Lovepuff and I have often wondered how the slummers felt when Jak stole their zoomers from them to go raging off on some ridiculous side-quest. This wondering eventually turned into a running gag, in which a certain slummer was subject to a series of horrible events that culminates-
Well, I won't give it away, but here it is. A day in the horrible life of Marvin, a Tax Archives specialist who has the worst luck in the history of Haven.
I've been reading a lot of sci fi/fantasy comedy written by British people, so that's why this story has the tone it does.
Enjoy!

Marvin woke from suffocating dreams to find that Snuggles, his wife's indisputably evil cat, had sunk her claws into his ears again while he had slept. Not only that, but Snuggles had managed to fill nearly every orifice in his head with sopping hair balls, which, Marvin reflected in the two seconds before his first scream of the morning, was probably what had woken him up.

AHH KKKHANNT BRREEETHH!

Marvin clawed at his throat while Snuggles hissed and scratched. His wife, Marley, rose like a decaying mummy in its crypt from her tattered blanket and socked him in the stomach for waking her up. Marvin flew backwards off the bed and, still attempting to remove the cat from his leg, knocked over and fell onto Marley's prize cactus collection.

Clearly, this was going to be a bad day.

After dislodging the offending ball of fur and saliva from his trachea, and pulling the Sharpest and Most Devious Looking Award Winning Cactus Spines from his tush, Marvin reached for his work shirt- to find that Snuggles had used it as a toilet the previous evening. He groaned and looked through his closet, still picking bits of cat fur out of his ears. The closet was empty. Of course; today was laundry day. That meant today Marley would look at the dirty clothes spread throughout the room, tomorrow she'd put them in a pile, and the next day she would wash them.

There must be something, muttered Marvin, pushing empty hangers down the rack. He smiled with relief as he felt a garment hanging in the darkest corner. Hoping to Mar it was a shirt, he pulled the hanger out and gasped.

It was a shirt, all right. Marvin's eyes did somersaults in their sockets as he attempted to look away from the thing. It was a pink button down shirt with pink ruffles, a starched pink collar, a pink pocket (with matching pink pocket protector sewn in) and cute, little pink tulip buttons. Marvin's jaw dropped. He turned the hanger around and saw that the back of the shirt was, for some reason, striped in thirty three shades of pink with one inexplicable blue dot in the center.

he said weakly. He felt slightly nauseous and held the shirt up for her to see. What is this?

Work shirt, she grunted.

Ah. Darling, I can't wear this.

Was half off.

I can't wear pink. Do we have anything else?

No. Shirt on sale. Wear it, Marley belched, turned over, and buried her face in the pillow.

Marvin groaned internally and searched the floor. Perhaps there was a dirty shirt that wasn't too dirty...

One minute later he emerged from his bedroom (Marley having yelled at him that the shirt was too loud, that's why she had buried it in the darkest corner of the closet for him, and it was making her hangover worse, so would he just go away) and smelled smoke.



Lavi peeked around the corner, huge black clouds billowing out from the kitchen behind her.

Daddy? I made you muffins but the muffins caught fire so I put newspaper on them but the newspaper caught fire so I put oil on them but the oil caught fire so I put water on them but it just floated the burning oil all around the kitchen floor and so Diggy wet his pants and we're both late for school.

Marvin's eyes popped.

Oh, and Snuggles smells. Your shirt is funny. Lavi squinted at him.

Get out of the kitchen! Marvin felt the overwhelming urge to beat his forehead with his fists, but the pink sleeves were too tight and he couldn't raise his arms much higher than elbow height.

Lavi shrugged and skipped down the hallway, dragging her baby brother behind her. Diggy looked up at his father and laughed.

Marvin noted his son's yellowed pants on his scream down the hall.

Lavi continued to skip down to her bedroom, where she locked Diggy in the closet, opened her bag of secret make-up smuggled from her parent's room, and put lipstick all over her face.

Marvin slammed the kitchen door shut, crossed a tiny sea of flaming oil, and opened a window. He fanned his face desperately and found the fire extinguisher. The needle dipped in the red zone. Roaring with frustration, he threw the extinguisher to the floor, whereupon a rather unpleasant smell of burning muffins, followed by a rather harrowing explosion, rocked the house.

SHUT UP! screamed Marley.

screamed Lavi.

And Diggy screamed something which Marvin was pretty sure was coming from behind a locked closet door.

