UofSCrewballs: The Receipt Demon
You may not know him, but he definitely knows a lot about you. Your first name, your last name, your phone number, the time you eat lunch, and that you’re a fan of the 8 piece nuggets with ranch at Chick-Fil-A, just to name a few. You’re probably thinking that’s not the kind of information you’d give out to just anybody and you’d be right. There’s no telling the kind of harm someone could do with that knowledge. With one exception.
That would be because UofSC sophomore Darwin Kuggles is none other than the Receipt Demon, the vicious vigilante whose dastardly demonstrations of disgust for discarded receipts have horrified UofSC students. In this inaugural installment of UofSCrewballs, we’re going to figure out what all the hubbub is about this Grubhub themed killer.
At Russell House, GrubHub receipts cover the grass and pavement like fresh-fallen snow. This is contemptible in its own right, but, little do they know, the callous litterbugs responsible have set the table for their own demise.
Rumor has it that Kuggles’ campaign of terror began when he slipped on a rogue receipt while walking back from Russell House with his crush, Lauren Fimberbaum. The tumble was so hilarious that Fimberbaum couldn’t help but mock him relentlessly, even going so far as to call him “Humpty dummy.” The ridicule broke something so deep in Kuggles that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t have put his psyche back together again if they wanted to.
Several weeks later, UofSC junior Garret Chorzulf discovered an unaccompanied takeout box on the Horseshoe. Chorzulf opened it expecting to find a free meal, but the box’s contents caused him to, instead, lose his lunch. Inside lay the severed hand of Lauren Fimberbaum, who had been missing since the incident with Kuggles. Other pieces of Fimberbaum’s dismembered body were found around campus, all displaying “numerous lacerations caused by repeated, frenzied swiping of a Carolina Card.” Each lay in takeout containers from Russell House eateries. The crumpled receipts of her last meals adorned every one of them like the frilly blue ribbon one would win for getting the first prize at the state fair competition for being “most murdered.”
However, the world would soon discover that the Receipt Demon’s thirst for blood came with free refills.
Wyatt Plonk had messed up a few times, sure. His parking job sometimes filled up two (or more) spots. He took off his mask to enter buildings instead of the other way around. But it would be his discarding of Grubhub receipts in the grass outside Russell House that would ring the Demon’s dinner bell.
On the morning of January 27th, Plonk began his morning ritual of sleeping in until 2 pm. At 2 pm that afternoon, he awoke for real to find that he was trapped in a cocoon of Grubhub receipts affixed to what appeared to be a concrete structure. He struggled, but the cocoon was too constricting. He attempted to scream, only to choke on the running ink of receipts left for days in the rain.
After gasping and struggling for hours, Plonk freed himself from his papery prison and the metaphor of his captivity finally dawned on him. Each receipt tossed callously into the grass was a bar in a prison of apathy. A prison he himself had constructed, caging him away from the rest of the world’s people. Plonk knew he could do better. Should do better. Will do better. He finally held the key to the prison of his own design. He was ready to undo the lock and step back into the world. Just as an awkward, graceless caterpillar grows into a magnificent butterfly, Plonk had metamorphosed into a better man that day in the receipt cocoon.
All this right before a panel van metamorphosed Plonk into a horrific roadkill mess. The concrete structure Plonk had seen was the bottom of the bridge over Blossom Street. The Receipt Demon did not give a damn whether or not he had learned anything, only that he struggled and panicked before he was splattered like a dropped drink.
Next time you pick up a meal from Russell House, you’d do well to keep in mind what exactly the risks are. Tossing your receipt on the ground means adding your name to the menu of the damned. Hold them close, because the Receipt Demon is delivering death to your doorstep, no tip necessary. Take care not to end up as his next slain course meal.
