LST3K Ep. 11: Earth Duh

So they did! Slowly. For the next twenty-four hours. Southern girls!

Dark: Were they explaining it to the numbskull or his somehow self-aware dick? Probably about six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Wood is biodegradable. Plastic isn't. And on and on. Sounded nuts to me but I went along with it. My cock ordered me to.

Dark: I am the Dick, thy god! Thou shalt obey mine command!

That sad excuse for a piece of flesh

Dark: Paging Dr. Freud!

had already forgotten the beautiful Veronica. Something about two birds in the hand was better than one off in Atlanta...

****

"You have a girlfriend don't you?" Ashley asked.

Dark: Not likely.

I nodded. I'd just showered and was getting dressed. We'd spent something like thirty-six hours together. Naked the whole time. I was a wreck!

Dark: Why so...

"Serious?" she probed.

"She's lucky," Kimberly said, then leaned into me and reached up and gave me a quick kiss.

"I'm not so sure she'd agree with that," I answered as I hugged her back.

Dark: To hug back, one must first receive a hug.

"You're okay," the blond said wistfully.

"For a business major," her friend agreed.

We hugged. Kissed gently. I promised that I'd call. Then I turned to go.

Dark: See Dick hug. See Dick kiss.

"Hey!" I heard called when I was ten feet down the hall.

I turned back. Ashley was standing in the doorway.

"It's w w w dot succorious."

"What!"

Dark: You're only ten feet away. Screaming at the top of your lungs is overkill.

"That's the website for the environment friendly dildos. I don't think we ever told you the address. If you want to see the manatee video..."

"Succorious? How do you spell it?" It can't be I thought.

Dark: "It can't be I thought"? I'll have to agree with that one.

"Their head office is in Miami," she added. What the fuck!

Dark: Guess she's ignoring his request for spelling assistance. Or maybe she's half deaf and he should have kept screaming.

****

Dark: Speaking of what the fuck... These scene transitions make about as much sense as asking Stevie Wonder if he's seen Avatar.

I didn't get to check out the website that Sunday night. I wanted to, wanted to badly. But unfortunately Veronica was just arriving back from her weekend away in Atlanta when I got back to my apartment. And although she was eager to immediately hop into the sack I insisted we go out and have dinner. There was no way my penis was ready for my girlfriend, especially a horny one who'd spent the weekend alone.

I wasn't very happy as we ate our pizzas and drank our beers.

Dark: Knows how to wine and dine a girl, don't he?

Or later when we were entwined in bed. Nor very proud of myself. But I went through the motions even though I knew I wasn't going to ever marry her. Or even live with her when we graduated. The past weekend had convinced me of that. But I saved telling her the bad news for another day. I had too many other things on my mind.

Dark: One thing is probably too much for this guy's mind.

****

"w w w dot succorious dot com?" I asked. It was two seventeen in the morning.

"What?" I knew I'd woken Annika up. It was late Monday night.

"w w w dot succorious dot com," I repeated. I'd just spent an hour examining the site. "Who is this?" My sister knew who it was.

Dark: I see that asking stupid questions runs in the family, then.

"It's late you idiot," she finally added after seconds of silence.

"Have you by any chance ever heard of w w w dot succorious dot com before?" I asked quietly.

Dark: Is this a bleedin' infomercial? How many times are you going to type that out?

"You've started your own web site? Couldn't this wonderful news have waited til morning?" She didn't hide the pout in her voice but she wasn't fooling me.

"I'm going to be home on Friday," I threatened.

Dark: I know that I'd consider it a threat.

"Of course you are Axel, its Spring Break," she answered.

Dark: Lord knows you don't have any friends to invite you anywhere.

"If, if any of my suspicions are-"

"Are you bringing that weird girl home?" my sister interrupted.

I knew she was referring to Veronica. The two hadn't exactly hit it off the one time they'd met.

Dark: Most people are a little weirded out when you introduce them to an inflate-a-date.

"She's not a weird girl," I said firmly.

"So you're bringing her?"

"She can't come this time," I answered, not willing to let my sister know that Veronica was history.

Dark: Alas for that pen left lying on the bed. Poor dear deflated in three seconds flat.

"Good," Annie answered.

"I want to talk about this succorious site," I insisted.

"You know I'm not a computer person. Talk to Bridget, she's the geek freak."

