Date: Sat, 20 Apr 1996 10:22:45 -0500 From: Lady Sushi Subject: "It's Only Ketchup" 1/ Yes, my taste in movies is about to be revealed. I advise you to run, run for your lives now, but, unfortunately, that would be contradictory to the point. Just remember, it could be worse; I'm not sure how, but it probably could. The Mgt. "It's Only Ketchup" Susan "Have You Seen My Marbles?" Schaefer (c) 1996, S. Schaefer I give permission to post, burn, archive, or send to top government officials. Usual disclaimers here part one of _Whamwhamwham_ "Nick! Open the door!" Securing the last ketchup packet to his shirt, Nick hurried to open the door. Nat stood there, arms full of grocery bags. "Thank you. What were you doing for so-- Oh," she said as she noticed the Heinz Brigade he wore. Quickly she set the bags on his table, began unloading them. Chips, pork blood (special occasion), Ribena, microwave eggrolls, and about 30 pounds of tomatoes. The blood and eggrolls went in the fridge. "When's everyone else getting here?" "In about an hour." He handed her a chain of paper tomatoes. "Help me put this around the room." Nat sighed, and helped Nick tape up 500 feet of tomatoes, some paper, some plastic, some ketchup. She let him do the whole ones himself. _WHAMWHAMWHAM!!!_ Nat rushed to get the door. Nick was still struggling with some bottles of ketchup. LaCroix stood there in his normal black clothes, with the addition of a cherry tomato stick pin. He thrust half the bottles he held into her hands. "I brought munchies." LaCroix set the rest of the bottles down, along with a bag of Oreos (red filling). He studies the decorations. "You did these yourself, Nicholas?" "Nnnn-hnnn." Nick was attempting to hang a beefsteak from the ceiling. LaCroix pushed him aside, produced a large fishhook. Soon the tomato looked like something from a slaughterhouse. Nat cringed, Nick went paler. LaCroix grinned. Luckily, before anything else could happen the door shook again. _Why don't they just use the doorbell?_ Nick wondered. Tracy and Vachon entered, followed closely by Urs. Urs had a large bunch of vines in her hair; it made an interesting contrast with her red catsuit. Tracy was being chipper, as usual. Vachon groaned under the weight of too much food. "Her idea," he explained, motioning to Tracy. One bag was full of tomatoes, the others of Baskin-Robbins and Pringles. A packet of Wienerschnitzel dripped pink liquid on the bottom of the bag. Everyone except Vachon looked at Tracy. She shrugged. "I wanted to make it like Rocky." Twenty minutes later everyone was there. Reese was wearing a tie printed with tomatoes; Screed, who should have been dead, was playing with Nick's stereo; various members of FORKNI-L who'd gotten wind of the party were milling around (luckily most had brought food, or FoDs). Janette wore little tomato earrings. Stonetree was mulling over the "wine" LaCroix had brought. He pronounced it cheap, earning a glare from the Master Vampyre. One mysterious person was there. A large tomato, actually. Nick's curiosity was piqued. "Uhhhh... do I know you?" The tomato looked up from its pizza. "Shhhh. No one's supposed to know I'm here, Nick." "Schanke?" Nick's eyes widened in surprise. "Yeah." He took another massive bite of garlicy cheese. Nick ignored the garlic. "But-- but you're dead!" The tomato blinked. "That's only what they wanted you to think, Nick. We'll talk about it later. Hey, is that Janette?" Schanke walked off to say general hi's. Nick rolled his eyes. Okay, it was a weird movie, but not THAT weird. "Is this the regular or the director's cut?" Nat mumbled between bites of Baskin-Robbins. Partiers were sprawled in front of Nick's entertainment centers. Dotti and Tippi tossed a tomato around the room. It hit the floor and splattered. Nick sighed, he knew he shouldn't have told ROSEBUD about this. "Director's cut." "I didn't know there was one," piped Tracy. She was stuffing herself with Oroes and laying all over Vachon. Urs looked jealous. She was drinking blood from a ketchup bottle. "There is. Be afraid." LaCroix grinned evilly. He glanced behind him. Two FORKNI-Lers were fencing with the wienerschnitzel. "Alora, Phoenix, you may wish to sit down. We're about to suffer." The sausages were tossed to the ceiling. Phoenix sat on LaCroix's lap, gave him a big squishy smooch, smiled, and plopped to the floor. He just shook his head; after somehow agreeing to let the Cousins stay with him he'd gotten used to it. Only one more day, he reminded himself, only one more day. "Is everyone ready?" Nick asked. "No one has to pee?" No response. "Okay. Prepare to be vegetized!" He hit the play button, sat between Nat and Janette. By the time he realized that might be bad, it was too late; the movie had begun. "Tracking! Tracking!" Nick quickly fixed the picture. An odd man stood on a stage, talking about the movie. "Is there any sex in this?" Thong Thronger. "Not that I remember." "Damn." About half the pack sang