Part 1, Episode 5: "The Voices of Farnsworth"

Hearing a knock at his door, Conrad looked up and saw John Smith, an intern in the athletic department. “It’s almost time, sir!” the excited young man announced.

John was a student in his senior year at Farnsworth and had worked in the department since his first day on campus. He had drawn special attention from Conrad because he seemed to be the only person in the building besides Gretchen who he could count on to complete a task without turning it into an adventure. To his knowledge, John was the only person around with both a normal name and the ability to correctly pronounce Conrad’s last name.

The day had been a trying one. Conrad had already been required to put out several fires and hoped John was not coming to alert him of a new one. Conrad had advised several football players that they were indeed required to attend class and perform the course work. These future captains of industry had thought all they needed to do was show up on time for football practice and play the games. They had no clue why an academic adviser had given them a class schedule and showed little interest in following it. He doubted they would survive the first semester at Farnsworth. “How could our coach get knuckleheads like this admitted to school and STILL stink so badly?” Conrad wondered.

He had also fielded a request from the water polo coach to hire a lifeguard for the pool during practice. Apparently some of the members of this fledgling squad, preparing for their first game ever, weren’t particularly good swimmers, and the coach was afraid of casualties. If the coach was concerned about his players drowning, it did not bode well for their chances of actually winning a game, Conrad thought.

The lowlight of Conrad’s day had come when he had to break up a fight while on his way for a Super Star Burger combo (no cheese, only ketchup). A pack of field hockey players and a separate group of women’s soccer players had tried to stake out the same area of the food court in the student union as “their turf” and the dispute quickly turned into a large scale cat fight.

Conrad had to admit he liked the spirit of the field hockey team, which quickly had the soccer players in full retreat. He was thankful the field hockey “ladies” did not have their sticks handy or else there would have been serious injuries. The combatants sobered up quickly when Conrad got caught in the crossfire of the food fight that had broken out between the teams. Apparently the sight of the school’s athletic director with spaghetti noodles and sauce dripping off his face onto his suit refocused their priorities away from where they sat during lunch and turned them more toward hoping to avoid suspension.

As Conrad made the trip back to his room for a change of clothes, he had decided to let the coaches handle the disciplinary action, although he considered recommending some anger management counseling for the field hockey players. He then returned to Galaxy Burger, resisted the urge to choke someone when they put cheese and mustard on his Super Star burger despite his explicit instructions to the contrary, and took his re-done combo back to the office before another fight could break out.

The events of the day had distracted Conrad from what John had come to remind him about. It was approaching 5:00, which meant it was almost time for the debut of “Ferret Forum.” Last year, Old Man Farnsworth had purchased a local radio station that broadcasted on the AM 1000 frequency. He had significantly upgraded its transmitter, and changed the letters to WFUR, standing for Farnsworth University Radio. The Old Man had grown weary of being rebuffed by other local stations in his attempts to convince one of them to carry Fighting Ferrets’ games, so he decided to buy one and broadcast them himself.

This was the initial day of the call letter change, and the first new program would be the premiere edition of “Ferret Forum.” It would be a daily show focused on Farnsworth athletics and broadcast during afternoon drive time between 5:00-6:00 PM. The host was the new voice of the Ferrets, Troy Flemstone, and today’s guest would be Old Man Farnsworth himself. Conrad was eager to hear Flemstone, who the Old Man had hired to host Ferret-related shows and do the play-by-play on game broadcasts.

Flemstone was a veteran broadcaster who had been out of the business for a while, and Farnsworth was giving him a chance to revive his career. Conrad felt good about this, happy to have an experienced pro behind the microphone rather than a youngster just learning the ropes. He felt it would help the athletic program gain some much needed credibility and respect.

Then Conrad turned on the radio and quickly felt all the color drain from his face.

“Hello, everyone, thith ith Troy Flemthstone and I’m proud to be the voith of the Fighting Ferreth on the new WFUR. Welcome to Ferreth Forum, where you will hear from the key people in Ferreth athleticth. Ferreth fanth will get a chanth to have their thay when we open the phone lineth later in the program. We’ll be back with our very spethial getht, the prethident of Farnthworth Univerthity, Frederick Farnthworth, in jutht a moment.”