"Bridget? If you've involved Bridget in one of your schemes I'll-"

"You'll what?" Annie demanded. She didn't try to hide the challenge in her voice. Typical Annie.

"I'll, I'll-"

Dark: One moment while he consults the sad excuse for a piece of flesh that is the brains of this operation.

"I'll pick you up at the airport Friday," she said, not letting me finish my thought.

"You will?" I was suspicious.

"Then I'll tell you all about it," she promised.

"You will?"

Dark: Somebody give this guy a nudge, his soundtrack is skipping.

"I love you big brother," my sister, nineteen years old and three years younger than me, said before cutting the connection.

And the rest of the night I tossed and turned, visions of my beautiful, virginal sister juxtaposed with armies of dancing dildos.

Dark: Armies of dancing dildos? Squad! Camp it UP!

How could she possibly be selling dildos? She was a freshman at the U for crying out loud. Innocently went to Coral Gables every day to study. Or so I'd believed.

But I knew Annika definitely wasn't innocent! What the hell was mom letting her get away with I wondered as I struggled to fall asleep.

10:45 p.m., Friday, March 20th, Spring Break, Miami Beach, Florida

Dark: All the pointless scene separators earlier, and he can't spare one here, where it would actually make sense?

"Hey you," she said after we'd broken our hug.

Dark: You broke it! We can't have nice things!

My flight from Atlanta had just landed at Miami International. As promised my sister Annika had met me. Everyone called her Annie.

"You realize I'm the only one of us whose name is still Succorious don't you?" I asked my sister once she had the car underway.

"We've decided not to discuss it tonight ... not on your first night home," sis answered sweetly. "Besides, no one knows that's your name."

"We've? Who does we've refer to?" I asked.

"All of us," she agreed.

Dark: Agreed? With what?

Who else is involved I wondered as we drove towards the beach and home. Okay, she was certainly capable of talking her younger sister into something but where was mom when all this was going on. Was mom somehow involved?

"It's still the name on my passport," I protested lamely as we drove.

Dark: Lamely seems to be pretty much par for the course, here.

My sister, who was capable of irritating anyone,

Dark: That must run in the family, too.

simply ignored me.

Dark: Understandable.

My mother had me when she was sixteen. Rosa Bellini. A high school teen from New Jersey, the beloved daughter of an Italian/American family, a girl who'd fallen for a college exchange student from Sweden named Mats Succorious. A tall, blond guy who was studying for a masters degree in chemical engineering.

Dark: And now, some pointless back story. Good time to go grab a drink. Then again, a barf bag would probably be a better idea. Trust me, the worst is yet to come.

And against all odds they'd got married after mom got pregnant! Both families helped. Dad got scholarships. Mom graduated high school then started at the university. Three years later Annika was born followed a year later by the cerebral Bridget.

Dark: Cerebral Bridget sounds like something that would require an ambulance. We've got a Cerebral Bridget! Step on it!

Dad finally got his Doctorate the year mom graduated with a B.A. I was six years old. Axel Roderick Succorious.

So what happened? Why didn't we all live happily ever after?

Dark: Why do we care?

Well, Sweden happened. Snow and cold happened. Dad's family happened.

Dark: The 80s happened. Bio Dome happened.

Father, with his doctorate in hand, had job offers galore. California beckoned. It beckoned mother anyway. Instead he accepted a job in Stockholm. Working for Erikson. One brutally cold winter was all it took to drive Mother back to America. And we returned with her. A trial separation was how they described it at the time.

It was an amicable divorce. Mom wanted to live in America and dad Sweden. It was as simple as that. He continued to help support us. After six months back in the States mom moved us lock, stock and barrel to South Florida.

Dark: California beckoned, so Florida here we come! Huh?

Her year in Sweden had convinced her she never wanted to live in the cold weather again.

We kids all took moms maiden name as our surname when we moved to Florida and registered for school. Annika and Bridget had their names legally changed to Bellini a couple of years later but I'd never wanted to. I was Axel Succorious -- In fact I was the only Succorious in America. Except for w w w dot succorious.

Dark: Aaargh!

Which sold wooden penises. Ones that were apparently good for the environment.

The next morning, Saturday, March 21st, Miami Beach, Florida

"We held a meeting yesterday, before you got home," my sister announced over breakfast the next morning.

