Walkin' down the street, makin' the offer to every woman I meet. Stop the fancy fur-coated middle-aged bees-nest-haired happy-american-family-member female, "have a drink with me, baby," I implore. Gasp, choke, mortification. Head on down to the high-livin' part of town, to try there instead. Question posed in repetition to the next few sistahs unfortunate enough to be on the same block as me that mornin'. Scream, slap, flee, the results be not positive.

            Walk into the local convenience store, there are no females to proposition, pick up a loaf of bread and some Red Bull. "Howz yer day, boss?" I ask the oriental shopkeeper. No response. I am the only one alive on this planet; there is a seemingly infinite series of mobile cardboard cutouts that have been set loose all around me as part of some sort of galaxy-wide prank.

            Walkin' on down to the other end of town, about to pick up a paper at the newsstand when suddenly I fall through a manhole. A slide down a long unsanitary chute and splat, I land on my ass in the middle of a big field. There is a long oaken table set up off to one side, with a giant rabbit at one end and a sketchy-looking character wearing a large hat at the other.

            "Welcome, you're just in time for our mid-afternoon snack," says the rabbit.

            "Cool, what are ya having?" I ask.

            "Heroin. Roll up your sleeve," says the rabbit, and sticks a five foot needle into my arm. It pierces my skin, goes straight through the other side of my arm and plunges into the ground.

            "Fuck, rabbit, that stings a tad."

            "Shut the fuck up and sit down. You'll feel fine in a second."

            I sit down.

            "BLAAAAWEEEHOOOFKLGGGFJJFKjggjjrrrrlllllgppppppppnhhhhkkhh!!!!" screams the mad hatter.

            "You're a loon," I counter.

            "On the contrary, my dear fellow," he replies crisply, shifting gears, "a loon is a medium-size bird, one of whose many varieties can oftentimes be found nesting in certain remote areas of Maine between the months of BBBBLLLLAAWWWWRRKKKFFKKKFFFFFFFFRR

gggggggkkkkhhggghhhrrrrrrrrrhkkkktttttttkkkkkgggkkkkhhhh!!!!!!!"

            "He's only able to keep it together in very short spurts," explains the rabbit, chewing absent-mindedly on a piece of celery.

            "I thought rabbits ate carrots," I says.

            The rabbit stops chewing, puts down the celery and glares at me. "Who the fuck said we don't. Just because I'm having celery today doesn't mean that the entire species eats celery to the exclusion of all other vegetables, does it."

            "Good point, rabbit. I withdraw my previous statement." (The reader is now requested to find a pencil (with a good eraser) and erase from the page the above carrot-referencing line.)

            "Well all right, what's for seconds?" pipes I energetically, despite being entirely full after the first course.

            "Cyanide," says the rabbit.

            The mad hatter by this point has rolled out of his chair onto the ground and is gnawing on the table leg, making strange gurgling and spitting noises whilst doing so.

            "Cyanide?" I ask.

            "Yeah, every afternoon around this time we swallow liquid cyanide, keel over and die, and then in an hour or so Alice comes along and sprinkles some magic pixie dust on us and we pop back up again, as right as rain."

            "How Promethean. What kind of pixie dust?"

            "Well, I think it's actually angel dust, but Alice calls it pixie dust, not sure why."

            "Hmmm, I think I'll opt out of this one, rabbit, I have a bit more living to do today and it might throw me off my schedule."

            "All right, but would you do me a favor then and feed this to the hatter while I swallow mine?" says the rabbit, handing me a small vial of colorless odorless liquid.

            "Sure thing," I say, and go to pour it into the hatter's mouth, but he snaps up at me like a beheaded shark and bites my hand off.

            "Look what he did," I object to the rabbit.

            "Oh, don't worry, just wait around for Alice, the pixie dust can fix that too -" the rabbit falls out of his chair with a loud thud. The hatter is now also lying motionless, having accidentally ingested the poison along with my hand.

            I decide I don't have the time to wait around all day for some blue-skirted tart to come traipsing by and so I wander down the path a bit, which is mysteriously beginning to turn a pale sort of ochre in hue the farther along I go. Suddenly, a number of things fall out of the sky with deafening crashes, among them: a small house, two witches, five midgets, a winged monkey and a small terrier of some sort. Well, the terrier didn't really make a deafening crash, he just kind of plopped down next to one of the midgets, and as a matter of fact none of the midgets made deafening crashes and neither did the two witches or the monkey and goddamn it don't sidetrack me, I'm in the middle of telling a story.

            The witches get up and face off. The one in the black dress impales the other one on her broomstick. She cackles loudly as the good witch disappears in a cloud of good smoke, then stomps over to me. "You're not in Kansas anymore, Toto!!" she screams in my face, breath wreaking of whiskey.

