“So you do remember our bargain,” Carrot Top sneered. “The fear in your eyes betrays you.”

“Now hold on a minute Carrot,” Tom entreated. “I mean, that was a long time ago, and--”

“NO!” Carrot Top screeched, his eyes blazing. “I’ve had enough of your excuses, Tom. If it wasn’t for me, you would have never gotten that ‘Oven Mitt’ gig for Arby’s. Now I want what’s mine.”

“Carrot Top, let’s be reasonable here,” Tom said, glancing around frantically, looking for an escape. “I mean, Jesus, look at you. You are quite possibly the most hideous human being on the planet. Who could possibly be paid enough money to even touch you, much less have sex with you?”

“That’s not my problem, Tom.” Carrot Top said, his eyes narrowing. “That’s yours. And you’ve got about ten seconds to fulfill your part of the bargain before I get really angry.”

Tom froze. “Wait a second, what do you mean by fulfilling my –”, Tom’s eyes widened in horror. “You don’t mean to say that you want me to….”

Carrot Top’s eyes gleamed malevolently. “That’s right, Tom. If no one else will have sex with me, then I guess it will just have to be you.” At that, Carrot Top’s robe dropped unceremoniously, revealing his unspeakably grotesque nudity.

Tom Arnold’s drink fell from his hand as he began retching uncontrollably. “Good God,” Tom choked. “That’s awful, that’s just awful.”

“I’m waiting, Tom,” Carrot Top said, gyrating his nude, freakish body, sending Tom once more into waves of uncontrollable vomiting.

“Enough!” Tom cried. “Please.”

“So, you agree then,” Carrot Top leered.

“No,” Tom gasped. “You will have to kill me first. In fact, kill me. Now that I have seen you naked, I want nothing more than to die.”

Carrot Top frowned. “But then who will sleep with me?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” Tom said, his eyes steely. “But you must kill me now. I can’t stand to live another day with the image of your terrible genitals forever burned into my mind.”

Carrot Top’s eyes flashed in anger. “Then die, traitor!”

A shot rang out; Tom closed his eyes, awaiting the sweet, sweet release of death.

But nothing happened.

Against his better judgment, Tom glanced up at the nude form of Carrot Top. The prop-comic still stood in front of him, the 9mm raised, but the expression on his face was one of disbelief. Suddenly, a trickle of blood ran down the side of his mouth, his eyes rolled back into his head, and he collapsed to the ground.

Standing behind Carrot Top’s crumpled form was Tom’s wife, Shelby. She too was dressed in a red crushed velvet robe. In her hand was a smoldering snub-nosed pistol.

“Shelby?” Tom cried incredulously. “But how—”

“Tom,” she said gravely. “There’s something you must know.”

“Yes?”

“I – I slept with Carrot Top.”

A renewed wave of nausea washed over Tom and once again he began vomiting uncontrollably all over himself.

Shelby collapsed to her knees. “I’m so sorry, Tom. But he said he was going to kill you and I, well -- ever since those 1-800-COLLECT commercials I always thought he was kind of – well, cute.”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Tom cried, and before Shelby had a chance to react, Tom had sprinted towards the broken form of Carrot Top, grabbed the 9mm pistol, pointed it at his temple, and pulled the trigger. The gun clicked and Tom felt a piece of fabric pass his face. He glanced down at the pistol; emerging from the front of the barrel was a little flag that had a picture of a cattle-prod on it.

“What the hell is this?” Tom demanded.

“Oh yeah, that’s his ‘Stun Gun’,” Shelby smiled. “He was so clever with those props.”

Tom began boiling with rage. “So you’re saying he had already had sex with you before he proposed having sex with me?”

She nodded.

“Then how could you – then why did you kill him?”

“I may have lower standards than a quadriplegic Taiwanese whore with leprosy -- I mean, how else could I have married you -- but no one could ever know that I fucked Carrot Top, no one.

“Which reminds me,” suddenly she raised the gun at Tom and fired twice into his midsection. He let out a grunt as the bullets tore into his insides. “I’m afraid I can’t have you talking either.”

“Shelby…,” Tom gasped, watching the blood form on his promotional Windows XP jersey, before collapsing to his knees. “I–”

She rose from her kneeling position and blew the smoke from the tip of the gun barrel. “Oh, what is it now, you hack.”

“I can’t believe you slept with Carrot Top,” he murmured. “I knew you were a whore -- I mean, you married me -- but Jesus.” With that, he collapsed to the ground, and released his last talentless breath.

“You would be amazed at what a woman will sleep with if it means she won’t have to put up with this bullshit society,” Shelby sighed. “Now if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I have some bank accounts to close out.”

Sometime later, all across America, for the first time ever, millions of people laughed at something that was actually funny on TV: Tom Arnold and Carrot Top had apparently been found naked together and had seemingly murdered each other in some kind of gay lovers’ quarrel.

With that momentous occasion, America’s comic sophistication was forever raised beyond anyone’s wildest dreams and annoying stupid crap that was supposed to be funny was never allowed on TV ever again.

And God smiled upon them and said, “Ye Americans hath finally proven that ye are not as retarded as we thought. Let peace and prosperity reign for all eternity.”

And the people did celebrate, and Jesus delighted the people with an amazing break-dance performance with the Prophet Muhammad on turntables, and the party was dubbed “dope” and “off the chain” by all who attended, and there was much rejoicing.

THE END