The Spend-O-Mart on Crunkner Boulevard
Drenched in sweat on December 17, 2006.
With the calendar screaming at me that, once again, America’s most spendiferous holiday, Christmas (otherwise known as X-Mas, Christ Mass, or Tacky Blow-Up Santa Claus Lawn Ornament Day), was fast approaching, I took a trip down to the Spend-O-Mart on Crunkner Boulevard this Wednesday and spent the entire 68¢ that I had kept safely squirreled away in the bottom of my buttocks, and another 6¢ that I found in the gutter along Horatio Hornblower Street near the stumblebum stables. For a total of 73¢ (the penny I found got stolen before I hit the store), I was able to buy Loquisha an entire candy bar: A Milky Way… king size. My sandal-footed little darling will be so happy, I just know it!
On Thursday, I found another 11¢ by scrounging through the storm drains and the cracks in the sidewalks. Other guys living in cardboard forts (no one but I, Phillip Norbert Årp, named his cardboard fort, though!) get money from passers-by, but for some reason, whenever I try the same, I get beaten with purses, stuck with umbrellas, or sprayed with mace. I guess no one appreciates my in-your-face, hands-on, have-at-you approach to beggary, nor my vociferous exhortations about my former trained-assassin neighbor, Samuel Dreckers, planning to storm Fort Flabberwocky and kill me in my sleep by enchanting the tadpole commandos to chew my skin off and dance along my skinless corpse.
Another 54¢ and I can buy myself a genuine bagel tomorrow! With poppy seeds! I’m so happy!