            "My name isn't Toto, it's Scott. I believe that there is Toto lying next to one of the midgets, and he's not looking at all well. In fact, it doesn't look like any of the midgets survived that fall you took, and the monkey doesn't look particularly hale at the moment either -"

            "Don't interrupt me!!!!" she hisses. "The point isn't what your name is, you dolt, the point is you're not in Kansas anymore!" she cackles furiously, almost falling over with twisted glee, prancing about in some strange witch-dance, hopping from foot to foot.

            "Yeah, I know that too, you goddamn crone, I'm in freakin' Wonderland and so are you. I believe you folks took a wrong turn somewhere. Well, technically, it would be a wrong fall, I suppose."

            "Oh. Shit." The witch wanders off into the woods, confused.

            The path has returned to its previous shade of dirt brown as I emerge once again into a clearing. There's a palace with a large iron gate and a fat queen sitting on an ornate throne who is waving a scepter around in the air. Milling around her are hundreds of walking cards, with arms and legs, who are holding various types of weaponry, spears and polearms and the like.

            "EEEEEK! An intruder!" screams the Queen of Hearts, falling off the throne in alarm. "Seize him!"

            A bunch of the cards run up, grab me by the arms and deposit me before the throne. "What are you doing here?" the Queen questions me arrogantly.

            "Well, I was walking the streets up there looking for a woman to have a drink with, when I fell through a manhole cover and it's a bit of a long story but I wound up here."

            "Is it that difficult to find a woman to have a drink with?"

            "Well, yes, for some of us it is. The oddballs of the Earth, bottom feeders and so on, eh heh heh..." The Queen is starting to smirk a bit mischievously. I'm worried about unintentionally leading her on. She really isn't my type.

            There is a commotion off to one side, near the entrance to the clearing. A young girl in a blue dress comes walking up. "What are you doing here, Alice?" asks the Queen.

            "Well, the rabbit told me that there was a guy that lost his hand and needed some pixie dust, and that he was headed this way." I hold up my stump, smiling feebly; the Queen leers at it. Alice sprinkles a bit on me and voila! a new hand. "Thanks hun," says I. She smiles at me most charmingly.

            "Enough of that, outlander!! You shall be thrown into the Pit of Challenge, where you shall face my Champion to decide whether you are worthy of remaining in Wonderland with us."

            "Well, actually, I was thinking about going back pretty s-"

            "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" she screams. "Throw him in the pit!"

            I am carried around the side of the palace by the walking cards over to a boxing ring set up along the forest's edge. The entire entourage follows behind; suddenly the ring is surrounded by the multitudes and I am in it. The Queen takes a ringside seat.

            "This doesn't look like a pit to me," I mumble, looking around.

            "Well, it used to be a pit, but the pit collapsed in on itself last Tuesday. This is the best we could manage temporarily, I'm afraid," sighs the Queen. "Anyway, bring forth the Champion!"

            A gigantic steel box is wheeled out of a gigantic shed on a gigantic wooden wagon. One of the cards unlatches the heavy padlock with trembling fingers and then bolts for cover. Out lumbers the Jabberwocky, wearing loose red trunks and big red boxing gloves. He climbs into the ring and starts shadow-boxing.

            "All right, fetch me the Royal Bell!" commands the Queen, and a big bell is produced out of nowhere. The Queen smacks it with the scepter and the Jabberwocky bullrushes me. I jump to one side, but not quick enough; he pounces on me and bites my right ear off. Blood spurts everywhere.

            The Queen rings the bell again and we go to our corners. "Deduct a point from the Jabberwocky," the Queen instructs the Royal Judge.

            "Alice, babe, I need another hit of that pixie shit!" I yell. Alice comes running up and sprinkles some on me. Three new ears sprout from the right side of my head.

            "I think you overdid it, babe."

            "Don't worry, he'll probably bite them off again by the third round," Alice assures me as she runs back to her seat. Some manager.

            The Queen rings the bell again, the Jabberwocky runs up and bites off both my arms and one of my legs. "Alice!!" I screech imploringly, and Alice throws the entire bottle of pixie dust at me from the corner. Both arms, a leg, a forked tail, and a set of wings sprout forth.

            Seizing the opportunity and capitalizing on my opponent's temporary state of confusion, I jump out of the ring, grab Alice in my arms, fly up into the air and off into the sunset to the sound of corny orchestral music. The Queen turns beet red with disappointment and waves her scepter around in futility as she watches us sail away. See, there are occasionally happy endings. Take that, you non-believers.