Wolfy Chai

Penny Lee Babblestone only lived for two things in her life: her cats and the TV program Mother, May I? In many ways, Penny was a self-assured, independent woman who lived off of her late husband’s pocketbook and her monthly retirement checks. She had curly, mousey-brown hair, huge round glasses that made her eyes look like an owl, a scratchy nose with a visibly deviated septum, and… well, a lifelong obesity problem.

She wasn’t super obese, but she could not seem to shake off her flabby arms nor her love handles. She was willing to try just about any exercise program—as long as it could be done within the comfort of her small second-floor flat in the suburbs. Thus, when she saw an infomercial about the show Mother, May I? that aired during a riveting episode of the Maury Show, she knew she had to give it a chance.

Mother, May I? was a program that streamed every Tuesday on YouTube TV at 7 p.m. sharp. Miss Babblestone was an avid viewer, bringing the “Top Listener Award” home for 12 months in a row. If anyone were to go to her house, the first thing one would see would be the wall where she hung up all of her award plaques, neatly polished twice per day. The next thing one would see would be the Disney-World-sized cat playground she constructed in her living room.

During its regularly scheduled programming, Mother, May I? took its listeners through a series of synchronized acrobatics. Of all the various leaps and twirls that the show instructed its listeners to go through, Miss Babblestone savored the “Cowgirl Stomps” the most: an exercise where the listener would stomp their back feet while on all fours, alternating between their left and right foot, with the goal of making the behind jiggle as much as possible. The TV show was affixed with the most sophisticated AI sensors in the weight loss market, such that they were able to discern if a viewer was performing the tasks correctly or if their deposits of cellulite or fat jiggling were to blame for any errors.

As the show began to gain a larger footing, its marketing tactics became increasingly aggressive… and invasive. Accordingly, the parent company, “The Coconut Group” or “CCG,” green-flagged a new marketing campaign with the goal of selling as many products as possible. Soon, the CCG rolled out various augmented reality exercise equipment. They ranged from circus rings to CCG’s very own Mother, May I?-branded vibrating yoga mat.

Penny, as a former teacher’s pet, wanted to ensure that she came well prepared for each episode. As such, she bought every new shiny item that was advertised during the show and could not wait to buy what came out next. Most recently, she was glowing over her purchase of a matching set of hot pink sweat headbands and armbands to go with her name-brand workout onesie.

Unfortunately, after about two years since the show’s launch, CCG’s market share in the weight loss industry had started to crumble. It all started when the company accountant, Martha, was crunching some numbers in the corporate office’s basement when she noticed that Mother, May I? was no longer cutting a healthy profit. “Fat Martha” (which was her nickname on the C-Suite level of the office) squeezed through the elevator doors to reach the executive suite and sounded the alarm through the company’s speaker system. Executives up and down the corporate ladder started to scramble. Pitch after pitch was thrown at them to discuss how they would boost the show’s ratings and attract more people to their show. If a straggler were to walk into the company during this time, they would have had to climb through mountains of loose papers on the floor, open filing cabinets, and piles and piles of pitches. The place appeared to be half war zone, half zoo. Mayhem quickly took hold of the employees, causing them to enter a caffeine-induced psychosis that ushered in their final evolution to a band of rabid baboons.

Finally, the hysteria ceased when their newest intern, Agnes Hizbyeta, identified the perfect plan. The company would target crazy widowed cat ladies by placing a cat toy in the exercise instructor’s hands. The toy would aid in casting a spell on the women so that they would not be able to stop tuning into the program once they saw it shake around in front of their eyes for the first time. Satisfied with the new plan, it was time for the company to get to work.

Every minute of the day thereafter, employees from every department were frantically attempting to design the perfect cat toy that would be used to execute the plan. Pitches were plentiful, ranging from orange felines to hairless purebreds. Ultimately, it was the hairless purebreds that won the winning ticket. They decided the toy would come in two distinct colors, crater gray and peacock green, in order to match whichever outfit the instructor had on that day (and to allow the spell to seamlessly blend in with the show’s aesthetics).

By the third episode post-deployment, the ratings began to soar and viewership reached an all-time high. The rollout was so effective that the company decided to insert tiny cameras behind the eyes of the cat toy in an effort to poach the most suitable clientele to champion their next marketing scheme. The toy was all-too-revealing, capturing women with sweaty armpits, women who ate fistfuls of potato chips after each set, and cats who would join in on the action. But before long, Penny became the woman that caught the company’s eye the most.

Penny didn’t often hear a knock on her door, but one day, while showering off after completing her workout, a man in an all-black suit knocked not once, but twice on her door. She tumbled out of the shower, landed flat on her face, aggressively combed through her hair, and put on the nearest cat-themed robe she could whisk out. She scrambled to open the door as soon as possible. She was then handed a card denoting that the show had an interest in using her as a feature. She was more than enthused at the prospect of getting airtime on her favorite show! Needless to say, she accepted the offer.

Before she knew it, 7 p.m. rolled around and the show went live, this time with her on it. Each time she made her entrance, it had to be grand. The first time, Penny rode in on a robed African elephant and was fanned with an assortment of imported exotic Nile River grasses. The next show, she would be on the back of an ostrich. And another time, she was carried on a throne by a group of muscular men.

With all the glitz and glamour, Penny was clueless as to what was actually going on. In between acts, she was injected with a mysterious injection that she was told would make her look more appetizing for public consumption. She thought it was just part of the act and thought little of it. All the while, the weight started to shed off of her like a snake.

She figured the weight loss must have been attributed to how amazing she was doing miming the instructor’s movements. But, as soon as she melted down to 120 pounds, things began to change. Suddenly, while trying to get into the building to do her next show, she was blacklisted by security and was immediately shipped off on a private plane back home.

Now that she was at home and no longer had access to the injections, Penny began packing on weight. And quickly. So much so that she blew up to twice the size she was prior to going on the show. She could no longer keep up with the show anymore but still compulsively needed to execute each exercise perfectly, breaking into profuse sweats each time.

Sadly, her time at home was short-lived. A stray rat that had been residing in one of the building’s support beams scurried into her living room, sensing the presence of distressed prey. The hairy rat leapt into the air, trampolining onto Penny’s stomach, and taking a massive bite with it. Penny was then rushed to the hospital, where she learned she had contracted rabies.

After being sewn up, Penny vowed that from now on, an axe would never leave her side. Little did she know, rabies was a common counterindication with weight loss injections (as concluded by preliminary research secretly done while she aired on the show). GLP-1s were found to directly activate rabid animals’ instinctual bite reflexes. CCG knew this would be an isolated possibility, so they had put a plan in place. Instead of being wheeled back home, Penny was sent to a newly refurbished isolation camp—one that was previously used during the peak of the 19th-century tuberculosis outbreaks. She was never allowed to leave again.

Slowly, she was joined by one victim after another, all of whom were marketed as the show’s latest “success story.” Each time there was a new arrival, their cats were also air-dropped into the camp on parachutes, adding to their already firmly established reputations as “crazy cat ladies.” Still, to this day, Penny tunes in every time 7 p.m. rolls around.