How Jay Made A Dollar

"How much do you want for this?" said the man with the strange hat.
"I'm gonna need to get $2 for that" replied Jay.
"Whoa! That's a bit much for one of these don't you think?"
"Well you don't know what I had to do to get it."
"I'll give you fifty cents and that is my final offer."
"I just can't do it. How about a dollar fifty."
"No, no, no! Fifty cents is all that it is worth period."
"Okay I'll level with you. I first had to travel 300 miles in a custom built scooter powered by two field mice. After predators ate my power source while I slept, I then had to continue an additional 8.537 miles on foot to reach my destination. Upon arriving the owner insisted that I negotiate with his 3 year old daughter to complete the transaction. She wanted her weight in Skittles but her dad said no Skittles. So I suggested one dollar so I could just get it and leave. The man told me that my money was no good and that I was going to have to do just one thing for him to obtain the item. I'll spare you all the details because the complete story has been known to make full grown men burst into tears. Phase one consisted of a can of finely ground powder made from the hooves of elk, three yamakas filled with Campbell's Chunky soup and a copy of Cracked magazine circa 1974. Phase two involved fourteen meat cleavers, a pair of socks so worn out that just a single thread remained and a bus load of female senior citizen widows looking to get back on the dating scene. Finally, the third and final phase involved a deck of playing cards with all but the 5 of hearts removed, 3 bags of material marked with biohazard stickers, a beating heart fresh from the corpse of the most evil woman on the planet and finally a one pound assorted bag of those little pastel colored mini marshmallows. I'm sure you can fill in the details to understand that I had a very difficult time obtaining this item. You want to buy it for a dollar?"
The man with the strange hat removed his hat and proceeded to contort his face in several different ways that clearly showed the agony of making the difficult decision.
"I'll give you seventy-five cents"
"Can't do it. I need a dollar."
"Okay fine. Here's a dollar."
"Thanks fella."

Parallel Universe

Steve, Dave and Jay were sitting on a degraded park bench. The wood had well-worn butt grooves from years of elderly folk engaging in "heavy petting" during sunsets after they drank their daily fifths of scotch. The metal holding the wood was caked in rust created from a combination of summer downpours, squirrel and elderly urine.

In a moment of extreme clarity, Jay looked up. "Hey guys, in a parallel universe not far off from our own, I created this blog."

Steve took a moment from eating his orange creamsicle and asked, "What? That's cool. Blogs are da shizzle grizzle."

Dave smirked and asked, "What is it called?"

After much trepidation, Jay spoke, "Well, it's called Ramshackle Express Publishing. I can't go into much detail, but I can tell you this. It involves micro-fiction, a team of 26 gnomes transcribing our every hilarious thought by assigned letter each wearing a leotard with the specific letter printed on it, a powder blue Skip-It circa 1983, the letter "H" volume from Encyclopedia Brittanica with the picture of Herbert Hoover given a sharpie mustache, Mos Def's left pinkie wearing a Darkwing Duck Decoder Ring, and a trampoline made from the hairs of the wild goats of Nepal after a strictly cannibalistic diet."

Steve again looked up and mentioned, "That's interesting" and proceeded to give birth to a litter of calico kittens.