Chapter 4: International Murphy´s Law Week Part One.
"Alright. It seems we have to play a little game here." Cartman says, removing some tools from a box "A little game I like to call 'WHICH IS MY FAVORITE FINGER!'"
"Please! I just want to go home" The tied up Pakistani man says, on the verge of tears
"You can go home. You just have to tell me where the weapons are stashed"
Across the town, Mayor Testaburger talked to the city council about the Christmas budget
"You spent 17 thousand dollars on WHAT?" She says, screaming in the direction of councilmember Kevin Stoley
"Star Wars Christmas decorations" Kevin says, somewhat cowering away from Wendy´s deathly gaze.
"Kevin, goddamn it! Every time! Every fucking time! I have no idea how we still let you on city council!" She says, exhausted.
"People are gonna love it! Everybody loves Star Wars!" Wendy says
"No, everybody loved Star Wars 30 years ago, before Disney bought it. Now everybody is mildly confused by Star Wars!" Wendy says
Back to the interrogation room, Cartman explains the game to the naked tied up man
"It works like this: I´m gonna break your fingers one by one, until you tell me where the weapons are stashed. Whatever finger you love the most is the one that you´re gonna tell me what I want to know before I break it! Isn´t that fun?" He says.
"I don´t know where they are" The interrogated man pleas with his interrogator
"Yes, you do. I read your emails. Now, if that doesn´t work, we´re gonna play 'which is your favorite toe!'" Cartman is relishing every second of the torture he is imposing on the man
"Pleeaaaaaase" He is fully sobbing "They´re gonna kill my family if I tell"
"And if that doesn´t work still, we´re gonna play my personal favorite of all these games" He holds the plier like it´s a talk show host microphone "WHICH. IS. YOUR. FAVORITE. TESTICLEEEEEEE!"
"No, no, no, no" He really sounds desperate at this point
"Then you better tell me right the fuck now!" Cartman grabs him by the throat
"We´re struggling with the budget as it is, Kevin! The press is breathing down my neck, my car is broken and my medical insurance company is giving me hell!" Wendy says, on the verge of a psychotic melt down
"You better fix this right now! Trust me"
The next statement is said almost in unison between husband and wife, albeit in very different locations
"You don´t want to piss me off after the week I´ve had"
Monday
Eric Cartman wakes with the mother of all hangovers. He had a lot. A LOT! He should really stop accepting Kenny´s invitations to grab a drink before work days, like he had last night. And to top it all off, he had yet to dispose of Kenny´s corpse, still firmly planted on his backyard after Stan tripped on a beer can, into Kenny who got his head impaled on the front decoration of Cartman´s Mercedes. On their drunk state, they just lifted Kenny´s body into the hood and drove off home.
Wendy felt exhausted. She doesn´t know if it´s cancer already showing symptoms or if it´s just a regular Monday morning.
"Morning" She says to her husband
"Morning" He says, rubbing his temples.
"What do you have for today?" She asked
"I´m staying here, but I have a lot of intel to go through. Some assholes stashed weapons somewhere in eastern Europe and Langley is really cracking the whip on this."
"I have to be at city hall in" She looks at the clock next to their bed "One hour. Shit"
"Alright. Frozen waffles for breakfast it is!" Cartman said, lifting himself from the bed forcefully and getting dressed to make some coffee.
He usually took care of breakfast because Wendy took longer to get ready on account of needing to look professional. Cartman usually wore normal clothes, except for the rare occasion when he needed to go to Langley.
"What should I do with this?" She asks as they both load Kenny´s corpse into the back of her car
"You know what? Drop it off at their house. Let them deal with it. He´s usually back by now" Cartman said.
She did so. As she got to city hall, it was a zoo. Everyone was on full panic mode because they really needed to get this Christmas budget under control. There was simply not enough money for everything Mr. Hankey promised for this year´s Christmas and they had to figure something out NOW!
