Dr. Schmekelmeister's Questionnaire

Schmekelmeister’s Evil Incorporated—my pride, my joy, my architectural middle child! Isn’t she hideous in the most beautifully evil way?

I designed it myself after watching exactly one YouTube tutorial on “how buildings don’t fall over.” Clearly, I ignored most of it. The asymmetrical platforms? Useless. The giant pointy tower on top? Purely for villainous flair. And that gigantic glowing sign? Well, fun fact—it lights up and plays a jingle when someone says “Schmekelmeister” within a 50-foot radius. It’s very impractical for stealth missions.

Some say it looks like a toaster made out of shipping containers. Others say it resembles a very tall man doing jazz hands. I say: perfect base of operations to conquer Memphis and eventually—THE TRI-STATE AREA!!

Also, the top floor has a hot tub. Because, you know, balance.

Ah, my finances! You think a man like Dr. Schmekelmeister just inherits an evil empire? No no no, I built this one suspiciously pointy brick at a time! Currently, I fund my operations through a combination of questionable patents, chaotic consulting work, and a surprisingly lucrative side hustle licensing the Schmekelmeister brand to discount soda companies. (Try “Evil Pop™”! Now with 12% more fizz and 30% more spite!)

I spend most of my money on essentials: shrink rays, jetpacks, exploding top hats—the usual. Oh, and dramatic lighting. Do you know how expensive mood lighting is in a villain tower that’s 47% sharp angles!? VERY. Also, I keep investing in useless inventions like the “Alarm-O-Nator” (an alarm clock that calls you rude names to wake you up… it did not sell well).

Ah yes, my ambition! My glorious, overly specific, slightly petty ambition! I, Dr. Schmekelmeister, will become the one true TRI-STATE TYRANT, ruling over Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi—or at least, like, the parts near Memphis. I want to see my face on every billboard, my name on every traffic cone, and my voice making passive-aggressive announcements in every public restroom from Graceland to Tupelo!

Would I kill for it? Eh... probably not. I’m more of a "mild inconvenience and public embarrassment" kind of evil. Like, I’d replace your shampoo with mayonnaise, but murder’s a little... intense.

Would I risk death? Now that’s more my style! I’ve launched myself out of a cannon twice, and one of those times was even on purpose! If it gets me one step closer to ruling the Memphis metro area, then yes—I'll face danger, ridicule, and even zoning regulations. NOTHING SHALL STOP ME. Except maybe paperwork. That stuff’s brutal.

Ah, the defining moment, you say? The emotional turning point that set me on the path to eccentric villainy and regional dominance? Well… it all started at the Greater Memphis Middle School Science Fair. I was twelve. I built a fully functional, semi-sentient weather balloon that could predict rainfall and do my math homework. But did I win? No. Chadley McSmugface won—with a baking soda volcano. A VOLCANO! That burped. Once.

That day, something snapped. I realized the world doesn’t reward genius—it rewards who brings cupcakes for the judges. From that point on, I vowed to never again be ignored, underappreciated, or beaten by edible science. I would rise above it all—with gadgets, schematics, and incredibly loud signage!

So yeah. That’s what changed me. That… and the balloon eventually ran off and lives in Kentucky now. Long story.

• Karl the Intern – Karl is either a distant cousin, a failed clone, or possibly just some guy who wandered in during a lightning storm and never left. He wears flip-flops in the lab (a safety hazard), labels everything “probably not explosive,” and once mistook my Invisibility-Inator for a blender. He’s the worst assistant ever, and yet… I can’t imagine my evil lair without his faint scent of corn chips and fear.

• Larry the Octopus – Ah yes, my aquatic archnemesis. A government-engineered super-octopus who escaped from a military lab after I accidentally freed him while searching for spare parts. He now stalks me across land, sea, and occasionally mall fountains. He writes threatening haikus in algae. It's a whole thing.

• My Mother (Barbara Schmekelmeister) – The one person I’m truly close to. She still calls every week to ask if I’m warm enough and if “taking over the Tri-State Area” comes with health insurance. She doesn't understand my career, but she supports it in that vague, Midwestern mom way—she once crocheted me a doomsday device cozy. She is my emotional foundation... and also the only reason I haven’t converted the guest room into a lava pit.

