Norman's Mom and Dad were simple people newly married and growing up in the 80s. They were a young couple watching MTV and living the simple life. The Dad worked as an airline mechanic and his Mom worked as an assistant prosecutor. She met her husband while trying to prosecute him on negligent manslaughter charges. Seems, he ran out of bolts putting an airline engine on and it snapped off squishing his coworker. Yet, there was something about him and she purposely messed up her case to get him off. They married three months later. However, they drove on their honeymoon rather than flying. Soon after, she became pregnant with Norman. They complained to the condom manufacturer about the broken condom. The company apologized and explained that splints or anything else used in the condom is beyond its' intended use and not covered under warrantee. Norman's Mom just tucked the apology letter from the condom company in with Norman's birth certificate. Norman was born a huge baby probably from his mom's Twinkie addiction, while pregnant. It was ok because Norman was a beautiful, healthy…well interesting looking baby.
Other moms would look at baby Norman and offer their sympathies for his obvious facial birth defects that is, until they saw his Dad and realized it was normal for that family and not defects, after all. Norman moved from school to school. It seems his Dad had to keep getting jobs in different places, after being fired for mechanical accidents. Norman never got to have any really close friends except one, Stan. Rather, it seemed easier to Norman that he let himself get picked on by bullies because they seem to not want to waste any time breaking the ice in getting to know a new kid. He enjoyed the attention regardless of what kind. But, it was Stan that from age eight that seem to be his shadow or the other way around.
Stan and Norman did everything together. As they got into their teenage years, they joined a Scouting Organization. They were a small troop and most of the other scouts would make Stan and Norman hike on long trails while they ate their food. The other scouts made Stan and Norman share a small tent while the rest put their stuff in a spare tent. Stan and Norman came up with an idea to get back at them. The troop was camped near a lake that had a far drop-off. The tents were pitched on a grassy level area next to it and a large hill to the other side. Stan and Norman thought they would loosen a large boulder off the side of the hill and let it roll down to crush the tent full of the other Scout's equipment. They went up the hill late at night to follow through with their plan of revenge. They found a perfect boulder and it is aimed straight towards the tent with the equipment. They worked and worked trying to dislodge it from the hillside and finally it gave away. Faster and faster it went gaining moment and heading for the intended target. Just as it got to the bottom of the hill, it hit a stump and altered course. Stan and Norman looked on in horror and started running down the hill, as if they could catch up with it. This large rolling rock hit the tent with the Scoutmaster and rolled up with him in it. The Scoutmaster had a propane lantern which ignited the tent. So, the whole rock wrapped in burning tent and one screaming Scoutmaster flew off the cliff like a burning meteor until it crashed into the lake. Later, it was ruled an accidental death. A very frightened Stan and Norman vowed to never tell anyone the truth.
Norman's Dad volunteered to be the next Scoutmaster. Norman's Dad was not quite getting the concept of scouting down too well. To get his troop their hiking merit badge, he had them take their required distance hikes on a treadmill. However, it wasn't until he decided to play hoist the Scout up a rope using the rear bumper of a pickup truck that Norman's Dad Scoutmaster hopes ended. You see Norman's dad like to read about Darwin Award winners and other urban myths to prove he could beat what allegedly others could not. Other incidents included: The Scouts had seen a hole in a large tree with some birds living in it. Norman's dad tied a hammer to the end of a rope and threw it over a higher branch, then tied one end to the Scouts waist and the other to his truck bumper. It worked pretty well till the brakes failed and the Scout was flung over the branch breaking his arm. That was the end of Norman's Scouting days as well as his Dad's.
Now, Stan was from a family of atheist and he liked to poke at Norman's religious upbringing. Stan took Norman to a religious bookstore to prove that God does not exist. Stan reasoned that if he steals a bible and nothing happens then there is no God. Norman was very nervous about the whole thing but followed him inside to see what would happen. Once in the store, Stan looked around at the various Bibles to see which one would be the most offensive to God for them to steal, if he existed. Finally, he spots the one, it is a deluxe edition, expensive one sitting on its own display alter. Stan slowly walks over to it and stares back at Norman. Norman showing a face of fear and curiosity stares back. Stan grabs the book quickly and starts to lift it up as his hands begin to burn and smoke starts pouring out of his smoldering palms. He starts to scream in pain as he drops the bible back on to the alter. He runs out of the bookstore crying leaving Norman behind. Norman sees everyone is staring at him with an intent guilty stare. Everyone goes back to their business and Norman looks at the mysterious bible as the smoke starts clearing up and his friend's burned handprints disappear. Norman edges close to it and points his finger to the book to just slightly test it for heat and as he gets inches from it, a blue arc of electricity pops him. Norman yells a restrained ouch as everyone stares at him again. He slowly leaves. For some reason, Stan no longer wants anything to do with Norman again.
