After stopping the Mail Men in their tracks, I went to Taco Bell to load up on salt. Most of my supply had been used up, melting my way into their base of operations. I walked up to the door, and saw employee1 beating Cow Defender mercilessly over the head with a cash register. I pulled up a seat, and watched. Cow Defender hit the ground, and the employee slammed the register into his back. I winced as I heard his back crackle under the tremendous force.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw another employee2, grab some Fire Sauce, and squirt it into Cow Defenders eyes. I jumped to my feet, “I’ll have none of this... stop using those condiments on that man!” I shouted at him, grabbed him by the collar, and carried him outside.
“Why the heck did you do that...ehh...” I looked at her name tag, “Bad Bev?” I asked.
“Well, he said it was condemned. I was...”
“No, not that, why did you waste perfectly good Fire Sauce on him?”
“Because...uhh...” she mumbled, then swept me off my feet.
I flopped to the ground, “What was that for?” I asked her. Her answer was a kick in the face, making my head fly back, and slam into the ground. I rolled out of the way as she tried to stomp on my stomach, and nearly got ran over by Brad as he pulled into the drive thru.
I sprang to my feet, and moved in closer to Bad Bev. She started running at me, when the manager flew through the plate glass window, landing on Bad Bev. I walked over to them, peeling the manager off of Bev. The Manager slowly stood up, rubbing his head. Bev laid motionless on the sidewalk.
“Do you train all your employees to just waste condiments?! Do you tell them that if a fight breaks out, to grab the nearest condiment, and use it as a weapon?! You people make me sick!” I yelled at the woozy Manager.
“You!” He screamed, pointing at me. “Where were you 15 years ago...”
“Pennsylvania, learning how to talk.” I replied to him.
He didn’t seem to hear me, “...when we were at that game, the scene I’ve replayed thousands of times in my brain, on instant replays, and blooper reels. I, standing with my dad, him cheering happily, ‘Yeah, go team go! Your number one!’ Inside, he was crying. He had bought his usual $25 hot dog at our usual concession stand, but this time, when he reached his hand in for his usual packets of condiments, he grabbed nothing but air. So as he cheered his team on, he jumped up and down as an upset child, who didn’t get what they wanted. As that floor broke beneath him on that awful day, I realized that the lack of condiment killed him. You could’ve saved his life. He didn’t have to die that day, you could’ve saved him, if you would have done... your... job.” He told me, crying, and poking me during the last sentence.
“Ahh... it was you.” I said as it all came rushing back.
“What do you mean?” said, the Manager.
“Well, I was just a regular little boy back then, not the superhero I am today. I was laying there, watching Mr. Rogers, when I got dizzy. Started seeing images in my head, scenes of a stadium, a bucket, labeled Ketchup, and another, labeled Mustard, laying empty on a counter, next to a pretzel machine. I yelled at my dad, ‘Stadium! Out of ketchup!’ but what came out was, ‘Dumb! Cat!’ It was horrible. I swore on that day to never let a place run out of condiments again.”
“Well that’s all well and good,” he said calmly, “but you let my dad die!” he shouted, then threw me at the building.
I stuck my arms in front of me, and prepared for impact, but there wasn’t one. I took my arms away, and slid over a pile of rubble. I rose from the pile of rubble, to see a herd of cows heading away from the area. I raced over to the Manager, lept high into the air, and rained on his parade of evil with a kick to the face. He stumbled backwards, and tripped over Bad Bev’s body. The Manager fell back, slamming his head on the drive thru menu, followed by an unconscious slump to the ground.
I turned around just in time to see Cow Defender running away from a little Chihuahua. Everything was broken, smashed and destroyed around the Taco Bell, except for a Dr. Pepper clock, which somehow survived the stampede of cattle, and the fight that I had witnessed before the evil Bad Bev wasted condiments like they grew on trees.
“Viva Taco Bell!” shouted the small dog, as the building started coming back together.
As I walked away from the now fully rebuilt Taco Bell, the Cow Defender beating Chihuahua, and swarms of people in white lab coats, I thought about the Manager, how his adult life was destroyed because I couldn’t talk, about Bad Bev and her condiment wasting ways, and as I walked past one of their white vans, with “Food Inspector” spray painted on the sides, I saw a piece of paper, with writing on it.