I went to Wal-Mart once, and it was a dismal experience. I was beaned by a bright pink shopping cart twice before I even got in the door. Once inside, the gaily decorated steaming piles of offal in the aisles assaulted my senses. Several tiny squirrels holding large umbrellas leered at me as they offered to sell me "the lip of the rose", whatever that means. I was only trying to buy a cheese grater.

In the cheese grater department, there were hordes of German businessmen cavorting in the aisles, flicking me with towels and other unmentionables. Soon I was caught up in the merriment, hypnotized by their erotic dances. Dazed, as if in a trance, I swayed and wobbled and generally grooved to the tunes. I should have known better. When they saw they had me in their power, they slithered away, and I knew from the tint of the puddles of slime they left behind that they were out to get my giblets. I struggled to right myself, but the warm gelatin they had immersed me in held me fast. Then it went black.

When I awoke, I was bolted to a hospital bed. The Wal-Mart manager was there, sitting in a pentagram, painting racing stripes on my thighs and crooning all the songs from "Sweeney Todd" simultaneously. My thoughts turned to brighter days, and as his red-hot needles seared my flesh, my mind enjoyed an all-expense paid vacation to an exotic winter retreat. But soon, the bill came, and I was forced to embed the manager's head in a cake in order to persuade the credit reporting agency that I was not, in fact, the real killer.