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L. Burke



The Suggestion Box

*Note* This story is dedicated to all the people who ever had the thankless
job of cleaning out a suggestion box and my mom with out her horror stories
this story never would have come about.

DISCLAIMER: The characters belong to Marvel, and are
used without permission for entertainment purposes only.


"Every suggestion worthy of note should be, looked in to and taken care of.  If you have any problems the remainder should be on my desk in the morning and since Storm has not returned yet, apparently the job falls to you."  Charles Xavier stated looking in to Scott Summers eyes, "Are there any questions?" "Even Logan's Sir?" Scott asked looking at the conference room doors hoping at any moment Storm was going to walk through the door and claim her turn at emptying the suggestion box.  Apparently there had been a reason for the three cups of tea that Storm had guzzled before the meeting.  As soon as Charles had announced that it was time to empty the suggestion box again, she had excused her to the restroom and not come back.  Scott was counting thirty minutes now.

He had a horrible feeling he had been suckered.

(Storm one, Cyclops nothing), he thought bitterly.  Since Storm had made herself scarce, it of course fell to him as "head of operations" to tackle the job.  He hated the job with a passion.  It always added at least two pages to his 'to do' list and they were the jobs that everyone else hated and ignored.  That’s why they ended up in the suggestion box, everyone else 'suggested' that someone else should to do the job.  Both Scott and Storm hated the job, and so it always was left until the box was bulging, where you could not fit another piece of paper in it, or every eight months what ever came first.  Scott wondered for a moment what Charles would do if Scott left a suggestion on his desk on where he could stuff his damned suggestion box.

"Even Logan's."  Charles stated giving Scott that 'you know better look' that Scott always hated.  Scott just nodded at him unhappily as Charles floated out of the room.  Leaving Scott and the hated suggestion box in the room alone. Scott considered for just a moment if Charles would notice if he just set the damned thing on fire, and just told everyone he had gone through the box. "Okay, the sooner I start this the sooner I get this done."  Scott said to no one particular, his voice echoing off of the empty conference room walls. "Let's just do it."

He hit the bubble gum lair first.  It was the lair where people were too lazy to spit their gum in to the garbage can, so they either wrapped it up in a suggestion form or just spit it in to the box.  "Yuck," Scott muttered as he tried to not only pull the gum off his hand but unglue two forms that had been glued together.  He vowed Jubes was going to get a piece of his mind after he was done here.  He managed pull out a huge amount of bubble gum, a half-eaten lollipop, and what looked it had been a half-eaten hoagie with the lettuce melting off it.  Scott vowed what ever it took he was not going to do this job EVER again.

The first actual suggestion he hit was of course from Logan addressed to him personally.  After reading it, Scott decided that Logan was going to scrub down the Danger Room with a toothbrush.   The next one was from Bobby and Scott just blinked it read, "I think we should do something nice for Rogue because she does most of the cooking around here.  Bobby."  Now that Scott thought about it Rogue did do most of the cooking, she claimed that she did it because she enjoyed, but still Scott thought it must get trying to cook for an army all the time.  He thought of all the times he came up and mooched when Jean wasn't home and felt a little guilty.  He added "Treat Rogue to a night out" to his to do list also adding "Thank Bobby for Suggestion" to his list.

The next suggestion was of course for someone to paint the spot on the Rec. Room wall.  Hank had spilt one of his experiments on the wall years ago.  No matter how much paint you slapped on it, the spot just kept coming through.  (The poster must have come down again,)  Scott grumbled.  He had tried to paint over that spot five times, and five times the spot had come through, after that he had just given up a bought a poster to cover the spot.  He added "Buy large framed picture for Rec. Room." to his list.

The next three were once again from Logan, and Scott wondered for a moment how much would it take to maim him in the danger room and make it look like a horrible accident.  He weighed the pleasure he would get from watching Logan suffer against what Jean would do to him if she found out.  Deciding that his very hot-tempered wife was definitely more bloodthirsty than he was and she had a soft spot for the horrible, hairy, obnoxious runt he decided against the danger room idea.

The next suggestion was stating the washtub in the laundry room was clogged again.  Last time he had told Jubes to unclogg it.  She had come up with the brilliant idea, to "blast the clog outta there" and had gone to Hank for a small amount of explosives.  What had possessed Hank to give her the small amount of liquid explosives, he would never know.  Maybe Hank wanted to see what would happen when she dropped it down the drain.  With Hank and Logan, neither tried to stop her, looking on she managed to blow up a rather large sewer pipe.  It had taken Scott TWO days to fix the damage.  He decided fix to the clog by himself, and added 'fix clog' to his to do list.

Another suggestion of Logan's was the next out of the box.  "I think we should have a Porn movie night."  Scott just stuffed that one in an envelope and wrote on the front "I am not EVEN touching this one." and put it on a pile for Charles to look at.  He was not going to get in the middle of that one when some of the X-women found out about that suggestion.  Let Charles deal with the Runt.  Logan always managed to irritate him.  Then Logan seemed to have a secondary mutant ability to piss everyone off at one time or another.  He really shouldn't feel singled out.  After reading three more suggestions from Logan, Scott decided that it didn't matter what Jean did to him, the runt was going to die.  Visions of two, two ton cement blocks, some super strong chain, and a man-eating snake from the savage land danced through Scott's brain. (He's just trying to irritate me, and succeeding admirably.)  Scott though to himself with considerable annoyance, (Did everyone know but me that Charles was planning on cleaning out the suggestion box?)

As Scott shifted through the box, he found the usual stuff.  A washer down in the laundry room was off balance and danced around the room every time someone did a load of laundry.  The gutters needed cleaned out.  A railing need a fresh coat of paint.  The dock needed some repairs.  Adding chores to his 'to do' list.   By the time he had managed to shift through the mess, the day was pretty much over and his 'to do' list was huge.  He had just one more piece of paper to read at the bottom of the box.  He was tempted  for a moment to just leave it for Storm to do next time but something in him decided to pick it up and read it.  Scott could just laugh it read:

I think Cyclops does not get a chance to spend enough time with his beautiful, gorgeous, intelligent, witty, and VERY understanding wife.  I believe this situation should be fix immediately!  Included on the back are some suggestions to remedy this situation. They should be taken underway tonight if possible.
Jean Grey Summers

When Scott flipped it over there was a long list.  Some of them were cute, some of them were sweet and romantic, and some of them were intriguing.   Some of the suggestions made Scott down right blush.  Scott just blinked and then grinned, (Charles did say that EVERY suggestion should be considered and attended too.) Deciding that the rest of  'to do' list could wait until the morning, Scott made reservation at Jean's favorite restaurant, ordered a dozen roses to be waiting at their table for them.  Stuffing the list in to his pocket, Scott went to go find his wife and tackle his new 'to do' list for this evening.  Cleaning out the suggestion box could very well become his favorite job, maybe he would even volunteer to do it next time.   The empty suggestion box was left sitting on the table as he went off to find his "gorgeous, intelligent, witty, and very understanding wife".


 

Other Stories By L. Burke

 


Please Get Well For Christmas

There's No Place Like Home

Beneath the Floor Boards

We Will Always Have the Stars

Elves, Weirdoes and Ten More Degrees

What Could Have Been

The Suggestion Box

Friday Nights, Guy Talk, Stalkers and Other Strange Things

New Begginings and Second Chances

A Very Bad Day


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