Buying a muffler

Dear diary,

Suddenly, night strikes. Therefore, as much as I’d love to remain the gentleman Tolsteer-Yoshi, the change in lighting causes my pores to become hirsute; and my skin grows tough and vaunts a ruggeder terrain. From all over my person, thick follicles of hair start bristling out. (To a dust mite, these hairs are taller than the cedars of Lebanon.) In sum, I become shaggy; woolly; furry; bewhiskered; neither shaven nor shorn, and therefore stubbly. Also a lab coat covers my nakedness. — Yes, I am now Doctor Bryan the Wolfman. 

(I don’t remember whether it was morning or evening when I left off eating the seagulls that Executive Stevens prepared for me in the previous adventure, but let’s say that a day or two has passed since then; thus, as I said up top, now it’s dark out, and the moon has turned to blood.) 

I shake my glorious mane and exclaim aloud in a heroic voice to myself: “Time to keep walking thru this red-light district. I’ve barely begun to enjoy my vacation yet.”

So I pace forward upon the sidewalk. I notice that a maintenance worker for the state is waltzing ahead and painting all the hydrants, so they are bright, shining vermilion now. Even the grass around the base where each unit connects into the ground has received a coating of glossy paint. I think to myself: If I were some leaves of grass, THAT’s what my physique would look like — I’d star as the legion that is glistening from being painted fire-engine red. All my drab-green siblings would never know where I got my color. They would argue amongst themselves, singing: “It can’t be a natural tan, because he only skulks around at night, when all is black; and he slew the sunshine long ago. His name is Doctor Bryan the Wolfman. (I hope he can heal my broken heart.)” And I would not only remedy the multitudes’ various ailments; but I would CURE MYSELF, TO AVOID BEING HANGED BY HEAVEN; which is something my twin brother Jesus could never figure out how to do. In addition, after distributing salvation to everyone in the long line of grass clippings (look how it extends down the street around the block!) whose members have come to flatter me in hopes that I’ll offer them free health-care, I would courteously sign their copies of my gospel, which is this present book that we know is true, with a handwritten message: “Flamebound lover, steer clear of Church Doctors. Sincerely, Bryan Ray the Abomination of Desolation.” For I would never forget my roots. 

Now suddenly it turns day again, so I transmogrify back into the gentleman Tolsteer-Yoshi. I continue to pace forward upon the sidewalk in this red-light district until I see a shop that I like the looks of. Its sign reads “Automotive Parts Dealer”. 

“Hi,” sez the dapper fellow at the cash register. 

“Hi,” I say.

“Can I help you?” sez the fellow.

“No,” I say.

Then there is silence.

“Just joking,” I say. “You can help me; I’ll permit it. This place sells car parts, right? Well, I’m looking for mufflers. Do you have any mufflers for sale?”

“Mufflers? Yes, they’re in that bin right there, where your hand is resting — right between the idler jets and the jake brakes.”

“Ah, I see them. Thanks. I’ll take this one,” I hold up the muffler nearest to my hand. “Yes, this is the one that I have selected.”

“Good choice,” sez the dapper cashier. And he presses a button and announces: “Your total comes to exactly three hundred dollars.”

I reach into the bulging back pocket of my trousers. I haul out the billfold. I place down on the countertop banknotes, one at a time, while counting: “There’s un.… there’s dau… and there’s tri.”

The dapper fellow picks up my short stack of paper dollars and sez: “This is only three. I said that your total was three hundred.”

I look crestfallen. “So, what does that mean — do I need 297 more?”

“Yes,” laughs the clerk.

I frown. “Can’t we just say that I’ve done enough here already, by going to the trouble of cranking open my wallet and counting as high as I can in Welsh?”

The dapper fellow at the register stares blankly into my eyes for several moments. He is apparently thinking of what to say. Finally he answers: “That’s fine. I agree to your terms.”

Now I smile. “Should we shake on it?” — I extend my hand.

“Deal!” sez the clerk. And he moves to clutch my hand, but in a clever twist of plot, I remove my hand swiftly so that he grasps thin air.

“Too slow!” I say. (This hand that I was previously holding out as an offering, I now use to smooth the right side of my coiffure.) “Here, I hope you like mayonnaise,” I toss the cashier a single-serving packet of mayo, which I’ve been waiting for the proper moment to use. “You have a nice day, now.” I smile and wave while walking toward the exit.

“You, too, sir!” the clerk shakes his head in amazement, holding the mayonnaise packet in the hand that he was supposed to use to seal our deal and looking back and forth between it and me.

[To be continued...]