The Flossfather of Montana
A short story inspired by Frank Zappa's Montana.
Title: "The Flossfather of Montana"
They said he was crazy. They weren’t wrong.
It all started in a burned-out apartment above a pawn shop in East Cleveland, where Marvin P. Blister lived off ramen noodles, Zappa bootlegs, and a dream that didn’t make any sense to anyone but him. He didn’t want to be rich. He didn’t want fame. Marvin wanted to be... a dental floss tycoon.
Not toothpaste. Not mouthwash. Not some hotshot orthodontist with a TikTok channel. No, Marvin had a calling. It came to him during a three-day mescaline trip while listening to Over-Nite Sensation on loop.
"I heard Zappa whisper it, man," he told his cat, Chairman Meow. "I gotta move to Montana. Gonna grow me some dental floss."
Chairman Meow didn’t argue. He rarely did.
Montana didn’t welcome Marvin so much as tolerate him. He rolled in with a rusted El Camino, $312 in cash, and a crate of experimental hemp seeds he swore could be crossbred into fibrous dental gold. The locals at the bar just watched in stunned silence as he strolled in wearing a sheepskin coat and aviators, asking if anyone had a spare yak.
"Gonna need me a ranch," he declared. "And a tiny horse. Preferably sarcastic."
He bought ten acres of worthless land out near Flathead Lake, land so rocky and dry it made Mars look fertile. And that’s where it began. He pitched a tent, painted a sign: "Blister Floss Co. - Future World Headquarters" and got to work.
People laughed. A lot. He was known as "that floss guy," usually said with a chuckle and a finger twirl near the temple. But Marvin didn’t care. He spent his days digging irrigation ditches, muttering about "fiber tensile strength" and "gum-to-grit ratios." At night, he sat by a fire reading dental journals and writing letters to Tom Waits.
Then something weird happened.
The floss grew.
Technically, it wasn’t floss yet. More like long, stringy reeds with a faint peppermint smell. But it was something. Marvin braided it by hand, dipped it in beeswax, and handed it out at the county fair next to a sign that read:
"Floss Like a Boss. Say Goodbye to Mediocre Gums."
By the third year, the Flossfather (as he now called himself) had a small cult following. Yoga moms, conspiracy theorists, and one rogue dentist from Billings swore by his stuff. Marvin built a barn from recycled toothbrushes, started bottling a mint extract moonshine on the side, and was even featured in a Vice article titled "This Man Quit Everything to Grow Floss, and We Love Him For It."
He never did find the tiny sarcastic horse. But he did adopt a llama with resting judgmental face.
And when the FDA sent a cease-and-desist, Marvin simply mailed back a single note:
"I floss with destiny. You bureaucrats can floss yourselves."
The last anyone saw of Marvin P. Blister, he was riding that llama into the sunset, a homemade crown of bristles on his head, yelling about a new prototype: bacon-flavored floss.
Was he mad?
Absolutely.
But he died as he lived—minty fresh and wildly unhinged.
End.
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