The swirling flaming cooking oil decided to make itself scarce, not wanting to remain in that house any longer than absolutely necessary. It followed the swift air current out the window and never looked back, instead turning its fiery gaze to the neighboring houses. Satisfying screams ensued there.

Panting, Marvin turned and saw Snuggles watching him from the doorway, a look of supreme arrogance on his whiskered face. You know if you clean up this mess, I'll just make a worse one before you get back home, and Marley's going to kill you for ruining her cacti. Plus, you look ridiculous, he seemed to say.

Fonk off, muttered Marvin.

The cat replied with a wiggling of its scrawny butt and a hiss. Then, suddenly interested in a far more intelligent-seeming insect down the hall, turned and sauntered away.

Marvin groaned aloud, looked around the ruined kitchen in despair, saw the clock covered in shreds of newspaper, and groaned again. Gonna be late! He grabbed his briefcase from the foyer before its new brown color registered and slammed the door.

Damn that cat.

Marvin wiped the briefcase on the dusty streets and decided that anything was better than facing his dear family again. Trying to avoid the avid stares from the slummers around him, he jumped onto his wife's rusted zoomer and sped down the street.

Or, at least he would have, if the thing had started. Laughing nervously and trying to explain the cute pink tulip buttons with a series of shrugs, he tapped at the front of the zoomer. The back propellers groaned. Marvin grit his teeth and slammed his fists down onto the steering mechanism. One of the propellors fell off indignantly, but the other managed to right itself and send the machine flying.

Into the wall.

Marvin groaned and peeled himself off the vertical concrete. Wiping blood and cat hair from his face, he pulled his comm out of the briefcase and calmly made two calls.

The first was to the manager, telling him that he would be late. The manager laughed and, thinking that Marvin wasn't too important to the Baron's Official Tax, Accounting, Finance and Entertainment Archives, reminded him once more of his most probable job termination in approximately two days.

The second call was to the local Rent-A-Zoomer, where a harried but polite young man told him that a state of the art zoomer would be there soon, so sorry we're out of the cheap ones at the moment.

Marvin sat on the smoking remains of his wife's zoomer, crossed his legs, and waited.

Two minutes later, a stampede of slummers raced down the road screaming. They were followed by a throng of Krimzon Guards desperately trying to shoot at a terrible monster, whose white skin, black eyes, and crackling field of dark eco would fill any normal person with paralyzing fear.

But Marvin had seen the monster the previous day, right after he had landed belly down on the cracked street and right before his zoomer had been wrenched out from under him. So instead of being filled with fear, he was filled with rage.

You bloody vackting monster! he bellowed, shaking his fist in its general direction. You stole my Beauty and crashed her into the Hip Hog! It's your fault I had to ride Craptasticon, and-

The monster responded by leaping into the air, spinning ferociously, emitting a vast and menacing web of dark eco, and annihilating any person or thing within a metrastandard of its body.

Carry on, then, said Marvin weakly.

The monster, giving no sign that it had heard Marvin's complaint or that it gave an ottsel's ass about it, ran on.

Two minutes later, a woman on the most gorgeous zoomer Marvin had ever seen rode up and stopped above him. The zoomer quietly floated to the ground, murmured pleasantly, and turned itself off.

Mr. Marvin? asked the woman, batting her Made-in-Perpetua eyelashes.

Marvin was shocked that any woman, let alone one with this many eco barrels in the bank, would speak to him.

You called Rent-A-Zoomer?

Ah... yeah.

Here you are. This is an Exuberance Zoomer XXA, Manifest Destiny Class Twenty. You have leased it for two days?



Please sign here and here. You will be paying the renting fees as bimonthly installments of 120 Precursor Orbs for the next five months. Do you understand the payment plan?

I can't afford that!

Sign here, please. Any damage incurred to this vehicle will result in the dissolution of your worldly possessions, and possibly, your Precursian soul. She smiled a bright white imported-from-Sickle smile and offered him a pen.



Hold it like this, she said patiently, placing the pen in his hand, and sign your name.

But I can't afford 120 Pre-

The woman frowned ever so slightly and forced Marvin's hand across the dotted line. He tried to resist and sent ink all across the paper. MaRlump? Oh well, close enough. I will return to take Destiny back in two days time. Any scratch on her, the woman's eyes flashed with imported pupils of the finest quality, and I'll cause you such bodily pain that you will wish you were never born. Enjoy your vehicle and thank you for choosing Rent-A-Zoomer!

Before Marvin could reply, she strode off and ducked into a bar.

Please review! :)