You push the button.

Ding.

The clocks are gone, and the table is back! On one end is a box of cupcakes!

And on the other end is a tray of cupcakes!

In the middle of the table is a jug of fresh soy milk and a glass, for you to wash the cupcakes down with.

Or is that a pitcher?

Oh who cares.

Which one will you eat?

You aren’t a picky eater. And you aren’t afraid of diabetus! So you sit down, pour yourself a cup of vegan milk, and chow down.

After a while the sugar hits. Somehow you have enough energy to power a small town in Peru and a stomach ache that demands you sit there and do nothing for the rest of the day.

Eating all the cupcakes was a bad idea.

You need to make better life choices.

You look at the tray of cupcakes.

No.

You look at the box of cupcakes.

Also no.

You raise an eyebrow at the soy milk.

Nope.

You turn back to the button.

In an effort to get you to reconsider, I turn the button off for a minute.

Come on, just take a closer look at the cupcakes?

Please?

You move closer to the box and look at it like my parents looked at me when I told them I wanted to be a travel vlogger when I grew up.

What, there’s no need for that amount of disappointment. Sure they’re from Walmart, but they’re guaranteed to be fresh, at least! And the recipe has been improved! Granted, I’m kind of presuming they found out about the guy in Germany who was ordered to stop making cookies with sawdust in them last year, and decided to preemptively remove their sawdust, but it’s still an improvement!

You… aren’t impressed with this. Any of it.

Sighing, you rip the paper sticker thing and open the box.

The smell of stale frosting wafts to your nose. You dig one out of the plastic surrounding it and turn it slowly.

It’s not like it’s poison or anything. Just a disappointing waste of calories. At least these are the mini ones, so it won’t last particularly long.

You peel off the paper and pop it in your mouth. It only takes a couple of chews to get it properly masticated.

Then you swallow, and wash it down with half a glass of vegan “milk”.

Yep, that was disappointing.

Yyyyyeah, no.

You’ve considered it. You thought this decision through. And you put the cupcake back.

After a moment of hesitation, you snap the box closed.

There.

You interacted with the cupcakes. I guess I’ll let you leave now, if you want.

You move over to the tray of cupcakes and… squint.

Human brains are amazingly good at recognizing patterns, and associating things with other things. That’s why when a three year old armed only with a green crayon draws a triangle on top of a square we can go “oh, what a lovely house!”.

You look at these cupcakes, and can guess that these are supposed to be ducks. They’re yellow, and have a beak (made out of carrots? Not a clue), so that narrows the options down to ducks or chicks. For some reason the fact that blue mini M&Ms are used as well as brown ones leads me to believe that these are supposed to be ducklings.

Using two fingers, you pick one up. The quality of the decorations is not a good indicator of flavor. Sure, the ducks look like they’re screaming for mercy, but the actual cake bit might be good.

Dare you try it?

You peel off the foil and sink your teeth in.

It… It isn’t the worst cupcake you’ve ever had. It’s clearly made from a box mix. And the frosting has that weird food-coloring flavor to it. But the mini M&Ms and what I’m presuming are carrots give it a crunch that isn’t altogether unpleasant.

You aren’t going to eat a second one, but you aren’t regretting having eaten one.

You put the cupcake back down and step away.

Yeah.

That’s your decision. Leave the ducks alone. Forget they exist. Yep.

There.

You interacted with the cupcakes. I guess I’ll let you leave now, if you want.

You pick up a duck cupcake, test the weight, and yeet it against the wall.

It slowly slides down. Finally it falls to the ground with a soft splat.

That was fun?

Thinking about it, you decide to pick up two more cupcakes. You go to the wall, rub one down in a line parallel to the first line, and use the other one to draw a half-circle under the two lines.

You’ve made a smiley face.

Beautiful.

Having exhausted your creative powers, you pick up the box, pop it open, and hurl the walmart cupcakes at the wall in quick succession. They… They just stay there.

They’ll probably stay there forever.

Or at least until the cleaning crew comes through.

Anything else you want to do?

You finish off the soy milk, because why not. Then you turn back to the button.

DO YOU PRESS THE BUTTON? Yes No