Norman's dad bought and put together a bicycle for Norman. Norman bravely started learning how to ride it till the brakes fail and he is thrown into the back of a garbage truck. Norman was paralyzed and in a wheel chair from the accident. The doctors found nothing permanently damaged and said that someday his legs might start working again. To make the best of it Norman allowed himself to play demolition derby with his friends. This usually meant Norman and his wheel chair against the other kids and boxes. Or, jousting with long poles against his friends on bikes was another popular pastime.
One day, he was wheeling along and drinking some hot chocolate. He stopped to watch a wasp walking on a bush. He threw his hot chocolate on it and watched it twist around on the ground. Suddenly, the wasp flew at amazing speed towards him wanting to sting him. Luckily, it bounced off of the frame of the chair. Norman started racing away and headed down the street on a slope. He kept looking behind him because the wasp was giving chase. He threw a book and it landed on the wasp pinning it to the ground. He stopped and could hear the faint sound of buzzing in a struggling type of sound. Suddenly, the book flips over and the wasp is back after him. He starts to swat it with his plastic school ruler, but it kept coming back. He finally gave it a massive whack and the wasp was knocked backwards in flight to the right of him and the ruler snapped in half. He made a break for it, as the chase began, again. Norman gained more and more speed down the hill and the wasp was revving up speed to catch young Norman. Finally, Norman sees an eighteen wheeler truck coming and he plays chicken with the truck driver. The truck driver eyes Norman and starts giggling in a psychopathic way as he throws his truck into gear to try to go faster towards his wheelchair prey. Suddenly, Norman broke one wheel and moves out of the way of the truck. The truck driver cusses because he missed Norman and then a big splat appears on his windshield. The mad wasp was history. Norman looked back, as the big rig turns around. The truck driver was very angry about the Wasp splattered windshield. Norman then starts down a lonely street, as the big rig turns on it after him. The chase is on again. The rig catches up and starts pushing Norman faster and faster. The driver keeps staring down at Norman laughing insanely. Not paying attention the truck slams into a tree freeing Norman as he wheels away home. The truck driver then shakes the crash off looking at his smoking truck and broken windows. Then, a large wasp nest falls out of the tree and the wasps begin attacking the truck driver. Norman hears the trucker's scream from a distance.
Norman felt alone, however; one day a new kid, who was also in a wheel chair came to school. Norman tried to make friends, but the new kid ended up being a bully and kept tailgating him into different crashes all the time. The new kid had an electric wheelchair with lots of torque. Seems, there was no way for Norman to battle this kid and his mega-chair. So, Norman devised a plan. Norman rolled quietly behind his wheelchair nemesis and poured glue on his wheels as the kid did his school work. The bell rang and the bully struggled to move his chair but the motor caught fire. The bully ended up being rescued but had to use his spare manual wheelchair. As the kid rolled around, Norman hit him from the side and the battle was on. The kids spun around and squared off. They both wheeled as fast as their hands could muster and they impacted head on. The momentum made them stand up and bounce off each other back to their seats. The rest of the kids started laughing as Norman and his nemesis looked at each other in hatred. However, hatred turned to a cause as they listened to everyone else laughing at them. They smiled at each other and turned on the rest of the kids like a rolling steel trap. The kids ran off screaming in panic. Norman and his old nemesis shook hands. It was the last time Norman would see him as the kid's parents moved.
