Mario & Luigi

Odd Job on an Odd Day

The bright red Mario Brothers' Plumbing van zoomed down the busy city streets and quickly weaved through traffic.

"Luigi, get directions for 8519 on East 26th, will ya?" Mario said not looking for one second away from the road.

"Yeah, no problem." Luigi pulled out his smart phone, turned it on and found a notification on the front lock screen. "Huh, three new followers on Twitter."

"Very impressive, Luigi. Now would you just focus?"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it." He swiped in and opened up the map and looked up 8519, East 26th Street. "A'right, so you're gonna make a quick left here-"

*SCREEEEEEECH*

Mario made a hard left before he could miss the turn and forgot to turn on the turn signal, causing several angry drivers behind him to beep their horns and yell. Mario held back his impulse to yell right back and took a deep breath.

"Ok, now what?"

"Uhhh...let's see, we're on Arlington...drive about half a mile then turn right."

"Right."

Luigi immediately checked back on his precious Twitter page which was three followers stronger. But then, something from his news feed drew his attention "Hey, Mario, did ya hear about this new ghost vacuum from E. Gadd Labs?"

"Something like that, I dunno. I don't believe in that stuff."

"Well, there's gotta be a reason why someone's makin' it."

"Probably a ripoff. Never know what people are willin' to do for cash."

Luigi continued scrolling down and found another story. "Oh oh! How about this one about someone finding crabs in their bathroom."

"Uh, yeah about that...That's kind of our job for today."

"Seriously?! Wow, y'never know what crazy stuff people are willin' to do for cash." Luigi shot Mario's words back at him and Mario glared at Luigi from the side as Luigi laughed quietly to himself. Mario was caught off-guard for long enough that he nearly hit the car in front of him.

*SCREEECH!*

Mario braked the van to a sudden halt while it was just an inch from the back of the car in front. He looked ahead of the road and found that there was a large amount of traffic up ahead. He groaned and rested his head on the steering wheel.

"Guess it must be a busy day, huh?" Luigi rolled his window open and looked up over the cars ahead. "I wonder what for?"

"I don't care if it's the Macy's Day Parade, we just need to get to work on time." Mario beeped his horn at the traffic. "C'MON!"

All of a sudden, Luigi heard some strange noises underneath the car and looked down at the wheels of the van. What he saw was something one wouldn't exactly see everyday in the Big Apple...

"Hey Mario, so y'know how there were crabs in someone's bathroom?"

"Yeah, what about it?" Mario looked up at Luigi skeptically.

"You...might wanna look down at the road."

"What's wrong with the rooaaa..." Mario looked down from the window, stopped mid-sentence and his mouth hung open after seeing a swarm of small red crustaceans scuttling beneath all the cars on the road. He slowly unbuckled his seatbelt and looked at Luigi. "Luigi...we're gonna get outta the car now."

"Out there? Uh no thanks, bro. I'm not takin' my chances with those things."

"Neither am I. So that's why we're gonna improvise!" Mario got up out of his seat and started toward the backdoor of the van.