Harry sat on the remains of his sign as the workers rebuilt his hotel. Waiting. He hated sitting around, but there was fuck-all else to do while he waited for his new legs to arrive. "No, no, no, you idiots, the bar is supposed to be horizontal!"
The workers ignored him, and he thought of all kinds of things he'd like to do to them. Most required the help of the Secret Assassin, however, and Harry figured letting that guy know he was still alive was not such a cool idea.
A cloud of dust appeared down the road and from it emerged a blue Sears truck with a large bird perched on the top of it.
"What the hell am I doing here?" screamed the Phoenix, clinging to the roof.
The bird disappeared and Harry rubbed his eyes, shook his head and looked at the truck again. No bird. "Guess I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing musty burlap!"
After backing in, two guys jumped out of the truck and opened the doors. They pushed out a large crate, procured Harry's signature and zoomed off again.
"My legs!"
Tearing into the packaging, Harry extracted the limbs.
"Great, not what I wanted, the wrong size, and not my colour!"
Harry held two grasshopper legs - each about six feet long - in his hands.
"Damn catalogues! You can never figure out those stupid numbers!" Slowly, he attached them and started hopping around the construction site.
"Where the fuck's that phone... Hey dude, hand me that will ya? Thanks." He dialled Sears Customer Service. "Hello? Yeah, I ordered a set of legs the other day... Yeah, they're not quite right... Lets just say I'm not a giant grasshopper... Yes it is a problem... Well, that's no excuse... Look, I want a set of human legs... Yes, it really is a problem, some guy over there is looking at me funny and holding a can of Raid... Alright, I'll hold."
Trying to wait patiently, Harry started to get really nervous when the Pest control company showed up. Then she came back on the line.
"Yeah, I'm still here... I'm serious about this, there's some guys here ready to gas me... I dunno, they think I'm going to wreck the crops or something! Hang on a second." Harry covered the mouthpiece for a moment. "Uh, look dudes, this is all a big mix up. Could you hang on until I'm finished bitching at the company that shipped me these? Thanks. Still there? Yeah, its a real bind... Look, how many people really want grasshopper legs?... Sure, and I'm a crop eater... Oh SHIT!!!"
Harry jumped twenty-five feet as the PCO people fired everything they had at him. The phone cord pulled out, the PCO guys reloaded, and Harry bounded off.
"Sheeze, you'd never have thought running a hotel would be this difficult!"
The PCO guys looked at each other. "Wow, they'll never believe this!"
"Yeah, we're already on probation after that jail incident."
"Hey, that was only a small oversight. How were we supposed to know that those guys wanted to get out of there?"
"I know but this one takes the cake. They're never going to believe a six-foot half human grasshopper talking on the phone."
A fizzling image appeared and in popped Smokey the Bear from the USS Unlimited, Inc. "Have any of you guys seen Yellowstone?"
The two PCO guys let out a short burst of manic laughter, jumped into their van and weaved down the road back to the nearest bar.
Smokey watched them flee. "Jeeze, you'd think they'd just seen a six-foot grasshopper. Must be injecting Kevlar fibre. Unlimited, one to zap up."
