My visit to the laundromat stunk. As I sat there reading a copy of The Smurf's visit to Hell , two mutants began to yell at me about biological warfare. Having a stuttering problem, I decided to keep my mouth shut. When I stepped into the bathroom, I sat down on a toilet. Obtrusively, the toilet laughed at me. “Get your butt off me,” it said. “Why did you do that?” I gave it a swift kick. “Because you’re -- you’re - a toilet,” I replied. “And I’m tired of listening to smell-smelly mutants. They make me want to c-crap. Can’t wait until my-my laundry’s finished!”

Behind me, a urinal laughed. “Mutants are a bit silly, aren’t they?”

I turned around to say something, but the sink interrupted. “Hey, why did you sit on him? What’s your problem?”

“Look, he’s-he’s a toilet!” I said. At this point, I just wanted to wash my hands and get out of there, but the toilet, the sink, and the urinal, all turned into mushrooms. The urinal tuned into a yellow mushroom, the toilet, a brown mushroom, and the sink, a pink mushroom. All of them with black eyes, noses, and mouths.

“You’re jealous of mutants. You can’t talk without stuttering,” the toilet/mushroom said. “You’re jealous and you need help.”

”I’m not jealous of anyone. I-I like my stuttering."

“Let us begin our journey,” the toilet/mushroom said.

The bathroom swayed and swirled until it was non-existent. The next moment, I was standing on blue grass in another world. The three mushrooms stood in front me, now with stick arms and legs.

“Welcome to mushroom world,” the brown mushroom said. “We will bring you to the king mushroom. It will be He who cures you.” They all began to sing:

I followed them through fields of sugarcane, lemon, and purple foliage. The fields curved and waned to a violet valley. There, standing good-natured, was the king mushroom, his multi-colors shimmering with the red sky. “Eat of me,” he said. “And you will stutter no more.”

The three mushrooms nodded. I stepped up and ripped off a blue/green piece. Stuffing it into my mouth, I chewed. “Taste like crap,” I said.

“You are cured,” the yellow/mushroom said. “Repeat after me. The rain in Spain lies mainly on the plain and for that all is good.”

“The rain in Spain lies mainly on the plain and for that all is good. I’m not stuttering!” I hollered.

“You are cured,” the pink mushroom said.

Tiny moments later, I was back in the laundromat. But instead of seeing two mutants, I saw two mushroom people. “Now what?” I asked.

“Because you have eaten from the mushroom of life, you have set us free. Earth is our new home. The mutants have been transferred to our dying planet. Thank you, oh Great One. Thank you for setting us free.”

The mushroom people bowed and I felt sick. I liked the mutants better.

© BY JEFF B. SKINNER