You see, the reason Wendy always ran unopposed to mayor isn´t because this was a small town. No. It´s because it´s a hellish job. Over the years, with the laundry list of controversies this town gets up to, South Park became famous as The Most Controversial Town in America. To top it all off, a literal piece of shit was in charge of planning Christmas. To put it bluntly, nobody wanted that job.
Adding insult to injury, Wendy was still trying to figure out whether to tell City Council about her condition or not. She was verging on the "not" side of the discussion for right now. Well, at least not until this whole Christmas mess was taken care of.
That seemed like a sound strategy until…
"Alright" Wendy said "Let´s see what we have so far. Christmas tree?"
"We found a big one. Also, we may get discounted prices on the tree decorations, but someone has to talk to the guy at the store for the delivery fees" Councilman Kyle Broflovski stated
"Good. Any takers?" Wendy says
"We can handle it. I should go tomorrow and I´ll tell you the details after you come back from your cancer exams" Kyle said.
Wendy was livid. She looked at Kyle with all the fury of hell behind her eyes. And the fury only increased after she noticed no one in the room was surprised by the statement.
Kyle, of course, quickly realized his fuck up.
"Oh… We weren´t supposed to tell people…" He laughs nervously
"Who else did you tell?" She asks, in a demonic voice
"Well, uh… I mean… just the council and uh… Ben" He stumbled upon his words.
"GAHHHHHH!" She screamed
"AAAAH!" Kyle answered.
As if it wasn't a problem enough that all of city hall knew, Kyle had to tell his son, which was way worse. Why, you may ask? Well, Ben Broflovski was currently going through his first year of law school at Columbia with his longtime girlfriend. A beautiful, brown-haired 24-year-old woman named Emily Lianne Cartman.
Yes, much to Cartman´s dismay, his first-born daughter was dating a Jew.
Eric and Wendy were planning on telling their kids about the cancer when they came home for Christmas, but at least one of them should know by now. Which led to the facetime call third-degree Eric and Wendy were currently facing
"YOU HAVE FUCKING BREAST CANCER?!" Emily screamed at her mother in the computer screen "AND YOU KNEW ABOUT IT SINCE THANKSGIVING?!"
"Hi, Mrs. Cartman… uh… sorry" Ben Broflovski shifted nervously beside his girlfriend
"You had better be sorry, you fucking Jew rat" Cartman screamed at the younger man "By the time and done with you and your dad, you´re gonna think Hitler was a saint!"
"Sorry, Mr. Cartman" Ben said. He knew Eric Cartman since he was a small child and has long since accepted that 'uncle Cartman doesn´t really mean all the stuff he says about Jews, he just likes teasing me' like his father would tell him.
"Don´t talk to him like that, dad. Why the fuck didn´t you tell me?" Emily asked, her face turning red in a manner that let no one doubt who her father was.
"Look, sweetie. We were planning on telling you and your brother next week, when you come home. We didn´t want to distract you from school." Wendy said
"BULLSHIT! I´m good on all my classes, I´m just doing the finals to keep my GPA up and the nerd is probably doing good too. To hell with that, I´m gonna be on the first plane to South Park tomorrow!" Emily said
"Pumpkin pie, there´s no need. Your mom and I got everything figured out here. She´s having some exams this week, so we don´t know the details of treatment just yet. Just come home next week and we´ll talk about it then" Cartman pleaded with his favorite child.
"Fine. But I want details when I get there." Emily relented. It was probably for the best, since she didn´t actually have enough money for an impromptu plane ticket.
"Does Billy know yet?" She asked.
"No. Just you. We´re gonna call him after you, alright?" Wendy said. It wasn´t fair to let Billy wait until next week if Emily already knew.
The rest of the call was normal. They just talked about what else was going on in their lives. There was just one problem though
"YOU HAVE BREAST CANCER?" Billy asked, next to his girlfriend Marjorie Stotch. "AND YOU KNEW ABOUT IT SINCE THANKSGIVING?"
"Uh… Hi... Sorry. My dad told me." Marjorie said, nervously.
"GODDAMN IT! BUTTERS!" Cartman screamed.