One day Norman was wheeling along the sidewalk and passed by a big ant pile, running over a trail of ants as he kept going. However, the ants begin to communicate with each other. One ant signaled to the other Ant, "meals on wheels!" The ants give chase as Norman began to see them coming by the millions down the sidewalk, after him. He started rolling faster to get away. He was losing them, however; the ants in the front of him had already messaged with Ant instant messaging. As he bypassed them, the ants throw a stick in his wheelchair spokes tumbling him over. He lay there helpless, as the millions of ants climbed over his legs relentlessly stinging him. Suddenly, his legs began to work. He jumped up brushing the ants off and started stomping on them. The ants retreated back to the mound. He killed the remaining ants on him and went over to the mound. The last of the ants just made it in. He pulled a large firecracker from his pocket, lit it, and dropped it in the ant hole. He tells them, "See you in hell ants!" The blast of dirt and ants went everywhere as a miniature mushroom cloud of smoke rose from the ant mound. Norman walked home. Norman's parents were joyful that he could walk, but they were soon somber as his dad had just been fired, yet again.
Norman graduated from high school and aspired to be an Astronaut. NASA quickly started to ignore Norman's letters stating his aspirations. Norman even offered to act out being different places in Space like the moon landing he felt was faked. He wanted so much to be a team player. However, Norman felt NASA thought he lacked job experience, so he took a job at Stale-Mart to gain some experience. Norman still dreamed that someday he would be a Scientist and an Astronaut. His co-workers would gleam as he talked of his dreams and his enthusiasm to be someone someday. Twenty years quickly passed. Suddenly, Norman's name is called on the Stale-Mart loudspeaker to clean up a mess on aisle twelve. Norman quickly glanced over the Space Shuttle toys as he walked by to clean up the mess on aisle twelve. Norman lived in his parent's basement and each evening he stared at his old wheel chair and the broken bike his dad had made for him. His dad is now sort of retired, after an airline crashed due to mechanical failures to which Norman's Dad was blamed. Having no more airports for him to work Norman's Dad was forced to call it quits. His dad now just has a small home business repairing engines for ambulances. His mom passed away years prior due to the failure of the brakes on her car. Strangely enough, everyone thought the brakes were new since Norman's dad just replaced them prior to the accident.
Norman spent some of his time watching TV. One particular evening a commercial came on for erectile dysfunction. It offered a free porn video to show how well their product worked. He called and they promptly sent him a copy of the video. As he popped it in the player, it showed a man and woman getting undressed and starting to make passionate love. However, the guy fails in performing the sex act and the woman starts laughing hysterically at him. The man leaves sobbing as the camera pans in on the woman and she points at the camera laughing harder. The logo for the pharmacy company appears and offers ordering instruction. Norman turns the TV off and begins to wonder if he will ever make love to a woman. He begins to fantasize and starts to masturbate. He stops and realizes that he has faked his own orgasm. Now, he feels he cannot trust even himself with sex.
Norman's life seems to be set and he had made a career out of working at Stale-Mart. That is until one day the store manager called Norman into his office. The Manager told Norman that he had done years of loyal service and they were promoting him to door greeter. The manager tells Norman that it is a time honored position and the most important position in the store. The Manager states that it is the first and last line of defense for shoplifting and face of that store. Norman feels proud and decided to do his job with pride. Everything was fine until some kids ran out of the store with stolen goods and Norman chased them. Norman chased them for blocks and blocks, but they got away. When Norman got back to the store, the manager chewed on him for being gone so long. The manager reviews the tape and finds over a hundred customers had entered the store without being greeted. Company policy only allowed twenty customers to be missed per month. As a result, Norman is let go. Norman leaves the store in shame as all the employees turned their backs on Norman in shame. A long lived company tradition when a greeter is dishonorably discharged.
Norman walks to a nearby hamburger joint to think about what has happened. He orders his food and the cook turned and looked at him with a smile. Norman smiled back and thought to himself that man is happy with his job. Little did Norman know but, the cook was in the habit of picking out certain people and would then poison the burger of that person. Norman started to eat and began to feel ill. Norman suddenly fell over on the table unconscious, as a wait person quickly covered him with the table cloth and pushed him into a bus cart. He was quickly rolled into the kitchen where the cook was waiting for his new bounty. They pulled Norman out and he landed on the floor waking up. The cook chased him around the kitchen with a meat clever as Norman grabbed some corn dogs and held them up as weapons. The cook warned him to put those dogs down and just accept his fate. The cook tells Norman, if he gives in the cook will give him the honor of being the meatloaf special. Norman made a break and the chef fell over a table and slid onto the grille screaming. Norman took the opportunity to run out of the kitchen and scream to the patrons, "The corn dogs are people! The corn dogs are people!" Norman then runs out of the restaurant crying.
