In Which Ansel Follows a Mouse and Clicks on Wally the Singing Bass
(ed. note-- first nena has the phone answered):
"LOU'S TUXEDO EXTRAVAGANZA.....Marty speakin'........"
(ed: then elsemore wrote...)
"Tuxedos?" said Ansel?
"Lou's Tuxedos extravaganza! I'm Lou!" said the voice on the
phone. "Why don't you take a look for yourself?"
"What would I do with a tuxedo?" Ansel scanned the phone booth for cameras.
"You don't have to purchase. You are perfectly welcome to simply browse."
"Here we go with the internet analogies again," said Ansel.
"Well," said Lou, sounding hurt, "it works as well as anything."
"I don't know," said Ansel. "To put it in terms you might relate to, I'd say that, as analogies go, that one is Powder Blue." Ansel realized that he was taking out his frustrations over the recent onslaught of baffling transitions, and the continued absence of Flo, on this person on the other end of the phone line, about whom he knew absolutely nothing, and he felt just a twinge of guilt. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean it to sound that way. It's just, there's the Internet and then there's Life. Come on."
"Right then," said Lou. "Let's not get our knickers in a knot. Why don't you take a look around and see what we have to offer. Everything must go!"
"Well, where are you located?" Ansel asked. "Not that it would matter the way today is going. Let me guess, 2nd rabbit hole on the left? Something involving a train platform with a something and a ?? number?"
"Look down," said Lou. "Do you see that little mouse?"
Ansel sighed. "Not another . . ."
"Follow him!" shouted Lou, followed by the sound of his receiver slamming down.
Ansel looked down. Indeed, a brown mouse was running figure eights between his bare feet. Ansel jumped back, startled, the mouse scurried out of the phone booth, and Ansel followed. They sped through the electronics section (yes, they were still in Walmart . . . but Ansel did not allow himself to be suckered into a false sense of transitional security), past automotive, and then, right in front of the George Forman grills and right before Ansel's eyes, the mouse began to morph. Its body turned into a cartoonish hand, its fur turned into a white glove, its cute mousy nose turned into a pointing index finger. And it spoke. It said, "I always wondered what it would feel like to become an Icon."
Ansel looked in the direction the finger was pointing, which was towards Wally the Singing Bass. Beneath the plaque upon which Wally was mounted, someone had taped a sign that said, "Try Me."
"Why not," said Ansel, and he pushed the button.
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