"We?" I asked between spoonfuls of Rice Krispies.

Dark: Snap, Crackle, Fuck you.

"The Board of Directors of Succorious Inc.," she added. I simply raised my eyes as I waited for more.

"We've decided to take a chance and offer you the job."

"The job?"

"It was unanimous."

Dark: Are we going to find out that Axel is actually a ghost like Bruce Willis in the Sixth Sense later in this story? He keeps talking, but everyone carries on with their conversation as if he isn't there.

"Even though you don't have any experience Axel," my younger sister Bridget added.

"And do you happen to be on the board dear sister?" I asked sarcastically.

"Yes, and I'm the Vice President of IT too," she answered proudly.

Dark: The job titles in this company are so random that they may as well have been assigned by a magic 8-ball.

"At fifteen?"

"Ha... ha ... ha! Well maybe you haven't noticed Mr. University Student but I'm going to turn eighteen in less than two months.

Dark: This guy is a business major?

She pulled her shoulders back as she spoke.

But I actually had noticed the night before and again this morning. Little Bridget, the computer nerd/hacker, the tomboy who'd sported hoodies and always eschewed any makeup or attempts to pretty herself up, had, since the last time I'd seen her, suddenly developed some womanly properties.

Like breasts. Two of which were clearly pushing through the tight tank top she was wearing.

Dark: What were the rest of her tits doing?

And I was pretty sure she was braless underneath.

"Eighteen? You?" I scoffed as I surreptitiously checked her out.

"Mother is Vice President of Marketing," Annika announced.

"You are? You can't be," I implored as I looked over at my mother. "You can't be involved in one of Annika's crazy schemes? You didn't quit your job did you?"

Dark: And Mom is sitting there staring at him like a cow looking at an oncoming train.

"I'm the President and C.E.O.," my sister went on to add. That didn't surprise me.

"We need a C.F.O. You!" She pointed at my chest as she announced my title.

"Yeah right, I'm going to go to work for my little sister's dildo company."

****

Dark: The transitions in this story are rougher than industrial sandpaper...

Two hours later the four of us were sitting around a conference table in an office in an old cement block industrial building in Hialeah.

Dark: In a hole in the bottom of the sea! Everybody now!

Impossible for me to ignore was the glass fronted display case on the wall opposite which displayed, under lights, the current line of products of Succorious Inc.

Annika had just spent the previous fifteen minutes giving me a rundown on each member of the line. Size, sales figures, profit margins, type of wood used, manufacturing costs associated with each one, etc., etc.

And this from a girl who'd never shown any interest in where money came from or how you earned it in her whole life.

So what the hell was I doing there? Why was I still listening to their story? The truth was I was curious as hell to find out what was going on. And once Annie had started talking over breakfast I'd been hooked.

"We started up a year ago last September," she'd started.

Dark: 'Started' three times in 17 words. Look up repetitive in the dictionary, and it says see this story.

"But you were still in High School," I immediately protested.

"Do you want to hear the story or not?" Annika demanded. I did. So I tried to shut up.

Dark: How we wish you would.

"It came to me when I read the story about the lesbians and the dolphins," she explained as she started again.

"Lesbians?" I hadn't been able to stop the word from escaping from my mouth.

"Don't you remember? When the lesbian party boat capsized in Biscayne Bay?" I didn't know what she was talking about and my face showed it.

Dark: I would think that blank stare of incomprehension was pretty much standard for this guy.

"I think he was visiting Dad that summer," Bridget advised her sister.

"Oh. Well Axel, what do you imagine went into the sea along with the two hundred drunk lesbians?"

Dark: Two hundred? How big was this frikkin' boat?

"Plastic penises?" I ventured a guess. Annika nodded yes.

"At least a thousand of them. Made of plastic. And most with batteries. And who do you think ended up eating them?" Bridget asked.

Dark: Duh. You already said they were lesbians, who do you think... Oh, the dildos.

When I didn't answer immediately my mother supplied the answer. "Manatees. A whole family of them." There was a look of distaste on all their faces.

Dark: Because as we all know, dildos look a lot like the plants that manatees eat.

"The video's on our site, I'll show you," Bridget said as she turned her ever present laptop towards me. So I had to sit through a five minute video that showed the autopsies of the three Manatees who'd succumbed. It was disgusting.