along with the world-famous theme song. "Attaaaack of the Killer Tomatoes, Attaaaack of the Killer Tomatoes. They'll eat you, slice you, smash you, dice you, serve you up for brunch, and finish you oooooooof for dinner or lunch!..." "Anyone wanna go south of the Mason Dixon?" Nat got a pillow in her face for that, thrown by a large tomato. "I thought this was supposed to be north." "Puberty love!..." LaCroix began to sing in a whiny falsetto. A barrage of pillows, tomatoes, and sausage hit him. Tippi threw a thong. "What was THAT for?" he asked, plucking the purple thing off his head. "After the party." Cousins. Next time, they were staying at the Casa Loma. He only hoped they didn't try a repeat of this evening. He could understand being nice, but trying to, ahem, wake him up _en masse_ was too much. "Autobahn!" shouted Adolf Hitler, the smiling, fat, black man. Reese got a little nervous when everyone started looking at him. "Autobahn?" They grinned. "Wienerschnitzel!" "Wienerschnitzel!" The captain was suddenly pummelled with German sausages. With one still atop his head, he got up and grabbed a very large bottle of caffeine. This was the last time he came to one of Knight's shindigs. Why couldn't he be once for normal? And when all those Internet people got up and did a kick line... He told himself that the weird guy with short hair brought them. On the other hand, several seemed to be bunking at Nick's. Knighties, they called themselves? He shook his head, still wondering why one had brought a water cooler. A strange, whiny-gurgly sound came into the kitchen. He jumped. The rest of the pack was imitating the tomatoes. He sighed, grabbed his bottle of Maxie (more caffeine than Jolt!), and rejoined the group while visions of straitjackets danced in his head. He then remembered the schnitzel, and took it off. "Tracy, tell me, HOW can you stand this?" Vachon was whispering, eyes still bugged out and glued to the screen in shock. "This has got to be the STUPIDEST movie I've ever seen!" "Loosen up, Vachon. It's all in fun." "But did you see the disclaimer at the beginning? 'No one's laughing now'?!?!?!? The people who made this were insane!" "Aw, Jav, just watch it. You're not supposed to take it seriously." Urs aimed a squirt bottle of ketchup at him. "Anyway, you didn't have to come." "I know, I know. SHE made me," he pointed at Trace. "Yeah, so you could get that cute little butt of yours out of the Raven and have some fun." She shoved an Oreo in her mouth, made a face with it behind her teeth. He rolled his eyes. "Can we go now?" "No." "Why not? This is stupid." "Vach, get a life. Even that weird Nightcrawler guy's having fun. He even put that thong on!" "Over his clothes." "So? Here, have a cookie." She shoved an Oreo into his mouth. He shut up, cookie getting soggy in his mouth. "What? No campfire? Then what am I gonna do with these?" "Give 'em to us! We'll figure out something!" the Cousins and Knighties chorused. Nick and LaCroix looked at each other. They all-too-well understood the other's dread. "Y'know, there's a cartoon of this, too. Doesn't do justice to the flick." Phoenix squirted a packet of ketchup in her mouth, suddenly grinning at an evil, Uncle thought. "Oooookay. That's sick." Cousin Suk muttered. "The show or the ketchup?" "Both." A certain large tomato nearby, munching a large pizza with extra garlic, tossed a tomato back at them. It squished two feet behind them. Nick sighed. He hadn't planned for it to get this messy. Or to have so much garlic around. "Toemaetoe." "AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!" Oh, great. He'd forgotten about the library scene. Even LaCroix was screaming and running around. Vachon wasn't though. Wonderful Vachon, Nick always knew he'd liked him. "Are you as confused as I am?" Vachon nodded madly. "Just one question: WHY?!?!?" Nick shrugged. "I really don't know. I saw the movie once, and, POOF. I get thirteen people sleeping on my floor and trying to seduce me, tomatoes all over the floor, and LaCroix acting like some kind of Rocky Horror Picture Show freak." "Not Rocky, Nicholas. Tomato." The running around screaming had evolved into a congo line to a couple of Cousins singing "Puberty Love". LaCroix was at the head. Cousins kept changing places. Nick noted that they did NOT seem to be keeping it G-rated. Currently Tippi had her hands hooked in LaCroix's back pockets; the others just had weird grins. One of the Knighties who kept eating all the chocolate he kept for Nat, Dotti, kept trying to get him to join the line (right in front of her, no less). Nick sighed. Why couldn't he have shown Rocky like normal people? Why did he have this party in the first place? "IN-COMIIIIIING!" A large, soggy-ripe tomato doused liberally in ketchup flew through the air and squished on Nick's leg. He turned around. That Phoenix person was grinning madly, holding another bomb in her right hand. She looked innocent for a second. "It wasn't