Chapter 7: Lucky You
It would usually be at this chapter in the story where the author would either be kind to poor Stuart Shephard and release him from the confines of his phone booth, chipmunkless, with all of his appendages in-tact for the most part, and send him home to have cookies or some other pleasant food with his loving wife; or, the author could kill Stuart and leave his body in a dumpster for the waste management to find in the morning. However, this will not be one of those usual stories. Instead, we're now going to have even more fun with Stuart as we explore the evil world of Reality Television.
How it happened:
Stuart's unique predicament was obviously causing a stir in the TV world, showing up on the news every day and causing people to bet on when he would die. And, since Stuart Shephard closely resembled Colin Farrell, the ladies in the audience began to form their own leagues of Stu-Lovers (much to the displeasure of their husbands, who were busy debating who would win between Stu Shephard and Spiderman).
One of these Stu-Loving Leagues just happened to be a daytime TV station run entirely by lonely, single women. One of these Stu-Lovers came up with the brilliant idea to do a "reality" television show, in which real, live people compete for some fabulous prize on TV! (She was later informed this had already been done, but not before everyone congratulated her sarcastically for her brilliance.)
But who should be on this show? The answer was clear! Who would make the audiences watch the very most? ... Of course it was Arnold Schwarzeneggar, but he refused, so they had to settle for Stu Shephard (who was originally their second choice). And he didn't really have a say, as he was currently trapped in a phone booth against his will by a psycho with a sniper rifle, so Stu it was.
The television station managed to somehow (and by somehow I mean, "involving a huge wad of cash") convince the caller to let Stu off with only a warning and a year-long television contract to their station, and the caller did so willingly and happily, stopping by only to pick up his blood-sucking chipmunk and to give Stu a pat on the back for being "Just so darn cute."
Stu Shephard himself was having mixed feelings about the whole thing. On the one hand, he could have been stuck in that phone booth for who knew how long with a chipmunk sucking the blood out of his finger; on the other hand, which had no fang marks and was hurting considerably less, Stu was free of the phone booth with few noticeable wounds but was now under contract to do a reality television show for over a year. He couldn't decide which was worse. But when he saw the TV crew start piling out of their truck like clowns out of a VolksWagon Beetle, he decided it was probably the latter.