When I entered the Dilemma Store some electronic alert at the entrance set off a groovy recording of Spanish Stroll by Mink DeVille. As soon as I closed the door behind me the song stopped, like a crazy game of musical doors or something similar to this.
“Welcome to the Dilemma Store!” shrieked a large gentleman with a heavy black moustache above his lips and more black hair upon his head.
“What’s with the sounds?” I enquired.
“Oh, just a tiny greeting, that’s all,” the gentleman replied. “It changes every day. Yesterday it was Mongoloid by Devo.”
“Good choice,” I said.
“My name is Harlan D Szentmihalyi,” the big man told me.
“That’s not my fault,” I said.
“How can I help you?” asked the gentleman, an enormous grin upon his face. I noticed that he was dressed all in black except for an apron that was even more yellow than a banana.
“I’m looking for a dilemma,” I said.
“Well you’ve come to the right place, that’s for sure! We have all kinds of dilemmas for sale here at the Dilemma Store! Comic dilemmas, personal dilemmas, work dilemmas, sporting dilemmas, all sorts of dilemmas!”
I scanned the inside of the store, eyeing all the different sections with great interest. I spotted a frosty-haired man in a blue raincoat perusing the sexual dilemmas section. He gave me a glare and I turned away quickly.
“So what’s the story?” asked Harlan D Szentmihalyi. “What brings you here today in search of a dilemma?”
“Well you see Clint Venezuela has just begun a brand new spanking story featuring yours truly, John Dumbfuck, and a dilemma is required in order to continue the plot.”
“Fantastic!” beamed Harlan D Szentmihalyi. “So what’s it gonna be?”
“I don’t know yet. It’s not easy to choose!”
“Damn right it’s not,” interrupted the frosty-haired man in the blue raincoat.
“Well take your time,” said Harlan D Szentmihalyi. “Take as long as you like to decide on what dilemma you wish to go home with today!”
“Thank you,” I said, before venturing further into the store to take a good long hard look at what was on offer. As I did so I noticed animal dilemmas, horror dilemmas, D Harlan Wilson dilemmas, food and drink dilemmas, political dilemmas, and loads and loads and loads and loads and loads and loads and loads and loads of other types of dilemma.
“It’s so difficult!” I said to Harlan D Szentmihalyi. “How am I going to decide?”
“Try a sexual dilemma,” the frosty-haired man in the blue raincoat called over, presenting me with a sly wink free of charge.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Perhaps my dilemma is that I can’t decide what dilemma to choose!”
Upon hearing my words Harlan D Szentmihalyi stormed across to me, his big boots thumping all over the floorboards and his features curled up into a snarl.
“Look at the warning sign!” he fumed, pointing a trembling podgy finger at a notice on the wall beside the entrance.
CUSTOMERS ARE NOT
ALLOWED TO BRING
THEIR OWN DILEMMAS
INTO THE STORE
“Oh, sorry” I said sheepishly.
“What if someone does bring their own dilemma into the store?” asked the frosty-haired man in the blue raincoat.
“Then you will be shot by a Japanese sniper,” said Harlan D Szentmihalyi.
“Where is the Japanese sniper?” I enquired politely.
“Somewhere in the store.”
“Where exactly?” asked the frosty-haired man in the blue raincoat.
“How in the name of D Harlan Wilson do I know that?” raged the owner of the Dilemma Store. “Just carry on with your shopping and choose yourselves a chuffin’ dilemma if you will!”
The frosty-haired man in the blue raincoat shuffled closer to me and whispered, “Time of the month.”
“Too right, dude,” I replied.
“Of course,” said Harlan D Szentmihalyi, somewhat calmer now, “we do present an option for those who find it hard to choose a dilemma from our selection.”
“And what would that be?” I asked.
“Our do-it-yourself dilemma service!” said the big man in the yellow apron, shoving his arms and hands in the direction of a crumbled old decrepit machine that stood in the dusty web-swamped corner of the store.
“What the chuffin’ heck is that?” cried the frosty-haired man in the blue raincoat.
“It’s the do-it-yourself dilemma machine,” explained Harlan D Szentmihalyi. “For five dollars a time you can create your very own personally constructed and devised dilemma. Whatever troubles or worries you have, whatever problems you are experiencing in any aspect of your existence, in fact anything at all that you think could affect the dilemma or assist in creating it, you can tap it into the machine and voila! It spews out your very own personally constructed dilemma. What do you think? Wanna try it?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “Clint Venezuela might not approve of me doing such a thing...”
