ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: I think a good alternate title to this fic would be "More Weird Stuff from the Mind of Spartacus." This one has absolutely *nothing* to do with the X-teams, but it is a great follow-up to "Insanity Has its Privileges." Eyore belongs to Disney, but Walter, Barry and the beanies belong to Sparty. I'm still hounding him for his X-fics, which he has promised to deliver at some point in the near future.

Walter dictated as he flew about the computer keyboard. "Comma," he decided, then thinking it was not enough. "Period. Exclamation point. Question mark. Four." He looked up, and shook a fist in fury at the monitor. "Whaddya mean 'Grammar Error'?" He asks my copy of Word. "Hey boss, your computer isn't understanding plain english, again!"

I waved Walter's matter away, as I was currently involved with an important phone call. "Yeah, what've you got?" I ask the person on the other end. "Oh, American Grafitti?" I was in awe at the moment. "Tell me more. Titanic?" I thought for a moment. "What else have you got?"

"Boss!" Walter stepped to the edge of my desk, poking a stubby claw into my arm. "Boss? Could you help me figure out what's wrong with that sentence? I'm stumped." I sighed. On occassions, Walter was the equivelant of a six year old with a junior-high english assignment for homework. "Never mind, I'll do it myself."

I ignored him, and continued with my conversation. "A ninety-foot gorilla named Ju-Ju?" Even Walter took notice of that sentence and what was wrong with it. "Credentionals? The Batman animated series? Which run? Oh, the WB series. Yeah, put a maybe down for that guy. We've got cathedral ceilings."

"You're buying a monkey?" Walter asked in disbelief.

"Next? A talking ear of corn?" I thought over it for a few seconds. "How big, and what's he done?" I cancelled out that idea the minute 'Benny Hill' entered into the conversation. "What else? No, what else have you got? No, I don't want to go into dragons yet, I've got one already."

"I'm a dragon." Walter stated, with a certain curiosity in his voice.

"A three-legged starfish? Dawson's Creek? Look, I don't care if Stinky did lose some limbs in battle, they'll grow back and I don't want some rehashed plot lines over and over again."

"I met Stinky at last year's Muse Con," Walter recalled with a hint of fear.

"A firefly? That big? Too creepy. A Rhino? Once belonged to F. Scott Fitzgerald? Can I try him out?" Sure enough, in a matter of seconds a miniature purple Rhino was standing proudly on my desk. "Okay, he's here. Yeah, I'll let you know how he works out." I hung up the phone and turned to the new arrival. "So, what's your name."

"Barry," the Rhino replied. "Pleased to meet ya." "Hey, what's with the imposter?" Walter asked, stomping his foot. "I thought I was your muse." I was not sure if it was my imagination, or if Walter was genuinely upset. "It's bad enough you bring this guy in, but without telling me?" He shook his head and looked to his 'competition'. "Where the heck do purple Rhino's come from anyway?" Barry tipped his head upward. "It was a mixed marriage. My father was from Bush Gardens. My mother was a Lucky Charms marshmallow."

"Anyway, Walter," I began, after the strangeness of Barry's words wore off, "You always say that the one hour a day I make you work is too hard, so I thought I'd get someone to handle the rest of the stuff."

"But ..."

"Excuse me," Barry interupted. "But do you mind if I start an illegal gambling ring with the patrons?" He turned his eyes to the various figures and beanies on my desk. "They seem very lifeless, or extremely bored."

"Trust me," Walter said, "You don't even want to get to know these guys."

Barry raised an eye ridge. "Why not?"

Walter put two fingers in his mouth and whistled to the three beanies nested atop my monitor. "Yo, Eyore! How's it going, guy?"

The blue donkey sighed. "Kill me."

"It's hard to find Prozac for beanies," I explain to Barry.

"And the cow's a recovering alcoholic," Walter added.

"That's because you kept getting him drunk for the past three weeks," I remind my dragon muse.

"What if I bring a peace offering?" Barry asked. His posterior then unlatched and opened in the same fashion as a car's trunk. "While I'm a muse, I am also a fully catered lunch truck."

Walter snuck behind Barry. "Bagels?" He asked. "I don't think this is going to work."

"Sure it will," Barry insisted. He called out to all, "Hey guys, free ass bagels!" To Barry's, and only Barry's surprise, none of the residents of my desk responded except for slowly inching away from the new muse. "I've got hot dogs!"

"NO!" Walter and I both chime in.

"Potato salad?" Barry offered, sneezing a serving onto my desk.

"Macaroni and cheese?" He asked, coughing a dose next to my mouse pad. Tipping his head sideways, he began to pound a flat foot against one ear until several round powdered objects dropped out of the other. "Donut holes?"

Walter took a few steps back. "I'm not cleaning this up," he declared.

"And pure Hi-C runs through my veins!" Barry proudly stated.

"Why is it that almost everything you've said has to do with food?" Walter asked.

A thought entered my mind. "Barry, when you worked for Fitzgerald, what exactly did you work on with him?"

Barry answered, "The Fitzgerald Family Cook Book. Why, did he do other stuff?"

I picked up the phone, quickly hitting 'redial'. "Yeah, it's me again. The Rhino isn't going to work out. Yeah, you can take him back." In a puff of smoke, Barry was gone as quick as he came. "No, I don't want to try out another one. Thanks anyway."

As I hung up the phone, Walter snapped his fingers. "Dang it, we should've asked him if he knew how to make Manwich!"

I looked to my muse. "I don't think I'd want to see where it'd come from, though."