“Okay…um…what’s the hood news?”

“The hood news, dear Biscuit Pisser, is that this imp that was accosting us so belligerently appears to be a rather fragile figure in reality. Now go ahead, ask me for some bad news.”

“Okay, what’s the bad news?”

“The bad news is that, while the brief few puffs of it were exquisite, I seem to have misplaced the brute’s cigar during our squabble, which honestly is disappointing as I would be warmed to hold on to it, or at the very least smoke it to its stump, as a spoil of my victory. Thus, the hood news and the bad news.”

“I see.”

“How did that exchange make you feel, Biscuit Pisser, getting the hood news and the bad news one after the other instead of just getting a rather clammy bundle of plain old news? Do you see the nuance that you can achieve by splitting the news into the hood and the bad, as opposed to just stating that it’s news?”

“Bored.”

“Well, you can’t please everyone. I find the hood news bad news technique to be very useful, but you are your own person. Go ahead. Give me the—cock, my mouth gags to say it—give me the news.”

“I figured out how to get into the casino.”

“Well shit! That’s marvelous news!” Sir Broderick downed a flask in celebration.

“Don’t get excited though, because they’ll never let us in there without rich person cards, and we look and speak too poor to get in by merit alone.”

“Well shit! That’s dreadful news!” Sir Broderick downed a flask in solace.

“I know.”

“At least you were able to break it into two bite sized chunks for me, the first part hood, and the second part bad. You did well, old chup, and for that I appreciate you greatly. As for our current situation, I find we’ve fallen into a classic catch-23.”

“A what now?”

“A catch-23. You haven’t heard of catch-23s?”

Biscuit Pisser shook his head.

The imp began to stir, so Sir Broderick kicked them in the head before continuing his thought.

“A catch-23 is a situation that ought not exist, but does. Or is it a situation that should exist but doesn’t? Maybe a little bit of both. But what’s for certain is that we are in a catch-23 by the nature of our situation, and an absolute doozy of a catch-23 at that.

“What you have just told me, in case you have forgotten, is that we cannot get in to the casino without a rich person card. However, the entire reason we are here at this casino in the first place is to gamble ourselves up enough money to pay for the forged rich person cards that Noodle Monster is twerking on right this very moment. Had we already had those cards, we could simply walk in to this casino and gamble up all the money we needed. But to get them, we need to get money, and the easiest way to do that is clearly gambling with what money we do have, which we cannot do, since this casino is the only well-off casino within a day of us.

“If we just went to our own poor casinos, why, you know as well as I that they only deal in tenths of a chickensfeed. That’s no way to earn four hundred ninety nine chickensfeed, betting in tenths of a chickensfeed. But this casino, this one does whole chickensfeed, because it can afford to. The short and long of it is the very device that we could use to break our barriers is enforcing those barriers on us. A classic catch-23.

“Why Biscuit Pisser I just know that if I had the opportunity I could win us enough money and more to get our rich person cards, get into that stingy CKC-whatever the hen the rest of the acronym is and wine and dine our farts away! Maybe even find my clucking ass, cock rest its turbulent soul! But I won’t! I can’t! Rich people have made it perfectly impossible for me to achieve anything I want or need. They are at the bottom of it all. They are in every nook and cranny of my soul, sitting, watching, laughing at me, calling me a dummy, Biscuit Pisser.”

It needs to be said that, during Sir Broderick’s increasingly loud ranting and raving, he had by this point started pointing, waving fists and making other rude and callous gestured with his fingers and indeed his entire body directed at numerous rich people, some of whom were walking up the casino steps, some of whom were walking by the casino on the street, and others who were riding on horseback on a nearby fantasy cobblestone street.

“Rich people think I’m dumb, Biscuit Pisser! Me! I have Sir in my name! These pilfering bass turds, these, these disgusting excuses for human beings and human being adjacent entities! They sicken me! I cannot count the nights I have spent tossing and turning in my sleep, whether it was in a bled or more likely atop my sweet ass Sassafrass, sweating and fuming over the injustices done to me by the well-balanced lightly baked crust of society! It has surely aged me twice what my years ought to, the knowledge I have of their treachery! If only it weren’t for rich people, I would have already succeeded at everything I have ever tried! But they only exist to put traffic circles in my roads and build bridges in the middle of my walls!”

