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Scene 14: It is really, really over.

Krank's Kolumn, Technopolis Today.

Plucky Lena – always on the job!

(Dateline: Technopolis)

Talk about your Girl Friday! That Lena Mason sure can’t hold a curtain to that newspaper dame Rosalind Russell played back in the day. Boy, oh, boy! just what this town needs. Another media hog. They are becoming like lemmings and we need a pied piper to lead ‘em all into the Indian River.

We’ve seen it all before. The news media is the news. Tech Today’s own intrepid girl-reporter got up from coma, dragged herself into some clothes, and crawled her way to the scene of the crime in time to witness a huge fire at luckless Joe Varsity’s latest enterprise. Yep, we’ll all miss yet another sports bar in this town. Meanwhile, Lena Mason, for her pluck and obsessive-ness will probably get to write even more stories for Technopolis Today and we will have to endure hours of her mug on Visi-vision and her story playing over and over again. Great. Me? I’m taking a rest from all media, including this one you are reading.

So the only crime was who the hell could eat that slop the Top Caterer contest was serving up? I mean, come on, folks. You really want your chocolate ice cream with a little bit of liver on top? The color alone is enough to drive you to the nearest rest room. That was the crime, and this Bozo – Achille Orlandi – anybody ever hear of that dude? – won the top prize and now the whole world will know of crème de la fois gras. I can’t wait for his next course. After that, what’s a little fire among friends?

Joe Varsity will survive the loss of his restaurant and as for the rest of the denizens of Technopolis, how can you miss what you’ve never had? After all, this was supposed to be his big opening, but it was his big closing instead. Too bad, Technopolis. You are going to miss having yet another place to watch sports on a big screen, guzzling all the beer you can get, while the Mrs fends for herself at home, doing the laundry amid several squalling kids. Ah! The American Dream lives!

And Ole Joe? Where was he during the latest non-crime? On his yacht. Did he care? Nope. He was off marrying Lu C Brightbight, she who was recently defamed at said restaurant while stirring up the Top Caterer judges with hints that she cheated. She probably did, but who cares? She and Joe are sailing to Key West and points south apparently in his latest bid to live happily ever after. At least, we hope his plans to bring another hockey team (think ICE in Florida, Brother) to Technopolis. I wonder if the rink would be made with liquid nitrogen. Hmmmm.

Back to our intrepid news celeb. Lena Mason, for her dedication to journalism, will get a nod from the Pulitzer committee and a promotion at Technopolis Today – just as soon as she awakens from her latest coma.

Meanwhile, in the area of good gossip, no surprise really, but the latest Mrs. Mordecai is suing for divorce and is out to set a record for the greediest female doggie on the planet and wants to win a whopping settlement from the also greedy Mr. Mordecai. Rumor has it, she’ll do just fine. Don’t cry for him, Technopolis. He can afford it.

Also rumbling in the background is Mrs. Prescott, whose only son Dirk is off to lead the FutureSoft company in its foray into the world of virtual reality movies, whatever that is. While he has gone to Milan with his intended, Ms Danielle Morgan, to establish himself in the business world as head of the Virtual reality branch of his father’s company, Mimi Prescott is rumored to be feeling the pinch of others besides her husband. She has recently expresses “being utterly, utterly humiliated” by Lu C Brightbight’s ruination at the Top Caterer competition, though how she can be so passive-aggressive (or is it having no boundaries? No, no – it’s “Co-dependent”) and feel that association with anyone would bring disaster down on her head is beyond me. In that vein, you would have to say that half the world is addlepated – those reading my column, that is – would be addlepated which is what the other half (those who don’t read my column) think I am.

Meanwhile, no one has seen or heard from Sandi Bartoni. My theory is that she just just quit eating for real and withered away, dried up, and blew back to wherever it is she came from.

Then there is the Khaki Avenger. I leave him last, of course, because, well, he is. Last.

Lena risked it all to try to interview him, right before she passed out on Varsity’s parking lot, but he, as usual, had other places to be. Joe Varsity’s Bar and Grill was in flames, Sandi Bartoni Chief Mischief Maker got away scot-free, Mordecai gets to keep on trying to dominate the Earth, Prescott gets to promote a perfectly useless art – virtual reality. Were any arrests made? Nope. Was the Khaki Avenger successful in ferreting out who was behind the attempted murder of the Italian delegation? Nope.

There are some of you out there who think he did save the day and point to the fact that no one was killed. Or hurt. Unless you count those poor slugs who had to down portions of that chocolate fois gras mess. Still, our fair city’s intrepid off-hours hero, did his bit and did his disappearing act.

I guess we should be grateful.

End of The Catastrophic Caterer

Check out: Moon Mayhem, a holiday story featuring bad guys and a grumpy Santa on the Moon.