Norman, The Magnificent!

This is a short story, a work in progress. It is a compilation of some life experiences and jokes made by me, enjoy:

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Norman’s mom and dad were simple people newly married and growing up in the 80s. They were a young couple watching MTV and living the simple life. The dad worked as an airline mechanic and his mom worked as an assistant prosecutor. She met her husband while trying to prosecute him on negligent manslaughter charges. Seems he ran out of bolts putting an airline engine on and it snapped off squishing his coworker. There was something about him and she messed up her case to get him off. They married three months later. However drove on their honeymoon rather than flying. Soon after she became pregnant with Norman. They complained to the condom manufacturer for the broken condom. The company apologized and explained that splints or anything else used in the condom is beyond it’s intended use and not covered under warrantee. Norman’s mom just tucked the apology letter from the condom company in with Norman’s birth certificate. Norman was born a huge baby probably from his mom’s Twinkie addiction while pregnant. It was ok because Norman was a beautiful, healthy…well interesting looking baby.

Other moms would look at baby Norman and give their sympathies for his facial birth defects, that is till they see the dad and realize it is normal for them and not defects at all. Norman moved from school to school. Seems his dad had to keep getting jobs in different places after being fired for mechanical accidents. Norman never got to have any really close friends except one Stan. Rather he let himself get picked on by bullies because they seem to not waste any time breaking the ice in knowing a new kid. He enjoyed the attention regardless of what kind. But it was Stan that from age eight that seem to be his shadow or the other way around.

Stan and Norman did everything together. As they got into their teenage years they joined the boyscouts. They were a small troop and mostly the other scouts would make Stan and Norman hike on long trails while they ate their food. The other scouts made Stan and Norman share a small tent while the rest put their stuff in a spare tent. Stan and Norman came up with an idea to get back at them. The troop was camped near a lake that had a far dropoff. The tents were pitched on a grassy level area next to it and a large hill to the other side. Stan and Norman thought they would loosen a large boulder off the side of the hill and let it roll down to crush the tent full of the other scout’s equipment. They went up the hill late at night to follow through with their plan to revenge. They found a perfect boulder and it is aimed straight towards the tent of equipment. They work and work dislodging it from the hillside and finally it gives way. Faster and faster it goes gaining moment heading for the intended target. Just as it gets to the bottom of the hill it hit a stump and altered course. Stan and Norman looked in horror running down the hill as if they could catch up with it. This large rolling rock hit the tent with the scoutmaster and rolled up with him in it. The scoutmaster had a propane lantern which ignited the tent. So the whole rock wrapped in burning tent and one screaming scoutmaster flew off the cliff like a burning meteor till it crashed into the lake. Later it was ruled an accidental death so a very frightened Stan and Norman vowed to never tell anyone the truth.

Norman’s dad volunteered to be the next scoutmaster. Norman’s dad was not quite getting the concept of scouting down to well. To get his troop their hiking merit badge, had them take their required distance hikes on a treadmill. However it wasn’t till he decided to play hoist the scout up a rope game that it came apart. You see Norman’s dad like to read about Darwin award winners and other urban myths to prove he could beat what allegedly others could not. The scouts had seen a hole in a large tree with some birds living in it. Norman’s dad tied a hammer to the end of a rope and threw it over a higher branch. Then tied one end to the scouts waist and the other to his truck. It worked pretty well till the brakes failed and the scout was flung over the branch breaking his arm. That was the end of Norman’s scouting days as well as his dads.

