Mr. Procrastinator

In the darkest of woodlands, in the smallest of houses, lived the littlest man, with the shortest attention span. His name was Bob Procrastinator. Bob was a simple man, who still drank out of the tap, an owned no “modern day” appliance, except for a microwave, which was broken and he used as a side table in the living room. The living room in fact, was pretty much the whole house. You see, Bob was a very fickle man and had trouble committing himself to even the small things like what flavor of tooth paste he wanted, or what percent of fat he wanted in his milk, because of this he had trouble keeping a job. Through out his life he had done a list of many things; he stocked food at the local grocery store, he went door to door trying to sale a vacuums, he even went as far as to invest in a bicycle to help with his paper route. But after about a month he would get tired of the job and leave without notice, either that, or his boss would fire him. He went from job to job, from employer to employer, and left them all the same. 1

Bob didn’t have many friends, mainly because he didn’t get out much. He was the type of person who sat in the corner analyzing people. Studying how they ate, their breeding habits, how they treated their young, things of that nature. Many people thought he was psychotic, but he paid no attention, primarily because he was poor and didn’t know the price of attention. From what he gathered, it cost too much for anyone in the twenty-first century. It seemed to him that people only paid attention to one another when things were bad and they had to find someone to blame. Other times they were side tracked by cell phones and TV’s and cars and video games. 2

Once while sitting under a tree (because that was all that was left of the park) Bob witnessed a man trying to sneak up on a woman and scare her. It would of worked too…if the man’s cell phone wouldn’t have rang to the 80’s hit ‘Thriller.’ This was when Bob realized the world was in jeopardy and took it upon himself to save it.3

Upon this realization Bob ran home and frantically searched for something to wear as an Identity Repellant Outfit (which, for the sake of the story, we will call a costume.) He tried on everything from overalls, to a wife beater, from his birthday suit, to footy pajamas, but nothing seemed right. Until, he spotted it, in the corner of his room hidden beneath the shadows, laid his blue Hawaiian- print swimming trunks he got for sale last year at the Salvation Army. 4

“Perfect!!!” he exclaimed with jubilation using all his strength not the skip across the room and start singing, even though he had an urge to do so. He slipped on the trunks and became frantic again. 5

“Shirt, Shirt,” he said, as if people were in the room with him. “Shirt, shirt, gotta find a shirt.” He ran around the room turning it upside down, and inside out --twice-- and came up with nothing. Then…. BAM!!! Something wrapped around his foot and sent him crashing to the ground. Leaving him with a welt the size of Vancouver on his forehead. 6

“Awwww…man,” he breathed in deep, sitting up he glanced to see what killed his ego. It was a shirt, but not just any shirt; it was pretty much the best red flannel shirt one would have the pleasure of seeing in their whole entire life. 7

“You would have not gone down in vain,” he said to his forehead, “You went down with honor!” With that said he finished getting dressed and stood in front of the mirror. With his hands balled up into fists and resting against his hips, he couldn’t help but smile because at that moment he knew he was no longer Bob, the “lazy guy,” he was Mr. Procrastinator, the superhero.8

He walked down the sidewalk with a new strut about him, thinking how great he would be as a superhero, and how people would love him now because he would save the world from further corruption. He was, in fact, so much in his head he almost didn’t hear the old lady screaming for help. 9

“Help, help… please! My cat is stuck in a tree. Please help…oh god…oh god, he’s afraid of heights, oh god…get him down…please…hurry!” She was very hysterical. Mr. Procrastinator jumped, planting his feet shoulder length apart; his fists on his hips, staring at the sky…it was his signature pose, whenever evil arced its ugly head. 10

“It is I, Mr. Procrastinator to save the…” he ran out of breath and stopped taking. The ole’ granny looked at him weird… but he didn’t notice, he was too busy thinking. He never really understood why cats climbed trees when they couldn’t get down, the only time he saw a cat get down from something that high was at the circus, and that cat jumped into a bucket of water to do so. He didn’t think cats liked water much either so he figured they must be stupid. He looked up and saw an orange tabby. “Yep,” he decided, “looks stupid to me.” 11

