The Krusty doorstop sat by the door of Bob's bedroom closet, with a big goofy smile permanently fixed on its ugly face. Bob liked to imagine it as the severed head of the real Krusty, although if he had his way, the real head wouldn't be smiling in that toothy, mocking way. Cecil had sent the ugly thing as a present for Bob's most recent birthday. Every year, Bob received one of Krusty's horrible product endorsements from Cecil on his birthday, or on Christmas; he figured that Cecil did it because he knew that Bob wouldn't like any of Krusty's crappy merchandise. The previous Christmas, Cecil had sent him a full-sized Krusty costume, complete with realistic wig and mask, as if Bob would ever find a use for such a thing. He wasn't much for Halloween.
Bob glowered at the grinning Krusty doorstop without blinking, as if engaging the object in a staring contest. The more Bob thought about birthdays and Krusty stuff, the more Bob became reminded of every single time that Krusty shot him out of a cannon whenever some brat in the audience had a birthday. Hell, Krusty used any excuse to shoot Bob out of a cannon, among other humiliating things. It reminded Bob of his school days: all those bullies with their pack mentalities, little more than wild beasts once they ganged up on a weaker kid...Bob didn't care much for the works of Stephen King, but he had read Carrie on a whim, and could relate to the girl in that regard...
Decades of repressed anger burst out of Bob in one single, primal scream, and he threw the tacky doorstop against his dresser mirror, shattering it. It didn't matter to Bob if he got seven years of bad luck; he doubted it would change much about his already rotten life.
As Bob stared at his pallid complexion in the broken mirror, he took notice of the Krusty costume hanging in the closet. He recalled the conversation that he'd shared with his mother that morning, and suddenly became glad that he'd kept that outfit...