A/N: Takes place during the later seasons of the TV series "Home Improvement".
Thou Shall Not
The crowd applauded as the man entered the stage from a side door, but the sound quickly changed to laughter as they studied his costume. Normally dressed in jeans, plaid shirt and tool belt he was clad in a mock-up of a priest's robes with headgear although his safety boots could be seen occasionally underneath. He lifted his arms and the crowd became relatively quiet.
"Tonight, we read the Last Will and Testament...just kidding, Tim will be with us in a moment. Do you like this tall hat?" Several people responded with varied reactions. "I made it with a mitre saw!" Al Borland joked.
A few people laughed.
"I guess the joke, like this hat, went over a few people's heads. Anyway, some of you may have heard that Tim had a little accident a few days ago. But he didn't want to miss the show so here he is tonight, courtesy of our health system, Tim 'The Tool Man' Taylor!"
The background music changed to an angelic choir as a hospital bed was wheeled out, pushed by Heidi dressed in a nun's frock. She pushed the bed to center stage, where Tim punched a button and the bed slowly raised his torso from its flat position while the audience applauded. After about a minute the process concluded and Tim waved to the crowd.
"Now fortunately for us, Tim can't speak yet while his vocal chords recover from the electrical shock that ran through them so I will be conducting tonight's...services."
Tim frowned while the audience laughed.
"And if Sister Heidi will hand me the sacred scroll, I will read tonight's passage." Heidi reached into her frock and pulled out a scroll that she handed to Al. "And what type of tool do we use to make this?" he asked, waving the parchment.
"A scroll saw!" a member of the audience shouted.
"At least someone's paying attention. Now" he said, unrolling the scroll "we will provide Tim with a reading of the Ten Tool Time Electrical Commandments." He proceeded to read off of the parchment:
1. Thou shall have no other projects before me, for splitting one's attention with electricity can lead to one's heirs splitting inheritance.
2. Thou shall not use a replacement part not designed for the circuit. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but using a sub-standard part will have thou imitating a corpse.
3. If thou wishest to refrain from using the Lord's name in vain, be sure that thou dost not create the shortest path between two charged electrical points lest unwanted last utterances be heard by those throughout the housing development with no means to apologize later.
4. Remember the power cutoff, and keep it foremost in one's thoughts every day of the week. Failure of observance might result in thou not being on this earth during the resulting plague of darkness within thy power grid and thy assistant will be forced to console thy widow several times a day for weeks to come.
5. Honor thy red wire and thy black wire; for they have their place and ignoring them will shorten thy days upon the land although thy corporeal body might be in low earth orbit as a result.
6. Thou shall not kill thy power tools by allowing the zeal thou has for "more power" to exceed the recommended safety loads that have been bestowed by their creators.
7. Thou shall not commit product adultery by highlighting any competing manufacturer, lest that it wouldst cast Binford in a bad light and thy budget wouldst be woeful.
8. Thou shall not steal power from the studio next door, nor the parking lot, nor the offices; for their needs are as righteous as yours and if the cross connecting of supply lines does not cause thee great harm, their fury will.
9. Thou shall blame neither thy neighbor, child, dog nor wife for sending sparks shooting throughout the room when thine own hands did the work. Bearing false witness to a fire marshal is a felony.
10. Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's shop, nor his workbench, nor his soldering gun nor his electrical meter. Thou has coin and an ass to take him to thy neighborhood shop to purchase his own or replace the one that has passed into the next world after being switched to ohms instead of volts. Thou may covet thy neighbor's fire extinguisher if thou rechargeth it after use upon emptying thine own.
Amen.
After the laughter died down Al rolled up the parchment and looked at Tim, who had lowered the bed during the reading to avoid eye contact with the audience. "Come on, let's give Tim a big round of applause and wish him a speedy recovery" Al chided, and the audience responded. Tim waved an arm in the air. "Come on Tim, face your fans!"
Tim started to raise the bed again, but only got a quarter of the way before he stopped, with a big grin stretched across his face. Before Al had a chance to say anything, Tim pushed a red button on his controller and the back of the bed shot up to a perpendicular position, tossing Tim out of the bed and onto the floor while the sheets and pillow caught fire. Al grabbed a fire extinguisher and put out the blaze before waving his arms in the cloud of fire retardant.
"We'll be back after this important messages" he managed to choke out before the cameras cut. "I need a stage hand to pick up Tim if you can find him! Listen for the groans…"
The End
A/N: Come on, you didn't really expect things to work out normally, did you?
Various versions of The Ten Electrical Commandments have been circulating for over half a century, but I thought they could be rewritten and put into the context of a television show - one where the main character is prone to mishaps. Hmmmm...