Stone and Goth Girl: Problem Solvers Incorporated

I had the idea for these two for a while, but this is the first story I ever devoted to them. Hope you enjoy?

Stone and Goth Girl: Problem Solvers Incorporated™

In:

“The Day I Punched a Toaster Right in its Stupid Toaster Face”

[No]

“Adventures in Interior Design”

[Lame]

“The Case of the Ferocious Furniture”

[Fine, whatever. Let’s just  move on]

Transcription by Sam Adams

TRANSCRIPTION BY Sam Adams

Transcription by Goth Girl

[Someday you’re going to pay for this Stone]

It was an evening like any other, yet I remember it like it was yesterday [it was yesterday, dingus]. The city was in the midst of yet another record breaking heat wave and not a single person wasn’t suffering as a result.

As I sat at my desk, hot and sticky in the worst kind of way (gross), I stared absently at the ceiling, waiting for the next bout of existential terror to set in and whisk me away from this grimy frying pan of a thing we call ‘life.’

Then suddenly, like an aggravated monk, it hit me. The greasy golden smell of french fries wafting through the air, pumping my previously meaningless existence with new found purpose [okay, calm down].

I swiveled in my office chair, bumping my both my knees on the desk in the process, until I was facing the filthy, grimy, fly stained window overlooking the street below [if this is some kind of hint you want me to clean the windows-it isn’t happening].

What I saw blinded me. Literally. A fast food place, “Burgerburg, USA™” had just opened across the street, and the powerful fluorescent lights on its glorious sign flooded my heart with desire and also my eyes with blindness [and yet you continue to stare at it]

I swiveled back around, once again bruising my tender knees in the process. I proceeded to shove both hands into my mysterious and cavernous pant pockets on a desperate quest for my wallet.
I must’ve pulled out a dozen dead batteries, a pound of loose string,  twenty different kinds of bones [WTF Stone] and at least one twenty-four carat diamond [I want a raise] before realizing that I didn’t own a wallet, nor had I ever owned a wallet [it’s a miracle you even own pants].

“Oh Goth Girl,” I called out in my most professional, business-like voice, “How much money do we have again?”

From the other side of my flimsy office door, in my quaint but well decorated lobby  [that’s funny], my eternally cynical assistant responded with nothing. Followed, after some time, by something. “Including last week’s case?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah-no. We got nothing.”

I raised my one good eyebrow up in surprise,“What are you talking about, Gothy? Last week we made like 500 clams alone.”

With a certain spring in her tone, Goth Girl replied “We sure did Mr. Stone,” then that same spring snapped and her tone came crashing back in my face. “Actual. Literal. Clams. And don’t call me Gothy. My name is Sam” I couldn’t see her face of course, but I imagine at that moment her hands closed over her mouth first in shock, then remembrance, and finally muted frustration [vengeance will be mine].

“Well, what else were those sea otters going to pay us with? Jellyfish?”

I sputtered at the obvious absurdity of this comment but Goth Girl responded like someone who's had just about enough of my s**t. “I’ve had just about enough of your s**t, Stone,” said Goth Girl.

Before I could craft an appropriately clever response [sure] I was rudely interrupted by the sound of a bell ringing and a door opening, followed again by a bell ringing and a man saying “Ow.”

“Stone, the bell’s broken again,” Goth Girl informed me through the door [update: still broken].

I heard further muttering between the mysterious bell breaker and my assistant, when suddenly the swung door open, revealing a tall, gangly, withered, miserable looking husk of a man [rude but accurate].

“Um hello.” said our unknowable guest from beyond the stars [dude, he said he was from Cleveland], “My name is Todd,”

Leaning back in my chair, I beckoned the stranger inside. “Well don’t just stand there Mr. What’s-Your-Face. Come on in. Take a seat.”

The man who was probably named Randall or something scanned my office with pathetic, sunken-in eyes. “Um.” he said. “There’s nowhere to sit. And um,” he said again, “It’s Todd” [not anymore, it isn’t].

Shrugging my shoulders as if to say ‘No big deal, broseph’ [seriously, stop] I called my faithful assistant in to record our meeting. “So Randy-can I call you Randy?” Randy opened his mouth, almost like he wanted to say something, before rightly deciding better of it. “What brings you to my humble establishment on this dank and dreary evening?”

Randy’s voice was shaky and nervous as he began his lurid tale, “Well, it all started a year ago-

“Stop right there,” I said, raising a hand. “How old are you again?”

