Friday, April 24, 2026

Wish It, Want It, Do It

Ron, along with Meg, Peter, and Brian, piled into the Griffins' red station wagon. It was coated heavily with liquor and gasoline after the prior night's drunken attempt to set the world on fire. Weeds, both garden and the excitable types, as well as tulips, were found deep set into the rubber windshield wiper hatches, strewn about alongside clumps of dirt.
 
"Meg," Peter said. His eyes darted from his daughter to Cleveland's house, and then back to her. "You need to take a sharp right."
 
"Dad, I'm an adult now," she replied. "You don't need to worry about my driving anymore."
 
The station wagon slowly crawled down Spooner Street, brakes squealing under twenty miles an hour. In a flurry of anger, Peter yelled, "Take the right," grabbing ahold of the steering wheel for himself. Instead, it popped right off, and he was flung back toward the passenger side door as they swerved toward Cleveland's house.
 
As they careened into the house, wooden planks danced frantically past the car windows, splintering into dust. The splinters pelted the hood, sending it flying up and past the car, into the front yard. Another staircase and a small couch sprung past them, permanently torn and dented. Past due roses from Valentine's Day splattered the windshield, and their petals, Peter's tongue.
 
Their bathtub fell on the windshield too before shattering, porcelain sliding off in large, jagged chunks. With an abrupt jolt, they came to a stop, just past the fourth wall, and into the Browns' small living room. "Oh, hey, Cleveland," Peter stuck his head out. Cleveland, his wife Donna, and Quagmire stopped dancing and returned a stare. Spiky bits of glass and remains of picture frames also stared back. "What's goin' on?"
 
"Hello, Peter," Cleveland replied in his black voice. "Want some punch?"
 
"Whose leg do you have to hump to get a dry martini around here?" Brian said quickly, rolling down his window.
 
Meg winked, "You could hump mine."
 
"Giggity," Quagmire said. He nearly fainted, Hawaiian shirt fluttering as he fell flat to the ground with a smile spread on his face. His head bobbed with excitement every time he stuck his neck out, just like a giraffe. "Giraffity," he added.
 
"Okay, thanks, Cleveland," Peter said, grabbing a red plastic cup of punch. Meg backed out of the house and started down Spooner Street again. "Joe, want a ride?" Ron asked. Joe, wearing his signature gray polo, stopped wheeling on the sidewalk and turned to face the car. "Sure," he replied with a grateful smile. "Ron, that would be amazing!"
 
Peter said, "You have to drive," as he jumped out of the passenger seat. He squished in the back, right next to Ron, while Joe got into the driver's seat, and Meg took Peter's former seat.
 
"Boy, I haven't been driving since I met Bonnie," Joe exclaimed. He set his hands on the left-handed monkey wrench, jammed into a shaft where the steering wheel once was. "Then, everything went downhill." Meg used her pink purse to push down the gas pedal, and off to the races they went. "Hey, guys," Joe said. "What say we go to McBurgertown?"
 
Mumbles of "Sure," "Yeah," and "Okay," arose from the back seat. Soon enough, the local McBurgertown was set in their sights, diagonally from them at the intersection in the center of Quahog. On another street, Mayor West approached the point in his gray Mercedes, eyeing the flowers on the Griffins' hood. "My tulips!" he yelled, waving his arms out his window. "You dick," the mayor decided to speed up.
 
In the Griffins' wagon, Joe continued to be uncooperative. "Joe, you gotta stop," said Peter. "It's a red light."
 
"Peter, have you forgotten my legs don't work?" he replied calmly.
 
"Oh my god, Joe, hit the brakes," Meg screamed, shielding her face with her purse.
 
"I'm trying, Meg," he replied calmly twice more. Voice cracking, he roared, "But, my legs don't happen to be working right now."
 
"That's a curveball," Mayor West braced himself.
 
He drove straight into the center of the intersection, and jammed on the brakes. The little red station wagon flung into the gray sedan, and pushed it as it flipped continuously on the grating pavement. Joe steered onto the McBurgertown's grass, clipping and setting ablaze as they went, just before tossing into the restaurant itself. They came to a stop afront to the ordering desk, hanging atop the mayor's mangled sedan, the driver of which was catapulted elsewhere.
 
Peter, body halfway out of the car, craned his neck up to look at the wide menu board. "I'll take a burger with extra bacon."
 
In front of the second set of plush, orange booths, Ron got into line. A short man stood in front of him, donning khaki pants and a blue, textured polo. Ron recognized the strange man as Greg Gutter, from his own book, The King of Late Night.
 
"Did you hear it's National Puppy Day?" Ron asked, attempting to make small talk.
 
Gutter glanced at Ron, replying, "Yeah, I just bought one off Amazon."
 
-
 
Written by Jerry Zervas w/ Brian Steele on 4/24/26. 
Set Two of the FG Trilogy.
Twentieth Century Fox Television and Fuzzy Door Productions reserve all rights.
DO NOT USE UNLESS GIVEN PERMISSION BY ME (i.e. email me)

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