Flavortown: Orrijjins

Originally written to announce the beginning of Flavortown, our fourth “Universal You-Ship-We-Ship” program which began in the winter of 2025/2026.

Flavortown: Orrijjins

Orpheus watched with idle fascination as her second-favorite butterfly alighted upon the edge of the backyard birdbath, removed its wings, and squeegeed them off with a gentle, practiced motion. It had been about seven full moons since she and Heidi first arrived upon Dummp—a name they had chosen to honor their beached vessel, Le Dumpstairè II—and the swashbuckling tomb-raiding ghost-tickling excitement of the first few months had since given way to a slower, more intentional phase of life. Sure, they still milked the occasional ghost when certain critical supplies ran low, but once Heidi realized that you can grow garbage straight from the ground if you have the right seeds… well, let’s just say that’s a pretty compelling argument for a raccoon to shift her focus to gardening. The tricky part was figuring out which part of each of her favorite things needed to be buried for it to grow and reproduce, a problem that kept her plenty occupied most days. She hadn’t yet managed to get the walkie-talkies to sprout, but her banana peel plants were coming along marvelously!

Heidi had just about finished raking the soil back over a pile of freshly-planted trout bones when a friendly-looking wigglebutt appeared from the west with an envelope in its mouth, which it dutifully dropped outside the front gate. “Telegram!” declared the wigglebutt as it waited patiently for a pat on the head from its neighbor, turning to wiggle its butt home to the Wigglebutt Woods once received. Heidi opened the envelope and began to read, squinting and mouthing each word as she silently sounded them out. Her pointy little claws tightened around the paper. Her eyes widened, and then bulged outward slightly from her skull. Her jaw went slack, then yo-yoed up and down, producing no noise at all until three syllables managed to clamor their way up from the back of her throat, escaping as an excited—nay, ecstatic—yelp: “OOORPHEUUUS!!!!”

Broken from her butterfly trance, Orpheus sprung to her hooves and cantored around from the back of the hut to find her best friend uncontrollably prancing in place. “Orpheus!! You’ll never guess who’s coming to visit!!!”

Orpheus stared blankly at Heidi, who seemed to be expecting something of her. Enough moments passed for it to feel a bit awkward. “…you’re supposed to guess” Heidi said, still clutching the telegram with two shaking paws.

“How can I guess if I’ll never guess who it is? You just told me that I’ll never guess.” Orpheus furrowed her brow in confusion. “Well, just try” said Heidi, with a tinge of annoyance. Orpheus thought for a moment.

“Is it… Pete Buttigieg?”

Heidi shook her head. “Guess again”

“…Oprah Winfrey?”

“No, it’s not Oprah”

“Bon Jovi?”

“I think he’s dead.”

“Beethoven?”

“Definitely dead. For at least twenty years.”

“Iron Man?”

“Fictional.”

“Method Man?”

“Also fictional. I think.”

“Florida Man?”

Heidi rolled her eyes, her exasperation starting to show. “That’s not even a specific individual, fictional or otherwise!!”

“Piano—” Heidi cut Orpheus off: “Piano Man is a song. We are not being visited by a Billy Joel song, exciting as that would be.” Orpheus began to open her mouth once more, only for it to be plugged back up by a dirty raccoon paw. “I’ll give you a hint: ‘Man’ is not the second half of this person’s name.”

Orpheus thought for a long time. She had already said almost all of the names, at least all the ones that she knew of. She screwed her face up in concentration, awakened her auxiliary brain cell, trained it on the riddle at hand, and gave it one final shot.

“…Boxxy?”

The moment hung between them like wet clothes on a line. Heidi was speechless. Orpheus shifted uncomfortably, as she began to suspect that Boxxy was not the correct answer.

“It’s Alec Watson!” Heidi finally blurted out, the excitement now returning to her voice.

“Oh, cool! Who’s that?” Orpheus chirped, relieved that the guessing game was over. Heidi, however, was not similarly relieved by this response. “…how do you know who Boxxy is but not Alec Watson?” she asked incredulously. Orpheus got halfway through a shrug before being interrupted. “Nevermind. Don’t answer that. It’s the guy from Technology Connections! You know, the youtube channel?”

Orpheus thought for a moment, then brightened as an LED Christmas bulb flickered on in her head: “Oh, you mean Dishwasher Man?”

Tears welled up in Heidi’s eyes. “Yes, Orpheus. Thank goodness you have at least this much culture. Dishwasher Man is coming to visit our land… but before he arrives, you must understand that there is so much more to Dishwasher Man than just the dishwashers.” By this point Heidi’s eyes had acquired a far-away look, twinkling and glistening as she spoke from her outstretched gesticulating paws as much as her mouth.

“He’s got other appliances too, you know. Fridges. And air conditioners. And… and heat pumps!!” expounded the raccoon, chuckling as the imaginary Alec Watson that lived in her head insisted that these three objects were really the same, since each one is just a slightly different expression of the refrigeration cycle. “Stoves, electric kettles, freeze-driers, every conceivable variety of light fixture, even a whole collection of pinball machines that he keeps in his house!”

Orpheus had sat down and tuned out by this point. She watched as a gracefully-gliding sparrow swooped down, flipped on its left blinker, and banked toward the forest. Heidi continued her yap: “Legends say he has a whole warehouse near Chicago where he keeps all these wonderful things, and… and yet… and yet he has chosen to honor us with his presence! Here, on the Isles of Dummp, the sands that rose from ‘neath the waves of the mighty Sea of Glub, our home and non-native land!! We must ensure that he enjoys his visit!!!”

Heidi was picking up steam, which condensed behind her eyeballs and streaked down her soakified facefur as her eyes darted back and forth like a miniature poodle that’s eaten half a blister-pack of Sudafed: “Where will he sleep? What will he eat?! Oh my goodness, he’ll need to eat. He. Will need. To eat. But what will he eat? What do humans eat, Orpheus?! Food, I believe, but what kind?!? And how much?!?!? We’ll… we’ll have to make all kinds, just to be safe. And lots of it! A feast is what we need. A FEAST. ORPHEUS, DO YOU HEAR ME ON THE FEAST THING—”

Heidi was yelling by now. She dropped the telegram and grabbed her dinofriend’s cheeks, squoogling them together to make a ploomped-out dinolip soufflé. Her face was now uncomfortably close to Orpheus’s as tears and sweat dripped steadily from her whiskers onto the groundfallen paper that had triggered all this excitement. Orpheus, now very much tuned in to the manic raccoon before her, nodded to affirm her understanding of their impending Need 2 Feed. “Mwyis hecurmin?” she asked.

“…what?” replied Heidi, releasing her grip on the dinosaur’s cheeks.

“Why is he coming?”

“Who?” The disheveled raccoon looked as if she had just come out of a trance.

“Dishwasher Man. Alec. Why is he coming to Dummp?”

Heidi took a moment to process the question. She hadn’t actually finished reading the telegram, leaving her unsure of the answer. She looked down at the soggy, torn paper below her, only to realize that the letters were now all smeared and mostly illegible. She corrected her posture, looked back up to meet her friend’s gaze, and spoke with the kind of resolve that ye shall seldom hear but from a fangirl’t raccoon:

“Truth be told, I’m not sure. There are… so many things in this world I don’t know. So many things. But right now, in this very moment—the moment that we occupy currently—some may call it the present moment—there is one thing I know, something I know with unshakable, infallible certainty…”

Heidi drew in her breath and steadied her paws.

“Orpheus, we need to cook.”