Taking over the World on $80 or Less, Part Two

[troubled sleep]

Ok! So at one point a friend suggested that I write a sequel to ‘How to take over the World on $80 or Less’ concerning whatever happened to Brandon Basset and Nicki Claris. Well, here is my one for Brandon...though frankly it would work better as a prequel, especially with the ending I used(which is killing me! But I simply cannot think of another way to end it without re-telling the previous story and that’s out of the question since I want to keep thisso that it can at least somewhat stand alone)

 

By the way. Gloria is a real person, and while she may or may not be from New Sweden, she is Puerto Rican, her father did make her promise to be a nun on his death bed, and she at least works in a kennel in Peachtree City, GA. Now what that has to do with New Guinea is beyond me. But like everything else, it seemed like a nice idea at the time.

 

As usual, if this turns out utterly horrid, please inform me of the fact and I'll attempt to fix it.

 

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A nondescript hitchhiker stood on the side of the road, thumb thrust out in the traditional manner. He looked to be about twenty-three with dark hair and light coloring as well brown eyes which were squinted in both frustration and in attempt to block out the sun. He was dressed in horrifically blen-dable and ordinary clothing; and frankly he wouldn’t have looked out of place sitting in a cubicle in a law or doctor’s office. In fact, many of those people speeding by actually thought he was indeed a person from their respected offices. Or they thought he was their long lost friend from college. Or their cousin. Or their eccentric Uncle Chris they hadn’t seen since four Thanksgivings ago. It was because of this frightening familiarity of his appearance that no one stopped to offer him a ride. After all, no on wants to admit that they knew or were related to a hitchhiker.

 

But luckily for the hitchhiker, he looked absolutely nothing like anyone Gloria Rivera was close to. So she maneuvered her large white van to the far left lane and pulled over. The hitchhiker took a few tentative steps towards the van, and when nothing happened after a few minutes he picked up his pack and apprehensively opened the passenger door. He was slightly startled by the van’s hot pink interior, but this was nothing to match the surprise of what greeted him when he stuck his head into the van.

 

“Hello?” He said, blinking several times to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating.

 

“Hello!” an enthusiastic voice that was thickly Puerto Rican called from inside the van . The owner of the voice was a heavy set woman dressed in flowing orange clothing with thick orange eye shadow and lipstick to match, and her frizzy dark hair bounded off in all directions. As far as the van itself went, the back seats had been ripped out and all remaining areas from floor to ceiling was upholstered in what looked like pink shag carpeting. And lounging on silk pillows everywhere on the floor were dogs of all breeds and sizes. The Puerto Rican woman, still smiling brightly, poured a little more dog food into a crystal dish before sliding it into place on the floor in a bolted down cup holder in front of a large golden retriever.

 

“Welcome to the Pampered Pooch! I’m Gloria Rivera, you need a ride?” she said, lumbering past all the dogs, some of which were sleeping, and sliding back into the drivers seat.

 

“Uh....yea,” the hitchhiker said tearing his gaze away from a large Doberman Pincher staring menacingly at him. “A ride would be good.”

 

“Well hop in then! And just put whatever on the seat on the floor, it’s not important.”

 

“Uh....yea,” he said uncertainly, shifting a stack of business cards and a road map of Virginia to the floor with his own bag. Once this was done he climbed up into the van and shut the door, “I’m Brandon Basset, by the way.”

 

“Like I said, Gloria Rivera,” she said with another toothy smile. She quickly put the car into gear and jammed down suddenly on the accelerator, oblivious to her passenger’s sudden white knuckle grip of his armrest.

 

“So, where are you from,” Gloria asked once they had gotten up to 95 miles an hour and were weaving in and out of traffic. “My family is originally from Puerto Rico, but I’m from New Sweden by birth, then I moved to Kansas when I was eight, and that‘s where my family home is. But I haven‘t been back since my father died.” Gloria said, pleasantly.

 

“Umm...I’m sorry about your loss?” Brandon said, not wanting to offend her. After all, if she got angry, she could very well toss him out on the side of the road. And above all , Brandon Bassett did want to end up wandering the highways of Delaware for the rest of eternity.

