The Ballad of Bartholomew Bumble's Bane

Barty Bumble woke up with a bad feeling. Not unusual, given his lifelong relationship with misfortune. Today, however, he was determined. He’d meticulously planned his route to avoid the black cat crossing his path yesterday (resulting in a spontaneous roof collapse at the bus stop), and he'd worn his lucky underwear (a risky move, as it had only ever brought *lesser* catastrophes).

He stepped out, humming, only to immediately slip on a rogue banana peel. Not just any peel, mind you, but one that seemed to have materialized solely to catapult him directly into the path of a runaway ice cream truck. “Minor concussion,” he mumbled to the paramedic, “could be worse.”

It was. The ambulance, on its way to the hospital, suffered a catastrophic tire blowout. They careened off-road, straight through a “Danger: Unexploded WWII Ordnance” sign, and into a surprisingly deep, freshly dug hole. Barty, now with two concussions and a twisted ankle, found himself eye-to-eye with an unearthing of what looked suspiciously like an ancient, cursed idol. “Oh, for crying out loud,” he sighed.

The rescue team, arriving hours later (their truck, naturally, had also broken down), accidentally dropped a power line onto the idol, causing a localized surge that illuminated a previously unseen, perfectly preserved dinosaur skeleton beneath Barty's feet. The skeleton, it turned out, was the extremely rare and highly venomous *Tyrannosaurus Rexi-Poisonus*, famous for its uncanny ability to reanimate via electrical shock and a touch of ancient evil.

Barty, still trapped, watched as the glowing, bone-rattling monstrosity slowly turned its gaze towards him. “You know,” he muttered, “I really should have just stayed in bed.” A small, ironic meteor then harmlessly bounced off the dinosaur's skull, richocheting perfectly to flatten Barty’s lucky underwear (which he'd been given by a nurse after the ice cream truck incident) into a fine, cottony dust. Some days, it just wasn't worth getting up.