Mr. Jenkins & Me

Superman was always my hero. Call me old fashioned, but I always thought it was cool with how he was nearly invincible…and Lois Lane was hot! But I digress, I always imagined myself as superman, until Harry came along. Superman couldn’t have a sidekick, so we made up a new superhero duo. THE CHAMELEON BROTHERS!
Harry knocked on the door, I looked up smiling with the knowledge of who it was. My Mom approached the door, “Don’t worry about the door Shane, I’ll get it. Close your mouth too; you’re dripping cereal all over your new shirt.”
Oops. I was still getting down the whole “smiling with my mouth shut” thing. Anyway, getting back to the story. I ran upstairs and changed into my Chameleon Brothers costume and ran outside with Harry.
“Okay, Harry the Chameleon Jr., who will we save first?”
“How about your neighbor?”
“Mr. Jenkins?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay…what does he need saving from?”
“I don’t know.” said Harry.
“How about if a bunch of monsters attack his house!”
“ Yeah!”
Harry and I headed over into Mr. Jenkins yard; it was only about 6:30 in the morning, so he still wasn’t up.
“Oh no! Look, the dirt monster is taking over Mr. Jenkins car! Quickly, let’s save it. Harry, grab the hose! I’ll grab some soap.” I said, running off to my house to grab some soap. I ran into my garage and grabbed a bottle. When I got back Harry had hosed down Mr. Jenkins new car. I quickly pulled out a couple of rags and quickly threw some of the wash down on the car. We quickly got scrubbing. A little while later we stopped and looked at each other.
“I think we’ve defeated him Harry…the day is s-. Look! The barbeque is trying to burn down Mr. Jenkins house! Quickly, Mr. Jenkins has a meat locker. Grab some so we can stop the barbecue!”
Harry came back holding a couple pieces of meat. “No! Get more Harry! We’ve got to stop the grill!”
I took the couple pieces of meat and threw them on the barbecue. Harry quickly returned with the rest of the meat and I threw them onto the grill. When it got full I threw the other pieces onto the picnic table Mr. Jenkins owned. When we had used all the meat the barbecue was dying down. I sat down against the wall.
“Whew! That was a close one, huh Harry?”
“Yeah it was, what should we do next?”
“I think the lawn’s been sneaking up on us, trying to save it’s buddies.”
“Yeah! You’re right! Let’s cut it.”
Harry and I then grabbed Mr. Jenkins lawn mower and started it up. As I was mowing the lawn, Harry and I were laughing maniacally as we slaughtered the evil grass. I guess we were laughing so loud that we woke up Mr. Jenkins, because he came outside then.
“What do you think you’re doing Shane?”
“Mowing the lawn, Harry and I are the Chameleon Brothers.”
“So why are you mowing my lawn?”
“Because it was evil and trying to get us. Also it’ll be twenty bucks for mowing your lawn.”
“I thought you two were being superheroes?”
“We are, but there aren’t many of us, we need to make a living too.”
“The yard looks terrible though…DID YOU MOW MY AZALEAS!?”
“Yeah, they were trying to come to the grass’ defense, they almost got Harry. By the way, we washed your car too, that’s another twenty dollars.”
“What? No, no, I’m not going to pay you Shane-”
“Go and look at it, I’m sure you’ll be pleased and want to pay us. We saved it from the dirt monster.”
When we got to his vehicle the old fart only had one thing to say, “Good God! What did you wash it with?”
“This.” I said picking up the bottle and handing it to Mr. Jenkins.
“THIS IS PAINT STRIPPER!” Mr. Jenkins yelled.
“Yeah but-”
“No, I want both of you OUT OF MY YARD!”
“Okay, I’ll come over later to get the money.”
We headed over to my house to eat some breakfast, again; being a superhero really takes it out of you. As we were sitting down to eat, my Mom walked into the room.
“Shane, don’t forget you need to clean your room today, treat it like one of your superhero jobs, okay.”
“No can do Mom, we have a strict three good deeds per day policy, and we’ve already done them. Anymore and the balance would be broken.”
“The balance?”
“Yeah, the balance of good deeds and bad.”
“Yeah, well that’s a risk I’m willing to take, do it.” As I was about to make a witty comeback and be let out of cleaning my room, the phone rang.
I choose not to remember what happened next but my mom picked up the phone and there was a lot of screaming because the person who had called was Mr. Jenkins and he’d found out about the meat we’d had to cook to save his house. I tried explaining it to my mom, but she didn’t understand. I ended up getting grounded, last time I ever try to save that old codger.