to ridicule it. No, I never finished it.
Odd Thomas shuffled along the worn and grubby pavement of Mumbo Jumbo's main street, kicking at bits of litter and the occasional dead and dessicated squirrel. He was on his way to work at the Mumbo Jumbo Grill, a seedy little fast food restaurant that had been recently described as the 'perfect place to get food poisoning or a complete intestinal meltdown' by a top food critic.
The restaurant was one of Mumbo Jumbo's only high points, the others being a 100 year old ficus and a plastic statue of a paraplegic cow. The ficus had attracted a lot of controversy in its time but had been declared a fake by practically all the people outside Mumbo Jumbo who came to see it, except for a few gullible souls belonging to some strange sect that worshipped kidneys.
Odd Thomas was a typical inhabitant of Mumbo Jumbo: as interesting as a ketchup stain on a fat man's shirt. He spent his days at the Grill concocting foul fried up dishes to satisfy the appetites of the town's police force - which comprised a total of three overweight policemen and a lethargic and flatulent alsatian - and other various specimens.
The owner of the Grill, Terri Tannenbaum, was a savage one-eyed woman who liked to reminisce about the days when you could shoot till-robbers. She would strut around the dirty hellhole that served as a kitchen and shout and spit invectives at her employees before whacking them with a soup ladle for good measure. The staff at the Grill was therefore constantly changing as some broke down and committed suicide or were killed in bizarre accidents involving kitchen utensils and fried eggs (health and safety were concepts unknown to Mumbo Jumbo in general).
Thomas stepped over a pile of mud and putrid leaves left over from the last flash flood and entered the dingy, fly-ridden grease pit of the Mumbo Jumbo Grill.
Tannenbaum, who had been busy cleaning a table with a dirty old rag, turned her one bloodshot and suspicious eye towards Odd and growled threateningly:
"Ye're late, Odd Thomas"
"-But I start work at 8:30 am and it's 8:25, how could I possibly be late?" said Odd Thomas, confused and fearful.
"-I just changed your starting hour to 8:00, you useless scumbag, now get to work before I stuff this rag down your wormy throat!"
Odd scuttled hurriedly across the filthy floor but was unable to avoid a hard kick from his benevolent superior.
"-All of ye hurry up and get yer mangey hides to work, and that includes you sweety!"
As she said that she smiled crookedly and spat at a delicate looking youth who shied away from her.
The first customers waddled into the grill to get their daily cholesterol fix, and as the first orders came in, Odd suddenly realised that there was no frying oil left.
He mentioned that fact to Tannenbaum who simply said: "don't be such a frilly wussy and use the old oil left overs in the pans" before chasing him away with her soup ladle.
A few minutes later, as he watched one customer cautiously prod with a fork the greasy black mess he had just been served, Odd's attention was drawn to the grubby fly-specked window of the grill. The unmistakable face of Elvis Presley was pressed up against the glass and seemed to be ogling the antics of a family of gormless Mumbo Jumboites messily devouring their pile of greasy deep-fried egg, deep-fried bacon, deep-fried toast, ketchup and cheese with steak.
Odd looked at Elvis questioningly when he finally entered the Grill by passing through the wall and an elderly and overweight lady who briefly stopped masticating to look around her, mystified.
The King glided up to the counter and began a grotesque display that could have been sign language or a mimed version of a Black and Decker commercial.
Odd Thomas stared at him for a few seconds before saying "you can drop the 'dead cannot speak' act, it makes you look like a wacko strangling a drill"
"-All right buddy, how's it going?" said the deceased rock n' roll icon.
"-My boss seems to be persecuting me today and all our customers probably hate me, but otherwise everythings fine"
"-Wow, that's wonderful, kid. Dang I wish I could still eat, I used to thrive on the stuff you cook"
"-And look what it lead you to, a morbidly obese poncho-wearing monstrosity"
"-Yeah but look at me now! I'm good, handsome and as fit as an athlete!"
"-Not that it takes much effort to lug around a body that's lighter than air, you're a ghost."
At that moment there came a shriek from the other end of the kitchen, followed by Tannenbaum yelling about Betty stabbing her hand with a meat knife.
"-Sounds like Betty's had another accident with a carving knife", said Elvis with a smile, "that girl is gold, she probably believes she's Jesus and she's practising crucifixion with knives"
He laughed out loud at his morbid joke before assuming a pained expression. "I've something to tell you Odd"
"What is it?" said Odd with a sigh.
"-Rockefeller's been harassing me again", said the King in a weepy voice, "he keeps accosting me in the street and trying to hump me"
"-But you know that Rockefellers' a sexual pervert and is insane, he's harmless really"
"-Yeah but it feels so...degrading!" wailed Elvis as he finally burst into tears.
