“Stop everything!  Just stop everything!!!” the voice bellowed again.

“Is that…God?” Jared nervously asked the other two.

“I bet it’s just the Ghost of Halloween to Come, he always has to make a grand entrance…” the Ghost of Halloween Past whispered to his friend, who although never actually was introduced, turned out to be the Ghost of Halloween Present.  They both nodded a half nod, but we completely caught of guard by what would happen next…

“Cut, cut, cut!!!” the voice yelled, although much quieter now as its owner had put down the megaphone.  Suddenly the entire area was lit up by a luminous force that could’ve only been created by the studio’s lighting department and two incredibly annoyed looking men approached them, both wearing white golf shirts, those really cool looking director’s caps and extremely frustrated looks on their faces.

“Uh oh…” was all the two Ghosts were able to get out before the onslaught began.

“Is this what we get for giving a couple of bums off the street a second chance?” the first one yelled.  “If I had wanted the job done by a bunch of drunks, I would’ve done the recruiting at my last family reunion!  I try to give and give and give, but all you people do is take and take and take, and I’m tired of flushing my money down the toilet for a couple of losers who can’t keep steady jobs!  Just because I married your sister doesn’t mean I have to support your filthy…”

As the lecture ensued, Matt pulled Jared aside and explained the situation to him, “I hate to break the bad news to you,” he began, “but Scott’s busy yelling at his in-laws!  I’m afraid that we’ve decided to put this project on hold for a while.  The board made a visit this morning and, after seeing today’s performance, they’re insisting that we need to do some major restructuring before any more cash goes into this thing.  I guess this just wasn’t your time…”

“But I was supposed to have my own theme park and everything!!!” Jared whined.  “Remember?  Jared’s Funhouse, where if our monsters don’t scare the crap out of you, our prices will…  They were making action figures!” he professed, but Matt had already started walking back towards the lecture.

“And another thing: I want my barbecue back, now!  You’re had that thing for over a month, you barbecue-borrowing mother…” 

“Hey, Scott,” Matt piped in.  “We’ve got a meeting with the contributors, like now,” he informed, and with that Scott turned and walked away, still enraged about his missing cooking accessories…

“That’s bullshit,” he told Matt as they made their way upstairs to the boardroom.  “If you borrow something, it’s not yours to keep – otherwise I would’ve gave it to him!  And I bet it won’t even be cleaned off when I do get it back…”

“I know,” Matt calmly said, opening the door to the executive’s meeting place.  “I know…”

A gigantic buffet table filled the room where a messy, disorganized meeting would normally be taking place and the editors quickly found that everyone had already began eating without them.  They each grabbed a plate and raced to build the largest pile of horribly good-tasting (and bad for you) food for themselves.  After several minutes of delicate planning, they inched to the head of the table and took their seats, now officially ready to begin their oh-so-important meeting.

“Well?” Kim spoke up, her incredibly distracting “third leg” still dangling from between her legs, “What’s the scoop?”  Everyone’s ears perked up as the editors prepared to address the group.

“It’s done,” Matt announced, hoping to avoid as much conflict as possible while his plate was still full.  He quickly darted back to his feast and extracted another chicken wing for his next victim.

Expecting to have to break up another conflict, Scott rose from his chair and stepped away from the table.  Instead of expanding on Matt’s presentation, however, he simply pulled several bottles of beer from the refrigerator and began sliding them across the table with the utmost coolness, kind of like the bartenders always do in the movies.  Upon distributing the beverages, he returned to his seat and finally added to his partner’s words…

“Yeah, it’s done,” he told the group.

“Okay,” they all agreed and, without saying another word, quickly dove into their plates with reckless abandon.  The only phrases spoken throughout the rest of the meeting were ‘Pass me another beer’, ‘is there any more of that dip left?’ and the most common of all, ‘Come on, Kim!  Lose that thing already, it’s making me nauseous!”  

Another Halloween would soon pass and all that would be leftover were stomach aches, empty beer cans, and a special image created by the graphics department: