At first, Stan was enjoying himself even more the second time around. He'd had time to figure out his routine better: what jokes to make at which moments, which "attractions" would gain the most interest from his audience-heck, he'd even found an old red fez which Ford had lying around in the attic for some reason and put it on to identify himself as the man in charge of this gig. The weird fish symbol on the front identified it as once belonging to Pa, but Stan decided he liked it anyway.

The only stick in the mud was, of course, Ford.

He retained his scowl pretty much the whole time, even when he saw that Stan had attached signs charging the guests extra for any items they brought back with them (he referred to them as "carrying fees"), and showed off the un-notice powder he'd been given by the wizard. And to make matters worse, when the tour actually began he spent the whole time trying to correct Stan's explanations for what the monsters were seeing-under his breath at first (which was a little annoying but nothing Stan wasn't used to), but getting progressively louder as his claims got more ridiculous.

Once again Stan drove up outside Greasy's, "...home of the perpetually broken-down spinning pie trolley!"

And again, the monsters in the back stared in awe at the trolley, which was in plain view through the diner window.

"Why's it always broken?" piped up a little dwarflin (dwarf-goblin hybrid; marginally more manageable than the gremloblin, but not by much) sitting in the back.

Stan twisted around, stretching his mouth into as unnaturally large of a grin as possible.

"Nobody really knows."

Ford cleared his throat. "Actually, it's because the lady in charge of the establishment never bothers-oof!"

Stan removed his elbow from his twin's midriff and hopped out, heading for the door and flinging it open.

"Two hundred pieces of gold or the equivalent in samples to get your picture taken with it!"

Again, he barely dodged the stampede in time.

Ford straightened up in annoyance. "Stanley, there is a perfectly logical explanation for why that pie trolley is always broken-"

"And they're not really interested!" Stan growled. "They're just here for the novelty of the experience!"

"That dwarflin was interested! He actually asked how it worked!"

"Whatever." Stan stomped into the diner; he had tourists to fleece.

He felt a little bad about brushing Ford off like that once he'd taken a second to calm down. Maybe the dwarflin had wanted a genuine answer about why the pie trolley didn't work; and besides, he knew his brother didn't like leaving other people's questions unanswered, he was just trying to help. And maybe flaunt his superior knowledge a little, but he probably wasn't doing it to be hurtful. Stan might've overreacted.

And while it would've meant throwing in the towel in their argument, he would have admitted all this to Ford after the tour ended...had Ford not almost immediately continued trying to destroy the tour.

He began correcting Stan out loud on the smallest errors in description, and once or twice even on his grammar.

By the time they pulled up in front of the Spark-N-Save, Ford's ribs and Stan's elbow were both heavily bruised, and they had gotten into one scuffle over Stan's desire to shut Ford up that nearly sent them careening off the road. It didn't help that the monsters had appeared to find the fighting hilarious, and out of the corner of his eye Stan had seen money exchanging hands between some of them. So it was a secretly very grumpy, but still acting cheerful, Stan Pines who proclaimed the horrors of the Idiot Box to his agog audience, and ignored his brother when he muttered, rubbing his sore side, that "it's called a television, Stanley, for heaven's sake you're giving them completely false ideas about humanity!"

This time there were no manotaurs in the group, and nobody else tried to steal from the store (which might have been more to do with Stan warning them that the Idiot Boxes were guarded by a vicious Copyright Monster who destroyed people's lives if its treasure was stolen than anything else), so they made it back to the forest without the hassle of the day before. Stan let them know that they put the fun in "no refunds!", and then shut the treasure chest full of payment before anyone could change their mind, and drove off.

He didn't have to wait long before Ford started in on him.

"Stanley, you've gone too far this time! You're not just endangering people by bringing these creatures into town, you're flat-out lying to them about everything!"

"No, I'm just puttin' things in a way they'll understand!" Stan snarled back. "They wouldn't've listened ta me if I'd tried ta tell them about being arrested by the cops or whatever, and I ain't sure our laws would even apply to them if I did. But they would listen when I told them a Copyright Monster who's tougher than anything they'd ever seen would come after them if they tried ta steal his property." He scowled at Ford. "Besides, I thought you agreed that honesty's not always the best policy."

Ford turned away and glared out the front of the cart. "There's no way you can keep on making money off these people with this ridiculous farce. Sooner or later, it's going to come crashing down around your ears."

"Yeah, well, I'd like ta see you do a better job, Mr. High-and-Mighty!"

"Give me a chance and I will!"

The cart screeched to a halt; it was a good thing Ford had remembered to wear his seatbelt, or else he would have gone flying forward, especially since there was no windshield on this thing.

"Okay," Stan said, tilting the fez back on his head, "I'm a wagering man." He leaned on the wheel. "I'll give you seventy-two hours, and a golf cart of your own, and you can take one tour group and I'll take the other, and we'll see which one they like better."

Ford's eyes widened.

"If the groups like you better, I guess you're right about how I'm runnin' things. But if you lose…" Stan faltered for a second, trying to think of an appropriate punishment, before inspiration hit him, "you, uh, you have to eat a plaidypus-egg omelette! And you're not allowed ta complain about or try ta stop the tours ever again!"

Stan folded his arms triumphantly; the gauntlet had been thrown down.

And after a second, Ford rose to the bait, as he'd been sure he would.

"Fine! But if I win, then these tours stop, and if anymore cryptids want information about the human world you have to either tell them the full truth or have them come to me for a more detailed explanation. And you have to call home and ask to talk to Pa!"

The last part almost made Stan chicken out (not that he'd ever admit that). But he clenched his jaw, and said resolutely, "You got yourself a deal, Sixer."

"Deal," Ford growled back.

They nearly crushed each other's fingers with a handshake.

...Yeah, no way this could possibly go wrong at all.