18. Plantar's Last Stand

Chapter 18: Plantar's Last Stand

It's market week again, as it usually is this time of the month. At least I'm not driving potential customers away anymore. The townsfolk have pretty much gotten used to my presence; some of them even talk to me. I've arrived!

There was an unpleasant surprise this market day, though. Mayor Toadstool quadrupled the rent on everyone's stand. Now, pretty much everyone in town buys their veggies from HP, and consistently. He's renowned for his honesty in business (which sadly does not extend to his credit rating) and that's the sort of thing that keeps customers coming. True whether you own a farmstand, a restaurant, or whatever. But that means nothing when you can't cover your business expenses.

There were three options: one, drastically increase production (impossible because we've pretty much used up all our land already), two, drastically increase our prices (something that HP would never agree to; gougng is just not in him), or three, find something new to sell.

That's when I invented Plantar's Potions. Amphibia's first life-extending health tonic!

Now, it wasn't so much potions as it was bottles of juice from the uglier vegetables no one wanted to buy, but hey, vegetables are healthy, right? So vegetable juice is healthy. Maybe it wouldn't do everything it claimed it would but it had to have some kind of health benefit.

Hop Pop was pretty reluctant to sell them at first, but a little persuading got him to agree to it. After all, honesty may be the best policy, but it doesn't pay the rent. Which, by the way was due in three days. If we wanted to make it, the truth would have to do with a bit of stretching.

Plantar's Potions are a hit!

Sure, it was a bit rough at the start, but Hop Pop's really taken to this old-timey carnival snake-oil man racket (that reminds me, I'm gonna need to pick up more snake oil). He can really command an audience when he needs to. Almost like he's got a background in theater or something.

And man is it paying off. We're getting ten coppers a bottle for the stuff! That's way more than we would've gotten for the vegetables. The profit margin on the stuff is through the roof. Who knows… if this takes off, maybe we can go on the road. Sell it in some of the ritzier towns. Make us some real mazuma.

Of course, we've had to ramp up production a lot. We're not just using the irregular vegetables anymore. Pretty much all the produce we've got is going into Plantar's Potions. But hey, you can't argue with success! Just a bit more, and we'll be able to make rent for the month.

You gotta wonder though… where's this money going? It's not like the mayor's made any improvements lately. The streets are full of potholes… deep potholes… and the town facilities are a wreck. The schoolhouse has been a pile of rubble since I got here (which I guess explains why Sprig never goes to school). It's not like our tax money's been used either (and I know taxes are a thing here; I had to sit there and watch while HP filled out the forms last week. Talk about torture. I am dreading the day I'll have to deal with this stuff). In fact, the only "improvement" I've seen is a big ugly statue of Mayor Toadstool that went up a few days ago. Good to see his priorities are in order, she wrote extremely sarcastically.

I think I've created a monster.

Tomorrow is the deadline for the rent increase. We're so close, but we're just fresh out of produce to juice.

But HP is fully on the snake oil train now (which reminds me, we were also fresh out of snake oil too), and made us start juicing old, rotten vegetables, mold, and literal garbage. The stuff we got out of it was pitch-black, smelled like death, and would probably kill any frog who was stupid enough to drink it (it probably would have darn near killed us making it if we hadn't scrounged up some Bog War gasmasks from Pollyanna Plantar's room). And HP wants to sell it as a "special limited edition" for 20 coppers a pop. The old Hop Pop would never have stooped so low.

I miss the old Hop Pop.

You would think people wouldn't be lining up to buy toxic mystery sludge at 20 coppers a bottle.

You would be tragically wrong. Frogs were crawling over each other to shove their coppers at us. It looked like the stand was going to be saved. But at what cost?

We only needed one more sale to make rent, but the last one was a doozy: Mrs. Croaker, the stand's oldest and most loyal customer. She'd been coming there since Hop Pop's own Pop had been running it And when she handed over her prized gold farthing for a bottle of death goo, it finally broke HP's resolve. He confessed, right then and there, that he was selling literal garbage juice.

Now you would think the story would end there, but it just wouldn't be a story without something horrible showing up to kill us. In this case, the big barrel of toxic swill attracted a swarm of gimungous flies, which would've carried off the whole family had HP not heaved the barrel off the same convenient cliff where I chased off Domino II.

I'm getting way too casual about giant monster attacks. That's very concerning.

Well, right about here, I'd say "the good news is" but I'm not really seeing any. HP's pretty much lost the town's trust and will have to work pretty hard to earn it back… which will be hard to do now that the mayor's banned us from the market. I still think there's something fishy bout this sudden rent hike, but what can you do?

Maybe we should've taken Polly up on her offer to murder Toadie…

A.N.: Short chapter, but there's really not much to the episode, just a standard honesty Aesop and some foreshadowing of Mayor Toadstool's corruption next chapter.

MarMarFaAnne: Emma is something of an Annealogue, isn't she. As for the Bob's Burgers ref, Nameless Jersey Shore town could exist in the Owlphibifalls universe, but I mostly just wanted to reference another food-critic-themed episode I liked.

Snake screamer: Already have plans for Chapter 20, which is just around the corner, so hopefully you'll like 'em. I also already have something very cool for the chapter that corresponds to "Toadcatcher" planned, but that's not coming for thirty chapters, so be patient.

Jose: Sourcing is a lot more difficult in Amphibia.

Schweenieboy: I think it's kinda weird how Sasha was somehow instantly accepted. Was Grime's harp solo just that good?

Gregorian: Please, no fighting in the comments. Unless it involves and actual troll. Then fight away. Otherwise, respect each other please.

TG: Definitely get an ex-navy vibe from Stumpy. He's like a less greedy Mr. Krabs.

Next (in like a week or so): Toad Tax