Billy came home from school on Monday and decided to take over the world. He didn’t like how grownups were always telling him what to do.  Grownups were stupid.  And he didn’t want goulash for dinner anymore.  Goulash was icky.  If he took over the world he could make pizza with peanut butter on it the only supper ever.  Pizza with peanut butter on it was the best.

 

All the bullies at school would be the slave people.  They’d cut down the trees and make bricks and stuff, then they’d make buildings with them. And Billy’s friends would all be the Presidents.  They wouldn’t be able to do anything important, though, because he would be Super King President.  But he wasn’t gonna tell them that until after he took over the world.  That’s when his parents, and all the rest of the grownups, would find out that the only thing they get to do is make pizza with peanut butter on it, forever.

 

Billy came home from school on Monday, took off his backpack, and ran upstairs to his room to get the Powertron from under his bed.  A space caterpillar had talked to him on Wednesday and asked for a glass of water.  When Billy asked why, the space caterpillar said his cosmoship used water for fuel, and he had run out of water near Earth. He missed the lake over by the golf course and landed in Billy’s yard instead.  Billy thought that was good, because golf courses were stupid.  The space caterpillar was named HsimreuEck, but Billy said that was a dumb name, and that his new name was Bacon Fart.  Bacon Fart offered to shrink Billy and show him around his cosmoship in trade for some fuel water.  Billy thought that would be awesome, and said yes.  Bacon Fart used his Molecular Compression Pulse Generator to bring Billy down to his size.  Billy didn’t know what that meant, so he called the machine Shrinker.  Bacon Fart brought Billy inside his ship, which had landed under Mom’s lilac bush.  It was a small ship about the size of a soda can, so even after shrinking, Billy felt cramped inside it.  This was annoying to Billy, because he was expecting something like the Enterprise or Galactica.  Instead, he got the escape pod from A New Hope.  Billy asked if he could push some buttons, but Bacon Fart said something about “there isn’t enough power” and “ship will never start again” but Billy had already stopped listening after the word “no.”  This shrinking tour was a total letdown.  When Bacon Fart showed Billy the Powertron, he got excited again.  It was a blue glowing crystal on a strap, to be worn like a headband.  It made it so Bacon Fart could control the cosmoship with his mind.  Speed, steering, weapons, everything did what the pilot wanted, just by thinking about it.  The ship could even change shape, fix damage, and add new parts to itself with the Powertron.  Billy took a big, deep breath and said “I HAVE TO GO POTTY! UNSHRINK ME!”  Bacon Fart got scared when Billy yelled like that, and ran to the Molecular Decom…Unshrinker, to return Billy to his normal size.  He was so scared, in fact, that he didn’t notice Billy putting the Powertron in his pocket.  Once Billy was back to regular boy size, he started running toward the house.

 

As Billy’s foot was descending upon Bacon Fart, the space caterpillar thought; “Oh no!  He doesn’t realize I am under his foot.  My mission to save the solar ostriches of Berricon Theta 7 will go unfinished, and those poor animals will become extinct.  Without them, the Berricon system will be vaporized in the upcoming Hypernova.  And yet, in this moment I can only hope that when Billy realizes his folly, he will someday be able to forgive himself for my death.  In the short moments we knew each other, I had come to value his friendship.”

 

As Billy’s foot was descending upon Bacon Fart, the 8 year old was thinking a variety of thoughts at one time, as young boys often do.  They roughly translated to; “WOO!  I got a Powertron!  Bacon Fart is stupid.  His ship is stupid.  I’m gonna make him die with my shoe.”  Amidst those thoughts, pizza with peanut butter came up several times.

 

 

*   *   *

 

 

Billy pulled the cosmoship out from under the lilac bush and dropped it in a bowl of water.  He put on the Powertron and thought “start working again!”  It worked, and the ship started bubbling and lighting up.  Billy set the bowl on the floor in front of his TV and his video game system, the Y-Bag 180.  The Powertron worked by sensing the intent of the person wearing it and carrying out whatever action was needed to accomplish what the person desired.  That’s how it knew what to do when Billy brain-shouted “Be totally awesome!”

 

The technological abomination created by the fusion of television, game console, cosmoship, and an old Discman Billy found in his dresser, slowly started walking downstairs. Pretty soon it was absorbing the big TV, the cable box, Blu-Ray player, and stereo.  Billy starting jumping up and down when they got to the kitchen.

 

“Keep getting awesomer!” Billy thought-yelled at the machine.  As it went to work on the dishwasher, he had a way cool idea.  By the time the microwave, toaster, and coffeemaker were swept into the beast, Billy had removed the racks and was nestled snugly inside the oven.  He had figured out what to do.  He would use the Powertron to build a World Dominatortron.  And once he had a World Dominatortron, it would be pizza with peanut butter on it from here on out.  The World Dominatortron, or SweetBot, installed the oven as a chest and body, making it larger and converting the inside into a cockpit for Billy.  In order to factor in the last appliance, the refrigerator, SweetBot needed more room.  Billy did this by telling SweetBot to knock down the kitchen wall.  Once the dust and debris settled, Billy looked through the hole in the wall and saw what Mom always called “Daddy’s attempt to be a teenager again.”  Daddy called it “The Hummer.”  After several seconds of speechless, ecstatic shaking, Billy shouted out loud, “AW SHIT, DUDE!”  Then, after covering his mouth and looking around to see if anyone was nearby to hear that, he scrunched down in his ovenpit and whispered intensely, “…..aaawww shit, dude”

 

Two weeks later, after Billy had replaced the oven with the front half of a stealth bomber, the feet made of Hummers with feet made of train cars, and using two 83-inch TVs for SweetBot’s eyes, the World Dominatortron was standing in front of the White House.  Billy had made his friends Presidents of all the other continents, and used the Powertron to turn all the army vehicles and bombs and guns that people attacked them with to build smaller Dominatortrons, called CoolBots.  Each CoolBot had pizza-making machines and pizza ovens built into them.  All the ingredients, plus the peanut butter, were brought to the CoolBots and SweetBot by the slave bullies, everyday.  Billy’s friend, President Carl, didn’t like peanut butter on his pizza.  He liked pickles on it instead.  But President Carl was stupid.  That’s why he was President of Antarctica.  Antarctica is stupid.

 

When Billy died at age 11 of a massive heart attack due to a diet consisting of nothing but pizza and Vanilla Coke, he thought about the day he murdered that little space caterpillar, Bacon Fart, in order to steal the technology that allowed him to take over the world.  His last words; “SO worth it.”