Tuesday
"Alright. Just gonna hook this up to your nipples and we should be good to go" Cartman said to the tied up Pakistani man before him
"I´m not telling you shit, American pig!" The man said, bravely.
"Well, we´ll see about that after a few hours of electric current going through your nipples" Cartman said, attaching the jumper cables to the man
His phone, however, rung at that very moment
"Hold on a second" He answered "Cheesy poofs"
"Snacky smores" He heard Wendy answer from the other end
Ages ago, after he accidentally said Kyle´s name out loud and he got captured by Greek ultranationalists, Cartman developed a secret code to answer calls while at work.
He would answer the call with "Cheesy poofs". Meaning: "don´t say my name. Don´t say anyone´s name. Don´t say your location. I can´t talk right now unless it´s important"
From then, the person could answer in one of three ways
"Mountain dew" meant "no big deal. I´ll talk to you later" which everyone was encouraged to use as much as humanly possible.
"Chicken pot pie" meant "this is a life-or-death situation that requires your attention THIS VERY SECOND!"
It has only been used three times since the code started
1: When Wendy´s water broke for Billy
2: When Emily was taken to the police station for public intoxication at age 17 after hanging out with Kenny´s kids
3: When his mother-in-law was rushed to the hospital, the day she died.
"Snacky smores", however, was code for "I really need your help right now, but can probably handle this on my own if you´re too busy"
"I´ll be back in a second" he told the tied-up man before exiting the room
"What´s up?" He asked Wendy.
"My car broke down on the way to…"
"uh uh uh, cheesy poofs" He interrupted his wife, reminding her not to say any locations
She thought about it for a second before settling on "Satan´s office. I can´t find an uber for the life of me"
"Wow. The mayor of that town must be really sorry they passed those regulations on uber" He said with a smirk
"Fuck you, asshole, I really need help!" She said, angrily
"Alright. I´m on my way. Wait until I call for the location" Cartman said, entering the room again
"Well, you´re in luck. I need to solve a problem right now, so I´ll be back in a minute" He said to the Pakistani man, who felt relieved for a second
"I´m just gonna set the shocker to go out at random intervals while the speaker play 'agadoo' by Black Lace on repeat!" He said while he set up the whole thing
"No! No! Nooooooo!" The man screamed
"Aaaaaagaaado do do" The speaker blared
Bzzzt "AAAAARGH!" The shocker sounded and the Pakistani man screamed
He found Wendy next to Tom´s Rhinoplasty with smoke coming out of the car.
It was a full 5 hours in the process of getting Wendy to Hell´s Pass, towing her car to a workshop and getting back to the undisclosed location, where Cartman found the Pakistani man crying as the song was still playing
Friday
Present day
"Every time! Every fucking time there´s a bunch of fires and I have to put them out. And then, there´s the press. And then there´s my cancer! And then, my kids are coming home in two days. And I have to deal with all of that crap because all of you are a bunch of stupid! Incompetent…"
Wendy launched a tirade of insults at the people before her. However, as she did so, her vision got blurry.
She felt her knees buckle, her chest tighten, her head going lighter. The whole room spun around her, as everything faded to black. And even then, she wouldn´t relent
"Assinine… ignorant… moronic… assholes." Was the last thing she said before the world faded to black.
Kyle managed to catch her before she fell to the ground, as he dialed Cartman´s number on the phone
"FUCKING CHEESY POOFS!" Cartman answered the phone, in the middle of a very similar tirade to the tied-up man
"Chicken pot pie, asshole!" Kyle said
Cartman did the math really quickly in his head. It didn't take a genius to figure out that if Kyle, Wendy´s coworker, was using that code, something must be very wrong with her.
He bolted out of the torture room, locking it behind him and speeding his car in the direction of city hall
Author´s note: I was going to do a single chapter detailing Monday to Friday, but this is too long as it is, so I decided to do Monday and Tuesday on this Part One with the time skip back to present day and Wednesday and Thursday on Part Two. Also, look up Agadoo. It´s 100% torture to listen to it.