"Hmmm," thought Muffy, changing whatever mind she had about Atlas, "He's obviously a stick in the mud. In fact, this whole place is pretty boring."
All of a sudden the winds started picking up and before she knew it Muffy was caught in a spinning vortex. "Oh no!" she cried, "It must be Hurricane Georges!!!" As she frantically flailed her arms and legs trying to escape the clutches of the unyielding winds, a giant briefcase, embossed with the initials 'AG', clunked her in the head and knocked her out cold.
When Muffy awoke, several hours later, she found herself in a level field surrounded by pastures. There were these large hobby horse looking things going up and down, up and down, all around her.
"Where am I," cried Muffy, "This doesn't look like the City."
"It's an oil field, baby," said a voice out of nowhere. Muffy spun around looking for the source, and there he was standing in the middle of the field, propped up against a rusty old drilling rig.
"Who are you?" asked Muffy as she took in the tall lean stranger.
"I am known by many, many names," he replied in a sweet Texan drawl,"But most people call me Big Dog, or Big for short. There is one person who persists in calling me Mikey, but I let her do that anyway."
"So, Big," said Muffy, "What are you doing here?"
"Well," he said, "It's my job to watch over these oil fields and to answer questions in case babes like that cool Mavis Scanlon or yourself come along and need to learn something about them. But, but, but....."
He sighed a very Big sigh.
"But what?" asked Muffy, as she drew closer to the sputtering Big Dog.
"I seem to have lost my brain, or at least my mind, because of these dang oil service stocks. In fact, I keep having to tell myself that 'it's the price of oil, stupid.'"
"Oh," said Muffy, "How very sad. You know, I heard that there was a powerful market maven, in fact a wizard, by the name of wizzards wine who hangs out in Sapphire City. Maybe he could help you find some brains for this stock analysis problem."
"As for me," Muffy continued, "I'm looking for some excitement and I think you and I could have a few laughs along the way. Why don't we try to find this wizzard together?"
Big looked at Muffy, then back at the oil field. No contest.
"You're on," he said, "But how will we find this wizzard do you suppose?"
"Why," said Muffy, "We'll just follow the exes and oh's....."
And so Muffy and Big Dog proceed down the path of exes and oh's, pointing and figuring stuff out and only reversing their course a few times along the way.
THen night fell with a thud.....and in the distance they saw...... |
