Operation Cheap Plastic Box with lights and noises and stuff
Mack Hall

D ODGING BULLETS among a hail of gunfire slamming into the walls like Thanksgiving

fruitcake being thrown to the

dogs, dogs who turn up their noses at it and return to gnawing on the corpse of a week-dead possum, Ponsonby crashed through the glass doors, rolling himself to relative safety behind a counter, knowing that the hostile local indigenous population would soon be upon him like the Red Army on prisoners when the price of human livers has gone up to $60,000, ripping him to shreds as if he were a party crasher wearing polyester at Tom and Katie's wedding.

Catching his breath, Ponsonby keyed the mike of his communicator and said laconically, "I'm in."

Ponsonby was like that, as cool as James Bond's vodka martini, but unlike a martini Ponsonby could never be shaken or stirred. Years of Mortal Kombat in his parents' garage had hardened him like chilled steel tucked away between the doggie treats and the deer sausage in the freezer.

"Have you got it?" asked his controller, with just a little edge in his normally controlled voice, the sort of edge you get when you sharpen your Swiss Army knife on a hamster's pancreas under a full moon outside the shopping mall while taking the bloodoath to the Bruderbund von Dumm Weiss Jungen.

"I'm moving in position now," replied Ponsonby, slamming a fresh set of double-A batteries into his Captain Kirk Signature Model Ninja X-Treem Mega Death-Ray Thingie.

"Kreegah!" shouted Ponsonby, just like Tarzan, that is, if Tarzan shouted "Kreegah!" around his tongue ring and it came out "Kweegath!" He leaped to his feet and approached the gum-chewing clerk whose badge said her name was Ty'Phany and asked the rhetorical question "How Can I Help You?" in spite of the expression on her face communicating quite effectively that she was wholly uninterested in helping anyone.

"All right, woman, I've been waiting in line in the cold for three days. I've been robbed by big people, I've been threatened, I've been pushed, I've been laughed at. I want my Cheap Plastic Box With Lights and Noises and Stuff! Now!"

"Take a number, you pimple-faced wienie."

"You can't talk to me like that! I'm a customer! And I attend a university! And my mama says I'm special!"

"I'm sure she does, honey."

And then the unthinkable, like dreaming that you're in a strange town, and there's no Starbuck's, and you don't have any pants on, happened.

"Come on, boy. You don't work. You don't go to class. You don't pay your baby's child support. And now I see you on television playing the fool over a child's toy! I'm about to change your life!"

"No...wait...Maaaaaa! Maaaaaaaa! Don't drag me by my beard, Maaaaaaa! All the other unemployed 25-year-olds are looking, Maaaaaa!"

"Enough of this foolishness, boy; today you're going to go look for a job or you don't live in my house anymore." "But Maaaaaaaaa! A job - that's so (ugh)

proletarian! I'm an intellectual, and stuff, you know. I'm going to be an articulated pediatric sturgeon, or maybe a filmmaker! Maybe even a, uh, a English teacher, like, y'know! You can't rip a kid like this, Maaaaaaaaa! You can't rip a kid like this!"

"Shut up, boy. How many semesters does it take to pass remedial English?"

"That's 'cause they don't understand my special needs, Maaaaaa! Maaaaaaaaaaaa...!"

"Maybe they understand you too well. Get in the car; we're off to the employment office."

And with that, Ponsonby, the world's greatest gamer, passed into history.

The Controller removed his Princess Leia Signature Model Ninja X-Treem Mega Communicator headgear and said to his Number One, "The world's greatest gamer has passed into history, Number One."

"Not to worry, O Controller; I got it all on my camera calculator -- wait until everyone on MyFace.Sputum/Nerd sees the video of Ponsonby's mama dragging him off...hahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

Mack Hall is a resident of Kirbyville.