The Legend of Derrick the Terrible

The Legend of Derrick the Terrible

in which the lamest underdog loser teaches the greatest grandmaster an important life lesson

Master Buffman Tuffgai and his three pupils, Gregory the Strong, Camilla the Very Attractive but also Strong, and Derrick the Terrible were standing in front of a great passageway at the bottom level of the famous Dungeon Full of Treasure. They'd fought their way through hordes of monsters, skeletal warriors, evil beasts, bandits, pirates, skeletal pirates, pirate bandits, skeletal pirate bandit monsters, and dangerous robo-monster-bandit-beasts just to get here, the last treasure chamber on the last treasure floor of the last treasure dungeon in the entire world.

Well, honestly Master Buffman, Gregory, and Camilla had done all the fighting. Derrick the Terrible had truly lived up to his name. He had been terrible, and not in the evil warlord sense where you're considered terrible for killing lots of people or whatever. No, this guy was called terrible because he was actually just kinda terrible at killing stuff. The others mostly just let him tag along as a favor to his dad who happened to be Buffman's uncle the King. So Derrick basically just carried their food and bags full of money and weapons and extra underwear and stuff like that.

"Derrick, hurry up and get over here, you worthless dummy!" said Buffman. "I need that magic sword to slay this Ultimate Guardian so we can get the last of the world's secret hidden treasure."

Derrick, in his infinite lameness, had not even noticed the Ultimate Guardian that Buffman referred to. Well, there he was, a big ol' giant Minotaur Dude with a bull head and like twelve horns and giant golden armor and big bloody spikes for knuckles and stuff. Actually, at the moment, he didn't seem to Derrick to be especially threatening because he was just sort of sitting there eating a sandwich. He finished the sandwich, and Derrick watched curiously as the monster reached over and delicately grabbed another sandwich right off the top of a big pile of these sandwiches.

"He's just eatin' a sandwich..." Derrick said.

"Shut up, you dummy!" said Buffman. "It's a monster and it's in our way. I'll just kill this guy and then we'll take his treasure, okay?"

"But..."

"Just gimme that sword."

But when Derrick looked in the weapon bag, he found that there was no magic sword.

"Um, the sword appears to be--Wait-a-minute, you have it!"

Yup, Buffman already had the sword and was juggling it and twirling it and doing all sorts of cool tricks that made him look totally awesome. "Yeah, you slow idiot. While you were lolly-gagging over there daydreaming about sandwiches or whatever I snatched it outta there myself, and you didn't even notice. I'm just that good!"

"Wow."

"Anyways, time to get to Ultimate Guardian stompin'."

And so Master Buffman headed over to where the Minotaur Dude was sitting and started swinging his sword all slick and cool. But then the Minotaur Dude stood up far more quickly than any of them had ever seen even Buffman move and punched Buffman right in the face with his bloody spike knuckles! Buffman flew backwards and landed on the ground and said "Oooof!"

The others ran over to the fallen Master Fighter and helped him up. "Wow, that guy means business!" said Master Buffman. "A lesser man would be dead right now for sure, but well, I'm buff, you know? Hey, come to think of it, maybe you guys should take this guy out, as like, a final test of your skills. Gregory, why don't you start?"

Gregory was a little unsure about taking on a Minotaur Dude who had just clobbered the great and mighty Master Buffman Tuffgai, but he had no choice. So he pulled out his favorite Double Fiery Ninja Swords of Death and charged at the big ol' monster yelling "YEEEAAAARGH!" In a moment, Gregory was right back where he started with a couple of big spike knuckle shaped dents in his forehead.

"Owwww!" he said. "Owwwwwwwwwwww!" It looked painful, but big picture, he was fine. He was pretty buff himself, after all.

Camilla stood there staring at the dents in Gregory's face with her jaw hanging open, like WOW those are deep dents, but then suddenly she realized Buffman was staring at her and tapping his foot with his arms crossed, kinda like, "Weeeeeellllllllllllllll, I'm waiting..."

So Camilla grabbed her Lavender-Scented Super Spear of Feminine Ferocity and ran toward the Minotaur Dude. She was considerably faster than Gregory, so she jumped here and there and darted her spear at the Minotaur Dude's eyes like a hundred times per second, but the Minotaur Dude just swatted her with the back of his hand and she fell down. But wow, she was determined. She got up and came at him again, but again she just got shut down with the back of a giant hand. So she let out a ferocious scream and charged at him doing flips and zipping around like lightning. Derrick thought it was kinda funny watching the Minotaur Dude's eyes rolling around trying to keep track of her, but then he just like, stuck out his arm and suddenly Camilla had stopped and was stuck to one of his giant knuckle spikes. The Minotaur Dude peeled her off his fist and threw her back over to the others and she just lay there with stars twirling around her head.

"Camilla, wow, are you all right?" asked Gregory.

"Yeah," she said, "I think so, but I don't think we're gonna get past this guy. His knuckles are just too spikey."

