Interview with Tony Stark

Special interview by Anonymous

The billboards on I35 led me exactly where I wanted to go:

STARK WAREHOUSE SALE

I hadn't even realized Stark Industries had a presence in Austin, but there it was. With more security than the President of the United States and Jennifer Lawrence combined.

The building was chock full of slightly outdated Stark tech: older arc reactors (palladium is so passe, regardless of the output); Jericho missile prototypes; souped up exotic cars and planes needing repairs; propulsion systems; miniature rocket launchers; body armor; the list goes on.

I had, of course, gone incognito. Like half the people there I was in an Iron Man costume, with large quantities of laundered cash on my person. One doesn't really like to attract SHIELD's attention.

Imagine my surprise when I tapped a salesman on the shoulder to ask a question, only to find myself face to face with the man himself, Tony Stark!

"Mr. Stark! It's you!. I mean, I didn't expect to find you here..."

"I didn't, either."

"I don't mean to gush, but I'm probably your biggest fan."

"Nope. Not even close. I am. Now, what can I do for you?"

"But why are you here?"

"We get all sorts of people in here. Half of them are dumber than a Hammer. I want to make sure people know exactly what they're buying. Pepper says it plays hell with stock prices when someone lights up their new "arc reactor" but it turns out to be a personal neutron bomb killing everyone in a three block radius. Or, conversely, they light off a Jericho prototype to stave off invasion by hundreds of feral hogs, but it's a chemical agent dispenser full of pig pheromones.

"Not only do those sorts of things cost us millions, but I end up testifying before Congress, and if there's one thing I hate more than people taking my stuff, it's wasting time before that pompous, self-inflated windbag who heads the Crucify Tony Stark Committee.

"Now, were you going to buy something?"

At this point the discussion got technical. I don't think I want to say just what I bought, but let's just say that if it could grow up it would expect to be an Insight hellicarrier. But don't worry, because the targeting system only goes after really bad musicians. I asked Tony what his definition of "really bad" was in this context.

"If Obadiah Stane liked the music, it needs to go. At this point, the only bands I'm 100% sure are safe are Black Sabbath, AC/DC, and probably U2."

"What about the Rolling Stones?"

"Have you heard them lately? Lame-o. I think they're probably a big influence on Miley Cyrus."

Gotcha. Nuff said.

OK, SHIELD. Try and track this!

All Wisdom Fled

Sharon and I had been married less than a year when my wisdom teeth launched their painful war of secession. Sharon's sister Cynthia hooked us up with "the best oral surgeon in the metro area". We had little to nothing in the way of insurance. We talked with the billing office up front and agreed to pay 1/3 by check on the day of the surgery.

In the chair. "Oooh, those are bad. This will be a challenge!" Not exactly what you want to hear when someone will be excavating in your mouth, but I was in enough pain I would have let the Hatfields and McCoys in if it would have helped.

(Queue sinister music.)

I don't recall a lot after they set me up for anesthesia, but I do recall...

• Waking up with a knee on my chest, a chisel in my mouth, my head jerking with each WHACK of the little hammer. "Unhhh!!!" "He's awake! Turn it up!"
• Waking up with a knee on my chest and my head flailing back and forth while the doctor, pliers firmly on the remains of a tooth, tried to get the stubborn beast out. "Unhhh!!!" "He's awake! Turn it up!"
• Explaining groggily to an uncaring nurse that my wife was out front and would take care of payment.
• Being told I was the patient, and ordered to go pay. Still being in La La Land, who was I to argue?
• Like a cheap maze robot, finding my way to the front desk by leaning on the wall to my right and following it:
  • I would wake every so often somewhere new since my last memory (but still in the Pastel Horror Maze);
  • Occasionally I would be sagging or half way to the floor, and have to argue myself upright and moving again;
  • I remember doing a 180 where two hallways split;
  • I had a hard time following the right hand rule through the bathroom. I'm not sure whether I went around or over the toilet and around or under sink;
  • I paused at the edge of another patient room where God alone knows what was going on, and made a leap of faith that I could cross the doorway rather than enter the room;
  • Apparently I made it.
• When I finally got to the front desk (approximately three weeks later), they tried to insist I pay the entire balance. I kept (when I was conscious) insisting we didn't have that much, that we had an agreement, and that they should find my wife. Eventually someone demanded my checkbook, filled in the amount for a few dollars less than the register balance, and had me sign it. Still in La La Land, who was I to argue?
• The guy who now had no money for gas or groceries, that's who.

Needless to say, once I got over the subsequent infection, dry socket and the other miseries that followed (I was constantly either in pain or medically stoned, so it's all fuzzy) we never dealt with this Best In Area Doctor again. In fact we steered people away from him.

If my wisdom teeth had grown back, I'd have seriously considered the Hatfields and McCoys.