It was a day much like any other day. I was home alone, sitting in my boxer brief underwear, hanging by the telephone. Not a cell phone, but an old-style telephone. The kind you press your finger into when you dial.
It sucks.
Anyway, I was waiting for my strawberry-sprinkle toaster tarts to pop out of my $5 toaster that I purchased using my income tax refund (okay, okay... my EBT card...), when something on the television actually caught my eye for once. It had been a few years since I last caught sight of something on the boob tube that my mind's eye could not deny. Something about a crazy frog with a very much visible third leg, belting out ring a ding dings to Christmas Carols and the party rock anthems and stuff. Ho... hum. Good times, good times.
Anyway, there were a couple--no, three--dapper young gentlemen, perhaps in their mid-20s, sporting acoustic guitars and sunglasses and singing with ginormous, full-toothed grins on their faces. For some strange reason, I felt like this advertisement was speaking to me and my generation, so I found my eyes and ears fixated on not just the general melody of their very own party rock anthem so to speak, but... the words. Oh... words, words, words. Words that, little to my knowledge... would change my life... forever.
"Well...
I tried to wake up, in the early morning,
Off went a sore, and I was feeling massive pain.
Did I develop a poor liver, or a tumor in my brain?
I really needed an answer, I was definitely insane!
Too bad, too bad, too bad, too bad, bad...
Too bad I didn't know that my nerves were out of whack.
I gave up living, as my soul became Satan's snack.
I need to let it out, before I have another panic attack!
It's P-A-I-N, that spells "pain",
Free pain report dot com.
Saw their ads on my TV,
Thought of going, but I was feeling massive pain,
Now instead of being hip and going to the... prom!
I'm lying in the dirt and became a bunch of earthworms' nom-noms!
P-A-I-N, that spells "pain",
Free pain report dot com, baby..."
I was wondering how he could look so young, happy, and healthy, yet sing a song so morbidly repulsive. Regardless, I knew I had to figure out if I was in pain or not. What if I died? What of my family? ... Well, I didn't have any family, or friends for that matter, besides my old factory worker buddy who I hadn't seen since we talked outside of a local Blockbuster, but, uh... I didn't want to die. I picked up my phone, and began to circle dial the phone number from the bottom of the screen: 1-877-PAI-NNOW.
Suddenly... things didn't feel so right anymore. It was usually tranquil in my low-income apartment with boarded-up windows and bubble-wrapped walls, but not... not anymore. I felt like I was being watched, but I couldn't explain how, or why. I dropped the phone. I knew that, on the other end, the Free Pain Report CSR (that's Customer Service Representative to us more capitalistic Americans) must have been bewildered that a person had called him or her only to hear my background noise, but I yelped. Like a dog.
I took some deep breaths, and smacked myself in the forehead a couple times in hopes that I'd come back to my senses. I'm not sure I did, but I decided to walk into the kitchen area to serve myself an apple. They said an apple a day keeps the doctor away, and if I didn't want to be in pain, that would be a grade-A dietary idea. I opened the drawer, pulled out a dulled steak knife that my mother had gifted to me years ago to complement my Emeril Lagasse Halloween outfit, and I went to work. Grabbed my apple, sat it down. Knife up, knife down. Bam. Bam. Bam.
Suddenly... I found myself in an inexplicable, excruciating pain. I screamed louder than Homer Simpson falling down a cliff after trying to skateboard over the gorge. I... I wasn't cutting an apple. I was... cutting my hand. And my hand... it looked like an apple! A red one! And it was bleeding! FAST!
Oh my God. Oh my Lord. Oh my Sweet Diety. I picked up the phone with my non-bludgeoned hand. I knew I should've called 911, but just thinking of that number reminds me of the tragedy of 9/11, so I dialed 1-877-PAI-NNOW.
"Are you in pain?"
"Yes. And I KNOW I'm in pain. I'm bleeding. Fast. I need an ambulance. Now."
"Are you dead?". I gasped for air from being asked such a painfully stupid question.
"NO! How else could I be talking to you?"
"You'd be surprised. Don't worry, we'll be over soon."
"We? But what about medical professional--"
"*click*".
Oooh, boy. This wasn't good. This was even worse than that time that I attended the My Bloody Valentine concert without wearing earplugs. Not that I don't love My Bloody Valentine, but the human ear can only take so much noise before--anyway, several minutes later, as I was looking out my window and covering the curtain in blood from my slashed up hand, I noticed a convertible pull up.
I... I couldn't believe it. It was the three young men from the television commercial! They ran up to my door, wearing doo-rags and gold money chains while one of them carried a boombox. There was no emergency exit in my apartment, and I boarded up the windows as I mentioned earlier, so even if I had one of those ladders, I'd be SOL. I stood there. I stared. I had a not-so-funny feeling that I was facing the end. ... The door broke down, and right before my eyes, they gathered in a semi-circle... and started to perform.
"Well...
I caught something on TV today,
Hadn't seen anything good since the Crazy Frog days,
Turns out that it really meant was my doom!
And since my windows were boarded up... it wouldn't help if I had a witch's broom!
Too bad, too bad, too bad, too bad, bad...
Too bad I didn't know... I shouldn't have left the phone dead!
Now instead of shrugging it off and going back to bed,
I'm going straight to Hell, with a bloody severed hand!
And instead of rollin' fly, comin' off, phat!
I'm surrounded by death's demons, and my pain is bein' laughed at!
P-A-I-N, that spells 'pain',
I hope you prayed before you called us up today!"
I closed my eyes, as I attempted to clutch my blood-stained palm. It was only then that I realized that the apple was a symbolization of original sin, for I only cared if I was in pain, and did not care if anybody else, anywhere in the world... was in pain or not...
Credited to Cjaymarch84