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It all starts with a simple wisdom tooth removal.
As most things do.
Tom had been nervous about it for weeks. He wasn’t scared of the dentist, he was scared of what he might say under anesthesia. His friends, Sam, Luke, and AJ, had hyped this up like it was the Super Bowl of dumb content for Shoot From The Hip. The group chat had been renamed "Operation Tom Bomb," and everyone knew the moment he woke up, it was game on.
What no one predicted was how off the rails Tom would actually be.
12:03 pm, Patient Zooted
Tom’s eyes blink open as if someone had just rebooted him. He looks around the post op room like he had no idea where he was, what year it was, or what species he belonged to.
Sam is the first to speak: "Yo, Tom. You good?"
Tom’s eyes lock on Sam like a confused meerkat who’d just seen a ghost.
"Luke?" he whispers, suspicious.
"No, Sam."
Tom tilts his head. "Why are you wearing your skin inside out?"
Sam starts laughing. Hard.
AJ leans in: "Tom, do you know where you are?"
Tom squints. "The cheese museum?"
Luke, already filming, whispers, "This is better than I ever dreamed."
Tom tries to sit up, then flops back onto the recliner, staring at the ceiling tiles like they're trying to tell him secrets.
"Guys," he whispers. "Where’s the baby?"
Sam pauses. "What baby?"
Tom’s voice drops low and serious: "The baby… in the microwave."
Instant chaos.
Luke gasps. AJ almost fell out of his chair wheezing. Sam is already crying.
Tom continues like he's narrating a documentary: "His name… is Gorgonzola. We adopted him last Tuesday. He lives in the microwave because… the warmth makes him humble."
Luke nearly drops his phone from laughing.
Tom turns to him with big, glazed over eyes. "You were there. You wrestled the adoption dolphin. In the pool. With the goggles."
"I… I what?" Luke manages between gasps.
"You bit him, Sam," Tom insists, with the sternness of a history professor. "You bit the dolphin and screamed, 'not my son!’"
"I'm Luke," Luke says, between trying to breathe from laughing so hard.
---
12:11 pm, The Memory Vortex
Tom stares at AJ.
"You’re the pastor, right?"
"No, I’m AJ."
Tom squints. "That’s what you want me to believe."
He looks over at a coat rack in the corner of the room.
"And you… you betrayed me."
Sam follows his gaze.
"That’s a coat rack."
Tom sat up, locked eyes with the coat rack, and whispers, "Don’t talk to me about the noodle heist. You’re dead to me."
AJ has tears running down his face. Luke has to sit on the floor to stabilize his filming. Sam is doubled over, slapping the chair arm like a malfunctioning seal.
Tom leans back, sighs dramatically, and says, “I gotta nurse the baby."
"What baby?!"
"Gorgonzola," he says with deep emotion. "We put him in the microwave with a spaghetti helmet."
Sam wipes his eyes. "What… what even is a spaghetti helmet?"
Tom frowns, like Sam has just insulted the concept of gravity.
"You don’t know?" he says, heartbroken. "It’s how our baby receives truth. He puts it on and understands languages… and bread. He speaks fluent gluten."
Luke lost it. He starts hiccuping from laughing too hard.
---
12:18 pm, The Crisis
"Sam," Tom says suddenly. "You’re my wife now."
Sam blinks. "Come again?"
Tom nods solemnly. "We got married during the cheese parade. There was confetti made of ravioli. I wore a veil made of salami. You said ‘I do’ with a kazoo."
AJ: "Love, are you okay?"
Tom smiles faintly. "I’m more than okay. I’m enlightened. We adopted a frog too. She was our lawyer."
"Wait, what?!"
"Catherine," Tom whispers. "She wore little glasses. Had a suitcase. Fought for Gorgonzola’s rights in court. She won, AJ. She won!"
Sam is facepalming so hard his forehead is red.
AJ asks, "Tom, what year is it?"
Tom stares off into space. "Seventeen."
"Seventeen what?"
"Just seventeen," Tom says softly, like it's obvious. "Yogurt doesn’t exist yet. We use haunted soup instead."
---
12:22 pm, Identity Crisis Incoming
Tom turns slowly and locks eyes with AJ.
"You…" he says, pointing an unsteady finger. "You’re not real."
AJ raises an eyebrow. "I’m literally right here."
Tom narrows his eyes. "What’s your name again?"
"AJ."
Tom leans in, intensely suspicious. "What does it stand for?"
AJ sighs. "Alexander Jeremy."
Tom gasps. "Alexa Jellybeans?!"
"No. Alexander Jeremy."
"Accordion Jungle?"
"No, darling. Alexander. Jeremy."
Tom blinks. "Albatross Jalapeño?"
"Still no. Alexander. Jeremy."
Tom snaps his fingers in triumph. "Aardvark Jumanji!"
Sam nearly drops his water bottle laughing. Luke, still filming, is wheezing behind the lens.
AJ looks at the camera deadpan. "Alexander. Jeremy."
Tom leans back, satisfied. "Got it. Alligator Jacuzzi."
"No!"
Tom waves him off. "Relax, Arugula Jamison, I know who you are."
AJ stares at him, both amused and defeated. "I just said it’s Alexander..."
Tom interrupts, turning to Sam. "Why does Alex Jackhammer always look like he knows something?"
AJ stands up dramatically. "You're doing this on purpose."