He stood analyzing the situation at hand when he realized what exactly was put in front of him. The cat in the tree had an identity crisis, it was not your normal every day household cat, it was a circus cat… or at least it wanted to be, and Mr. Procrastinator knew this. He also knew the reason the cat didn’t come down, was because it didn’t have a bucket of water to jump in. After figuring this out he did an odd sort of jump back into reality and shouted “WATER!!” with his finger pointed into the air, as if the realization was the best thing in the whole entire world. He ran around the tree but found no water, he looked up at the sky, but found no water, he picked up the ole’ granny to see if she was standing on anything, but found no water. So he did what any sane man would do, and ran away to fetch it, leaving the ole’ granny with a confused look on her face. 12

Mr. Procrastinator ran and ran and ran and ran then stopped for a breather before running again. He ran up town and down town, and east to west, but there was no water to be seen. It wasn’t long, however, before something else went wrong. 13

“Hey, mister,” said a little boy, tugging on the superhero’s swimming trunks, “This bully stole my ball.”  The little boy looked a little torn up. Dirt was all over his face and shirt, as if someone stomped him in it. He pointed to a fat kid bouncing a ball across the schoolyard that had a permanent scowl across his face. 14

“Later, ya’ little whippersnapper, can’t you see I am on a quest?” Mr. Procrastinator snapped at the young lad. The boy’s face fell as he walked away, rubbing the dirt and tears off his face. 15

It is around this part of the story that our superhero was about to do something very heroic, not only that, but he was going to do it very dramatically as well, but he was interrupted.  You see, the world is one of those things that always has something wrong with it; if it isn’t something, it’s another, and no matter what it is, someone has to be blamed for it. It is in this moment that our hero went down in a blaze of glory. While standing in his signature pose, a mob of people ran through the street almost plowing him down. Needless to say Mr. Procrastinator was caught off guard, he barely heard the people as they screamed: “WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PLASMA SCREEN TV’S!!! WE NEED MORE TV’S!!!” 16

He never really understood televisions; they were about as foreign to him as cats in trees. He never owned a television set, mainly because he didn’t have the money for one, and he figured if he got through without it, most people should have been able to, as well. He looked around to see if he could get a better handle on the situation when he saw a person reading the newspaper. The large printed title caught his eye, reading: 17

DR. Who-la-Gann Strikes Again18

Dr. Who-la-Gann was an evil man, who, in spite of his prestigious title, never went to college, and never had the intention to. His main goal in life was pretty much the same as every bad guy’s: world domination. Last year he tried to end the world by changing the order of the alphabet, but his attempts went down in vain due to the fact that people still had the song and could still sing the ABC’s even if it was off key. Now, it seemed, the Doctor was in for another experiment. 19

The streets exploded with protest ranging from:20

“I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT LITTLE SCOUNDREL!!!! THE GAME IS ON THIS WEEKEND!!!!”21

--To--22

“How am I going to make dinner tonight without the Food Network?”23

--To--24

“Now, how do I know if it is raining?” 25

The townspeople were very saddened. They did not know what to do without their television sets. It was as if the Apocalypse had made its grand entrance into their life’s bringing with it confusion, malice, and…well…. I don’t know what else, but it was very chaotic. The people just didn’t know how to function. They were like zombies wondering in a half world…only…less bloody. Their sentences turned into mumbles, their eyes became like their brains, empty and blank. They walked around aimlessly, running into things that were in plain view (like their own houses.) They screamed at each other over petty things, which usually ended up in blood shed. The crime rate, in fact, went up 200% in one week alone.26

It was very obvious that Dr. Who-la-Gann was getting his way. His plan from the very get go was to make the world destroy itself before he could come in with his final attack to conquer it. Dr. Who-la-Gann was a very smart strategic man, even though many people didn’t perceive him that way. He always tried to find new ways for the world to turn in on itself, weakening it by making itself its own worse enemy. This time he made his first attack by stealing all the plasma screen TV’s in the world, which, in coincidence, made everyone crazy.27

