"And you're hired for the evening now. Just don't officially steal my job"
"I thought you'd be happy to have more help around the place?"
"We'll since i'm technically the only employ, i'm alway the employ of the month..."

Larry handed over a spare apron to Jacquelyn as he watched Kit and Jacques get the makeshift stage ready for the evening. They all assumed that not many people would come. The extent of guests they thought might show were the Baudelaires, Quagmires and maybe a few members of Count Olaf's Theater troupe yet the arrivals of may others was pleasant. Lucky that the Coffee shop was big and connected onto the bookstore next door which is the reason the Snickets could hold some bigger events than this. It just so happened that after Jacquelyn put on her apron the first group of people arrived as it consisted of many of the workers at Lucky Smells Lumber Mill with Phil in the middle as well as a pleasant surprise at the back of the group.

"I'll buy everyone a coffee then for a celebration? And as a goodluck for phil tonight!" One of the workers proclaimed as he walked up to the counter on took out quite a full wallet.

"You're fine, I'll buy," Another worker piped up as she began to go through her pockets. "keep all of it for your wife and kids, I only really have myself to spend for so it'll be a pleasure treating everyone."

"It's fine, none of you have to pay. I've got this..." A very familiar and soft voice perked up as a man began pushing through to the front of the group. Charles managed to smile a bit as he started to hear the orders of being asked for by the workers. "Evening Larry... and Jacquelyn? well hey there. Could we maybe get three cappuccinos, a black coffee and just a milky tea for myself... Oh, and a diet pepsi, almost left you out Phil!"

"Wow Charles, I really didn't expect you to come so soon after the other day," Kit raised an eyebrow as she approached everyone, leaving Olivia to help out Jacques. "It's pretty good seeing you though, and everyone else!"

"It was Phil's idea to have a bunch of us go out together for your little comedy night to watch him... that and he believed i should probably go out a bit to get used to the 'single life.'" Charles nervously chuckled a bit as he did the air quotes around 'single life' before paying for the drinks. "He's making it seem like i'll find someone else so fast after... that's not going to be the case of course, though seeing this will hopeful do me some good..."

Jacquelyn covered her mouth for a moment as she thought, holding back from adding a comment on the subject as she began to help Larry with the drinks. "Maybe everyone is gonna be here to deal with relationship problems. You and Jacquelyn are whilst me? Well lets just say i'm getting to see my ex in drag... It's a shame my actual boyfriend won't be here but then again he and his brothers have a lot going on." Kit shrugged as most of the group that had walked in before, apart from Phil and Charles, found places to sit. They were early when it came to watching the comedy commence but it's always great to be early rather than late.

A few minutes later when people had settled in and the stage was finally after some trial and era, and help from violet who came in with her mother and siblings, more patriots had entered. The aforementioned Baudelaires as well as the Quagmires had arrived along with Monty with Gustav and Josephine with Ike. Following a few more minutes, as assumed, Count Olaf turned up with his troupe whilst one of the members had arrived just a bit later with his sister who seemed to begin to argue with Violet a bit. The final person to arrive didn't actually come through the front but surprised his sister by coming through the back.

"She here?" Lemony smiled a bit as Kit rolled her eyes from jumping a little at the sudden appearance of him.

"Yes, she came earlier with the children. Speaking of that, apparently Quigley Quagmire may be calling out members of the audience so be ready to participate in something." Kit smirked just a bit, crossing her arms. "Unless the plan is to hide in the shadows and not interact with anyone...?"

"You know that is my exact plan Kit," Lemony confest as he moved towards the doorway to the front of the store, having a look at the small congregation of people. "I didn't just arrive to see Bertice though, Jacques told me about what's going on with Olaf... that's going to be something to witness..."

"I know that Gustav and Monty are here after the Stephano thing that apparently happened this morning, and of course Olaf's theater troupe are here cause he told them to so I'll say that him signing up is definitely bring a small crowd." Kit chuckled a bit before realising something. "Hey, I think the new name for the even should be 'lets see which disguise we dislike the least' to be put in the top three spots to win the prizes?"

"Well we'll see how that turns out, but from the look of things it appears as it you're about to start with the one and only Count Olaf going up first." The male Snicket pointed out as he nodded over to Larry and Olivia sitting together whilst Jacques was on stage begining to introduce their first comedian. "Good luck, not that you'll need it because you are the judge."

"I'll need the luck to survive though some cheesy jokes." Kit groaned before giving her brother a quick hug, then going to the table with everyone else.

"Hello, hello, hello there audience," A voice seemed to call out from the makeshift stage as Count Olaf took an over the top bow before continuing. "I'd like to start of with a classic and pose the question to you all of why did the chicken cross the road?" Silence. "Well okay... It was to get to the idiots house." Olaf rolled his eyes before looking over the crowd of people watching him, picking out one person. "Next then, You! Knock, Knock!"