Odd Thomas sighed. When people died and came back as ghosts they seemed to undergo radical personality changes and often ended up as blubbering nervous wrecks, sexual perverts or sometimes something a lot worse. And such was the case of John D. Rockefeller the deceased millionaire who now spent his dead days hovering around Mumbo Jumbo making obscene
gestures, humping people and accosting cats, dogs and other ghosts.
Odd was abruptly wrenched from his reverie by a stunning blow to the back of his head. As he regained consciousness he saw Tannenbaum standing over him with a frying pan and a look of
perfect hatred on her face.
"You've bin driftin' off at work yer son of a bitch an' I can't tolerate that kind of conduct"
Odd whimpered as she proceeded to beat him up behind the counter, with Elvis Presley crying and blubbering and the Grill customers noisily cheering Tannenbaum on between mouthfuls.
Another typical working day for Odd Thomas.
After having been thoroughly beaten up and having spent the rest of the day cooking like a slave to avoid another session, Odd decided to pay a little visit to one of his friends, Fat Ozzie. Fat Ozzie considered himself to be a brilliant artist despite the fact that he had been chucked out of three different art schools in one week and having all his manuscripts sent back as hate mail. After his nineteenth unsuccessful attempt at getting one of his books published, he had decided to lead a rebellion against the 'oppressive artistic establishment' by printing out his work and photocopying it before leaving it in various public spaces in Mumbo Jumbo. This, he claimed, would awaken the artistic consciousness of the people and lead them into overthrowing the establishment. Unfortunately, the only thing this lead to was a rise in vandalism and sex crimes in the area. Odd now sat on a small and rickety chair facing the enormous pile of flesh and fat that was Ozzie.
"-I really don't see what people hate so much about my work", said Ozzie as he snaffled an enormous sandwich that appeared to have salad, meringue, olives, chili, salami and maple syrup in
it.
"-I don't know either, Ozzie, I suppose you're a bit ahead of your time"
"-Yes I suppose so", conceded Ozzie in his pompously cultivated English accent, "but then again, not all is lost, remember that love story I wrote, 'The Vicar's Wife'? That got published."
Odd almost winced at the mention of the book. 'Love story' was completely inapropriate for the horrendously pornographic and perverted mess that was 'the Vicar's Wife', which had been
printed by an obscure publishing agency called 'Kingdom of Lust'. He wouldn't be surprised if Rockefeller had read it.
Fat Ozzie stuffed the last bit of sandwich into his mouth and picked up a large keg of red wine which he gulped down with relish.
As Ozzie enjoyed his refined recipe, Odd looked around the large and almost obscenely decorated room for any sign of Horrible Fester, Ozzie's cat.
Horrible Fester was a completely insane and highly destructive member of the feline family. Everyone living in the neighbourhood feared him as one would fear a volcanic eruption or a rabid pack of bears, and nobody ever went outdoors after dark.
Fester's hatred of all God's creatures extended, unsurprisingly, to Odd but with a grudge on top of it. Indeed, Odd had been unfortunate enough to tread on Fester's tail one saturday afternoon and had ended up at the local clinic with a badly mangled leg, and when Ozzie had begged Odd not to tell the doctors that he had been savagely attacked by Fester but that he had put his leg through a wood chipper, Odd had complied and had been put in a psychiatric hospital for some time where he had been confronted at all hours of the day with the ghost of Fred Astair and his ghastly attempts at singing and dancing.
There was no sign of the feline menace and Odd observed one of the local street cleaners stuffing large amounts of mud, leaves, trash and what appeared to be a dead and bloated labrador
down one of the street's storm drains. So that's why we've been having so many floods recently, thought Odd. So engrossed in his thoughts was he that he failed to notice the arrival of Fester until the murderous animal leaped at him in a spitting, scratching ball of raw fury and fur.
"-So, you decided to put your arm under a lawnmower, is that it?"
"-Yes, doctor"
"-But why?"
"-What can I say, doctor, I'm Odd, I'm a sick guy"
"-So the wood chipper story was true then?"
"-Yes, doctor"
"-Well, I'm a bit of a masochist myself, you know. Me and my wife get off on that sort of thing..."
Odd lay in a hospital bed with doctor Lovell droning away about his masochistic experiences while Rockefeller's ghost leered sickeningly from the window sill, listening intently to what Lovell was saying.
"...and that is why I never tried to shove a foreign object up my pen...are you all right Odd?"
"-Y-yes, doctor", said Odd, trying hard not to stare at Rockefeller who was passionately humping doctor Lovell's right leg.
"-Very good. But before we let you out I wish to give you some advice concerning your colourful sexual practices"
Lovell, still blissfully unaware of the amorous ectoplasm hanging on to his his leg, handed out a couple of brochures to Odd.
"These should provide you with information on how to safely indulge in your wood chipper love sessions and also help you meet up with other people who share your interests" said Lovell jovially.