“Um. 37. Why?”

“No reason.” I turned to Goth Girl and asked her if she was getting this all down.

“No,” said Goth Girl before returning her gaze to her new fangled thing-a-majiggy [dude it’s called a phone. Stop pretending you don’t know what things are].

I turned back to Randy. “Right. Please continue.”

“Um. Okay. So like I was saying, it all started a year ago…”

“Sorry, I’m going to have to stop you again.” Unfortunately for dear old Randy, my patience for exposition was as thin as his comb over. “What’s the real problem here Randy? Why did you really come to Problem Solvers Inc™ ?”

Randy shivered violently and his pallid white complexion turned a slightly less pallid red as he screamed at the top of his lungs, “I’m being stalked by my furniture.”

Behind Randy, I could hear Goth Girl snickering [still am, actually]. In front of Randy, I snickered too.

“It’s not in my head. Really,” Randy continued without warrant, “they’re really everywhere.” Completely invading my personal space, he slammed his hands on my desk. “Every day I find my toaster in the breakroom at work. I see my chairs and my couch on the side of roads pretending to be trash. My coffee table moves slightly every time I walk by so I bang my shins on it. But every time I try to prove it to someone else, everything is right back where I left it. Every single time.”

I empathized with Randy right then, as I absent-mindedly rubbed my own still tender knee bones. “Alright, Randy. We’ll take the case.”

“You will?” Randy exclaimed.

“We will?” Goth Girl added angrily [I wanted to go home early but no, we had to go to freaking Cleveland].

“We will.” I confirmed. “But first: Do you know what ‘money’ is Randy?”

“What? Um, yes, of course I know what money is.”

“And you actually own money, right Randy?” questioned Goth Girl [this is a very important part of the negotiating process].

“Um.” said Randy for the upteenth time. “Yes?”

“Great,” said Goth Girl. “Our services cost 200 American dollars an hour. Preferably in cash.”

“Um.”

“We don’t know what the actual tax is, but if you want to give us extra anyway, we won’t argue,” added Goth Girl.

“Um,” said Randy.

“Fantastic. Now if you’ll give us your address and the keys to your abnormal abode, we’ll be on our way. Goth Girl, would you be a dear and fetch the car?”

“We don’t have a car.”

“Um.”

---

Two hours and 400 hundred dollars later, we found ourselves at the door of Mr. Randall G. Puddinpop’s kooky condominium [I hate your words].

I had told Randy to wait for us back at the office, ‘for safety reasons.’ In actuality, he smelled a lot like chowder and I was quickly finding his continued presence insufferable [honestly, same though. It was like he used old sausage for breath mints].

Not wishing to be impolite, I knocked on the door.

Goth Girl withered me with a stare. “You do know no one’s inside, right?”

But before I could slip Randy’s key into its accompanying Randy-key-hole, the door swung open.

I smiled as widely as I could at my young and naive assistant  [you forgot to mention the part when I stomped on your foot and you started weeping for two minutes] before stepping inside the apartment.

“Oh god,” said Goth Girl, stepping in behind me. “It’s hideous.”

And it well and truly was. The living room alone was simply brimming with eclectic and aesthetically displeasing [ugly a*s] pieces. Wallpaper the color of hippo vomit. A burgundy shag carpet that made the floor of my office look sterile. Not one-not two-not even three-but four rickety polka dot rocking chairs [I don’t think even my Grandma would touch those things]. A ratty, whitish-yellow couch with a single, visible butt imprint on its right cushion.  Portraits of seahorses-and absolutely nothing else-lining the walls. And a honest-to-dog [dog?] crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling as a way of tying the whole hot mess together. The only redeemable quality I could find in the room was the coffee table, which was made from a old but well maintained cherry wood [agreed].

“We should probably search the place,” surmised Goth Girl even though I was definitely just about to say the same thing [sure buddy].

“Rock-Paper-Scissors for the loo?” I said, holding out my as-of-then undefeated left hand.

Goth Girl offered me yet another example of why she has no friends as she casually pushed aside my hands as surely as she pushed aside the spirit of the once noble sport [I take pride in that], “Go check the bathroom, Stone,”

“M’kay,” I replied.

There were four visible doors in the living room, and as I had already concluded that Mystery Door #1 lead outside [wow, smart one here], I chose to walk briskly over to Mystery Door #2, my instincts telling me that this was the bathroom [Stone, you forget to breathe on a daily basis-you have no instincts].

