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What I saw there shocked me to my very core, and nearly drove me to madness. For there sat the beast, with his dead, black eyes and that easy grin which spoke more of savagely bared teeth than mirth ...

Playing Monopoly with his giggling family.

I am ashamed to tell you, dear reader, that at that sight, my determination was very nearly broken. I reeled and staggered, and sat heavily on the ground. I took mental stock: Was I truly just in this task? Or was it yet another fever dream brought about by a night spent devouring old episodes of Saved by the Bell, vainly attempting to spot Kelly Kapowski upskirts whilst binging on caffeinated malt liquor of questionable integrity?

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Was I truly here to slay a dragon, or was I just inappropriately obsessed with a B-list celebrity, for reasons mostly having to do with my own ether addiction?



Look: Mario Lopez only respects God for the power he wields. Isn't that the primary sign of sociopathy?

But then I saw it: It was just after Mario Lopez rolled the dice, comically pantomiming shock for his clapping and squealing daughter as he moved the little car over to the jail space. His wife, Courtney, laughed and reached over to slap his arm playfully, inadvertently revealing that tiny, quivering thing -- nearly invisible to the naked eye -- which assured me of the righteousness of my dreadful path.

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It was then that I saw the strings.

I watched in creeping horror as the trick became clear: His family -- his own wife and baby daughter -- moved only with him. Every draw of a card, every surreptitious glance, every affectionate gesture -- they were all carefully choreographed by the movements of none other than Lopez himself. The illusion shattered abruptly every few seconds, when he would stop and stare silently ahead, as if carefully considering what a real human being might do next, and his entire family simply froze with him. It was apparent then that these were merely lifeless husks, animated exclusively by the pulleys and strings which adjoined them to Mario Lopez. So lost was I in shock that I forgot, if only momentarily, to cloak my own presence. I very nearly succumbed when he mechanically inclined his head to stare up at me standing outside of his living room window, and the heads of his wife and daughter swiveled with him as one.