“FUCK Clint Venezuela!” screamed Harlan D Szentmihalyi. “You have a mind of your own, don’t you? Clint Venezuela placed you in the story, didn’t he? So whatever dilemma you face is of your own making, right? Come on, man, are you a mouse, a pussy, or a damned moron? Make your chuffin’ mind up, why don’t you??”
I stared at him aghast. I did not like his tone of voice one tiny morsel. He was an awful bastard and no mistake! I wanted nothing more than to acquire my dilemma and venture off out of the store. I wanted to fuck him over real good too!
“You got a deal,” I said.
“Fantastic!” he beamed.
I fished in my wallet and handed him five dollars before walking in a stoic manner all the way over to the ancient contraption in the corner. There was a screen and a keyboard and some other levers and buttons and knobs, none that I truly understood. The owner explained that I merely type my symptoms and problems on to the screen, enter my name and details, and press enter. The machine will do the rest.
So I tapped away at the keyboard, feeding the machine my personal information, the story of my life, my trials and troubles, the fact that I hate oranges, my infatuation with Miss Bab who lives near to me, about my friend Mr Pussikeskus who swallowed his bicycle, how Mrs Dumbfuck earns a living selling her body, the couch that I don’t remember us having, the fact that I have read The Kafka Effekt over a hundred times. I told it all my secrets, including the ones that I myself did not know. I told it of my desires, especially the one that involved Misti Traya and a case of baby oil. I told it about my eventful past, the aliens, the ghosts, the funny-looking neighbors, the naked robots, the urinating cheerleaders. I told it everything I knew! And at the end of it all, after I had pressed enter and waited for three heart-pounding minutes, this spewed forth from the do-it-yourself machine:
SUBJECT: John Dumbfuck
DILEMMA: Subject must choose on
whether to thump Harlan D Szentmihalyi
upon the nose or kick
Harlan D Szentmihalyi extremely
hard in the testicles.
“Wow!” said the frosty-haired man in the blue raincoat upon reading the note over my shoulder. “I wish I had a dilemma like that one. I’ll give you twenty dollars for it!”
“No way!” I said. “This is my dilemma and mine alone!”
“Come on, come on,” pleaded Harlan D Szentmihalyi. “There must be a fault with the machine or something.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “You know what they say... machines don’t lie.”
“This one does! I mean, it must do. You can’t possibly be serious about this dilemma. It has to be an error in the system. I’ll give you your money back! And a free dilemma of your choice. Anything in the store. What do you say?”
“No. I want this one!”
“Well in that case, I’ll have to... I’ll have to...”
“You’ll have to what?”
“Ban you from the store! That’s it... ban you from the store!”
“Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”
“Yes I do. Or maybe... maybe call the police. Yes, that’s it. I’ll call the cops! You’re threatening to assault me, so I’ll call the cops. That’s what I’ll do!”
“You want to call the cops or ban me from the store?” I demanded. “Hurry up and choose before I solve my dilemma!”
“Shit!” yelled the big store owner. “I don’t know what to decide!”
“Hey!” interjected the frosty-haired man in the blue raincoat. “It seems like you got yourself your own dilemma there, Mr Szentmihalyi.”
“That’s right,” I said. “And may I remind you what it says over there on the wall?”
“What...?” said Harlan D Szentmihalyi.
“Customers are not allowed to bring their own dilemmas into the store,” said the frosty-haired man in the blue raincoat with great glee.
“And what happens if they do?” I asked, by way of a reminder to Harlan D Szentmihalyi.
“You will be shot by a Japanese...?”
Harlan D Szentmihalyi did not finish the sentence he was uttering, because a gunshot whizzed out from some hidden spot within the store and hit him smack in the center of the forehead. He immediately crashed like a drunken behemoth on to the wooden floorboards, his huge body twitching and spasming in the throes of dying. I witnessed the anguished expression he possessed, the black moustache like a giant slug perched beneath his nostrils.
The frosty-haired man in the blue raincoat and I glanced around the store to see if we could spot the Japanese sniper but no matter how hard we tried we could not see him. He was completely undetectable.
“So what happens now?” he asked me.
“I don’t know. It’s up to Clint Venezuela I suppose.”
“I guess I could just help myself to any dilemma in the store that I want to. What do you think?”
“Go for it. Whatever, I’m off.”
I marched across the store to the entrance, grabbed the door handle and tugged at it, the sounds of Spanish Stroll by Mink DeVille sneaking into my ears once more.
“Where are you going?” asked the frosty-haired man in the blue raincoat.
“The Denouement Store,” I said, closing the door behind me as I left.
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