Now Stan was from a family of atheist and like to poke at Norman’s religious upbringing. Stan took Norman to a religious bookstore to prove that God does not exist. His reasoning was that if he steals a bible and nothing happens then there is no God. Norman is very nervous about the whole thing but follows him inside to see what happens. Stan looks around at the variety of bibles to see what would offend God the most by taking if he existed. Finally he eyes the one, it is a deluxe edition expensive one sitting on its own display alter. Stan slowly walks over to it and stares back at Norman. Norman showing a face of fear and curiosity stares back. Stan grabs the book quickly and starts to lift it up as his hands begin to burn and smoke starts pouring out of his smoldering palms. He starts to scream in pain as he drops the bible back on the alter. He runs out of the bookstore crying leaving Norman behind. Norman sees everyone is staring at him with an intent guilty stare. Everyone goes back to their business and Norman looks at the mysterious bible as the smoke starts clearing up and his friend’s burned handprints disappear. Norman edges close to it and points his finger to the book to just slightly test it for heat and as he gets inches from it, a blue arc of electricity pops him. Norman yells a restrained ouch as everyone stares at him again. He slowly leaves. For some reason Stan no longer has anything to do with Norman again.

Norman’s dad bought and put together a bicycle for Norman. Norman bravely started learning how to ride it till the brakes fail and he is thrown into the back of a garbage truck. Norman was paralyzed and in a wheel chair. The doctors found nothing permanently damaged and said that someday his legs might start working again. To make the best of it Norman allowed himself to play demolition derby with his friends. This usually meant he in his wheel chair against them and boxes. Or jousting with long poles against his friends on bikes.

One day he is wheeling along and drinking some hot chocolate. He stops to watch a wasp walking on a bush. He throws his hot chocolate on it and watches it twist around on the ground. Suddenly the wasp flies at amazing speed towards him to sting him and bounces off the frame of the chair. Norman starts racing away and heads down the street on a slope. He keeps looking behind him but the wasp is giving chase. He throws a book and it lands on the wasp pinning it to the ground. He stops and can hear the faint sound of buzzing in a struggling type of sound. The books flips over and the wasp is back after him. He starts to swat it with his plastic school ruler but it keeps coming back. He finally gives it a massive wack and the wasp is knocked backwards in flight to the right of him and the ruler snaps in half. He makes a break for it as the chase begins again. He gains more and more speed down the hill and the wasp keeps revving up speed himself to catch young Norman. Finally the Norman sees an eighteen wheeler truck coming and he plays chicken with the truck driver. The truck driver eyes Norman and starts giggling in a psychopathic way as he throws his truck into gear to try to go faster towards his wheelchair prey. Suddenly Norman breaks one wheel and moves out of the way of the truck. The truck driver cusses for missing him and then a big splat on his windshield appears from the chasing wasp. Norman looks back as the big rig turns around now mad for the wasp mess. Norman starts down a lonely street as the big rig turns on it after him. The rig catches up and starts pushing Norman faster and faster. The driver keeps staring down laughing insanely. Not paying attention the truck slams into a tree freeing Norman as he wheels away to home. The truck driver shakes the crash off looking at his smoking truck and broken windows. Then a large wasp nest falls out of the tree and the wasps begin attacking him. Norman hears the trucker’s scream from a distance.

Norman felt alone, however one day a new kid who was also in a wheel chair came to school. Norman tried to make friends but the new kid ended up a bully and kept tailgating him into different crashes all the time. The new kid had an electric wheelchair with lots of torque. Seems there was no way to battle this kid for strength against his mega-chair. So Norman devised a plan. Norman rolled quietly behind his wheelchair nemesis and poured glue on his wheels as the kid did his school work. The bell rang and the bully struggled to move his chair but the motor caught fire. The bully ended up being rescued but had to use his spare manual wheelchair. As the kid rolled around Norman hit him from the side and the battle was on. The kid spun around and squared off. They both wheeled as fast as their hands could muster and they impacted head on. The momentum made them stand up and bounce off each other back to their seats. The rest of the kids started laughing as Norman and his nemesis looked at each other in hatred. However hatred turned to a cause as they listened to everyone else laughing at them. They smiled at each other and turned on the rest of the kids like a rolling steel trap. The kids ran off screaming in panic. Norman and his old nemesis shook hands. It was the last Norman would see him as the kid’s parents moved.