You see people in the twenty-first century spent most of their time in front of television sets, watching games, or shopping for something they didn’t really need only to pay an outrageously colossal amount…not to mention shipping and handling. Instead of sitting around the dinner table and talking about what they did that day, families would stick a ‘Hungry Man’ in the microwave and go into their separate rooms, to watch their favorite show. Instead of playing a nice game of football in the front yard, people would tackle each other for the remote. But now it was all different because, of course, there were no more TV’s. 28

Mothers were forced to cook, fathers were made to fix things, siblings were forced put up with each other, rather they liked it or not.  People lost their minds. They pulled their own hair out; their eyes bulged out of their head. They ran around like chickens with their heads cut off. And yet, out of all the crazy people in the world stood one sane man. His name was Mr. Procrastinator. 29

“It is up to me!” He said in triumph, standing in his signature pose. “I must save the world from this villain. It is a hard task, I will admit, but I am a better man for it. Beware Dr. Who-la-Gann for I, Mr. Procrastinator will…” He was interrupted by a loud growling in the pit of his stomach, which scared him so much he screamed like a little schoolgirl. Knowing that this was one problem he could fix at the moment, he turned a corner and walked until he found a hotdog vender on the side of the street. 30

“One hotdog with; ketchup, mustard, relish, chili, and onions, please.” He asked the guy with the huge beer belly. The man rocked back and forth on his feet saying ‘humph’ every time he breathed in. He gave our superhero a very peculiar look, very peculiar indeed, so peculiar, in fact Mr. Procrastinator got very offended. 31

“Stop checking me out,” he said to the man in control of the dogs (whose name was Victor VanCookenburg.) Victor’s face changed from strange to down right confusion, as he handed Mr. Procrastinator the hotdog, which weighed about 3 pounds due to all of the condiments stuck on it. Victor had no idea why our superhero thought he was checking him out. VanCookenburg was, in truth, looking at Mr. Procrastinator’s red flannel shirt, wondering where he could get one of his very own. As Mr. Procrastinator pulled out money to pay for the dog, he found his Ritalin, which he kept meaning to take, but got interrupted.  32

When the pandemonium had not ceased after a few days and, after Mr. Procrastinator had finished his hotdog; our superhero was struck with the realization that if he saved the world from Dr. Who-la-Gann and got all the plasma screen TV’s back, he would not only be a superhero, he would be a super-superhero. Upon this realization, he searched day in and day out for the Doctor. Calling his name, and looking under things, he even used a flashlight, and rode his bike to make the search go by faster. But a day soon turned into a week, a week into two weeks, and still no Dr. Who-la-Gann.  33

It was only during a walk through the woods that our superhero came across a startling discovery. Well, actually, he fell into it. In the middle of the woods was an open manhole. Now, I’m not quite sure how a manhole ended up in the woods, but needless to say it was there, and our superhero feel into it and became very wet once he reached the bottom. It was with this accident that the evil plot of Dr. Who-la-Gann came to a screeching halt. On the way down, Mr. Procrastinator’s Ritalin fell from his pocket, and contaminated the water supply. The water led to the town went through the wells and the townspeople drank it. They drank so much of the water, the excessive amount of Ritalin they took in slowed their brains down to were they could only focus on one thing at a time, and forgot all about the plasma screen TV’s that once were the center of their life’s. Mr. Procrastinator knew nothing about the water contamination that saved the world that one fateful day, and the world didn’t know it was saved by the great powers of a man named Bob Procrastinator, who, put off taking the medicine, that saved their life’s.34

Three months after the Doctor’s plans were first put into action, things were normal again. Then finally on a Thursday our superhero made a trip back to the manhole in the woods, this time, he was armed with a bucket. He went down the hole and filled the bucket up with water. After this he went back to the tree where the stupid tabby cat was after three months the ole’ granny was still standing there. Mr. Procrastinator handed her the bucket of water and left. Needless to say the ole’ granny was very confused. But, the tabby became one of the best circus cats in the whole entire world.  35