 

“Oh, don’t be.” Gloria said, clearly unfazed, “Now I bet you’re wondering after my truck?”

 

“Actually I-”

 

“Well it’s a funny story, and a long one, but it’s not really like you’ve got anywhere to go, right?”

“Well no, but how far can you-”

 

“Ok then!!“ Gloria said excitedly as she jammed down on the accelerator again, “Well, it all started right before my father died. When he was on his deathbed, actually! So we were having this great big party at my family‘s home just when my dad was passing. It sounds strange, I know, but it’s a Rivera family tradition! All the family gets together in the dying’s house and get’s really drunk in their name and memory. But then in one room of the house, the dying sits on his deathbed and all is very somber.” she said, pausing afterwards as though to relive the memory.

 

“That’s odd, I thought that was more the Irish who had the parties when people died.” Brandon said, taking advantage of the pause to try to get a word in.

 

“Yes, yes, the Irish, the Scottish, and the Rivera family. But the thing is that I came in late, and didn’t even get a drink before my Great Aunt Maria-Hilda Romaro pulled me over to the side and said ‘you insolent girl! showing up late when your father is dying in the next room! Your poor mother! How my dear little niece would be turning in her grave if she knew how irresponsible her youngest daughter had turned out’,” Gloria said, making her voice old and harsh sounding to impersonate her ‘dear’ great aunt. “So she brought me to my father’s bedside, and he basically continued Great Aunt Maria-Hilda’s lecture for a few minutes, then suddenly he grabbed me by the arm and made me swear on his pending grave and that of our ancestors that after I recovered from the hangover I would no doubt receive after drinking too much in the next room, that I was to go and become a nun. After all, he said, it was the only way I would make up for my existence to both him and my heavenly father, not to mention my poor mother. So of course, I said that I would become a nun, after all, he was a crazy old man, and frankly I’d say anything to stop him from ranting about what a disgrace I was.”

 

“You don’t look like much of a nun...” Brandon said suddenly.

 

“Well of course not!” Gloria said, laughing so hard that her frizzled hair, and indeed the whole van, seemed to bounce about wildly in every direction at once. “But that’s later in the story! So I left the room to go and see the rest of the family before they got too drunk and started doing Ricky Ricardo impersonations.”

 

“What??!” Brandon said, a little scared.

 

“Ricky Ricardo. You know, the guy from ’I Love Lucy?’.”

“I know who he is but-”

“You should hear my cousin Paula, now *there* is a Ricardo impersonation!” Gloria said, throwing a hand up for emphasis.

 

“Really well, you’re family certainly sounds interesting but-”

 

“Now as I was saying,” she said, oblivious to Brandon’s attempts at getting a word in, “I was leaving the room, when I bumped into my great aunt Maria-Hilda again. Literally. Apparently she had been listening through the keyhole, the old witch, and had heard every word. And she was as hot on the idea of me becoming a nun as my father had been! The worst part was that she was old friends with this mother superior at a convent in New Guinea. So before I had even been able to even say hello to my cousins, aunts, or uncles I was standing by the phone listening to my great aunt chat with Mother Superior Mary Hubert.”

 

“Hubert?”

 

“You’d be surprised what names those New Guinea nuns have. But where was I again...?” Gloria fumbled for a minute and nervously tapped her foot up and down. Her right foot, that is, and it happened to still be positioned on the accelerator causing them to fly up to 100, then back down to 60 several times in the space of about a minute. “Ah yes, so the very next morning I was flying out of Kansas bound for New Guinea, with all my worldly possessions held ‘in trust’ by my younger brother Steven. So for the next two years I was at the convent in some obscure town somewhere. And it was-say, have you ever been to New Guinea?”

 

“No...can’t say I have...”

