The Dark Side

...(Tony marches onto a vast man-breast-shaped Death Star...gets shagged out halfway along a huge long hallway filled with fat stormtroopers trying to eat popcorn through their helmets...pushes on to where Darth Vader stands with his back to us all, staring out of the Death Tit's nipple-shaped viewing window)

Tony: Lord Vader!

(Lord Vader turns round, slowly and with his own theme music. Turns out he's got a straw through his visor-grille, and is sucking up an enormous ice-cream sundae. He makes the iron-lung noise for a few intimidating seconds. There's an iron-lung swallowing sound)

Lord Vader: I find your interruption of my Evil Sith Lord Chocolate Sundae...disturbing.

Tony: Err...yeah. Sorry about that.

Lord Vader: Speak!

Tony: Lord Vader, my name is Tony, and I...I have gone to the Dark Side...

Lord Vader: Hmm...really? I'm sensing nothing. I mean, seriously, nada. Not so much as a single misbehaving midichlorian...

Tony: Well, no, it's not -

Lord Vader: Have you crushed a planet beneath the heel of your boot?

Tony (looks down at velcro-strapped trainers): Erm, no, you see, it's...

Lord Vader: Have you enslaved a galaxy to the intoxicating power of wanton cruelty?

Tony: Ermmmm....not lately, no...

Lord Vader: Have you choked an incompetent underling to death with the awesome power of your disturbed mind?

Tony: Again, I'd have to say...erm...no. Not for want of trying mind, but...

(Lord Vader's blank stare fills the screen for three long seconds, as the iron-lung does its job)

Lord Vader: You're a hippie, aren't you?

Tony: Erm...well, sort of, yeah, but that's not-

Lord Vader: What did you do? Accidentally tread on an ant? Fail to bring your boss his cinnamon muffin this morning? Forget to floss??

Tony: Nono, nothing like that. It's just...I'm calculating the caloric intake of your Sith Lord Sundae as we speak, and working out how much exercise you'd have to do to burn it off.

Lord Vader: You're...what?

Tony: See, it started yesterday, when I had a good result on my Tuesday weigh-in, and then I got kinda paranoid that it was just gonna be a one-off, so I was like "Right, that's not gonna happen, I'm gonna push and push and push to make sure I lose more next week," and so, y'know, I went out for dinner with my wife, cos it was payday and it's a tradition, and I had what they call a 'lighter option' for my dinner, which they said was only 600 calories, and then I went home and jumped on my exercise bike, and cycled for an hour or so, and then I was pretty much done, but I hadn't burned off those 600 calories, let alone the calories in everything else I ate throughout the course of the day, and so I got back on the bike until it was nearly 11 o'clock and I burned off the 600 calories, but then I started thinking about all the other stuff I ate, cos there was a lot of bread yesterday, and a jacket potato, and I didn't really mean to but I had cheese on it, and cheese is pure fat, and I even had some deep fried rice balls as a starter last night - a starter, can you believe it! - and I added all that up and I was like "no way is that under a thousand calories" - cos I should say, my doctor told me that to lose weight I probably had to take in, on balance, less than a thousand calories a day - and so I was restless in the night, and d, that's my wife, by the way, you'd love her, she bakes, she said she thought I was probably sleep-cycling and that teenage girls in California are probably less calorie-obsessed than me right now and the thing is I think she's probably right, so what I was wondering is...well, really twofold, I suppose, I mean firstly, I've heard that on the Dark Side, there are cookies, and I wondered if I might possibly have some without my mind exploding in a sea of calorie-values, and, well, secondly, whether you might possibly see your way clear to shooting me through the head before I go completely insane with the exhausting numerical nonsense of my own brain...erm...please.

(Lord Vader ponders for a moment. All is iron-lung noise).

Lord Vader: This is The Dark Side. There are no cookies.

Tony: Oh...

Lord Vader: And for God's sake, get a grip, boy...

(Lord Vader turns back to look out the window. There is the noise of ice-cream slurping up a straw).