Smarmy

Preface: The following was posted to a forum known as Something in the Winter, a site intended for the people of northern Wisconsin. This post originally went under the title of “A Weird Childhood Memory”, by a user only identifying themselves as “Inko”. This is what was written, word for word, archived for your reading pleasure.
smarm·y (ˈsmärmē), adjective.
Ingratiating and wheedling in a way that is perceived as insincere or excessive.
I remember this word quite clearly, from that night in 1999.
I remember lying on the couch, sick as a dog, staying up ‘til four because of my insomnia. I was on my back, looking up to the ceiling. HBO played in the background, some movie I don’t remember. My head pounded after every move I made. The medicine wasn’t helping me yet, so I propped myself up and watched TV while half-asleep. 
I was near motionless, paralyzed. My eyes felt dry and rough, I held my mouth open to breathe. The room was quiet, besides my occasional sniffling and blowing into a tissue. I always kept the TV down during the night, mostly because of my mom. I knew she was a hardworking lady, and that she needed sleep. She still made an effort to love me truly, she didn’t let work seep into her mind like a foul sludge. Unlike her.
Oh to be a child who had next to no clue what Crashbox was at the time. I heard my friends talking about it one day, about how funny it was. They talked about the hosts, this one math robot guy, the radio guy (who one of my other friends had a severe crush on), the valley girl who had to deal with the hoarder, and Eddie Bull (I remembered his name this time around, I think he was a gateway into something).
All this was fine and dandy until my friend brought up this one segment. 
Distraction News. 
Dear god, sweet baby Jesus. I get flashbacks just thinking about it. For those unfamiliar with the show, Distraction News was a segment where you’d have to listen to an article being read by a monotonous cardboard woman, and then she’d ask some questions. However, there would be distractions on the screen that were supposed to make you go off-track.
This didn’t work for two reasons. One, most of the distractions were visual, so you could just cheese your way through by closing your eyes. And two, the host’s design terrified little baby me to my core. Just… just those dead, lifeless eyes that still looked too human. The way she’d just sit there and babble on about stuff like someone losing their sanity. The fact she never talks with any other emotion besides shallow happiness.
Her name was Dora Smarmy.
Going in and out of sleep, I was perched on the couch like a parakeet on its swing. It was an odd experience, that’s for sure. Right when I was on the brink of slumber, though, the television suddenly blared loudly, catching my attention. It was the title sequence of Crashbox, seemingly airing over what was supposed to be on. In the center of the screen I could make out a woman, visibly dishevaled. Her hair was blonde, and she almost shuffled forwards, stumbling over her own two feet. It was live-action, seemingly recorded in an office after hours. Overlaying the theme music was a man screaming, and the cameraman backing away from the inebriated woman. “What’s gotten into you, Izzy?” the man asked, desperate. “Now remember,” she said, holding up her hand and nearly falling over, her strides getting longer. “Remember, ugh, try not…”
“What? What are you trying to say?” the man asked yet again, causing Izzy to stop moving. All this time, her hair covered her face, but when she stopped, she lifted her head up. I could see her eyes. They were dead, cartoonish, spaced-out. Her skin had a strange texture to it, like papier-mache. Her teeth were uncomfortably long, like they were those fake vampire fangs you get at halloween parties. However, they were real, her flesh was becoming cardboard.
“Now remember, try not to get distracted,” she finally said, locking eyes with the cameraman before he ran off, dropping the camera on the ground. The overlapping audio from Crashbox soon said this exact same quote in Dora’s monotone voice, and everything clicked into my mind.
It all went quiet afterwards, but it still confuses me.
I’ve tried searching this up, but found nothing. No mention of someone being attacked by a woman that night, no mentions of a signal intrusion that was any way similar to what I saw. Heck, I’m not even sure if it was an intrusion, it could’ve just been some arthouse horror movie. But still, it’s weird.
Hope to get answers soon, if anyone else saw it!
-Inko
P.S: Upon thinking about this some more, I feel like at least one person here knows who that woman was. Something about her seemed an awful lot like one of my friends's parents. She worked in a news station, I think.
Lars, if you're here, please respond to my emails. I'm getting concerned for you, buddy.
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