“Hey, it’s the bathroom,” I exclaimed in a way that did in no way indicate that I was somehow surprised by this outcome. “It’s surprisingly clean.”

“Go figure,” said Goth Girl, opening Mystery Door #3

“Yeah, right? Randy’s medicine cabinet is still pretty boring though. Dude doesn’t even have Flintstone vitamins” [the horror].

“Stone, come over here.”

“I’m a little busy investigating right now,” I answered,  Randy’s toothbrush sticking halfway out of my mouth [I really hope Randy reads this].

“Stone. Get in here. Now.”

Concluding that the bathroom had been thoroughly rolled over, I independently decided to oversee my assistant’s investigation in the kitchen.

Walking through the arch way, I was immediately struck by what I saw, “Oh well that’s just nasty.”

The whole room smelled intensely of rot. It was a wonder we hadn’t smelled it all the way out in the hall, let alone the living room [let’s just call it magic]. There were smeared remains of tomatoes on the walls and moldy puddles of milk and black banana peels dotting the floor. Raw slabs of meat still left on the stove was striving to grow itself some legs and I am almost positive something in the microwave winked at me [oh god I thought that was just my imagination]. There were also five or six slices of burnt toast scattered here and there, but I’m not about that glucose life anymore so I willed myself to ignore them [no one wants to read about your dumb a*s diet, Stone].

“I don’t think Randy’s been here for a while,” remarked Goth Girl, utilising the keen detective skills I had imparted upon her [no comment].

However despite the righteous stank and maniacal wheat products,  I couldn’t help but notice the pleasant chill emanating from the refrigerator, the the door of which was hanging open, almost like an invitation [we need to go over your definition of ‘invitation’].  I was once again reminded of the tyrannical humidity that had been assaulting me all that day as I stepped closer and closer to the fridge’s sweet and frosty embrace.

Suddenly, a harsh and terrifying sound shook me from my reverie-the sound of Goth Girl’s voice,“Stone, what the hell are you doing? Get out of the fridge, you weirdo” [I’d be offended but I kind of like the fact that I scare you so much].

“Huh? What? I was just…” I began to step out of the empty refrigerator when the door swung shut, entrapping me within the freezing dark [it wasn’t me this time].

I pushed on the door with all my limbs but it refused to budge. I knew Goth Girl was likely panicking right then [oh yeah, for sure], so I sought to reassure her first. “Hey, don’t worry Gothy. I’m totally fine but I also kind not because I am stuck in here. Could you just pull on the handle or something?”

I could hear the handle rattle slightly. Through the thick metal of my new home, I could just make out Goth Girl’s muffled reply. “It’s not working.” She then went quiet for a moment, as if silently contemplating how awful and boring her life would be without me and my zany adventures in it [oh what a world]. “Yeah, I think I’m just going to go home now. I’ll see you Monday if you’re still, like, alive or whatever. Bye.”

We like to joke around here at Problem Solvers Incorporated™ [no, we don’t].

I knew Goth Girl must have been feeling very frightened seeing her beloved mentor in such a state, so I attempted to offer her a few nondescript words of encouragement, [and I quote: “Oh dog please Goth Girl please let me out oh dog oh dog I don’t want to die again.”-I made this my new ringtone].

“S**t,” said Goth Girl under her breath [you were in a freezer, how could you have possibly heard that?] “This door’s stuck too.” She knocked on the refrigerator again. “Okay Stone. How should I get you out of there?”

I thought about this for a moment, before getting an idea. “Goth Girl, this isn’t going to make a lot a sense at first-

“Nothing you do makes sense.”

“Right. I want you to tickle to the refrigerator.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“Do you want to get me out?”

“Eh.”

“Do you want me to get you out?”

Goth Girl sighed like a person who had just been told that they had to tickle a refrigerator. “So what? Do I just…”

I don’t know exactly what Goth Girl did at the moment-because I was trapped inside what I could only assume was a malevolent kitchen appliance-but whatever she did, it really freaking worked. She clearly had a future in this line of work [oh god no].

The refrigerator began to shiver, so I shouted at Gothy to tickle harder. Soon the machine was shaking from side to side and making loud booming noises that sounded not unlike Goth Girl in the bathroom [I will end you].

As the refrigerator’s rattling intensified, pressure began to build from within. Bolts shot out from its sides like jenky bullets [of few of which nearly hit me, not that you’d care].