Odd Thomas shuffled along the worn and grubby pavement of Mumbo Jumbo's main street, kicking at bits of litter and the occasional dead and dessicated squirrel. He was on his way to work at the Mumbo Jumbo Grill, a seedy little fast food restaurant that had been recently described as the 'perfect place to get food poisoning or a complete intestinal meltdown' by a top food critic.
The restaurant was one of Mumbo Jumbo's only high points, the others being a 100 year old ficus and a plastic statue of a paraplegic cow. The ficus had attracted a lot of controversy in its time but had been declared a fake by practically all the people outside Mumbo Jumbo who came to see it, except for a few gullible souls belonging to some strange sect that worshipped kidneys.
Odd Thomas was a typical inhabitant of Mumbo Jumbo: as interesting as a ketchup stain on a fat man's shirt. He spent his days at the Grill concocting foul fried up dishes to satisfy the appetites of the town's police force - which comprised a total of three overweight policemen and a lethargic and flatulent alsatian - and other various specimens.
The owner of the Grill, Terri Tannenbaum, was a savage one-eyed woman who liked to reminisce about the days when you could shoot till-robbers. She would strut around the dirty hellhole that served as a kitchen and shout and spit invectives at her employees before whacking them with a soup ladle for good measure. The staff at the Grill was therefore constantly changing as some broke down and committed suicide or were killed in bizarre accidents involving kitchen utensils and fried eggs (health and safety were concepts unknown to Mumbo Jumbo in general).
Thomas stepped over a pile of mud and putrid leaves left over from the last flash flood and entered the dingy, fly-ridden grease pit of the Mumbo Jumbo Grill.
Tannenbaum, who had been busy cleaning a table with a dirty old rag, turned her one bloodshot and suspicious eye towards Odd and growled threateningly:
"Ye're late, Odd Thomas"
"-But I start work at 8:30 am and it's 8:25, how could I possibly be late?" said Odd Thomas, confused and fearful.
"-I just changed your starting hour to 8:00, you useless scumbag, now get to work before I stuff this rag down your wormy throat!"
Odd scuttled hurriedly across the filthy floor but was unable to avoid a hard kick from his benevolent superior.
"-All of ye hurry up and get yer mangey hides to work, and that includes you sweety!"
As she said that she smiled crookedly and spat at a delicate looking youth who shied away from her.
The first customers waddled into the grill to get their daily cholesterol fix, and as the first orders came in, Odd suddenly realised that there was no frying oil left.
He mentioned that fact to Tannenbaum who simply said: "don't be such a frilly wussy and use the old oil left overs in the pans" before chasing him away with her soup ladle.
A few minutes later, as he watched one customer cautiously prod with a fork the greasy black mess he had just been served, Odd's attention was drawn to the grubby fly-specked window of the grill. The unmistakable face of Elvis Presley was pressed up against the glass and seemed to be ogling the antics of a family of gormless Mumbo Jumboites messily devouring their pile of greasy deep-fried egg, deep-fried bacon, deep-fried toast, ketchup and cheese with steak.
Odd looked at Elvis questioningly when he finally entered the Grill by passing through the wall and an elderly and overweight lady who briefly stopped masticating to look around her, mystified.
The King glided up to the counter and began a grotesque display that could have been sign language or a mimed version of a Black and Decker commercial.
Odd Thomas stared at him for a few seconds before saying "you can drop the 'dead cannot speak' act, it makes you look like a wacko strangling a drill"
"-All right buddy, how's it going?" said the deceased rock n' roll icon.
"-My boss seems to be persecuting me today and all our customers probably hate me, but otherwise everythings fine"
"-Wow, that's wonderful, kid. Dang I wish I could still eat, I used to thrive on the stuff you cook"
"-And look what it lead you to, a morbidly obese poncho-wearing monstrosity"
"-Yeah but look at me now! I'm good, handsome and as fit as an athlete!"
"-Not that it takes much effort to lug around a body that's lighter than air, you're a ghost."
At that moment there came a shriek from the other end of the kitchen, followed by Tannenbaum yelling about Betty stabbing her hand with a meat knife.
"-Sounds like Betty's had another accident with a carving knife", said Elvis with a smile, "that girl is gold, she probably believes she's Jesus and she's practising crucifixion with knives"
He laughed out loud at his morbid joke before assuming a pained expression. "I've something to tell you Odd"
"What is it?" said Odd with a sigh.
"-Rockefeller's been harassing me again", said the King in a weepy voice, "he keeps accosting me in the street and trying to hump me"
"-But you know that Rockefellers' a sexual pervert and is insane, he's harmless really"
"-Yeah but it feels so...degrading!" wailed Elvis as he finally burst into tears.