"Psssssh," said Master Buffman. "You two idiots don't even know how to kill an Ultimate Guardian Minotaur Dude? That's like, something from Master Combat Fighting Kindergarten! Here, let me show you."

So he shut his eyes, sat down with his legs crossed, and started chanting some kinda mumbo jumbo until he starting glowing and levitating in the air. Then all the weapons in their bag started levitating too and flying around him this way and that. The others made space so they didn't get an accidental murderin' dagger in the ear or something, and then Master Buffman's eyes shot open suddenly and he flew towards the Minotaur Dude with fire streaking behind him like a Hellfire missile had just been fired from an AH-1W SuperCobra attack helicopter.

The Minotaur Dude swung his arms one way, stopped for a second, and then swung them the other way as fast as he could, sending himself spinning on his heels like a spikey top of spikey knuckley death. Buffman's weapons all tried to stab him and slice him and poke him and chop him and mince him and fillet him and carve him and finally kill him, but not a single blow could get through this new Ultimate Minotaur Tornado Move. Master Buffman opened his mouth and started breathing fire at him, but the Minotaur Dude just zoomed out of the way. Buffman fired a giant blast of mystical ice summoned from the ethereal spirit realm, but the spinning Minotaur Dude hopped over it in a single deft spinning hop. Buffman fired lasers out of his eyes, but the Minotaur Dude stopped spinning and punched the lasers with his spike knuckles, and the lasers bounced right off, right back into Buffman's eyes, and he went "YOOOOWWWWW, that smarts!" and flew backwards and landed at the feet of his students with smoke coming out of his eyes. The Minotaur Dude went back to eating his sandwiches.

"No, you're right, Camilla," he said. "This guy's knuckles are too spikey even for me. Let's go back to town and just tell the King that there weren't any more treasure rooms. He'll never know the difference."

They started to leave, but then they stopped and looked back. Derrick was just standing there scratching his chin.

"What are you waiting for, Derrick?" said Buffman. "Come on, you privileged moron. If your father wasn't the King, why I'd, I'd, I'd, I dunno what I'd do, but let me tell you, you wouldn't like it."

Derrick turned and faced them. "Don't I get to try?"

"YOU!?" the three great fighters said in unison. "HA HA HA HA HA HA HA," they started laughing, and then they continued with "HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA" and finally concluded with "HA HA A HA HA A HA HA HA HA HA A HA!"

"What's so funny?" said Derrick.

"You can't kill that guy, are you kidding me? Don't make me laugh at you again, Derrick, seriously."

"No, watch this." And Derrick strolled over to the Minotaur Dude, who stood up and glared at him, lifting up his fists to show off their spikeyness.

"Don't worry, bro," said Derrick, "I don't really want to fight. I just thought you'd maybe like a friend to eat with."

The Minotaur Dude just stood there, staring at Derrick the Terrible. The others thought for sure he'd pound him and stomp him and make himself a terrible Derrick sandwich. But then, to all of their amazement, the Minotaur Dude's eyes started watering a teensy little bit. A single tear emerged and rolled down his great bull snout and fell onto the ground at Derrick's feet. The Minotaur Dude reached over, picked up a sandwich and tenderly handed it to the little human standing before him, and later they all swore that they had even seen a tiny inkling of a smile on the Minotaur Dude's big ol' bull face.

Derrick took a big bite out of the sandwich. It was a turkey sandwich on toasted country buttermilk bread, with lettuce, tomato, cheddar cheese, and mayonnaise. He gave it about a B- in the big picture, but honestly that was actually pretty good for a sandwich found at the bottom of a deep dirty grimy legendary treasure dungeon so he didn't complain.

"Hey, Minotaur Dude," said Derrick. "Since we're friends now, you wanna see something funny?"

The Minotaur Dude looked down at him, and Derrick took another bite, then another, then another, until finally his mouth was just bursting with big wads of munched up sandwich. Then he held his hands up on both sides, both of them made into fists. He paused, and then he punched his own stuffed mouth from both sides simultaneously so all the food suddenly shot out of his mouth and made a big mess all over the dungeon floor.

First, a tiny chortle came from above, then a chuckle and a muffled snort, then the Minotaur Dude finally broke into full on unrestrained bull-headed laughter and he fell down and rolled around laughing and clutching his stomach. Derrick guessed it had been a while since he'd seen any good comedy, cause honestly it wasn't really that funny, but whatever.

Then the Minotaur Dude stood up and grabbed a big giant bull-handed handful of sandwiches and started stuffing them into his own huge mouth until practically the whole giant pile of sandwiches was crammed in there and his cheeks were bulging out like crazy. Then the Minotaur Dude brought his big enormously spikey knuckled fists up and punched himself in the head from both sides at once, and his whole head exploded in a great shower of blood and brains and sliced turkey and tomato and giant bull skull fragments and cheddar cheese and big globs of bloody mayonnaise and buttermilk bread.

Then, with blood and brains raining down all around him, Derrick the Terrible turned around slowly and faced his "friends" and smiled a big goofy smile and the image froze and a hit rock song started playing while the credits rolled.

