[ScottyMcGee]

Once Upon A Time.....

The sound of the clock alarm at seven in the morning gave way for another monotonous and routine day. Gone was the dream land that one had during the night, the mystical occurrence of the sun disappearing and the moon shining had gone, the sun returned and gave a bright shine through the windows and curtains. To some, it was a good sign of starting new, to others, it was as annoying as a dog barking during the night for no reason.
For one particular person, it was definitely a sign of annoyance, of another day at work in Brooklyn, New York. He sat up with a grumble and stared for a while at the outdoors, he scoffed at the fact that kids were already playing outside. Apparently summer break had started, but not for this man, and his brother. Work may have ended for the kids, but never for the adults.
He grumbled again at the thought, the stout, short, chubby yet strong man got up and began to get his shaving gear ready at the bathroom sink. Just like everyday, he would shave all around the chin, sideburns, yet left one thing. A big, long, and bushy mustache that he never really felt like shaving off.
With that, he donned his robe and opened his door. The newspaper was neatly folded right at the place mat ready for him, just like every other day. With a grunted effort he picked it up and quickly scanned the front page, then frowned at something that seemed to displease him.
The short man then hurried his way to the lower floor where the shower was, hoping no one else in the building would be there first.
Yet when he reached it downstairs, he soon made a frown and yet another grumble of dismay as he saw the mist of the shower spread from under the door.
Then he heard it, just like every other day. The high pitched and utterly annoying sound of someone singing in the shower. He knew exactly who it was.
He leaned against the door and rapped on it loudly.
“Luigi”, he barked still half asleep.
The singing still resided.
“Luigi!”
“Hm?” came the ridiculously pitched voice.
“What...,” he yawned in the middle of his sentence, “What are we going to do about the future?”
The shower slowly stopped as the creak of the knob came, then a few footsteps.
“What do you mean?”
Luigi opened the door half way, he was pretty much the completely opposite physique of his brother. Taller, leaner, yet one thing also seemed to be in common, which was of course, the mustache.
His brother, Mario, handed him the newspaper while pointing to the front page. Luigi looked at it, a frown started to gradually appear just like Mario when he read the same passage.
“New Pump Master from General Mills Appliances revolutionizes plumbing in a new way. Hammers, plungers, and wrenches are a thing of the past,”
Luigi stared at his brother after reading it.
“So what?”
“SO....it seems like we have some competition,”
Luigi gave back the paper and scoffed at him, ready to return to his shower.
“It will never catch on. They always say they have the right new 'thing' to fix everything. There's probably a defect in them,”
“Yes but, look here it even says--,”
“Don't worry about it. Remember ol' Mrs. Hayes? She always pays us good money, she won't get one,”
The door shut again, leaving Mario a bit flustered with the newspaper.

The kitchen was silent, save only Mario's eating and the clock with hands shaped like wrenches and hammers ticking regularly. Already had read most of the paper, Mario sighed and sat back at the kitchen.
The brothers were of Italian heritage, therefore most of the decoration and flora of the kitchen was Italian. With still life paintings here and there, beige tiles, and lively colored wallpaper. Most of the residents of the building complained about this, everyone wanted a piece of their culture on the kitchen, unfortunately there was an intense and huge diversity of people in the building. Ranging from Chinese to African American, to Chilean. Others could not care less what the kitchen looked like, but some, such as Mr. Feng-shuy, argued that the kitchen should have some 'positive' atmosphere with some zen. But once they had put a small zen garden, someone's cat mistook it for kitty litter and all hell broke loose between Luigi and Mr. Feng-shuy.
The dispute was finally settled by placing a jar on a small table with flourishing bamboo sticks.
Mario now looked at the tiny piece of Japanese art and grinned at the memory, the silence was broken when his brother came in.
“Alright, what have we got?”
Mario opened the schedule notebook to the dated page and simply pushed it to the other side of the table.
“Let's see here....,” Luigi silently read to himself the list of customers they had appointments with. Mario hoped no one would cancel anything, after reading the front page of that newspaper. Maybe his brother was right, maybe it would never catch on. Yet again, that was exactly what everyone said about the automobile.
“Oh c'mon! Not Rogers again!” Luigi barked scornfully, “That's that weird kid with all the video games right?”
Mario nodded, just a simple head movement.
“How many times do we have to tell that kid that his toilet IS NOT a teleporter?”
He dropped the notebook on the counter and began arguing to no one in particular as he perused through the fridge.
“I hate video games, I really do. The stuff they do to your mind ya' know?”
It does not take long for one to realize that Luigi was the more livelier and more of a conversationalist than his brother. Mario rarely spoke at all long lengthly conversations. Of course he use to in his earlier days, everyone use to talk and blab away when they were a child. Luigi recently suspected that maybe Mario was simply bored with life, its harsh reality, routine, and bad Mondays.
But nevertheless the two brothers held a pretty respectable business of plumbing in their small portion of Brooklyn. Everyone would recognize their rickety old truck with the cartoon caricature of them popping out of two green pipes.
Today however, something told Mario that people would seldom be cheerful at seeing their truck, maybe this new invention really did kick in. Once it does, technology moves at an incredibly exponential rate, most likely they will just be forsaken.

The two brothers said nothing as Mario drove their work truck towards their business building. Mario hardly felt the need to pay close attention to the road, the neighborhood barely had anyone driving around at this hour. He looked about all of suburbia, and sighed bored at the fact that all of them were exactly the same. Either that or with different roofs and backyards, but nevertheless they were all the same. He missed the old days, when people use to make their own houses. But he quickly shrugged his thoughts off and made the final turn to their workplace.
Once there, they knew what they had to do. After turning on the power, flipping the “Closed” sign to “Open”, and opening the tool shed; they went over to the dresser, and donned the clothes that everyone knew locally.
The green shirt for Luigi and red shirt for Mario, which were covered by blue overalls, pinned with a yellow button. Then came the soft and stretchy white gloves, after that the large, almost humorous, brown boots. And finally, each wore a hat with their first letter of their first name posted on it.
The tool shed: a plethora of different shaped hammers, plungers, wrenches, and all sorts of contraptions. Each brother got their own belt, strapped on the basic and usual tools for plumbing.
At last they were ready for work, the two looked to each other before they entered the van again, gave a handshake, and Mario spoke, “Here we go,”