An elliptical voicemail led me late last night to the doorstep of Mister Sloppy's evil world domination HQ in Centretown. After I buzzed the intercom and the reinforced door silently swung open, I let myself into the computer room. There, Mister Sloppy looked ineffably smug.
"Oh, hi, Slop! You called?" I said.
"Indeed. I brought you a gift from my trip."
He pushed a small corrugated carton toward me. One heady sniff and I opened it. Two dozen extremely fresh bars of Cailler Ultrafine Dark. None of that Tobler crap... Mister Sloppy's taste in gifts is legendary.
"Thank you!" I said gratefully. "And how
was the
vacation?"
"It was...
very fine," he said. "Ate great ice cream. Sailed a private yacht on Lake Geneva. Took an excellent Swiss train to visit the Large Hadron Collider..."
"And how did
that go?" I asked, an alarm ringing faintly in the back of my mind.
"It's
working again, isn't it?" purred Mister Sloppy, fixing me meaningfully with a bright blue eye. "And good thing, too. I'm gonna be needing it."
"
Eep! So you're still on the world domination thing?
"Does the mayor think he's finally a
real civic leader because he hung out with
Prince Chuck and John Baird's hair for a photo-op? I'm all
over it!"
"
Ummm. Oh. Look at that! It's bedtime for little coyotes. Thanks for the chockies. Gotta go! " I yelled over my shoulder.
"Oh, I know." Mister Sloppy's voice followed me out the door. "But you'll be back... I have more chocolate."
Fiend.
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