Norman staggered out of there collapsed. People called an ambulance to take Norman to the hospital. The ambulance arrived and loaded him up, however; as the ambulance proceeds to the hospital the wheels fall off and it crashes. Another ambulance arrived to take him to the hospital. As he was gurneyed out, Norman heard the hospital administrator chewing his dad out for another failed ambulance repair. Norman was then put into a room where he laid for hours quietly thinking about everything in his life. Something in him snapped. His mind entered a zombie like state and Norman pulled himself out of bed and left the hospital.
Norman made it home and changed from his hospital gown to his clothes. Norman put on his blue Stale-Mart vest and stuck a yellow happy face sticker on his forehead. Norman then made his was to Stale-Mart. Norman was greeted with a, "hey Norm!" Norman ignored the greeter and made his way through the store mumbling, "Low prices forever, low prices forever…" People stopped and stared at him as they quickly moved away. Once in a while, Norman would slap his butt and say, "Yea baby!" Then Norman would go back to mumbling his low price chant. Eventually, Norman made it over to the gun counter where a young kid was behind the counter. Norman, unshaven and terrible looking grabbed the kid by the vest and pleaded with him, "You got to get out of here while you can. Don't you see I used to be like you. Look what happened after so many years. You want to be like me?" The kid replied crying, "No, no!" and the kid ran off. Norman looked down as a customer walked up and asks him if he can help him with a gun purchase. Much to Norman's surprise, it is Stan, his old friend. Norman asked him what hell he was doing there. Stan told him to stop cursing before God and help him. Norman looked intently for a moment and stepped behind the gun counter. He says, "Yes sir, what can I do for you today?" Stan told him that he needed a gun and lots of ammo, quick. Norman told Stan there is a wait to buy guns. Stan insisted that he needed a gun now. Then, Stan pulls out a bible and explained, "You see this end time stuff? You see these creatures flying around, I need to defend myself against this. I need a weapon powerful enough to shoot these flying scorpions down!" Norman said, "OK tell you what. I'll let you have this gun and all the ammo you want but you have to leave the bible here." Stan agreed and started walking off but turned and asked, "Where are ski masks?" Norman pointed him to clothing a few aisles away.
Norman stood for a moment looking around at his old workplace, missing it. Soon, he heard the sound of gunshots and people screaming at the front of the store where the store bank is located. Norman ran over to toys. He told himself, "It is time to do what a Stale-Mart greeter is supposed to do." Norman ripped open a remote control flying scorpion helicopter toy and guided it to the area where he heard the gunshots. He saw people running like animals as Stan repeatedly fired the gun. Finally, Stan had corralled everyone in the gardening section. Norman did what he was trained to do during that hour of training over 20 years ago. Stan glanced up and saw the flying toy and screamed, "My God it is happening already!" Stan tried to take the toy down with his gun as Norman got into position. Finally, Stan blew the toy apart and had a sigh of relief as he looked down and saw Norman standing near him. Norman told him, "Thank you for coming to Stale-Mart, Stan." Norman quickly slapped Stan with the bible and knocked him cold. The Police stormed in as the customers praised Norman and called him a hero. The store manager quickly showed the security tapes to the company to prove Norman created the whole event, but Stale-Mart fired the manager because Norman was the best publicity stunt, ever. Norman became the spokesman for Stale-Mart and earned lots of money.
As an extra reward, Stale-Mart gave Norman a seat on a private space mission. Norman was going to be the first ride along seat on it. Norman was so happy his dream was finally going to happen… he was going to become an Astronaut. Strapped in the rocket and waiting on countdown the captain asked Norman if he was ready to see space. Norman stated, "Yes sir, I have been waiting for this my whole life." Norman looked down thinking about his life. The captain said, "Oh by the way Stale-Mart was so happy about your saving all those people you will be happy to know they hired your dad to help in final mechanical preparations of this ship." Norman's eyes jolt forward in fear as you hear a booming voice say, "Three, Two, One, Liftoff!"
The End