In better times.

According to reports, the police were called to the scene after neighbors heard a torrent of loud and obscenity-laden shouting coming from Bert and Ernie’s residence along with a number of other noises said to be caused by the throwing and breaking of numerous household articles and furnishings.  Upon their arrival at the scene, police found Ernie cowering behind a reclining chair as Bert indiscriminately tore through the house, wreaking havoc on anything and everything in his path.  Ernie had a small scratch on his right cheek and was clutching his beloved rubber duckie like grim death, all the while sobbing incessantly. 

It is rumored that it was Bert’s uncontrollable jealousy of the relationship between Ernie and his rubber duckie that really fueled the outburst of rage, and that the unconventional wine choice with dinner was simply the match that lit the fuse.  Bert seemingly never got over the release of Ernie’s love ballad “Rubber Duckie, You’re the One” which shot to the middle of the Children’s Billboard Charts decades prior and was perceived by Bert to be a concerted effort on Ernie’s part to remind him that he could be tossed aside at any time in favor of the other yellow entity in Ernie’s life that “makes bath time lots of fun.” 

As Bert was forcibly escorted off the premises, Ernie begged for leniency and declared that he did not wish to press charges because he “loved him” and tearfully added “it’s all my fault, I had it coming to me…it’s just his way.”  Officers at the scene informed Ernie that because of recent changes to the Sesame Street penal code, Bert would have to be arrested and taken into custody regardless of Ernie’s pleas; stating that it is now “standard operating procedure in cases involving a suspicion of domestic violence.” 

Having recently been laid off from his job at a nearby towel factory, Bert has been unable to make bail and secure his release from the Sesame Street jail.  Ernie has organized a fundraising effort to free his companion with the surprising aid of local junkie Oscar the Grouch who claims that he is helping out because he knows what it’s like to do a stretch in the Sesame Street jail where “the air ain’t so sweet.”  Oscar was sent to jail in 1985 after allegedly stabbing a prostitute with a steak knife because he thought she stole his stash of heroin.