[Part V of Dance Dance Story. Read Part I!]

Why hello ladies, I couldn’t help but overhear. It sounds like the young woman over here is madly in love with one of them arcade runts. And, to prove his love, he’s going to all but commit suicide on the Dance Dance Revolution machine this weekend.

I’ve seen that kind of thing before. Why, a year or so ago, that kid Gary Reese tried to do that very same impossible move on that very dance machine. A real tragedy. His body was so twisted when the coroners arrived that the crew here at Whattapretzel named a pretzel after him.

But there’s a way to stop your man from doing the same, ladies. Oh yes, there is. You see, I’m a bum, so you know I’ve been around. And, when you get to be my age, you know that true love is based on lies, trickery, and deceit.

Seriously! Here, look at me. No, no, at my good eye. There.

What I’m getting at, sweet thing, is that you need to fake your own death by the hands of that very machine. He’s not gonna take his own life to prove his love for a dead woman -- believe me, I’ve been there. No sir-ee, you fake your death, so that your gang there -- whatchacallem, Team SmackaButtcheek -- they think yer dead, and then poof, you show up alive in the parking lot and you and your boy elope together in what I like to call a consequence free environment. It’s easy. That’s how I got my second wife. And my third. Within weeks of each other.

But anyways, speaking from experience, whenever you fake your death you need to go big, like Elvis. Grab some of those barbeque sauce packets from the Arby’s over there. And here, take this fake leg of mine, I can do without for a day or so.

[Pauses to unscrew leg and hand it to Violet.]

You can also use it to store whiskey. Here, no, no, just stuff it up the side of those giant flared jeans of yours. Looks good. Okay, now, put the Dance Dance Revolution machine on its hardest setting and then wipe out when the song reaches its climax. I mean it, take one for the team. Let out a howl, toss the leg in the air, bust the packets open, squirt red sauce all over the place. I mean, I wanna see some 11-o-clock-news shizzat go down. Screaming and panic. I’ll run up to the machine, show ‘em my medical license (ya, it’s real), and pronounce you dead.

I’ll drag your “body” out to the parking lot and I’ll hook you up with your homeboy after the tourney. Nobody will be the wiser. C’mon, I do this sort of thing all the time. Trust me. It can’t fail.

By the way, can I have a quarter?

[Tomorrow: Dance Dance Story Concludes!]