Old Men in New York

            They said everything happens in New York. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. Why else would Gary have left his beautiful little hometown in Kentucky and came here, to New York City, itself? Most people back home had told him, “You’re from Kentucky, Gar. New York has nothing for you. They’re all sophisticated and stuff up there.” He always hated being called ‘Gar’, that was one of the reasons he had left in the first place. In New York, everyone would call him ‘Gary’, because that’s what normal people do. They call you the name you introduce yourself as. He didn’t know if anyone had actually tried going around, telling people “Hi, I’m Batman.” But he was really curious to see if that would work. He liked being called ‘Gary’ too much, though, to tell people that he was Batman.

            Besides, Batman never conspired to rule the world, and Gary did. Sure, he was pushing 70 years old, but he could still think on his feet, and he felt better here than he had in 30 years. Sure, he had never been to college, but lots of people hadn’t been to college. The anarchists made a cookbook without any college learning, right?  Gary thought so, and he had memorized the whole thing. To him, all of life’s lessons came from this book. Some people would call that crazy, he’d heard that a lot back home, but that didn’t stop him. He’d rule them all, one day. Such a simple plan, too. No one would see it coming, or be able to stop it.

            It was simple, really. Simplicity was what he knew, and Gary did what worked, so simplicity was the name of the game (Bingo lost in a landslide).  He had watched hours upon hours of Bill Nye the Science Guy, and memorized the Anarchist Cookbook, and now he had formulated his own mind control serum. It was so easy, Gary couldn’t believe that no one had ever done it before! All he needed was a lot of tequila, mixed with a few shots of bleach, Tang, and gun powder mixed with the filament from a regular light bulb (that was the hard part. The filaments kept breaking!) He marinated hot dogs in this concoction over night, then put the new Gary’s Famous Kentucky Doggy Dogs on his hot dog cart to sell the next day. He had thought up an irresistible slogan, too: No Cats in these dogs! 100% dog, guaranteed! Gary new the importance of a good slogan in business, and in world domination. If he stopped to think about it, Gary would realize that slogans were important in every aspect of life. Everyone in New York loves hot dogs, so Gary wandered around the city, sowing the seeds of the world’s demise with every hot dog he sold. Sometimes it was hard for him to keep from cackling at his costumers as they walked away, but he knew that the serum needed time to sink in, otherwise it wouldn’t work.

            One day, when he had sold enough hot dogs to enslave all of the minds in New York City, he would go to stage 2 of his plan: Get on American Idol. Gary knew that American Idol was televised across the nation, so it would definitely get everyone in New York City. With his 3 minutes of screen time, he would sing a song that would cause everyone in New York City to revolt, over thrown their local government, and declare him King of New York. From there, he would use the massive economic power of the city to expand his empire, and spread his wiener weapons around the world.

            No one could hope to stop Gary the Almitey!