Several months after we interviewed cult icon Ivan Glanderson, opportunity knocked once again with the arrival of a mysterious, but rather bovine letter. After verifying that the envelope was indeed kosher, we opened the letter to discover that we had been sent a ransom note in blue crayon. Our old butter-bonded pal Vinny Seguilaro quickly corrected us, however, going on to explain how checks worked. We had received a check from an “anonymous” “source” attached to a letter yearning for us at Gun Gale Online to visit Jokkrydmokk, a village in South Sweden.

A shining glass diamond sparkling within the muddy, snow-loving and despicably Ikea-obsessed mass of absolute filth that was the South Swedes, the Jokkrydmokkites may play a convincing part in reoxidizing American New Victorianism from their home barilla, known in underground circles as the capital of cromnyomancy, zoomancy, stercomancy, and Celestial Buddhism. Jokkrydmokk has much to offer, housing the pastiest, tastiest pesto library in the northern hemisphere, funding the only official knockoff of Gossip Girl (now on its eighth season there), and hosting McDonald’s vs. Burger King festivals by the daily. Most importantly, in a similar fashion to the Vegetable Coathanger Society, Jokkrydmokk grows and cultivates a whopping mushroom farm, which is led by none other than Ricky D’Creem, author of Premature Emancipation: It Was Too Early For That and Beautiful Erotic Imagery Through the Years, creator of the “Creemy Mama” philosophy, and former #5 on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. Floored by D’Creem’s medically impressive catalogue, we immediately decided to set out for Jokkrydmokk for our next story.

But we ran into a problem. Kirli Ungerssort, my ghostwriter and grocery assistant, ate the check in an episode of intense hunger and questioning his cannibalistic impulses. Instead of cruising comfortably on a nonstop flight aboard Scandinavian Airlines, we took a bruising on a bootleg airline that took us to the wrong destination. Services were dreadful; the stewardess never brought me my Triple Deluxe Big Mac, my seat wasn’t heated, and the pilot refused to call me “big momma” when I “barged” into the “pilot’s cockpit” after “harassing” the “main” operator. We were dropped off in Charleston, North Carolina. Disgraceful, Johansson-Zhanglin Getaways.

We thought we would be stuck in Charleston forever, but through bribing various hospitals on Sullivan’s Island and falsely canvassing for Donald Trump as the county school board, we were finally able to obtain the help of a meaty, red-faced trucker named Clyde Murgarry who sold his rig for a tugboat to get us across the gaping Pacific (editors’ note: localites often refer to the Atlantic Ocean as the Pacific Ocean).

We understood that our crew would run into compatibility problems with Murgarry, but never did we imagine that four Gun Gale Online reporters would be explosively jettisoned off the boat within the first hour of traveling. Apparently, Murgarry was catapulted into a stagy frenzy shortly after hearing our freelance manwhore discuss his musical preferences with the rest of our crew, citing classics such as the Insane Clown Posse, the Sesame Street Backing Band, Adele, and Uptown Funk. We believed our rocky relationship would never recover, but things took a turn for the better after Ungerssort serenaded Murgarry by beating him incessantly with his four-toned rusty Nocona belt, embroidered with genuine Texan epitaphs and gang symbols.

The good news was short-lived, since briefly after Murgarry and Ungerssort made the decision to adopt a baby boy, we entered an intense drought with the malfunctioning of our Super Soakers. We paid homage to Murgarry right as he died in a calamitous incident involving extracting water from the stockpile of thermometers on board. After successfully distilling half a pint of water from the five-hundred or so temperature tellers (we had to be certain of their accuracy) Murgarry unfortunately decided to inject the excess mercury into his bloodstream, fearing that his child could potentially be harmed by the presence of mercury on the boat. We briefly called him “Mercury Man” endearingly before realizing the mortal outcome his decision would lead to.

We hit land several days later, but we did not arrive on the Swedish coast as we had expected. Our map magus had allegedly read Båstad as “Casablanca,” presumably after her ex-husband’s own surname, and we ended up docking in a country host to the world’s most legendary tannery, Morocco.

Just mere hours after tirelessly working in soup kitchens and shouting in public in order to acquire all of the hottest leather goods—jackets, shoes, car seats, book bindings, and famous actors and actresses’ children—we were placed on the national Moroccan hit list. This proved to be incredibly troublesome in asking for directions to Jokkrydmokk, as citizens often waved Nigerian ginger in our faces to fend us off. We decided to hire a bodyguard, as even my own expertise in Brazilian jiu-jitsu—I was only ever bested by 9th degree red belt Abelardo Domyouji—would not suffice against the hordes of Berbers aiming their fezes at our necks. Our first candidate was Lu Shitrit, part-time pool clerk and full-time potato sniffer; we discarded him in account of his Greek-esque political beliefs.

We must have spent six days in the wangaloo before finally finding a reliable goon in a curious dumpster, which so happened to contain an unusual surplus of grape peels and cellophane, both of which we eventually used to our advantage (twinsies!) in order to distract the local goon from his cursed amulet. With his face lit up, we stole the necklace from right under his sixteen-chinned neck; I figured that his glorious folds would come in handy for hiding vintage contraband and medieval weaponry from our pursuers, and boy did they come to fruition.

Leslie Morag, our newfound bodyguard, quickly got along with our team here at Gun Gale Online, expediently because he was, in fact, an avid reader of our world-famous paper himself. Introductions were short, chemistry was formed, and shingles were had. We updated him on our story about Jokkrydmokk, and—to our surprise—he had apparently embarked on a journey to the legendary village six years ago after being adopted by a Ukrainian guru with knowledge of both upper-class witchcraft and Incan dentistry, an unlikely combination for a Flappy Getsbo survivor like him. Morag and I briefly argued about the intricacies of owning class wizardry before he finally dropped the subject after the conversation took a heated turn to the effects of minimum wage.

Our journey out of Morocco was surprisingly uneventful. Bored out of our minds, we held two sacrifices and summoned a hairy replacement for our dandruff-covered backups, a Swedish eskimo by the name of Lund Olsen, a modest reporter who many of us on board felt romantically attracted to. After two nights of sailing, Olsen famously remarked that “a crew this tight couldn’t be brought tighter even by will of Rán’s divinity.” He lodged at undisclosed locations from that day onward.

We hit land on Sweden just about nineteen days since our departure from the American shore. Our crew had mostly rotted away during the final stretch, with just myself, Lund, and Roy Blunt having been spared by the collection of freak oil reserves that were responsible for taking the vapid lives of many on board.