The person he chose, one of indeterminate gender, began to reply. "Why are you saying Knock Knock was in a word? It's one of onomatopoeia and if you were to knock on something I wouldn't really get it since it's not inheritly funny but just a natural thing or life?" Their voice seemed to sound monotone as Count Olaf just looked confused for a moment.

"...Right, You next to the girl in the triangle glasses!" Olaf changed who he was talking to when realising he wasn't getting anywhere with them. "Knock, Knock!"

"Who's there?" The man seemed to ask as he used his two hooks to pick up his drink.

"The chicken!" Count Olaf began at laugh through saying the reply yet it seemed no-one else found this funny, thus causing him to repeat it. "I said, the chicken!"
"The chicken who?"
"What...?"
"The chicken who?"
"No... You see... I said the chicken crossed the road to get to the idiots house... So when I say I'm the chicken, that makes you the idiot... Which I can see is true."

If this first joke was bad, then it might be better to not go over the rest of them. All seeming to be stolen from the internet or something yet also being told in a worse way than when written down. By the end, most people were extremely bored or even asleep for most cases whilst the Count did a mic drop with a none existent mic before heading off to the restrooms as Jacques came on stage.

"Well then... Um... That was something?" Jacques managed to say, hoping the rest of his acts wouldn't be as stale as that one. Needing to lighten up the place before everyone died, he decided it might be good to add a little childish touch. "So next is the youngest act we have for this evening, Quigley Quagmire!"

The young boy was pushed up there by his friends and siblings as his parents got out a camera to record. The brunette smiled at Violet and wispeared something to her quickly before standing with Jacques, looking out over the crowd. "Right, Hey everyone! I think I'm definitely taking a different approach to that Boomer there." Unlike with Larry that morning, Quigley wasn't sorry for calling Count Olaf a Boomer. "Now, let me tell you about memes."

Quigley had connected a laptop to a projector that Violet had rigged up and began to show off some pictures with certain text, of his own creating. Occasionally in between some memes would be a recreation of vines performed by himself and even some original ones he made by himself using some app called... Tic tok?

The final of these images happened to be one of Esme (glad she wasn't here) shopping with Jerome, having him almost burried in bags, whilst it look like she was shouting at an employee with the caption 'When you realise your girlfriend is a Karen but you've lost all hope in finding another one.'
"And this, people, is why it's a great thing to be bisexual, or even better, pansexual!" The young boy smiled as Violet turned off the the project. Some people were laughing since they admired his presentation and could all agree that Esme was a Karen. The only two who weren't laughing had been Charles, deep in thought at something as he continued to look at where one of the people had been in the picture, and Count Olaf who was now dressed as Captain Sham with a pipe in his mouth. Quigley notice the man who had mysteriously appeared in the room and thought that maybe he could pull one more quick vine reference out for the people who would hopefully get it. "Oh my god sir, is that a weed?!" He shouted as he pointed to the man.

Captain Julio Sham raised an eyebrow at the child before looking at his pipe. "No. This is a---"
"That's illegal, somebody call the police!" Josephine piped up from the front, not being able to actually see what the man was holding as he was in a dark corner.
"You heard the woman, someone type nine one one into the microwave!" Quigley smiled a bit before noticing that Jacquelyn was, indeed, putting the numbers into the microwave.
"Nine one one, what's your emergency?" She added as she looked over to the stage before Jacques walked up onto it, shaking his head.

"Well, thank you for that Quigley. But please don't make faules weed claims even if it's for a vine..." Jacques clapper for the Quagmire as he walked of the stage, many others also clapping. "Though I would also tell our next performer to please not smoke within the shop as we don't want any alarms being set off at all. Now though, I'd like to give it up for Captain Sham... Or not..." With a small shrugged, he went back to sitting with his sister, girlfriend and probably best friend whilst the captain stepped onto the stage.

"Hello, hello, hello there audience," He appeared to start with the same intro he had when performing as just himself before looking out towards everyone. "My name is Captain Sham but all the women out there can call me Julio." A groan came from the audience as Kit lay her head on the table. "But I'd like to propose a question to y'all. What is a pirates favourite letter? You, boy in glasses."

Klaus looked away from Duncan, who he'd been starting at for most of the evening before fixing his glasses on his face. "The letter C?"

"Wrong!" Julio shouted as he hobbled to the edge of the stage. "People always think it's R but a pirates first love will always be the C!"

"He just said that..." Duncan began to add on as he looked to Klaus before turning his head to the stage. "I'm pretty sure one of the other guys said this joke already." He knew one of them had already said this since the other person was Count Olaf and he knew this guy right here was Count Olaf.

Unlike with the first performance of his, the Captain Sham one consisted of mostly pirate, sailer and ocean based jokes and puns with the occasional flirting to the women in the audience followed by gags and groans, and one Mill worker shouting "get off the stage," to him.

