I am indebted to Madame Weebles and her post Search Terms: WTF Edition for this chapter of Fallen Arches.

Personally, I have nothing against Alex Trebek or his wife but the idea was too good to pass up.  All the phrases in italics are taken from Weebles’ search terms.

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Alex Trebek sat tidily erect at the dining room table reviewing the latest topics for his game show Jeopardy.  Despite the early morning hour, he was already dressed nattily in a double-breasted summer-weight wool suit, whose creases were squarely aligned without wrinkles, his azure-blue Countess Mara tie squarely formed in a Windsor knot and a carefully folded monogrammed handkerchief peering delicately and precisely from his suit jacket.  His signature silver hair crowned his head and was as full now as it was decades ago when he first started as the host of his eponymous variety show.

Sipping elegantly from his cup of freshly seeped Oolong tea, he was momentarily distracted from his morning chore as he stared across the table to a plate of half-eaten spaghetti with weebles.  Next to it sat a food-stained edition of Weeblerotica magazine opened to an article entitled Picturesque Vagina.  Alex instinctively wrinkled his nose at the messy intrusion into his otherwise neatly arranged world.  As he returned to his list, he suddenly noticed that someone, annoyingly and surreptitiously, had penciled through the list of topics and entered another, and more vulgar, set.  In place of Towns Starting with ‘B,’ Presidents’ Day and Wild West were scratched in Barricading the Cheese, Precocious Tits and Dead Marshmallow.

Drawing in his breath, his brows furrowed, he knew who was responsible when the culprit, his wife, lurched into the room.   Wearing a shocking pink nightgown, her hair in curlers and the butt of a cigarette dangling from her lips, she staggered to the liquor cabinet and helped herself to a morning bourbon.  Looking at Trebek, she spat out the words: “Well if it isn’t Subway Penis.”

Alex, unfazed, put down the altered list and said smugly: “You need to phrase that as a question, dear.”

She snorted: “Here’s a question for you Alex, when are you going to stop wearing pantyhose, you butt-plug?”

Alex, unsmiling, replied: “I wore pantyhose for Halloween, now I can’t stop.”

Undaunted, his wife continued:  “Here’s some more questions for you.  Can I touch up my hair and raid it the same day?  Why is Alex Trebek such an insufferable prick?  Can cats carry demons?  Why does Alex Trebek think he’s hot shit? “

Bolting upright from his chair as though shocked by a cattle prod, Trebek stomped firmly out of the breakfast room but not before his wife shouted one last question to his back.  “Will Mr. Pantyhose Ascendant have a nice day?”  She let out a guffaw followed by a series of chortles, gasps, snorts and wheezes, the result of many years of chain-smoking and binge drinking.  Alex marched stiffly forward, slowly and determinedly, as though walking to the gallows.