The Party Poopers

The party was almost over, but the guests didn’t know this at the time. One did. One particular guest had decided that now would be a good time for the party to end. He was not alone in his thoughts, but he knew that only he would take any kind of action.

Marty Binge sat, by himself, in the corner, eating his nineteenth breadstick and eyeing up everyone in the room. He had been to many parties in his lifetime, only one of which he had enjoyed. That party involved a stripper, a bathtub full of mashed potato and a 1930s banjo. Oh, he would never forget that night; the scar on his left arm wouldn’t let him. But tonight was another one of those laborious, mind numbing experiences, with pretentious guests chortling loudly about their high paid jobs and drinking far more than they ought to be. This kind of thing must end, Marty thought. So, he made a mental note of the nearest exit and began to put his plan into action.

Slowly, Marty stood up, holding his empty plastic cup in one hand and half a breadstick in the other. He stared at the crowd and raised his hands. Those hands concealed much anger and were finally being allowed to unleash their might. With great force and determination, Marty slowly tapped the paper cup with the breadstick a few times. “Excuse me ladies and gentlemen,” he shouted, but nobody heard him for the music playing from the stereo. “I’m sorry to interrupt your evening,” he continued, “But I would just like to ask if it’s okay for everyone to leave now as I have work in the morning.”

Nobody heard him. A cat, casually tucking into an abandoned plate of sandwiches, heard him. But the cat was not in a position to take control of the party, so it did not respond. Marty could see his efforts were not bearing any real results, so he upped his game. He pulled out a shotgun and fired it expertly at the ceiling. That made everyone stop what they were doing. Somebody even turned the stereo off, sensing the importance of the interruption. Only a shotgun fired by an accountant overdosed on breadsticks could silence the Bee Gees. Marty smiled to himself, pleased that everybody in the room was taking him seriously for once. People didn’t often take him seriously. He sometimes wondered if it was to do with the novelty ties that he always wore, but he knew that people generally care more about someone’s personality than their appearance. However, today he was getting attention. The good kind of attention that comes from terrifying young people with a shotgun and a paper cup.

“Thank you for pausing the festivities,” he began, “I would just like to point out that I am not particularly enjoying myself. I appreciate that a lot of you are having a nice time, but I think it’s about time that my thoughts were taken into consideration.”

The crowd stared at him blankly.

“It may just be the breadsticks talking, but I have noticed that there are a few things wrong with this party. Firstly, there is far too much alcohol available to everyone, resulting in drunken guests who cannot hold a proper conversation with each other. Secondly, the music is far too loud. If any of these idiotic pissheads did want to have a hearty conversation about the state of the stock market, they couldn’t, because the room is being filled with an excessively loud sequence of 1970s classics. Thirdly…”

Nobody heard what Marty Binge’s third complaint was. By the second statement, people had become fed up of this whining moron and had decided to take action themselves. Just before Marty could protest about the clear lack of healthy food alternatives, a young graphic designer pushed him out of the 4th story window. Luckily for Marty, there was a truck full of pillows conveniently passing by, so he landed directly in front of that, being run over before he had any real time to complain about being pushed out of a window.

Everybody on the 4th floor agreed that the police need not know about Marty Binge’s death until morning, at which time they would all be back behind their desks with multiple alibis to corroborate their story of being at a party on the 6th floor on the night of the Marty’s apparent suicide.

As for poor Marty, he was saved by the cat from the 4th floor, who happened to have watched enough episodes of Casualty to be able to resuscitate Marty and take him to the nearest hospital. Though it is not legal for cats to drive trucks, he was let off with a warning and a saucer of milk in light of his heroic act. Marty offered the cat his gratitude and told it that if there was ever anything he could do in return, it need only ask.

Because of this promise, parties up and down the country are now host to a notorious duo of man and cat, who joined forces under the pseudonym of The Party Poopers and sit in the corner making tutting noises and stealing food off other people’s plates.