Ey. I’m Paulie. Paulie the Potato. Yeah, I’m a potato. What, do ya wanna fight about it?

So I’s gots a story for ya, about me and these two guys I know, Major Dupist and Mr. Fawn. But let’s talk about me first. I’m a serial killer. By night, any way. By day, I run the best hot dog stand in the West End, ya know? Yeah, so many people wanted me and Dupist and Fawn dead. They was my employees, they was. We’s was all hated, ya know? Hated. They’s, they’s wanted us dead. And do ya know why? Because we’s ran the best hot dog stand in the West End.

Anyways, the whole ordeal started when they’s buried Dupist and Fawn before they’s was dead. Dupist and Fawn, they’s lucky I dug up their caskets to rob ‘em of their nice casket clothes, ya know? Well anyways, we’s all knew just who buried them before they’s was killed. Yeah, those wise guys who work for my rival, Reginald the Cheetah. Yeah, Reggie the Cheetah. Reggie ran the best hot dog stand on the East Side. We’s was always fighting, me and Reggie, ya know? I had just one goal, and that was to run the best hot dog stand in the City. And with Reginald leading the East Side with his brand of Harold’s Hot Dogs, that couldn’t be done. I was ready to leave him alone, ya know? Just let him be. But he wanted control of my West End business, and once he insulted me by burying Dupist and Fawn alive, that’s when I just snapped, ya know? I decided that Reggie had to die. So I decided to kill him in his sleep, ya know? Yeah, his sleep. Ya know, when you’s sleeping and stuff, ya know? That would put him out of business.

But anyways, it was me, Dupist, and Fawn running the best hot dog stand on the West End. Dupist was an old major from the War. I forget what exactly he did, but he was in the war, ya know? He was a small man, an’ he hated near everyone. Dupist actually housed the meat grinder used to make the hot dogs. Yeah, every night me and Fawn, we would bring the meat to Dupist’s house and he’d grind it, ya know?

Mr. Fawn was a nationalistic jerk, always wearing a flag pin and wearing that “I love this city” tee-shirt. Nobody liked him. He didn’t do much, ya know? He just made the spices for the meat and carried things when we was moving them into my house, or into the street, or into wherever I told him.

Anyways, on that day when we’s decided that I would murder Reggie, things were going tough. We was nearly out of money for the meat because I lost three days of work with Dupist and Fawn getting buried, ya know? So I’m pretty mad, you get me right? I has a right to be mad.

So I says to Dupist, I says, “Hey Dupist! Why don’t you slip some cyanide into Reggie’s pasta, ya know?” And Dupist, ya know what he says? He says, “Sure, boss, I’d love to, but I don’t know where he lives at, ya know?”

And that right there made me angry, so I punched Dupist in the noggen, yeah, right in the old noodle, ya know?

So I says, “Why don’t you figure it out?” and he says, “I didn’t know you wanted me to!” So he was just being a wise guy right there, and so I has every right to punch him again. So I did, ya know?

So about three hours later, I get directions to Reggie’s house. So I was gonna go there, but it was only noon so I couldn’t go there and kill him, ya know? So I go find Mr. Fawn, yeah, and I says, “Hey Fawn,” and he says, “Yeah?” and I says, “Here, take these directions, go to Reginald the Cheetah’s house, and take out the trash, ya know?”

Well, Mr. Fawn is kind of an idiot, ya know? So he says, “Ok. How’s do I find Reggie?” and I tells him to follow the directions. So ya know what he did? I’ll tell ya what he did. He takes all of Reggie’s trash bins and empties them. And then he leaves! He’s an idiot, ya know?

So by that time, I’m pretty mad, and so I decide I’ll try and negotiate with Reggie to get him to join me or something. So I tells Dupist, I says, “Hey Dupist! Go tell Reggie I want him to have dinner with me tonight. We’s gonna eat at your house, ya know?”

Dupist is a good old boy, ya know, and he goes to Reggie’s house and they set up the time for the meal. Seven at night, that’s when we’s was gonna eat together.

So at quarter of seven, why should show up at Dupist’s house but that dirty Reginald the Cheetah. Yeah, I offer him a meal at my employee’s house and he doesn’t even come on time, he’s too early, ya know? So I says to Fawn, I says, “Hey Fawn! Get the meat grinder ready. We’s gonna eat hot dogs tonight.” So he does that, ya know?

So Reggie comes in, ya know? And he sits down and so me and Dupist sit. Reggie looks at us, he looks and says, “Ey Paulie. Thanks for the invite. What are we’s eating? Harold’s Hot Dogs brand hot dogs?” And then he laughs.

Well, I just can’t stand them wise guys like him, ya know, so I says, “Hey Reggie, stop being such a wise guy.” Me eating Reggie’s favorite hot dog brand? Unbelievable! So I’s pretty mad by then, ya know? First he buries my employees alive, and then he’s too early, and then he’s making these idiot statements like some sort of a wise guy, ya know?

So Mr. Fawn comes in and gives us all our hot dogs, and then he sings the National Anthem. So when he ends the song, we all ate and finished while we was all chatting about our thoughts on pasta and hot dogs and the existence of God and quantum mechanics and common descent and the Irish and how Mr. Fawn always smells like urine and booze, ya know? Yeah, urine and booze. I tells ya, I’d rather smell a raccoon that was beaten to death with a rafflesia plant and then hit by a truck carrying rafflesia plants and then dumped into a pile of rafflesia plants than smell Mr. Fawn. What’s a rafflesia plant? You don’t wanna know, ya know? It smells like dead things. It’s gross, ya know?

So we’s finish our meal and I decide now is the best time. So I says, “Hey, wanna see the secret to how my hot dogs are so good?” and Reggie says, “Sounds good. Hey, we should be business partners and stuff, ya know? Sorry for getting my wise guy boys to bury your employees alive, ya know?”

So I takes him into the back room, where the meat grinder is, and I says to him, “Thanks for supplying the meat.” And he looks at me real funny, ya know, and then I shove his face into the meat grinder, ya know? And I says, “You’s dead to me.”

That was the first time in my life that I was a wise guy, making jokes. Too bad Reggie didn’t get it until he was dead, ya know?