"What did the pirate say when he became an octogenarian? Aye matey years old!" Was the final straw when Jacques came up onto the stage to get him off before anyone actually came at the man. There happened to be some fake laughing from the theater troupe who hand been told before that even if they don't like the joke they still need to laugh to hopefully get others to laugh and one real laugh from Phil who was the only one to enjoy the jokes.

"Amazing sense of humour there," Jacques managed to say without laughing at himself for telling such an obvious lie. "But now I think it's best we welcome up good ol' Phil who's here in the crowd. After we'll have two more acts from one Shirley St Ives and a Stephano!" For this sentence, Count Olaf realised he both needed to get changed and needed someone to stand in for him for the final act. This caused him to rush off stage and grab Fernald before dragging him to the Restrooms. Whilst this was happening, Phil began to take his place on the stage, also taking a cheesy approach with his Comedy but relating it more to his life. An example was how he was telling the story of how he almost lost his leg, which would seems like something someone might not want to talk about, yet with him being an optimist he told it in somewhat of a comedic way with making sound effects and repeating things all to come together in the end with. "And then Splosh!!! Kind of accidentally made myself property of Lucky Smells Lumber Mill but hey, still don't have my price tag... Hey Charles? How much would I cost if you were to sell me?"

Charles was about to come out with a reply along the lines of 'that would be illegal, I'm not gonna sell someone who works for me' but instead managed to stick to the lighter mood with the joking reply "you don't need a Price tag when you're priceless Phil," to which laughs came from everyone.

Jacques finished getting a Latte from Jacquelyn as he approached the stage again, laughing himself at the shot exchange. "I loved that Phil... Not the fact you were almost squished to death but... You know what I mean..." He gave the man a pat on the back before drinking some coffee. "Now, the only woman to join us on stage tonight, I would like to welcome up Miss Shirley Ives!"

The woman wandered up a few seconds later and smirked at Jacques. "Aww, thank you love. It's an honour being introduced by such a man." If one was watching the judges table, they could see Larry and Kit holding onto Olivia's arms as he was about to get up to whoop someone's ass. "Now then folks, I have a quick joke for all of us females to enjoy!"

There was quite a bit of this Shirley character going off into rants about her Exs boyfriends like George, Kain, Eric and apparently one who's name she couldn't bother remembering which she put out as just her 'friend with benefits.' This came with the occasional joke she was supposed to be telling but just turned to break up stories in which Kit could just tell he was actually talking about people... He knew this because he brought up their break up.

"But anyway, that's when Frank... Or was it Fred... Could have been Fernando? But anyway, he invited me over to Smash right and then he brought out a Nintendo. I thought it was for some you know what reason but apparently not and I had to play some game as this Italian plumber against him. And you know what! The handless freak some how beat me! Like I was coming over so you could stick---"

"Well thank you Shirley! But I think we've all heard enough!" Jacques quickly got up there before anything else could be said. There were children in the audience. Yes, one of them was now applauding and cheering about the Super Smash bros incident, but we couldn't be having young people lean about the birds and the bees right now. The others in the crowd were looking uncomfortable about hearing a bunch of these breakup stories, whilst a girl in a pair of triangle glasses was looking around to see where he brother had gone. "Now then... Um... I think our final performer of tonight is Stephano! So let's welcome him up...?"

There was silence and only really Shirley getting off the stage as everyone looked around to see no Stephano. "I said, our final act is from Stephano?" Jacques questioned before looking at Kit.
"Where is he?"
"I have no clue."
Silence.
"...the guy just dosen't like musical!" Quigley seemed to sing in the back before getting a small punch in the arm off his sister. It was after this comment though that a man did step up on stage and it just so happened to be Fernald. Or at least Fernald dressed up as Stephano.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I really needed to use the restrooms but I'm here now..." The man shyly said, not doing any accent as how Olaf would perform the character but speaking normally as he gulped, trying to think of what their heck he should do to be funny in front of all these people. Or did the Count ask him to not be funny? he couldn't remember.

Now, with him being unsure, he was even more confused on what to say yet he ended up going with telling a story, a bit like Phil. Not surprisingly, also on losing a limb or two. He wasn't going to actually tell the story of how he really lost his hands because he was in character as this man who had hands earlier that day so instead he made something up. This apparently involved a wedding with a snake before a hurricane which calmed just as he was in the middle of being hypnotised to which after being in hypnotised lead him to relive his life at highschool where he ended up buying a red herring statue that he lost in some small town before having to go to hospital (not even for his hands at this moment) in which after he got out of he went to see a circus that was onto of a cold mountain and what happened is he got a submarine ride to a hotel he was staying at near by and was enjoying an apple.... Only to get his hands trapped in a window when it accidentally came down on them as he was enjoying a nice view. A somewhat complicated story that couldn't have happened in the few hours he'd been go yet after silence filled the audience, one by one they began to clap. Beginning with Fernald's sister, Fiona.