The End

Spending Time

I dreamed that I was spending Christmas with the family of one of my Indian coworkers. I do actually have some Indian coworkers, but this particular person was a fictional coworker conjured from the ether expressly for the dream.

The members of my coworker's family seemed to be fairly well divided with respect to what they were allowed to eat. Some had only rice and water. Others were vegetarians. Still others were eating beef. I don't remember now what I myself was eating.

I was asked to take part in some kind of family ritual. Actually, I wasn't exactly asked. The patriarch of the family, who spoke no English (in fact, I don't remember hearing him speak at all in any language), gestured to me to take part. He gave me some sort of sea horse shaped casing made from some plastic-like organic substance in which was contained some kind of shimmering silver-blue dust. I did as the others did. I used a knife to cut the end of the tail and shook out the dust into a pool of water. I don't remember whether I ever learned the significance of this act.

Later, I was speaking with an older gentleman who looked like the sort of man who might portray a Colonel or General in a movie. Maybe a little like Bob Gunton. I think he was trying to set me up with his daughter or granddaughter or niece or something. I think I was some kind of national hero, which is why he liked me.

At the end of the evening, I was speaking with my coworker, and I realized that I had started speaking with his accent. I didn't want to offend him, so I forced myself to speak like myself again.

"You know," I said, "I was thinking. If I saved up all the money I spent on soda and candy, by the end of the year I'd have a lot of money saved up."

"Or..." he said. "The vacuum will suck up your money, you'll drink a bit too much vermouth, and the Dark One will show you a good time."

~   ~   ~

I don't know who he meant by the Dark One. I suppose he might have meant himself, referring to his skin color, but I doubt it. I'm not sure what religion he practiced. I was never aware of whether Hinduism or Sikhism had any villainous entities in their theologies (I suppose now that they probably do, though I still have not checked). He might have been Muslim, but I don't think so, and for that matter, I'm not sure whether Muslims ever describe Iblis as "the Dark One." I suppose this particular Dark One may not have anything to do with any organized religions. Well, whoever he is, I don't think I want anything to do with him.

GOBLET

Ordinarily, when I come home to my little apartment on Wednesday nights, everything is quiet. The television is off, no one is using the computer, and my wife is in bed. Last night, however, I came home to the biggest party I'd ever been to.

As it happened, the biggest night in bowling was last night. The Grand Olympian Bowling League Empire Tournament (GOBLET), in which anyone who is anyone participates. It is the single most prestigious bowling event in the galaxy (it turns out that Andromeda is really the place to be for bowling, but we do our best). In any case, the afterparty was held in my apartment. Whether my wife organized it and didn't tell me or I organized it and forgot about it, I'm not really sure. Anyway, never mind about that.

Everyone participates in this tournament. I don't even know how many celebrities I ran into at this party. At one point I was talking to Shaquille O'Neal, who told me about how being as tall as he is makes him a target for projectile vomit and that it ends up drying in his hair, whereupon the smell makes him feel sick himself. I expressed surprise that this would happen often enough to warrant complaining about it, and he insisted that it happens all the time. Most people simply aren't tall enough to notice it.

This party and all the people crammed into my little apartment, including Shaq, strangely made the place look much larger. There was so much food spread out across the bar between my kitchen and living room that it seemed somewhere between two and three times longer than it really is. And you might think that it was professional caterers who worked the magic, but it turns out that according to tradition the food at these GOBLET parties are provided 100% via the old potluck approach. It just goes to show that in general celebrities are far from being the snobs that they are often purported to be. By the way, John Mayer's peanut butter bars were really good.

At one point I was walking along this magnificent spread of food, and by coincidence, Tom Cruise was doing the same just a few steps ahead of me. I think he thought I was stalking him or something, because he kept looking back at me with this anxious look on his face. I just wanted to see what kinds of cookies there were. I liked the dark chocolate ones with double size white chocolate chips.

The Tom Cruise incident kind of reminded me of the time I went to a Tony Levin Band concert at Brick by Brick in San Diego. Before the show, the members of the band were mingling at a table near my own. For some reason, I needed a pen, and so I reached into the inside pocket of my jacket and pulled one out. I guess at that moment I was looking right at Jesse Gress, and the whole band scattered and scurried off in different directions. I guess they thought I was going to demand autographs or something.

So I thought maybe I should look around to see if Tony Levin and company were at the party so that I could apologize for that incident. I understand that he probably wouldn't even remember it, but somewhere deep down I secretly assume that celebrities keep a book of mug shots of people that only want autographs and are therefore to be avoided at all costs.

I just want Tony to take me out of that book. Is that too much to ask?

At any rate, I suppose it really shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that the team who actually won this year's GOBLET Goblet didn't have any celebrities as members. Well, at least not any celebrities who weren't famous for their bowling abilities. I didn't know who any of the winners were, but then again, I can't really think of any famous professional bowlers at all. I didn't mention this to anyone at the party, of course.

That could have been really embarrassing.