Odd Thomas sighed. When people died and came back as ghosts they seemed to undergo radical personality changes and often ended up as blubbering nervous wrecks, sexual perverts or sometimes something a lot worse. And such was the case of John D. Rockefeller the deceased millionaire who now spent his dead days hovering around Mumbo Jumbo making obscene
gestures, humping people and accosting cats, dogs and other ghosts.
Odd was abruptly wrenched from his reverie by a stunning blow to the back of his head. As he regained consciousness he saw Tannenbaum standing over him with a frying pan and a look of
perfect hatred on her face.
"You've bin driftin' off at work yer son of a bitch an' I can't tolerate that kind of conduct"
Odd whimpered as she proceeded to beat him up behind the counter, with Elvis Presley crying and blubbering and the Grill customers noisily cheering Tannenbaum on between mouthfuls.
Another typical working day for Odd Thomas.
After having been thoroughly beaten up and having spent the rest of the day cooking like a slave to avoid another session, Odd decided to pay a little visit to one of his friends, Fat Ozzie. Fat Ozzie considered himself to be a brilliant artist despite the fact that he had been chucked out of three different art schools in one week and having all his manuscripts sent back as hate mail. After his nineteenth unsuccessful attempt at getting one of his books published, he had decided to lead a rebellion against the 'oppressive artistic establishment' by printing out his work and photocopying it before leaving it in various public spaces in Mumbo Jumbo. This, he claimed, would awaken the artistic consciousness of the people and lead them into overthrowing the establishment. Unfortunately, the only thing this lead to was a rise in vandalism and sex crimes in the area. Odd now sat on a small and rickety chair facing the enormous pile of flesh and fat that was Ozzie.
"-I really don't see what people hate so much about my work", said Ozzie as he snaffled an enormous sandwich that appeared to have salad, meringue, olives, chili, salami and maple syrup in
it.
"-I don't know either, Ozzie, I suppose you're a bit ahead of your time"
"-Yes I suppose so", conceded Ozzie in his pompously cultivated English accent, "but then again, not all is lost, remember that love story I wrote, 'The Vicar's Wife'? That got published."
Odd almost winced at the mention of the book. 'Love story' was completely inapropriate for the horrendously pornographic and perverted mess that was 'the Vicar's Wife', which had been
printed by an obscure publishing agency called 'Kingdom of Lust'. He wouldn't be surprised if Rockefeller had read it.
Fat Ozzie stuffed the last bit of sandwich into his mouth and picked up a large keg of red wine which he gulped down with relish.
As Ozzie enjoyed his refined recipe, Odd looked around the large and almost obscenely decorated room for any sign of Horrible Fester, Ozzie's cat.
Horrible Fester was a completely insane and highly destructive member of the feline family. Everyone living in the neighbourhood feared him as one would fear a volcanic eruption or a rabid pack of bears, and nobody ever went outdoors after dark.
Fester's hatred of all God's creatures extended, unsurprisingly, to Odd but with a grudge on top of it. Indeed, Odd had been unfortunate enough to tread on Fester's tail one saturday afternoon and had ended up at the local clinic with a badly mangled leg, and when Ozzie had begged Odd not to tell the doctors that he had been savagely attacked by Fester but that he had put his leg through a wood chipper, Odd had complied and had been put in a psychiatric hospital for some time where he had been confronted at all hours of the day with the ghost of Fred Astair and his ghastly attempts at singing and dancing.
There was no sign of the feline menace and Odd observed one of the local street cleaners stuffing large amounts of mud, leaves, trash and what appeared to be a dead and bloated labrador
down one of the street's storm drains. So that's why we've been having so many floods recently, thought Odd. So engrossed in his thoughts was he that he failed to notice the arrival of Fester until the murderous animal leaped at him in a spitting, scratching ball of raw fury and fur.
"-So, you decided to put your arm under a lawnmower, is that it?"
"-Yes, doctor"
"-But why?"
"-What can I say, doctor, I'm Odd, I'm a sick guy"
"-So the wood chipper story was true then?"
"-Yes, doctor"
"-Well, I'm a bit of a masochist myself, you know. Me and my wife get off on that sort of thing..."
Odd lay in a hospital bed with doctor Lovell droning away about his masochistic experiences while Rockefeller's ghost leered sickeningly from the window sill, listening intently to what Lovell was saying.
"...and that is why I never tried to shove a foreign object up my pen...are you all right Odd?"
"-Y-yes, doctor", said Odd, trying hard not to stare at Rockefeller who was passionately humping doctor Lovell's right leg.
"-Very good. But before we let you out I wish to give you some advice concerning your colourful sexual practices"
Lovell, still blissfully unaware of the amorous ectoplasm hanging on to his his leg, handed out a couple of brochures to Odd.
"These should provide you with information on how to safely indulge in your wood chipper love sessions and also help you meet up with other people who share your interests" said Lovell jovially.
