Photo by Rubén Bagüés on Unsplash
1.
The Underminer bursts through the cement in his weird bulldozer contraption-thing-y. As Bob Parr goes to change into his Mr. Incredible suit, the FBI swarm him, telling him his days of smuggling strawberry-flavored vape pens across the US-Mexico border are over.
Jack-Jack cries when dad is thrown into the back on the police car, those red-blue sirens blaring.
“Da-da,” Jack-Jack says. His first words lost throughout the chaos.
The Underminer wins.
Hell ensues on earth.
Buildings are set on fire.
City bikes are vandalized.
Everyone is scared.
2.
There’s a knock at the door.
It’s early in the morning and the Parrs have just sat down for a meatless Monday breakfast.
“Who the hell is that?” Helen says.
But Bob knows. He knows who’s here and what they want.
He knows he did a bad thing. He shouldn’t have went behind the back of his fugitive partners and screwed them outta their flavored vape cut.
He couldn’t help himself. The idea of keeping 100 grand was too sweet.
There’s a knock again.
“Kids,” Bob says. “Go to your rooms--”
“But why—”
“BECAUSE I SAID SO!”
Bob pulls a Glock 9 from his waist. Prepared to go out in a blazing battle.
“Helen,” he says. “I didn’t mean to drag you and the kids into this.”
Bob goes to the door.
He looks through the peephole.
It’s the Girl Scouts. They’re here to sell him his usual order of tagalongs.
He buys 20 boxes.
He’s safe.
For now.
End scene.
3.
It’s 4am. Bob Parr is wide awake in bed. He’s sweating up a storm and unable to sleep.
He has been off the flavored vape juice for two weeks and the withdrawals are making him crazy.
His wife Helen is away on business and he is responsible for getting the kids up for school.
His digital clock flashes. In three hours he has to be Mr. Mom.
“Might as well turn off my alarm,” he says. “No way I’ll fall back to sleep at this rate.”
However, he does fall back asleep. And the kids are late for school.
Dash misses his biology midterm, and his teacher won’t let him make it up, dropping his already piss-poor D-average to an F.
Dash is in danger of repeating fifth grade.
An indelible stain on the Parr family name.
4.
A loud BANG comes from the next room.
Bob and Helen rush over to see what’s happening.
When the parents enter the room, they are greeted with a strong waft of strawberry smoke.
Jack-Jack is on the floor, wailing in pain.
The strawberry vape pen that he somehow managed to get ahold of, has exploded in his face — his cheeks rosy with third-degree vape burns.
Helen screams at Bob, “I thought I told you to get rid of those goddamn things! Didn’t I tell you something like this would happen?!”
Jack-Jack continues to cry.
Bob frantically scoops him up and brings him to the emergency room, where Jack-Jack undergoes an emergency skin graft.
Two days later, CPS show up at the Parrs’ house, wondering just how and why a baby was playing with a vape pen.
The Parrs have a lot of explaining to do.
None that will do them any good.
Shawn Berman runs The Daily Drunk. His debut chapbook, Once Upon a Blue Shell, is due out this spring from Close to the Bone. He tweets a lot about Adam Sandler. Twitter: @sbb_writer.