Dark: Wait a minute. Weren't they talking about lesbians and dolphins just a minute ago? Where the hell did the manatees come from?

"I had to do something, you know how much I worry about the environment Axel." No I didn't!

Dark: If you're going to write the narrative as though you're thinking it, put your thoughts in a new paragraph so it makes some sense!

"I learned plastic penises are a scourge on our beautiful Earth. Floating islands of them are washing up in Antarctica, decimating the Emperor Penguins."

Dark: Penis island ho, Captain!

"It's true," Bridget said, nodding, agreeing with her sister.

So the idea was born. Environmentally friendly penile replacers as they called them. And Bridget, our family computer genius, destined for MIT or CalTech, was quickly drawn into the plot by her persuasive sister. A professional website was designed. Mother was somehow lassoed into joining them. I'm still not sure how.

So after hearing their story I'd let them lead me to the company headquarters in Hialeah. Found out that the company had been incorporated in August two thousand and seven. When I was in Sweden visiting my dad. And that twenty-five percent of the company shares had been put in my name.

Dark: Please recycle your sentence fragments, for the good of the planet. Actually, compost the whole story.

"But they only vest to you after you've worked for the company five years Axel," Bridget had cautioned.

They'd sold a few thousand dildos online during the ensuing Christmas season. Crude imitations of their present line up. Every dildo sold carried the environmental message. The word quickly spread across the Internet. Facebook, My Space, YouTube, and hundreds of other smaller sites were soon spreading the message. Lesbians were mobilized. College dorms were atwitter with the news.

Dark: Yet, this guy has somehow never heard of it. Don't get out much, do he?

Bridget's computer savvy ensured that blogs from Tokyo to Timbuktu were full of news of the 'succorious'.

"We plant one tree for every dildo sold," Mom said proudly.

Dark: It speaks!

"And ten percent of our profits go to help save the Penguins and Manatees," Bridget gushed.

Dark: What happened to the dolphin-fishes?

The whole thing sounded pretty crazy to me but when the ladies got to the actual numbers I couldn't help but be impressed.

Dark: Any number above what he can count on his fingers probably impresses this guy.

Sales had grown exponentially during two thousand and eight and final sales results for the year, including an outstanding Xmas season, had been two hundred and ninety thousand units. At an average of about eighty-three dollars per sale.

"You sold over twenty million bucks last year?"

Dark: I thought they were selling dildos, not deer.

I was flabbergasted. "And you didn't tell me?"

"I gave you a nice present at Christmas," young Bridget answered.

"We wanted you to finish school first, graduate," mom explained.

"You still have to pass your final exams if you want to work for us," Annie said. Was she teasing?

Their financial books were a mess. Which I found out after spending about five minutes with their accountant that afternoon.

Dark: Probably graduated from the same school that this numbskull is going to.

I chided my sister.

"Why do you think we're hiring you?" she asked. I had no answer to that.

Dark: Why am I not surprised?

So, by the end of that day, I'd agreed to become CFO of Succorious Inc. as of Monday, May 11th, 2009, four days after my final exam. I was so excited by the prospect that I didn't even spend any time negotiating salary and perks. What the hell, I owned a quarter of the company.

1:00 p.m. Sunday, March 22nd 2009, Miami Beach, Florida

"You're supposed to be on holiday."

Dark: Something you'd naturally hear a woman in the U.S. say, huh? Are they going to nip off to the pub on the way?

I looked up from the papers strewn across my desk to see Annika standing in the doorway. Mom was behind her.

"There are a million things to do," I answered. I'd been in the office since dawn going over the company's financial books.

"Not today," she insisted, "we're going to the beach."

"We are?"

"Everything's in the car," mom announced from the doorway.

"I don't have my bathing suit," I said, stalling. I'd been engrossed in the work I'd been doing. This was why I'd been studying for four years I'd realized that morning. I was happy.

"I brought it," my sister lied

Dark: And he buys it. Boy's about as sharp as a bowling ball.

as she and my mother escorted me out of the office. But not before I'd stuffed a pile of paperwork into my briefcase.

****

"Where are we going?" I asked ten minutes later when I looked up and saw we weren't taking the most direct route to South Beach. In fact we seemed to be going in the opposite direction.