One day Norman is wheeling along the sidewalk and passes by a big ant pile, running over a trail of ants he keeps going. However the ants begin to speak to each other. One ant tells the other “meals on wheels!” The ants give chase as Norman begins to see them coming by the millions down the sidewalk after him. He starts rolling faster to get away. He is losing them however ants in front of him have been messaged already with ant instant messaging. As he bypasses them, the ants throw a stick in his wheelchair spokes tumbling him over. He lay helpless as the millions of ants over take his legs stinging him. Suddenly his legs began to work. He jumps up brushing the ants off and starts stomping on them. The ants retreat back to the mound. He kills the remaining ants on him and goes over to the mound. The last of the ants just made it in. He pulls a large firecracker from his pocket and lights it to drop in the ant hole. He tells them, “See you hell ants!” The blast of dirt and ants goes everywhere as a miniature mushroom cloud of smoke rises from the ant home. Norman walks home to his parents joy he can walk, but it gets somber again as he learns his dad just got fired again.

Norman graduates from high school and aspires to be an astronaut. NASA begins to ignore his letters stating he would even act out being places in space like they faked the moon landing. He wants so much to be a team player. However he gets a job at Stale-Mart to gain some experience. He dreams that someday he will be a scientist and an astronaut. His co-workers gleam as he talks of his dreams and his enthusiasm to be someone someday. Twenty years have passed and Norman’s name is called on the Stale-Mart loudspeaker to clean up a mess in isle twelve. He is staring at the space shuttle toys as he goes to clean the mess. He lives in his parent’s basement and each evening he stares at his old wheel chair and the broken bike his dad had made for him. His dad is sort of retired after an airline crashed due to mechanical failures to which he was blamed for. Having no more airports for him to work at he called it quits. His dad just has a small home business repairing engines for ambulances. His mom had passed away years prior from her brakes failing on her car. Strangely everyone thought they were new after Norman’s dad just replaced them.

Norman watches his TV and a commercial comes on for erectile dysfunction. It offers a free porn video to show how well their product works. He calls and they promptly send his video. As he pops it in the player, it shows a man and woman getting undressed and starting to make passionate love. However the guy fails in performing the sex act and the woman starts laughing hysterically at him. The man leaves sobbing as the camera pans in on the woman and she points at the camera laughing harder. The logo for the pharmacy company appears and offers ordering instruction. Norman turns the TV off and begins to wonder if he will ever make love to a woman. He begins to fantasize and starts to masturbate. He stops and realizes that he has faked his own orgasm. Now he feels he cannot trust even himself with sex.

Norman’s life seem to be set and had made a career out of working at Stale-Mart. That is till one day the store manager called him in. He told Norman that he had done years of loyal service and they are promoting him to door greeter. The manager tries to reason that it is a time honored position and the most important. It is the first and last line of defense for shoplifting and face of that store. Norman feels proud and does his job with pride. That is till some kids run out of the store with stolen goods and he chases them. Norman chased them for blocks but they got away. When he gets back the manager chews on him for being gone so long. The manager reviews the tape and finds over a hundred customers have entered the store without being greeted. Company policy only allows twenty to be missed per month. Norman is let go, he leaves the store as the employees turn their back in shame of him. A company tradition when a greeter is dishonorably discharged.

Norman walks to a nearby hamburger joint to think about what has happened. He orders his food and the cook turns and looks at him with a smile. Norman smiles back and thinks that is a man happy with a job. Little did Norman know but the cook picks out people he wants and poisons the burger of that person. Norman starts to eat and begins to feel ill. He falls over on the table unconscious as a wait person quickly covers him with the table cloth and falls him into bus cart. He is rolled into the kitchen where the cook is waiting for his new bounty. They pull Norman out and he lands on the floor waking up. The cook chases him around the kitchen with a meat clever as Norman grabs some corn dogs and holds them up as weapons. The cooks warns him to put those dogs down and just accept his fate. If Norman gives in the cook will give him the honor of being the meatloaf special. Norman makes a break and the chef falls over a table and slides onto the grille screaming. However Norman runs out of the kitchen and screams to the patrons, “The corn dogs are people! The corn dogs are people!” Then runs out of the restaurant crying.