“Harder,” I cried [this sounds so incredibly wrong now].

The booming became louder and louder until their was a deafening crack and the sides of the refrigerator split apart and fell to the kitchen floor.

I stood up straight, stretching my back and enjoying my new found freedom. “You surprisingly good at tickling,” I told Goth Girl [by far the worst compliment I’ve ever received].

“I want a raise,” said Goth Girl in reply.

Suddenly, a high pitched ding sounded from the counter across from us, followed by a seemingly endless barrage of flaming toast, which embedded themselves in the wall behind us.

“Freaking toasters, man,” I said heroically [hah]  as I threw Goth Girl to the floor so as to avoid the devilish device’s attack. “Get to the door,” I ordered [screeched], scrambling in the opposite direction towards my new adversary.

Doing my best to avoid the toaster’s crunchy assault, I dived the short distance  across the slick and mushy kitchen floor to the far counter where my attacker had made its base of operations. On my landing, I slid to a stop just beneath the toaster, which was now aiming primarily for Goth Girl [yeah thanks for that] who was doing a fantastic job drawing its attention.

Sensing the time was right, I jumped up and punch that toaster right in its stupid toaster face [your eloquence is truly astounding]. My ambush disoriented the possessed appliance long enough for me to seize it by its sides and repeating hit against the marble counter. I would’ve kept smashing it too, if Goth Girl hadn’t kindly reminded me that we still had dear old Randy’s problem to settle [I had to tickle a fridge-there was no way I was leaving without a paycheck]. Also we were still trapped in the kitchen. “Try to make me eat glucose,” I muttered before walking away.

Now, I am of the belief that most if not all problems will eventually solve themselves, given time [yet you’re still a professional problem solver, go figure] and once again, the universe went out of its way to prove me right, as the door to the living room jostled mere seconds after the toaster’s defeat.

“See Goth Girl?” I said, walking out of the kitchen, “things always have a way of working themselves ou-Son of a walrus!” [walrus].The lovely cherry wood coffee table I had been admiring earlier had repositioned itself right in front of the door, adding aching shins to my ever growing list of injuries that day. Pushing the coffee table aside with my less damaged leg, I looked up at the rest of the room. Every piece of furniture in the place was now facing directly at Goth Girl and I. And I knew, I just knew when the chandelier cried, “Attack,” we were going to be in for the fight of our lives [yeah, it was pretty intense. [Unfortunately describing it would also  require me doing more writing and I’m definitely not into that].

---

“So Mr. Randy,” said Goth Girl congenially, “the total comes out to about,” she paused to look at her calculator. “807 dollars and 43 cents.”

“Um,” said Randy. “You burned my apartment down.”

“That wasn’t us,” I said, looking up from my Halloween edition of Martha Stewart Living™, “that was your toaster.”

“All in all,” Goth Girl continued, “your problem took about six hours to solve. Plus disposal of your cursed chandelier.”

“It was my grandmother’s,” said Randy.

“And medical expenses.”

“I needed band aids,” I explained helpfully [you are a child].

“I don’t even. Um. I don’t…”

“Oh and we’re keeping your coffee table. It really ties the room together” [it really does].

“Okay Gothy,” I announced, standing up. “Enough’s enough. The poor guy’s been through a lot today so how’s about we discuss our payment tomorrow, yeah?” I placed a hand on Randy’s other bony narrow shoulder and lead him patiently out the door of my office. Randy looked like he wanted to say something else but I was pretty sure it wasn’t important so I just told the guy, “We’ll keep in touch,” and politely slammed the door shut.

I turned back to Goth Girl, “Doesn’t it feel great helping people?”

“Sure. So how much we make off the chandelier?”

“That? Eh, found a dealer who said she’d take it for 300.”

“S**t,” spat Goth Girl. “I thought we’d get at least half a grand.”

“Well we would have,” I said only a little bit quieter than normal, “but then she threw in a couple free coupons for Burgerburg USA™, so I agreed to sell it for an itty bitty discount.” I then waved two of the coupons in the air enticingly and offered another one of my award winning smiles. “You hungry?” [we’ll talk about that later].

Goth Girl looked at me once again like someone who had had just about enough of my s**t, though what came out of her mouth was somehow far scarier.

Goth Girl sighed heavily. “Yeah. Sure. Let’s go.”

(and then we both got really bad food poisoning. The End.)