Everything's back to normal now.

...Is this normal?

Shepard-san, Jenny-san, Patrol Officer-san, thank you very very much for dropping all the charges against me.

And, um, I understand that even if I am innocent and upset at how an officer is treating me, kicking him is still resisting arrest.  It won't happen again. 

Not that I am ever going to do anything that would get me arrested! 

Now I am going to go home and order take-out any maybe sleep until noon tomorrow.

I don't know why everyone is so glum.  You've paid your forfeits, enjoyed the fruit of your rewards, and now everything is back to... well, all right.  I can't call this place normal and keep a straight face.  It's all back to the status quo.  And I think we should celebrate that while it lasts.

With that in mind, tonight at the Nancing Phony, I'm declaring an open bar.  At the advice of my weeping, fretting, and still very indebted co-owner, there will be a five dollar door charge, but after that, my friends, it's all you can drink.

Oh.  And he'd also like me to assure you all that we'll be 'carding.'  Personally, I'm going to be too busy drinking, telling stories, and beating you all at darts to waste my time on wool, but I guess if it's a popular past-time around here you're welcome to card as much as you like.

WHAT:  Tamaki was stuck in a clown costume for four days.  Suffering ensued.
WHEN:  The first afternoon of the lottery plot.
WHO:  Tamaki, Ryoji, and Haruhi, but anyone else who wanted to point and laugh at Tamaki is welcome to jump in.

Tamaki had made some preparations for the arrival of guests.  He had gone immediately to the costume closet, and emerged with a long blue-and-white kimono that covered up the yellow parachute pants and the quilted, polka-dotted primary colors of the rest of the clown suit.  He had also found an over-large conical straw hat that he could balance over the smaller, pointier hat and its pom-pom, and which covered up most of the violently red curls of the wig that had been somehow affixed to his head as he slept.

After careful consideration and quite a lot of dramatic noisemaking and loud exclamtions of distress in front of a mirror, he had finished off with a large Noh theatre mask that made the white make-up look almost fitting -- and most importantly, hid the squeaky red ball over his nose.  Positioning the mask so that it hung evenly on his face without compressing said nose and making a constant, prolonged squeak was more difficult, but he managed it just as a knock came on the door.

As he slunk to the door and opened it, only a viewer with very little imagination would have failed to see a sulky stormcloud lurking over his head and drenching him in miserable, metaphorical rain.

I'm glad that's over. I should feel lucky that nothing of consequence actually happened to me, other than my wallpaper changing every so often.

Really, what kind of sense of humor do the guys running this place have if what I read about is their idea of a joke?