It begins in a factory in subzero conditions, and the plant crumbles around me.  Equipment fails.  Alarms… alarm.  In the distance, there are booming explosions and metal screams as it tears apart.  There are three of us – the remaining workers – and we’re trying to escape.  At an elevator platform that runs up an icy slope to freedom, we realize only two go at once.  The largest worker, easily twice the size of me, sends the third guy and myself first.  “I’ll be right behind you,” he bravely states as he mans the controls that send us up the slope.

Halfway up, the lift suddenly shrieks to a stop.  It begins heading back down.  We yell to our portly hero, wondering what’s happened, but we quickly realize we’re approaching our demise.  The source of the factory’s destruction has found us; his intent is to killl.  His name – Bender.  (Yes, the robot from “Futurama.”)  It turns out I’m in an episode of “Futurama.”  (A very special episode, I guess.)

Cut to me watching the show in some seedy Downtown Anywhere bar with Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith (or Jay and Silent Bob, if you will… I’m unsure which incarnation they were in).  We’re discussing the headquarters of our local superheroes, the Pantheon, and how it has no discernable entrance, but all the heroes know how to get in.  Kevin-slash-Silent Bob (so maybe it was Kevin because he was chatty… but then again Silent Bob does have his moments) brings up the architecture outside of the heroes’ HQ.

“Have you noticed that over the years, the smaller the heroines’ tops get, the bigger the pillars seem to get?”

After kicking back a few more drinks, and I assume finishing the “Futurama” episode, we hit the streets.  The three of us are about to veer left when two ladies in skimpy black-and-red plastic outfits approach from the right.  They call out J&SB, so I keep walking.  I meet an old lady at the corner who abruptly and repeatedly asks me, “Are those ho’s superheroes or prostitutes?”  I continue walking home.

INGREDIENTS: four day old Hungry Howies pizza, Double Stuf Oreos, and organic milk, mixed with winning our softball game as well as Tampa Bay’s victory over Boston (boo-ya!), sprinkled with the softball team playing a punching arcade game at the bar.