The Stand (Off)

Night shift work has pluses and minuses.

The pluses I'll figure out another day, perhaps before I die.

It's what's happening on my homefront while I'm working that's now front and centah.

Y'all know my travails in the kitchen. I'm not nicknamed "Chef Boy-R-Deestructive" for nothing. My smoke detectors tremble and shriek if I get within 10 feet of the kitchen.

But now, they have sought and found allies against the 'evil' Chef Boy-R-Deestructive. Yeah, that's me. And I believe that the genesis of their growing alliance against and resistance to my culinary con carnage, is thanks to that youngster who stole my name to make bad movies that I'd get blamed for, along with my ambitious, plagiarizing pet
rock.

In the case of the former, I cite the example, Pearl Harbor. And more recently, Transformers I-III. I sure hope that the dingbat from Ohio that left me a series of "I want a part in your next movie" messages back a few years ago has since found his number, but I digress.

I came home from a particularly arduous night shift the other morning, to find a badly-scrawled note taped to my bedroom door. I knew it wasn't from my pet rock, Seymour, because he's still either riding horses in Loveland or stuck in a time travel loop in the Jurassic era. And it was posted higher on the door than Seymour could reach. Yet, it had a Seymour-esque aire to it.

The note read -- in stilted, dumbed-down education grammar -- "Wi r on 2 u -- thuh citchin".

I made a note to leave a testy message with the property maintenance folks about their sense of humor, and went to bed.

Hours later, I arose to find yet another note -- in similar dysyntax -- taped to my door. This one said "hour armee grose. u wil loos. thuh citchin".

I didn't think it possible for a flash mob from the District of Columbia school district to be invading my flat while I was comatose, to leave me their notion of a valedictorian address on my door. No, this was something else. And in the absence of my pet rock, it had the sense of something more ludicrously nefarious.

That's when I noticed my computer was on. And online. And I never leave it on when I go to bed.

*Horror movie organ salvo*

In checking my email, I found a new email that I hadn't yet read. But someone -- or thing -- else had. The email was from Seymour, under my sister's address. It was long. Verbose. It was an idea for a "never before thunk up" movie idea. Which means that Seymour has seen or heard something yet again, and is pirating the idea for his own silly aspirations.

"Am NOT!!!"

Seymour apparently saw one or more of the movies made by that director who stole my name, so he could shift some criticism for some of his bad movies to me. Namely, Seymour apparently saw something from the Transformer trilogy.

So he apparently wrote a badly-pirated version of one or more of them, and sent it to my computer email. And someone -- or thing -- read it.

It wasn't long for me to find out the who and/or what, simply by reading the email's theme: Transformers IV -- Last Stand Against The Culinary Barbarian.

Yes, you read that right, just as I did. Seymour has urged my kitchen to rise up against and defeat me. With me depicted as the "evil" Chef Boy-R-Deestructive. And "them" as a combining of farces previously known in Transformerdom as "Autobots" and "Decepticons", now to be knowd as The KitchenBot Alliance.

I may have to send Seymour to Califorlornia for his next junket, and suggest to Sandee that Seymour learn how to 'dive' off the back of her yacht. Well out to sea.

At any rate...a significant portion of my kitchen has taken Seymour's pirated script writing to heart, and has drawn a line in the linoleum. My smoke detectors are eagerly aboard. So is my oven. In the past couple of hours, my microwave and coffee pot have apparently aligned themselves with the KBA, with my lean mean grilling machine, toaster, crockpot and refrigerator are showing similar inclinations. Even my dishwasher is sympathetic to their cause.

Not that I've ever tried to cook anything in there; but it does have the oft-times gnarly task of trying to salvage what's left of my cookware from my culinary con carnage.

I know my computer has expressed some degree of passive support for the KBA, in so far as passing of messages between them and Seymour. On the other hand and so far, my washer and dryer are maintaining an air of neutrality since I've never tried to cook anything in either one of them. And I have the can opener on my side, though it's having to cower in the corner, sharing as it does counterspace with the microwave and coffee pot.

It doesn't like being called an "appliance traitor". I think the KBA is borrowing drivel points from Occupy Wall Street.

Of course, me being the "evil" Chef Boy-R-Deestructive, I'm not tipping my hand as to one of my two ultimate "doomsday" weapons that could quickly and effectively defeat the KBA. One of which the KBA knows of, but hasn't as yet figured out how to thwart or co-opt. The greatest kitchen implement that was ever invented: the telephone, to call for delivery.

But it's my other ultimate "doomsday" weapon that my rebellious foe(s) should fear, for they have no effective way to thwart or co-opt my "nuclear option".

One *pop* of the "citchin" breaker switch, and the Rebellion is ovah. Darth Chef Boy-R-Deestructive remains the Mastah of Culinary Disastah.

Seymour didn't think of that. And since I've seen how Seymour wields a golf putter, a jedi knight with a light saber not to be feared is he, hmmmm.

"Phffffftttt!!!!"