A Plumbing Adventure: How it All Started
Written by Phillip Sokolay

Our story begins on a fateful day in Brooklyn, New York, in a small basement plumbing shop off a windy side street strewn with styrofoam cups, brown, crackly leaves and shredded pieces of old newspaper. The little shop, accessed by a rickety indoor spiral stairwell that shifted as you descended, was run by two middle-aged Italian brothers named Mario and Luigi who also shared a portion of the shop as an apartment. Mario was a short, plump, excitable fellow who usually wore red overalls and placed food, especially Italian food, on a priority list as one of life's great pleasures. He had a broad, black mustache that he combed daily into curly tufts that stuck out to the side, and wore heavy brown boots and a red cap. Luigi was taller, slimmer, and more sensible than his older brother Mario. He, too, had a trimmed mustache, wore overalls, a cap and boots, but mostly wore green instead of red, like Mario. He did most of the thinking in their business, and had good financial sense. Mario and Luigi both had a happy childhood and were very close to each other. They grew up together, went to plumbing academy together, and took over the family plumbing shop together. They worked on plumbing assignments together, enjoying each other's company and laughing and telling jokes as they fixed toilets, sinks, bathtubs and leaky pipes.

It was a lazy friday afternoon, and the two brothers were relaxing in their shop eating pizza that Mario had brought home from the brooklyn pizzeria. The two small basement windows up near the ceiling were open to let a little breeze in, and you could hear the clip-clops of people walking by on the sidewalk above.
"I tell you, Mario," said Luigi, leaning back in his chair and biting off the first pointy part of his slice of pizza, "I think Tony makes the best anchovy pizza in town. It was a great idea to pick one up on your way home from fixing the Johnsons' water heater."
"Indeed, indeed," replied Mario with his cheeks full. "Leapin' Lasagna! I almost forgot! We have one more house call to make today. The Smiths' called earlier, saying that their bathtub drain was clogged fast. It's two o'-clock, so we still have plenty of time to go over and get the job done now. Want to go over with me on this one?"
"Sure, Mario," said Luigi, "Just let me find my plunger and tool belt, and we'll be on our way faster than you can say 'mozzarella milkshake'."
They both left their shop, careful to lock it up so that no theives could steal their valuable bathroom fixtures, and went to the Smiths' apartment two blocks down.

"Don't worry, Mrs. Smith," called Mario from the bathroom. "We'll have this tub unclogged in a jiffy! Now where did I put my plunger?"
"Don't worry, Mario. I bought this industrial-strength, super-duper, triple-layered rubber plunger here yesterday. I brought it just for this kind of clog. Now, stand back and watch me unclog this drain like a pro." Luigi stuck the plunger over the drain and started pumping up and down. Nothing happened.
"Er, maybe it needs more muscle," offered Mario. He gave it a try, but the clog held fast.
"Here, let me try it this way," said Luigi, and stood on the rim of the bathtub, working with all his strength. Mario stood on the rim behind, watching.
Suddenly, with one final plunge, the clog freed itself. The water in the tub rushed down the drain so fast, it created a whirlpool as it went.
"Whoa!" cried Luigi, as the plunger was yanked out of his hands by the force of the water. He lost his balance on the rim of the tub, and fell into the water. "Help!" he yelled, as the whirlpool began to pull him under. He grabbed onto Mario's leg.
"Yiiiiiyyy!" Mario bellowed, and grabbed the shower curtain rod. The force of the whirlpool was so strong, that it sucked Luigi right down the drain, pulling Mario off the curtain rod under too!

They were both washed down the pipe fast. They went down hundreds of yards of plumbing, and through networks of drains and pipes. Soon, just as quickly as they were sucked down the drain, they shot out of a pipe with rushing water into open air. They flew a few hundred feet through open space and landed on the ground with a thud.
"Galloping Gar-garlic! Wha-what happened?" asked Mario, bruised and in a daze.
"I-I don't know!" replied Luigi, who had bumped into a mushroom-like rock. Or was it a mushroom? A mushroom the size of a tree stump?
That's a big mushroom, Luigi thought, and as he regained his senses, he realized the mushroom had a face, eyes, a mouth and wore white pants and a blue vest. It peered over him with its beady eyes.
"Puckerin' pasta! I'm seeing things!" cried Luigi. "Mario! Look!"
Mario shook his head and took a look over by Luigi. Sure enough, there was a rather large mushroom standing near him, looking at him with curiousity.
"Goodness! Where are we?" Mario exclaimed, and addressed the creature, very shakily, "Uh, hello there, uh, my name is uh, Mario, and that's my brother Luigi, and, uh, well, we were just fixing a bathtub, uh, a minute ago..."
The mushroom interrupted him. "Hello there. My name is Toad. You are in the Mushroom Kingdom, and I'll be glad to give you directions to where you're headed," it said in a high-pitched, Pillsbury Doughboy-type of voice.
What? thought Mario. All we wanted to do was unclog a drain and go back home to finish our pizza. Now we got washed down the drain, we land in a strange place, and a talking mushroom asks us if we need directions? What's going on here? "Uh, Toad, sir, we seem to have come here by accident. We were fixing a tub, and we got sucked down the drain, and we ended up right here for some reason. Er... do you know if we are still in Brooklyn?"
"Brooklyn?" replied Toad, puzzled. "I've never heard of any Brooklyn, but let's see... a few miles north there's the mushroom brook. Is that what you mean?"
Mario and Luigi looked at each other. It was clear that they had arrived in a very different world, far away from Brooklyn.
And so, Toad took the Mario brothers to the chancellor, and he told them of the predicament that the kingdom was in, about how their princess had been kidnapped by the evil turtle King Koopa, and how he was turning her people into stone and veggies, and generally harassing all mushroomkind. Mario and Luigi, seeing that the mushroom people needed help, decided that their pizza in Brooklyn could wait. It was time to save the princess!