A Surprise Visit

“So watcha doin’?”

The look on FooDaddy’s face as he opened the door and saw me standing on his doorstep was priceless. His eyes opened wide and his lip curled. He clutched his stomach and hiccupped. Obviously, he had eaten something that disagreed with him and I was happy I had made the decision to surprise him by coming over unannounced. He needed some cheering up if feeling poorly.

“Feeling sickly, huh?” I said, thinking a little conversation would make him feel better. “Whatsa matter?”

“It just suddenly came over me,” he said. “I think I may be allergic to annoying things.”

I stepped inside the house and looked around for our buddy Kevin, but he was nowhere in sight. I didn’t know what FooDaddy was babbling about and decided to ignore it, although I was a bit concerned that perhaps he was becoming delusional.

I glanced back and saw a trail of snow and ice melting into the carpet. I frowned. “You really need to shovel your driveway,” I said reprovingly. “I might have slipped and fallen, did I not possess the agility of an emu.”

FooDaddy walked to a cabinet and retrieved an economy-sized bottle of antacid tablets. He poured out a handful and began munching them like Skittles®. “I wasn’t aware emus were particularly agile.”

“Shows what you know!” I said, laughing and punching him good-naturedly in the trachea. The good thing about FooDaddy is that he can play along with a joke, although I felt that clutching his throat and collapsing to the floor was going a little too far. Not wanting to hurt his feelings, I chuckled appreciatively and then walked into the living room. I noticed a video game screenshot on the TV and sat down on the couch.

“Playin’ games, huh?” I said. “Can I play?” I waited a moment for FooDaddy to respond, but he seemed too interested in pretending to choke and struggle for breath. It was okay as performances go, but all the gagging was actually pretty disgusting and quite overdone.

Not wanting to encourage this behavior, I ignored him and picked up a game controller. I unpaused the game and began using the joystick to navigate the map. Within a few seconds, the screen went dark.

“The game stopped working,” I said. I was trying to remain calm, but was rather annoyed that FooDaddy had let me play a broken game. Very thoughtless, although typical.

“It’s a shooter,” he said, his voice strained and raspy. “You have to kill the enemies before they kill you, otherwise you die and the screen goes dark and takes you back to the menu.”

I dropped the controller in disgust. “You can die in this game? LAME SAUCE!” I bounded from the couch and heard something crunch. I looked down to see the controller under my foot.

FooDaddy dropped to his knees and grabbed the broken pieces from the floor. “Do you know how much this cost?!”

“Lord, no! Why do you think I come over here to play games?”

Feeling a bit bored, I began fiddling with random objects sitting on counters and shelves. My fingers were still a bit numb from the cold outside and a little ceramic mug slipped from my hand and smashed on the floor. “Whoopsies!”

“Why must you break things?” Still cradling the shattered remains of the controller, FooDaddy made a show of weeping uncontrollably.

I was beginning to wish I’d stayed home. I had come over here to relax and wasn’t in the mood for drama. FooDaddy was still burping, gasping, weeping, and crawling around the floor. “Well, I don’t mean to rush,” I said, “but it seems kinda dangerous here. I think I’ll go home before I get hurt.” I walked to the front door and grasped the knob, which somehow managed to come off in my hand.

“I think that’s a good idea,” FooDaddy said. “And maybe next time you could call ahead before you arrive. So I can be gone.”

I laughed. That FooDaddy was such a jokester. I could tell he was disappointed I was leaving so quickly and I decided to drop by tomorrow to see if he was feeling any better. I had the day off and so could spend the entire afternoon being a good friend. It would, of course, be a surprise.