Howie Noodnick #2

The Ripping of Howie Noodnick 

“When you’re done embarrassing this family, maybe try feeding it.”

The Noodnick mansion was quiet. The kind of thick, ancestral quiet that blanketed rooms filled with wealth, secrets, and disappointment. In the drawing room, the chandelier sparkled like a thousand judging eyes, and beneath it, in an overstuffed wing-back d der ders3 chair made from the hide of a Scottish cow personally selected by Margaret Thatcher, sat Mrs. Hillary Noodnick.

She was waiting.

Outside, the soft crunch of Mercedes tires on crushed marble sounded across the drive.

Inside the S-580, Howard “Howie” Noodnick, Secretary of Commerce and current embarrassment to the Noodnick legacy, sat frozen, gripping the wheel like a condemned man at the gallows. His nostrils still carried a phantom whiff of Pisla-issued pepper spray from last week’s HyperJunk malfunction.

He had no diaper. No armor. Only fear.

Two assistants stepped out of the mansion as if summoned by psychic waves of shame. One opened the car door. The other silently took Howie’s briefcase and iPad, tucking them under one arm like evidence.

Howie stepped out of the car.

He didn’t say a word.

The walk to the drawing room felt longer than his confirmation hearing. The doors opened.

There she was.

Hillary Noodnick, ninety-four years of age, seventy years of dominance, and wearing a burgundy shawl like a retired empress deciding whether the court jester deserved beheading.

She didn’t look up as he entered. She was watching Faux Newz on mute.

The screen showed a still image of Howie on Jesse Isa Toddler’s show “Toddler Time”, mouth open, arms flailing, a chyron that read:

“COMMERCE SECRETARY: COMPLAINING ABOUT MISSING SSI CHECKS IS CORRUPT.”

Hillary tapped the remote. The screen went black.

She turned.

“Howie.”

He flinched. “Yes, Grandma?”

“Sit.”

He sat.

She looked at him like one might observe a stubborn stain on heirloom silk.

“You said—on national television—that only corrupt people complain about missing their Social Security checks.”

“I—uh—I meant—”

She held up a hand.

“Don’t insult us both.”

He sighed. “It was… a talking point. Egon’s comms team said—”

“I don’t care if Jesus Christ himself told you to say it while riding a unicorn down Pennsylvania Avenue. You said it.”

“But Grandma, you wouldn’t even notice if your check didn’t show up. You donate yours.”

“Exactly,” she said, voice sharp as glass. “I wouldn’t notice. But Texas Veterans Meal Program director Sarah Johnson’s Food Kitchen would. They rely on it. I set it up years ago. And yesterday, Sarah called me. Confused. Panicked. She wanted to ask if everything was OK. She wanted to make sure she could support

“I didn’t mean—”

“You meant exactly what you said. And you said it to curry favor with a man whose idea of economic theory is yelling at clouds for being blue.”

“But there’s fraud in the system!” he protested, finally finding a ledge to cling to. “Over ninety thousand people in the SSI system are listed as over one hundred years old!”

She raised an eyebrow. “And how much money did they receive last year?”

He blinked. “Well—it’s, uh—it could be over half a billion dollars!”

“It COULD be?” she asked, folding her hands. “Is that real fraud, or real payments made to living seniors in a system that tracks over 70 million Americans?”

“I don’t know.”

Her tone didn’t change. “You don’t know.”

“No.”

She stood slowly.

“You went on television and called millions of struggling seniors corrupt. People who rely on their own money, money they earned, who worked jobs you wouldn’t last ten minutes in. And your defense is: some centenarians might be ghosts?”

“Grandma, that’s not fair—”

“Fair?” she snapped. “You think it’s fair that someone’s grandmother in Kentucky can’t buy medication this month because her SSI was ‘paused for review’ after your administration gutted oversight and replaced the fraud detection system with a Keno machine?”

Howie shrank into the chair.

“Seniors in red states are being hit the hardest,” she continued. “Their representatives cut housing aid, food assistance, and now their president—the one you keep groveling to—wants to turn Social Security into a private investment account like it’s MemeCoin Futures Week.”

“I was just trying to defend the administration.”

“You’re not here to defend Grump,” she hissed. “You’re a Noodnick. And a Noodnick gives a damn.”

She walked to her desk and opened a leather-bound folder. Inside were legal documents already notarized and filed.

Howie shrank two inches in the chair. “So… what happens now?”

“You are hereby relieved of your position as president of Noodnick Holdings. Effective immediately.”

“I was trying to show confidence—”

“No. You were trying to grovel your way back into MAGA favor because Egon Tusk has you on a leash. And now the whole country thinks we’re just another family of grifting billionaires selling pepper-spray convertibles. You’re fired.”

He gasped.

“I just like saying that. "Your fired!' Well, technically you're being reassigned,” she continued. “You’re now the director of DEI.”

“…What?”

“The Division for Equitable Intake. You’ll be overseeing a new initiative—$5 million a week to food banks across the country.”

“Five—five million? A week? That’s—Grandma, that’s over a quarter billion dollars a year!”

“Our family’s net worth is over ten billion,” she snapped. “And we earned most of it by convincing people to buy products they didn’t need with money they didn’t have. We’re going to give some of that back.”

“But—I—I don’t know how to do that. I’m not a social worker.”

“You don’t need to be. You just need to show up. Talk less. Smile more. Use that empty grin for something that actually feeds people instead of feeding your ego.”

“Please,” he whispered, defeated. “Please don’t do this. I’ll lose everything.”

“You already did, Howie.”

She handed him a press release. His first interview was scheduled for tomorrow. The camera crew would meet him at a food pantry in Tulsa.

He stared at the paper like it was a prison sentence.

Hillary leaned close, her voice cold and calm.

“Smile for the cameras, Howie. The people you ignored deserve to see what humility looks like.”

She tapped the desk.

The assistants reappeared.

“Take him to wardrobe,” she said.

As he was led away, dazed and silent, Hillary Noodnick returned to her chair and reopened her laptop. She made another donation to the Texas Veterans Meal Program—in the amount of $4,983.17.

It's just money.

She muttered without looking up:

“Maybe next time, he’ll remember whose money it really is.”