 

“Well, I hadn’t gone until then, and it was not what I expected! You see, I thought they had whole ranches of Guinea Pigs! It being New Guinea and all, but no! I kept asking the nuns about it, but they just stared at me. It was terrible. I thought at least that I would be able to get one as a pet! I always wanted one, you see. When I was a girl, I had a little stuffed animal of a Guinea Pig. It’s name was Puinea Gig. And I always wanted a real one-”

 

“Umm...you know, Guinea Pigs aren’t native to New Guinea. Or Guinea for that matter...they’re actually form South America.” Brandon said tentatively.

 

“Oh, are you sure? Well that certainly explains a lot...But...uh...back to the story!” Gloria said with a bit of nervous laughter, “So I was there for two years, and then one day I knew I couldn’t take it any more. So when the annual nun conference in Atlanta, Georgia came around, I volunteered to go along with Sister Mary Myopia. And let me tell you, the moment we landed I ran into a Starbucks, hid behind a couch and I never saw the old nun again. Of course now I have the curses of the entire convent behind me as well as those of my dear departed father, but then, you take what you can get.” she said with a shrug.

 

Gloria spent a moment musing on this while Brandon strained his eyes trying to see a road sign of any sort. The last time he had checked, they had been somewhere in Maryland, but now there was nothing to differentiate this highway from the hundreds of others he’d been on. In a few minutes he gave up, and with a sigh opened his mouth to urge Gloria on with her story.

 

“So you ran into a Starbucks and then what?”

“What? Oh, yes. So then after I was sure I had lost her and any other nuns who might be roaming the airport. Nuns do that a lot, you know. It’s not the kind of think you hear about, but nuns are drawn to airports like a bug to light. It was quite the scandal back in the ‘80s. The Vatican tried to hush it up, but I know the truth!” Gloria said, waving a finger at Brandon, who was quite lost for a logical reason why nuns going to the airport would be considered a scandal. Apparently Gloria was too, because she didn’t move to explain, just continue on as she had before.

“So as soon as I was sure I was safe, I left the airport. And after walking down the high way for a while, it hit me: I was a jobless ex-nun. This was quite a shock, so I walked to the nearest Waffle House, they’re *everywhere* that far south, to drown my sorrows in maple syrup. But it didn’t take long until I was out of money, the Waffle House was out of syrup, and I was back out on the curb. So I was sitting there, trying to think up some way to get a job, when right out of the blue I was hit by another revelation. You see, I have always loved animals, especially dogs as you can see from my other passengers” she said , indicating the pampered pooches lounging about what would have been the back seats while munching on premium dog chow and sipping champagne out of cut glass goblets. “So I decided I wanted to open a kennel, get a few dogs, maybe a house in the country, you know the whole American dream thing. But I had one little problem; where to put it! So I wandered and wandered, hoping I‘d find somewhere with a decent phone book. But right then, right when I just couldn‘t walk anymore and I was about to collapse, I saw it....” she said, pulling her hands off the wheel and motioning upwards towards the heavens, “A sign, ‘Peachtree City, Welcome home’ it said. And I knew. I just knew that had to be the perfect place.”

 

She paused dramatically for a moment, and thinking she expected feedback, Brandon opened his mouth to speak.

“Umm, that’s nice.” he said lamely, hoping that she would choose to take control of the steering wheel rather soon.

 

“Well it was! And considering I love peaches I was more than happy to hock my last possessions- a replica of Jesus on the cross and a few antique paper clips- to afford a nice little place to start up. But I soon learned that there were no peaches, the neighbors were mean, and about a month after starting up one of my poor pooches was run over my a golf cart!” she said, eyes full of emotion.

 

“Um...I’m sorry?” Brandon said, unsure of whether or not to say this. The last time he had said he was sorry for the death of someone, it had ended up this long and involved tale of parties, nuns, and golf carts.

 

“Yes, well” Gloria said, wiping away a tear for her poor lost dog, “But I opened my kennel all the same. And things were great. For a while. Six months later I was evicted from the space rented for my kennel by the Peachtree City Council.”

 

“Why??!”

 

“My berms weren’t pretty enough,” Gloria said, more tears coming.

 

“You’re what?!”