Conrad sat in stunned silenth, er, silence for a moment, then jumped to his feet. “WHAT IN GOD’S NAME IS THIS?” he screamed in the direction of John Smith, who doubtlessly was wondering the same thing. “No wonder he was out of broadcasting. You can’t underthand, I mean understand him! God almighty! ‘The voith of the Ferreth? Had Farnsworth ever heard this guy talk before he hired him?” Conrad ranted.

“I don’t know what to thay,” John Smith sheepishly replied, then cringed when he heard himself. “My god, it’s contagiouth,” John said in amazement.

“If the wrong person hears one of his broadcasts, it could completely blow up. It could go national. We could be the butt of jokes every night on Sports Center. My god, can you imagine if Leno and Letterman got a tape of this guy? The possibilities are endleth!” Conrad lamented.

“Let’s listen for a while,” John offered, clutching to the hope that Conrad was overreacting. “Maybe after he gets warmed up it’s not as bad,” John offered with a shrug.

“Yeah, might as well,” Conrad said as he slumped in his chair and reached for his latest bottle of antacid tablets. He then motioned John to take a seat. “I’m not going to suffer through this by myself,” Conrad told the youngster.

And suffer he did through the first two segments, devoted to a one-on-one interview with Old Man Farnsworth. The Old Man seemed oblivious to Troy’s lisp from hell and chatted with great enthusiasm about the continued growth of FU (Conrad made a mental note to ask him to try and refrain from referring to the school by its initials) and the wonderful things in store for the athletic program.

Farnsworth announced that he had commissioned plans for a 65,000 seat football stadium to be built on the corner of campus that backed up to the interstate. The current attendance for an entire season of Ferret football would fit comfortably on one side of a stadium that large. John Smith literally fell out of his chair when he heard this pledge since the best thing he could say about the football team was that they looked sharp in their blue and gold uniforms.

Farnsworth also told the listeners that he had hired a new athletic director who would quickly move them from Division III competition into Division I, perhaps even becoming the 14th member of the Enormous East Conference, joining recently admitted Edgar Allen Poe University. This caused Conrad to slump into his chair so much he slid out and cracked his head on what he learned was a very solid desk. John rushed over to him and, after a moment, Conrad began to pull himself upright. “I guess I’m not unconscious, am I?” Conrad asked his young assistant.

“No sir,” John dutifully replied.

“Too bad,” Conrad said, unsteadily repositioning himself in his chair. He then reached over and turned the radio off. “I can’t take anymore tonight. When is this program on again?” he asked John.

“Tomorrow, sir. It’s on every weekday from 5-6 PM.”

“Oh joy,” Conrad said wearily.

Conrad sat motionless after John’s departure trying to come up with some type of action plan to deal with an announcer that couldn’t be understood and a president who thought a struggling Division III program (by NCAA rules not allowed to offer athletic scholarships) could magically turn into a Division I school competing in one of the toughest conferences in the nation. He thought things had hit bottom.

Then the phone rang. It was John Smith, calling from his car via cell phone. He was bordering on hysteria. “Sir, you need to turn Ferrets’ Forum back on right away!”

“What could possibly make me want to do that?” Conrad asked.

“Well sir, they started taking calls, and it’s gotten sorta weird.”

“It’s GOTTEN weird? I already thought we’d been in the Twilight Zone, for crying out loud. How could it have gotten worse?”

“Well, sir, the calls are pretty strange. It’s like they don’t know it’s supposed to be a sports show or something. And Old Man Farnsworth is saying stuff that he probably shouldn’t be saying, at least in public.”

“Worse than that insanity about joining the Enormous East?”

“I’m afraid it’s a lot worse sir.”

Conrad’s blood ran cold. “Alright, against my better judgment I’ll turn the thing back on,” he told John as he again reached for the radio dial.

The show was just coming back from a commercial break when Troy, sounding a bit shaky, said “OK folkth, leth take another call. Jane from Brunthwood, whath your quethtion?”

Jane began, “Well, my husband says he’s bored with our sex life and needs to mix it up a bit. He suggested a threesome. Do you think I should let him do that? Would that be condoning him being unfaithful?”

“An excellent question,” Old Man Farnsworth replied enthusiastically. “Personally, I’ve always enjoyed three-way encounters. The trick is you need to have two different types of girls. My preference is always to have one who’s quite petite and flexible, probably a younger girl, and a more full-figured woman, older and more experienced, with a nice rack. I generally start out with the older one, because the young ones have more energy and can carry more of the action in round two.”