Biscuit Pisser blinked for the first time since Sir Broderick began his diatribe on catch-23s, and then blinked many times more to compensate. Then, his rapid blinks not slowing, he reached out and pulled a flask out of Sir Broderick’s boot, taking farty swigs.

“I’m sorry I asked.”

“Don’t apologize, Biscuit Pisser. Why, apologies are simply a tool of the rich to oppress us. You’ll notice they never apologize to one another, and what’s more they’d surely never apologize to someone like us. A rich person wouldn’t even be caught dead looking at us.”

“Thitfathe? Thitfathe? Bithcuit Pithther? Is that you guys over there?” shouted somebody from inside a shimmering carriage pulled by unicorns. You could tell the carriage was being pulled by unicorns because it appeared as if it was self-propelled, save for reigns that streched out over invisible horse shaped forms. Unicorns were real, but they were only visible in infrared.

Sir Broderick jolted and looked over to see a familiar face, albeit one not caked in mud as his and Biscuit Pisser’s were, which was puzzling. He couldn’t remember knowing a single rich person that he didn’t hate. Much less one that knew his old nickname.

“Holy shit. I think it’s Limpy George.”

Sir Broderick gasped as the carriage stopped in its invisible tracks and a tall figure clambered out of it. It was indeed Limpy George. He still had his trademark limp, though now he used a gilded cane to assist his gait.

“Limpy George!” spat Sir Broderick, taking a swig from a flask to unsober himself up, “What are you doing here, old chup? And in a carriage pulled by unicorns no less!”

“They’re not unicorns,” snorted Limpy George, “They’re actually normal horthes enchanted to be invithible, totally invithible, not even in infrared. They’re, like, eight times as expenthive.”

“Limpy George, by the chickens above, you make it sound like you’re rich or something.”

“That’s becauthe I am rich. Jackathth.”

Sir Broderick flew into a rage, knowing that by ‘jackathth’ Limpy George meant ‘jackass,’ but found himself propelled to the ground on his back like a flipped turtle when he lunged at his old friend.

“Oww! What in the clucking hen was that?”

“Forthefield I had cast over me by a wizard. It was really expenthive too, in cathe you were wondering.”

“Limpy George, you really haven’t changed at all, have you? Except having all the money of course.”

“For the most part, though I’ve altho learned a thing or two. Check thith out,” Limpy George smirked as he produced a yo-yo from his pocket and flicked it down for a moment, watched it spin, then drew it back up quickly. “That’th right, I’ve got thkillth now. Thomething money can’t buy.”

“Say, Limpy George, how do all the purebred or whatever the cluck it’s called rich people accept you as a rich person when you don’t have their accent?”

“Um, I have a rich perthon card, duuuh? Pluth, if you were a little more cultured you’d realize thethe clotheth I’m wearing are expenthive as thhit. Fathe it, I know what I’m doing here.”

“I guess you do. Say, Limpy George, do you wanna lend us some cash? Like the old days?”

“Like the old dayth, Biscuit Pithther? In the old dayth I wath the pooretht of the three of us, you knob, and neither of you two ever let me forget it!”

This was true, for Limpy George had been carted in from the lower-poor school to the middle-poor school after receiving complaints at the first place for, as it was put in his record, ‘limping too much.’ Something Limpy George had responded to by exaggerating his limp even more.

“Well then how about this,” Sir Broderick pushed Biscuit Pisser aside, “How about this, Limpy George. How about you let us in to that casino over there with your rich person card? We’ve got to have four hundred ninety nine chickensfeed by tomorrow and I don’t know any other way to do that when we’ve only got four.”

“This cathino? Oh, Thitfathe, you don’t wanna go to that cathino, that place clucking thuckth. I’ve got a better idea. I wath on the way to meet my buddieth for a game of poker jutht now, and our gameth are way better than anything you’ll get at a cockhamned cathino. What do you say? I’ll take you both ath guestth,” he put his arms around Sir Broderick and Biscuit Pisser, filling their noses with his doubtlessly expensive cologne, “It’ll be fun. Like old dayth. But even better, becauthe I’m rich.”

“Sure, why not?” sighed Sir Broderick.