A pizza parlor in Albany, New York called Small Little Tony’s Lil’ Pizzas started selling half priced medium pizzas every Monday. Some of their waiters called it “Ursa Mondays” while others called it “Ursa Medium Mondays.” Still other staff members called it “Ursa Major Mondays” because it was a major discount, and further employees referred to it as “Ursa Minor Mondays” because the prices had been minimized. After much confusion, it turned out they had already released advertisements using all of the above, due to the management’s poor communication with their graphic artist.

It doesn’t seem like such a big deal when I write it all out, but it was upsetting.

The next week, the movie theater next door called Big Boy Tony’s Big Movies started showing The Little Mermaid every Monday right before lunch, and called it “Ursula Mondays,” after the character Ursula in the film. Big Boy Tony’s and Small Little Tony’s hired the same graphic artist to create their posters. On the delivery date for the Big Boy Tony’s flyers, the graphic artist had a sinus infection, misplaced his glasses, and took two bites of a burrito with cheese in it and had a lactose induced migraine. The guy was committed, and strapped for cash, so he tried to finish the work anyway. He emailed the files and fell asleep for 6 hours. Turns out, he took the ads for both businesses and mixed them all up.

The owner of Big Boy Tony’s didn’t even look at the flyers, he just hung them up all over town. And I mean all over; this guy must have hired a whole elementary school to hang the things because there were kids plastering them on every streetlamp, shop window, parked car, basketball hoop backboard, porta-potty, you name it.

What’s more, Big Boy Tony’s is a movie theater converted from an old restaurant, and Small Little Tony’s Lil’ Pizzas is actually a new movie theater that shut down and got converted into a pizzeria. The businesses have similar uniforms, and some of the employees are overwrought teenagers who work at both places and can’t be bothered to change on a double shift day. So imagine going into a pizza restaurant that used to be a new theater — which got shut down because the old theater next door used to be a restaurant (but isn’t anymore) — and hearing the same black-clad exhausted kid from next door asking if you want popcorn on your Big Lil’ Pony Boy’s Ursula Merman pizza.

The town was in a f*cking tizzy. People started picking sides: Big Boy Tony’s Tonys, or Little Tony’s Lil’ Tony Fellas. Let’s call a spade a spade, they were gangs. But they couldn’t decide what they represented. Some people wanted to support octopuses, and others pizza, and still others Ursa Major or Ursa Minor. In fear of losing their jobs, haggard teenage employees who worked at both businesses agreed to be spies, but couldn’t remember for which party.

Twitter exploded with the news and the general public weighed in. Representatives for the lizard nobility House of the Protracted Dewlap, as the chief organizers for Lizard Sundance, supported the movie theater. Non-human Costco knock-off Clawsco wanted to take advantage of the publicity and offered to sell frozen personal pizzas called “Tony’s Lil’ Pizza Smallies”

There was a fire and some looting. Several men got into a street brawl. A rare Xebec card was stolen from a conference center display and has not been recovered.

Governor ßkoolth — who is not on Twitter — was visiting Albany at the height of the trouble. She came out of her hotel one morning to find all the cars on the street covered with flyers. They said things like “Eat Little Small Papi Tony’s Ursada Tostada Pizza Pie-ya,” and “Please tip well. I’m saving up to buy my first car.” She asked a passerby about it and they fled, shouting, “Neutral! Switzerland!” The governor got to the bottom of it with her usual efficiency and declared all Ursa-adjacent business labelings illegal, to the town’s relief.

The graphic artist has requested I don’t reveal his name. He feels awful about the whole thing.