I grew up in a perfectly average Eastern European village—by which I mean, there were more goats than people, and at least one of those goats held political office. My parents were… present, I suppose. My mother, Barbara Schmekelmeister—yes, that Barbara—was warm in that sort of distracted, Midwestern way, even though we weren’t technically in the Midwest or America at the time. She tried her best. She crocheted things no one asked for. Once, I mentioned I was building a doomsday device, and a week later, a little woolen cozy for it arrived in the mail. It's hard to stay mad when your disintegration ray has a duck pattern.

My father, on the other hand, was... less nurturing. He mostly just sighed a lot and told me not to “embarrass the family goat.” Not a metaphor. Actual goat.

School? Oh yes, I attended. Technically. I didn't exactly thrive there. I was the weird kid—always building something, always muttering about magnetic reversal. The others played sports; I tried to reroute the school’s sprinkler system to form a coded message in binary. No one appreciated the effort. I wouldn’t say I was bullied, but I was exiled from three science fairs for “unethical submissions.”

So no, I didn’t fit in. But honestly? Neither did anyone else. They just hid it better.

Ah… love. Yes, I’ve dabbled. Well—fumbled. Stumbled. Catastrophically crash-landed into it, if we’re being accurate.

Her name was Faith. We met during one of my early evil internship rotations—she thought I was mysterious, ambitious, potentially employable. I thought she had the most structurally sound cheekbones I'd ever seen. It was nice, for a while. We had dinners, shared dreams, and she even tolerated my first real Inator (the “RomanceEnhance-Inator”—which technically worked, but caused a minor blackout across five counties).

Eventually, though, it fell apart. She said I was “too focused on vengeance.” I said, “Vengeance is focus!” She didn’t laugh. We parted ways—amicably, if you ignore the restraining order and the brief legal dispute over custody of our laser-equipped hamster.

So yes, I’ve been in love. And like most of my experiments, it ended in fire, paperwork, and emotional scarring. But I regret nothing. Except maybe the hamster's flamethrower. That was a bit much.

Ah, fears. Yes, I have those. I’m not some emotionless monolith of villainy—just ask my therapist. Actually, don’t. She quit.

Let’s start with the obvious one: irrelevance. The idea that I could spend years—years—perfecting the latest Inator, only for it to go unnoticed, unappreciated, or, worst of all, ignored, is… well, it’s soul-crushing. I don’t need applause. I need acknowledgment. A simple, “Hey, that shrinking ray had impressive calibration!” Is that so much to ask?

Then there’s success without purpose. Imagine this: I finally conquer the Tri-State Area. The mayor is sobbing. Perry the Platypus is shackled in some absurdly complex holding cell—and then… nothing. No parades. No resistance. No meaning. Just me, in an empty lair, wondering if I left the oven on and whether any of this really mattered. That’s not victory. That’s existential despair with lasers.

I also fear accidentally becoming my father. He was a cold man with high expectations and zero hugs. If I ever catch myself criticizing someone’s lab coat alignment or muttering “You’ve brought shame to the goat,” I’ll know it’s too late.

So yes—I fear being forgotten, being empty, and becoming someone I swore I’d never be.

Also spiders. But that one’s pretty normal.

Ah, prized possessions—finally, a question with style.

My most treasured item? Without a doubt: the prototype for my very first Inator—the Slightly-Off-Center-Your-Tie-Inator. Yes, laugh all you want, but it was a breakthrough. Not in terms of functionality—it barely worked—but symbolically, it marked the birth of my villainous journey. I keep it on a little shelf in my lair, right next to a photo of me frowning while holding a ribbon that says “Participant” from the Greater Gimmelshtump Science Fair. (Don’t ask.)

I also have a woolen doomsday device cozy my mother made. It’s ridiculous. It has tiny felt buttons and what appears to be a duck. But she made it with love, even if she had no idea what it was going on. It's absurd. It's soft. And it’s proof that someone cared—at least enough to try and keep my plasma cannon “warm.”

Lastly, there's a drawing my daughter Vanessa made when she was little: a stick-figure me, blasting a stick-figure Perry with a rainbow. She labeled it “DAD VS EVIL PLATYPUS.” I laminated it.

None of these items are powerful. But they remind me why I do all this in the first place. Pride. Validation. And maybe, somewhere in there, love—wrapped in lasers.