The only one to not clap as Shirley, who rolled her eyes at all this as she also sipped on a latte which she hadn't payed for. "Ha ha, yeah great... But can we get to the prizes please?" She didn't speak in the high pitch fake woman voice but more in her Count Olaf voice.
"Ah yes, just give the judges time to d---"
"We've agreed on the top three!" Olivia inturupped her none official boyfriend as Kit and Larry nodded in agreement with her. It wasn't hard and the reasoning wasn't because half of the people were Count Olaf because even then they'd have decided something like 'oh, did we enjoy Quigley or Phil or Shirley better' or at least something along those lines.

"Well then, I'll read out the winners and then give out the prizes..." Jacques stated as he took a sheet of paper from Larry before wandering onto the stage again, taking a look at it and somewhat agreeing with the choices. "In first place we have Quigley Quagmire. The meme presentation was amazing and you actually did something some of us are afraid to do... So lucky she wasn't here." He joked as he was referring to Esmé as the young Quagmire boy hugged Violet, he kind of awkwardly went with it, before going up onto the stage. "In second place we have Phil, again I'm not like saying almost losing your leg is good but... Yeah..." He cleared up again as the Mill workers cheered for their fellow employee, Charles giving the man a thumbs up as he also went to the stage. "The final..."

"Trust me Boss, if I win the prize then I'll give it to yo---"
"You better! Though after the Smash Bros incident I don't know if I can trust what you say..." Count Olaf complained as he waited for the final person to be announced.

"In third place is Stephano!" Jacques smiled a bit as he motioned for Fernald to get onto the stage. "Though things weren't extremely funny, the story was amazing and all the plot twist were unexpected yet extremely enjoyable. Well done." The guy looked to his 'friend' for a moment before getting up on stage with the other three people. Olivia also got up as she reach under the table into her bag to get out the prizes for each of them. This is when Count Olaf looked extremely betrayed to see that the prizes weren't money, not even free drinks for life, but instead.

"Books!" Phil smiled when Olivia came up on the stage with three different books in her hands, handing one to each winner.
"Indeed," she smiled back at him and nodded a little. "The incomplete history on movie making for Quigley, the incomplete history of Cooking for Phil and last but not least..." Olivia handed the biggest of the books to Fernald who managed to hold it with both his hooks. "The incomplete history of mushrooms and fungi."

"You're kidding me right!" Count Olaf seemed to shout as he pulled off his wig and threw it on the table infront of him. "Books! That's the prize! I went through all of this to have the prize be books AND not even win!"
"But Boss, I think what it is... Is like... You're supposed to enjoy yourself and ha---"
"Oh, shut up with your sappy stuff and keep that dumb books... I'm out of here..." The man complained as he was about to walk out before returning back for his wig, it cost him some money so he wasn't gonna just leave it.

The remaining half an hour or the evening consisted of the Baudelaired and the Quagmires going home earlier than everyone else with some hot coco since it was past all of their bed times (not for the parents obviously) along with four of the five members of Count Olaf's theater troupe. Charles was going to buy another round of drinks for the Mill workers and himself but instead Jacquelyn ended up paying for everyone's drinks as her, the Snickets (excluding lemony) and Larry made them. Josephine and Ike hung around for a little chatting with Monty and Gustav about what they've all been up to around one table, all having some lemonades instead of a hot drink. Fiona was laughing a bit still as her brother for going up on stage yet also asking why he'd do it for Count Olaf to which Fernald got out of the question by giving her his prize, since he did thing she'd enjoy it a lot more. Finally Lemony ordered a Rootbeer float which he enjoyed by himself in the corner. When it was almost midnight, everyone began to leave, with Kit and Jacquelyn being the only ones to stay to finish closing up.

"So..." Jacquelyn being to say as she finished wiping down the counter. "You have a boyfriend? Since when?"

Kit hung both her's and Jacquelyn's aprons up before looking over to her, chuckling a bit. "How did you not know, I'm sure you've met him before? At Hotel Denouement?"

"Oh my god you're not going out with Frank... Wait..." Jacquelyn had to think for a second as she started to put the cloth she was using back. "Or was Ernest the jerk one?"

"That was Ernest and no, it's not either of them." Kit just shook her head as he grabbed her bag, the keys and began to head for the door. "It's Dewey, the third brother."

Jacquelyn laughed a bit as she thought to herself 'so she is making up a cover story so she can stay single, or at least make people think she isn't. We all know Dewey is a myth.' This was sadly wrong for Jacquelyn's case but if she wanted to stay in denial then maybe she can for a little longer. Who knows, maybe she'll learn if this is actually true when chapter 10 roles around...