Norman staggering out of there collapses and people call an ambulance to take him to the hospital. The ambulance arrives and loads him up however as it goes to the hospital the wheels fall off and it crashes. Another ambulance arrives to take him to the hospital. As he is gurneyed out he hears the hospital administrator chewing his dad out for another failed ambulance repair. He is put in a room and lays for hours quietly thinking about everything in his life. Something in him snaps. His mind enters a zombie like state and he pulls himself out of bed and leaves.

He makes it home and changes from his hospital gown to his clothes. He puts on his blue Stale-Mart vest and a yellow happy face sticker on his forehead. He enters Stale-Mart as the greeter says, “hey Norm!” He ignores him and just mumbles in the store, “Low prices forever, low prices forever…” People stare at him as they move away. Once in a while he slaps his butt and says, “Yea baby!” Then back to mumbling his chant. Norman makes it over to the gun counter where a young kid is behind the counter. Norman unshaven and terrible looking grabs the kid by the vest and pleads with him, “You got to get out of here while you can. Don’t you see I used to be like you. Look what happened after so many years. You want to be like me?” The kid replies crying, “No, no!” and the kid runs off. Norman looks down as a customer walks up and asks him if he can help him with a gun purchase. It is Stan his old friend. Norman asks him what hell he is doing there. Stan tells him to stop cursing before God and help him. Norman looks intently for a moment and steps behind the gun counter. He says, “Yes sir what can I do for you today?” Stan says I need a gun and lots of ammo quick. Norman says there is a wait on guns to buy them. Stan is intent that he needs one now. Then Stan pulls out a bible and explains; “You see this end time stuff? You see these creatures flying around, I need to defend myself against this. I need a weapon powerful enough to shoot these flying scorpions down!” Norman said, “OK tell you what. I’ll let you have this gun and all the ammo you want but you have to leave the bible here.” Stan agrees and starts walking off but turns and asks, “Where are ski masks?” Norman points him to clothing a few isles away.

Norman stands looking around at his old workplace missing it. Soon he hears the sound of gunshots and people screaming at the front where the store bank is. Norman runs over to toys. He tells himself, “It is time to do what a Stale-Mart greeter is supposed to do.” Norman breaks open a remote control flying scorpion helicopter toy and flies it to the area of the gunshots. He sees people running like animals as Stan keeps firing. Finally Stan has them corralled in gardening. Stan looks up and sees the flying toy and screams, “My God it is happening already!” Stan tries to take the toy down with his gun as Norman gets in position. Finally Stan blows the toy apart and has a sigh of relief as he looks down and sees Norman standing near him. Norman tells him, “Thank you for coming to Stale-Mart Stan.” Norman slaps Stan with the bible and knocks him cold. Police storm in as customers praise Norman’s name and he is a hero. The store manager shows his tapes to the company to prove Norman created the whole event but Stale-Mart fires the manager as Norman is the best publicity stunt yet. Norman becomes the spokesman for Stale-Mart earning lots of money.

Stale-Mart Norman a seat on a private space mission as Norman the first ride along seat on it. He has finally became an astronaut. Strapped in the rocket and awaiting countdown the captain asks Norman is he ready to see space. Norman states, “Yes sir, I have been waiting for this my whole life.” Norman looks down thinking about his life. The captain says, “Oh by the way Stale-Mart was so happy about your saving all those people you will be happy to know they hired your dad to help in final mechanical preparations of this ship.” Norman’s eyes jolt forward in fear as you hear a booming voice say, “Three, Two, One, Liftoff!”

The End