me, it was the one-armed man!" LaCroix quickly hid one arm in his shirt. "I didn't do it! It was, uh, the one-armed, one-legged man!" Screed took that as a cue. He hopped around on one leg with an arm behind his back. "Not me, chickie, it was George the Plastic Bat." "George is in Oklahoma. George pleads the Fifth." Nick sighed, again. "This is Canada. We don't have the Fifth." Before he could continue the group had started watching the movie again. Maybe it was one of the "tame" scenes. He checked. Oh, god, no, it was... The Ketchup Scene. "And you wanted dark meat? And you wanted a breast? And you wanted a leg?" "And you wanted the heart steak?" One of the Heathers smirked evilly. All the, um, "sun-allergic" in the room cringed. Schanke, Stonetree, and Reese didn't get it. Something happened for a few minutes, having to do with Mason Dixon and co. Most of the guests got up for food. The earlier wienerschnitzel war resumed, this time including LaCroix, Tippi, and Dotti. For some reason the four FORKNI-Ler were calling each other Athos (Dotti), Porthos (Tippi), Aramis (Alora), and D'Artagnan (Phoenix). LaCroix was Cardinal Richilieu. Every few seconds a scream of "charge", "parry", or "thrust" (this one follwed by mad giggling and lewd comments) came from the group. "We have you now, Cardinal! Your evil reign is done!" "I think not, my dear Athos. En garde!" The five whacked their weiners with anarchistic glee. LaCroix plunged his schnitzel into Phoenix's chest. "Agh," she moaned. "You have slain me, evil cardinal." "Wicked," Tippi corrected. "Wicked Cardinal. May my friends avenge me, and tell George I will never forget him. And Seth. And Sadist the 486. And my teddy bear. And--" "Just die already!" The "Cardinal" and the "Musketeers" stabbed her again. Phoenix subtly smeared ketchup by her mouth and crumpled to the floor, eyes bugging and tongue lolling on the floor. The other four went back to their game. "Ah-ha, Cardinal, you have slain D'Artagnan! We will avenge. Prepare to die!" Nick sighed. He checked his watch. Two hours until the party was supposed to end. He sighed again. Maybe if he went to bed and wrapped the covers around him REALLY tight... "Could someone pass the ketchup?" Nick's TV was bombarded with packets of ketchup. He sighed. At least none were open. There were five wienerschnitzel on his floor, however, and a chalk outline of poor departed D'Artagnan being mildly lewd. A chalk outline of the poor departed Cardinal was nearby, being equally lewd, with a sausage very strategically placed. One hour forty-five minutes, one hour forty-five minutes... Nick tried to make himself oblivious to the rest of the movie. It didn't work. Nat and Janette burst into the nth chorus of "Puberty Love" that night. When the crowd ran screaming from the football stadium, everyone else, including Vachon, stood up and followed suit. Soon the Five Musketeers turned into the Marx Brothers, thanks to Harpo in the background. Normally, Nick would have found it hilarious to see Lacroix going around muttering, "Is it just me or are all of you crazy?", imaginary cigar in his fingers. This time, though... "Puberty Love" sheetmusic, they screamed and crumpled into heaps. Lois and Mason duet, it was Nat and LaCroix. Nick felt his temper rise as LaCroix jumped into Nat's arms. That was HIS job. At least the movie was almost over... Wrong. This was the Director's Cut. There was an extra 90 seconds. He once again suffered the theme song, and the Where Are They Now? bit. It was the longest 90 seconds of Nick's rather substantial life. They HAD to show the guy from the library scene, didn't they? He was in a fetal position by the time it was done. Finito. Done. Over. Sigh... "Hey, Nick, when are ya doin' another one of these? I'll come over!" Only LaCroix, the FORKNI-Lers, and Nat remained, and they were getting their stuff together. "It might be a while." He suddenly noticed the Knighties were leaving. "What's going on?" "LaCroix invited us over for Rocky," Dotti explained. "He's got the European version. Wanna come?" "No, thanks. I'll just stay here." He was contemplating whether to sleep or clean up. Nervous breakdown was in the lead. "Okay. Don't wait up." _I don't plan to._ He just nodded. They left. It was just him and Nat. "Nat..." "Sorry. I have to get up early tomorrow. Hire someone to clean it up." That was the only good thing he'd heard all night. Nick gave her a goodnight kiss on the cheek, but was interrupted by something. "Naughty, naughty, Nicky! Try two inches to the right!" He looked up just in time to see Phoenix's face disappear from the lift window. Damn Cousins. They were right, ya know. THE END, FOR NOW. All flames, comments, tomatoes, thongs, and wienerschnitzel to: Cousin "Susan" Phoenix * Camera Fanatic of the Thong Throng Charter Unnamed * Member of the Cold Shower Sisterhood * SKLed phoenix@ionet.net **Faciemus ut Dewus Mountainus e Tuo Nasone Exeat!** George the Plastic Bat loves you.