Conrad, who had been leaning back in his chair, felt it tip over backwards. He landed with a thud, still in the chair, with his legs sticking up in the air. He made no effort to get up or make any movement whatsoever.

“Of course,” Farnsworth continued, “from your perspective, just make sure you are one of the girls in the threesome. That could be problematic if you’re not. It was just that type of misunderstanding that led to the end of my third marriage.”

“I’ll make sure to clarify that with my husband. Are you sure this will be a good thing for our marriage?” Jane asked.

“Oh yes, my dear, “Farnsworth responded, “it will give things a nice boost. With the right partner, this will satisfy the wanderlust you husband is experiencing without having to go behind your back. This really perked up my fourth marriage. It’s like he can have his cake and eat it to.”

At that point, Conrad managed to reach far enough from his prone position to unplug the cord to his radio and spare himself from further horror, not to mention mental images he would spend the rest of the night getting out of his mind. Still lying on the floor with his legs now draped over the seat of his chair, he heard a knock at his door.

“Hey Connie, you here?” bellowed Four F, making one of his infrequent visits to the office.

“Yeah, I’m down here Fred,” Conrad morbidly replied. “What do you want?”

“I just wanted to make sure you were listening to Grandpa on the radio?” Four F asked. “Something else wasn’t it?”

“It sure was something else,” Conrad replied, seizing the rare opportunity to agree with the nitwit.

“Yeah, Grandpa was freakin’ awesome!” Four F gushed. “Pretty cool, wasn’t it. There used to be a therapist on during this time slot, and I guess the callers didn’t pick up on the new format.”

At least that explained the questions they were asking. “Maybe the Old Man forgot he was supposed to be on a sports show,“ Conrad thought.

“He was so cool! Grandpa rocks!” Four F announced with obvious pride. “Well, gotta go, just wanted to make sure you heard it.”

“I heard it alright. Thanks for dropping by.” Conrad sarcastically replied.

“No prob Connie. Later!” Conrad could hear Four F saying “Grandpa ROCKS!” as he headed toward the exit or wherever he was wandering off to.

Gretchen, who had been down at the copier for the past hour, returned and glanced into her boss’ office. She thought it was odd that his desk chair was missing and, when she stepped through the doorway, noticed Conrad still on the floor in his tipped-over chair. Startled, Gretchen said “Oh my God! Woof! Woof! Conrad, are you all right? Woof! Do you need some help? Woof!”

“No,” he responded, “I’m just fine down here for a while.”

“What Woof! Happened?”

“I was listening to Old Man Farnsworth talking on the radio about his favorite way to set up a threesome.”

“A threesome?”

“Yeah, you know, a guy and two girls having sex.”

“He was on the radio?”

“Yeah, on his new station.”

“Talking about having sex with two girls?”

“Yep.”

Gretchen was frozen, stunned into complete silence. Even the animal menagerie in her head could not muster a sound. Finally, she said, “I should just go home now, shouldn’t I.”

“Yeah,” Conrad replied, “that’s probably a good idea.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

“I have no idea. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Conrad laid their for a while, pondering what damage control he would need to do and desperately trying to erase the image of Old Man Farnsworth getting his freak on with two babes.

Shortly after Gretchen left, Conrad heard another knock at the door. “Is Mr. Kon-rad-o-vich here?” the visitor asked.

“Close enough,” Conrad replied, still on the floor. “I’m down here.”

The visitor peered around the desk, saw Conrad, and handed him an envelope. “Mr. Konradovich, you’ve been served.”

The server left and Conrad opened the envelope to find what he expected-a petition for divorce drafted by his wife’s attorney. Just like her to go the dramatic route and have a process server deliver it. She’ll probably be disappointed when she finds out no one was here to witness it. “Yep,” Conrad thought, “the perfect end to a perfect day.”

Finally, Conrad awkwardly pulled himself up and righted the chair behind the desk. After stopping at Galaxy Burger, he would head home and hang out with his new buddy in the ferret suit and watch him work out on his giant wheel.

“Welcome to the new normal,” Conrad ruefully thought.

Coming next week, "Media Daze"