Tom, completely sincere: "Am I, though?"
Luke wheezes, "I think he just gave you a new superhero name."
"Don’t encourage him!"
Tom smiles peacefully. "AJ… my sweet Armadillo Jigsaw. You’ve always been my rock."
AJ facepalms so hard it echoes.
Tom then turns to Sam, totally serious. "Is AJ the baby?"
Sam: "No."
Tom: "Are you the baby?"
Sam: "Still no."
Tom: "Is the chair the baby?"
AJ shouts, "Bro!"
Tom turns back to AJ, eyes filled with wonder. "Thank you for your service, Apple Jamboree."
---
12:24 pm, Who Even Is Tom?
Tom suddenly freezes.
Like statue level stillness. His face went blank. His gaze went distant, locked onto the far wall like he’d just seen a ghost commit tax fraud.
"Guys…" he whispers. "I think I’m Luke."
Sam tilts his head. "What?"
Tom looks at him, wide eyed. "You're Sam, right?"
Sam nods. "Yeah."
Tom nods back slowly. "Then you must be Luke."
"No," Sam says, pointing across the room. "He’s Luke."
Tom stared at Luke like it physically hurt his brain. "But you’re holding the camera…"
"Exactly," Luke says.
“That’s what Accordion Jamboree would do," Tom mutters.
"But I am Luke," Luke confirms.
Tom turns back to Sam. "Then who’s this?!"
"Still Sam," Sam says, tears rolling down his face.
Tom blinks. "But I called you Luke earlier."
Sam nods, laughing harder. "I know. You’ve called me Luke four times now."
Tom looks at AJ. "Then are you me?"
AJ, deadpan: "I’m Alexander Jeremy."
Tom gasps. "Them I'm Tom. I'm from Shoot From The Hip, I'm posh and hot, and freakishly tall. I'm the Mayo that holds the sandwich together."
"Yes," Sam says, absolutely losing it. "Yes, you are."
Tom touches his face like he’d just discovered skin. "Am I always Tom?"
Luke, trying to steady his camera, says, "Since birth, hun."
Tom looks down at his hands in horror. "I don’t feel like a Tom… I feel like a Steve."
"Don’t do this," AJ groans.
"Who named me?" Tom asks, staring at Sam again. "Was it you? Dad?"
"I’m not your dad!" Sam cries.
"You adopted me when the cheese parade ended," Tom whispers.
Sam collapses onto the couch, red in the face, laughing so hard he's silent.
Tom points at Luke again. "Okay. If he’s Luke, and you’re Sam, and I’m Tom, and AJ is… I forget what AJ is..."
"Alexander Jeremy," AJ growls.
"...then who’s the real microwave baby?"
AJ screams into a pillow.
Tom gasps again, louder this time. "Guys. What if I'm Gorgonzola?!"
Sam fell onto the floor, clutching his stomach.
Luke has to sit down, shaking from laughter.
"I’ve been the baby this whole time!" Tom says, gripping his chest.
Sam, choking on air, wheezes, "Plot twist of the century!"
Tom stares at the ceiling. "The spaghetti helmet… it was a metaphor."
---
12:26 pm, Reality Bends
Then came the climax.
Tom sat bolt upright and declares: "I need to warn the president of the UK."
Everyone freezes.
Sam: "About what?"
Tom’s pupils widens. "The spaghetti helmet. If it explodes, it’ll release all the jazz. The music will be too smooth. No one will survive."
AJ is on the floor, hugging a pillow and wheezing. Luke is leaning against the wall, crying from laughter while the video timer climbed past ten minutes.
Then Tom looks directly at the nurse who walks in to check his vitals.
He whispers: "Did we save the baby?"
The nurse, without missing a beat, says, "He’s fine. He’s still in the microwave where he belongs."
Tom exhales like he’s just been told the war is over.
---
12:35 pm, The Departure
They wheel Tom out to the car. He looks up at the sky and says, "The clouds are watching me. Tell them I said hi."
AJ loads him into the backseat like a very stoned IKEA shelf. Luke is still filming.
Tom looks at the camera one last time.
"If this footage is ever found," he slurrs, "bury me with the frog… and the spaghetti helmet. They’ll know what it means."
Sam whispers, "I am never letting him live this down."
Tom smiles peacefully.
"I love you, Chairtholomew," he says, stroking the seatbelt.
---
Later That Night
They watch the footage on Sam’s TV, passing around popcorn and occasionally rewinding to re-watch certain moments. Tom, now fully sober, sat in horror.
"What the hell is a spaghetti helmet?" he mutters, shaking his head.
"You said it gave babies the power of truth."
Tom looks at them slowly. "...I stand by that."
The video hit 1.2 million views in three days.
Comments flooded in:
Hero
• "Someone fund this man’s brain, I want the extended universe."
Esse_writes
• "Justice for Gorgonzola 🐸🍼🍝"
Flamingbluepanda
• "I’m crying laughing. The frog lawyer has me deceased."
---
Epilogue
Tom still doesn’t remember a thing. Not Catherine the Frog, not the dolphin custody battle, not the baby in the microwave.
But every now and then, when he’s alone in his apartment, he’ll catch a faint scent of spaghetti… and he swears he hears a distant kazoo.
And somewhere out there, in the mythical dimension where cheese parades are real and chairs hold grudges…
Gorgonzola is waiting.
Warm. Humble.
Ready.