 

“Berms. The little humps of land in front of my kennel. Apparently the way the mulch was arranged was ‘unattractive’ as the Peachtree Citizen put it. And the trees I planted were apparently not on the official list of acceptable trees. And all I wanted to do was add a few peach trees to Peachtree City!!” she said, sobbing into the steering wheel”

“Umm...It’s going to be alright...I guess,” Brandon said trying to be comforting, “But would you kindly look back up at the road because we’re about to slam into a truck.”

“What? Sorry” she said, abruptly sitting up and yanking the wheel to the left., “Sorry about that, I though I was over all that...but...you know. But after all those...problems I decided to go back to the land of my family; New Sweden. So I went there and started the pampered pooch. And things are going alright now...I’m actually on my way back now.”

 

“Really? And where exactly is New Sweden?”

 

“Why we’re in it, silly!”

 

Brandon quickly turned and pressed himself against the window, hoping for some sign of civilization where he could be dropped off. It wasn’t that he was ungrateful for the ride...but after spending three hours in a van with fifteen dogs and a temperamental Puerto Rican woman, you would be anxious to get away too. But much to his annoyance, there was nothing, not even a 7-11 to break up the same wooded scenery that they’d been driving past for hours.

 

“So New Sweden is a highway?” he said after a moment

 

“No! Not at all!” she replied, laughing as hard as ever and this time clapping Brandon hard on the back. “You know, you really are too funny! And you don’t know your history! New Sweden is basically everything around the Delaware River up to Trenton, everybody knows that!”

 

Brandon just blinked, then turned back to the window.

 

“So...where are we going then?”

 

“I am taking these adorable pooches to their waiting owners in Wilmington, Delaware. That’s where I’m from, by birth anyway. You see, my family is really originally from Puerto Rico but-“

 

”Yes,” Brandon said wearily, cutting her off, “you mentioned that earlier.”

 

“Well, ok then” Gloria said in a tone which suggested that she had been personally affronted by his cutting her off. She looked sourly at the road in front of her for a minute, then brightened again. “So! Here I have been , going on and on about myself and my history, like a conceited fool! So what about you? I mean, even hitchhikers have to start somewhere, no?”

 

“Well...I’m not sure that I-“

 

”Oh come on! I want to hear all about it!” she answered enthusiastically.

 

Brandon sighed. It looked like she wouldn’t take no for an answer, so he began to think back. On the whole, it was a little embarrassing and a lot farfetched, but Gloria was still waving encouragingly at him, and frankly he’d do anything to avoid hearing more about her Puerto Rican(but new Swedish by birth!) Relatives. So he sighed once more and tried to think of where to start.

 

“Well...it was about Christmas last year,” he said suddenly “and I went to my local mall up in Washington State to look for gifts. It was then I saw this kiosk which seemed to stick out from the rest of the crowd. This may or may not have anything to do with the fact that it had a huge Neon Sign flashing “How to take over the World on $80 or Less!” in various colors, or that the kiosk itself was painted a brilliant grey. The point is, however, that against my better judgement I pushed my way through the crowds until I was right in front of it. I stood their for quite a bit, staring at the sign, and after about five minutes a girl sitting in the booth looked up and asked in a very bored tone if I was interested in taking over the world. I didn’t really have anything better to do, so told her that yes, I was interested ...” Brandon said as he started to relate his odd account of receiving world domination tips from one Nicki Claris to an increasingly surprised Gloria Rivera and pack of pampered pooches.

 

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<The random tourist traps and roadside attractions will return! In the epic tale of whatever happened to Nicki Claris...but it may be a bit, since my muse seems to be taking an extended holiday in the South of France(according to my French text book, Provence is very nice this time of year)>

[Peredhil]

What a worthy prequel! You have a real knack for spinning a "shaggy dog" story that is a delight to which to listen.

 

 

-P

[Regel]

It maybe a shaggy dog Peredhil, but at least it doesn't have fleas. I enjoyed his very much. The character you described is all to familiar to me (my next-door neighbour) but she like your Gloria Rivera never met a conversation she didn't run over.

[ryurei]

I like both of your stories in this set quite enjoyable:)