CONCESSION STAND 3, HALL C — A standard Snickers bar, valued at $1.89 at a gas station four blocks away, was appraised at $14 Wednesday after passing through the loading dock of a fictional downtown convention center, officials confirmed.

The bar's journey began at the dock, where it was assessed a facility access fee for having entered a building owned by the city. It then crossed into the exclusive territory of the house caterer, a company holding the sole right to sell anything chewable inside the building until 2034.

'Nobody else is allowed to sell food here,' explained a concessions manager, gesturing at the empty hall. 'So the price is whatever the price is. That's not greed. That's a contract.'

At the next door, the bar was charged a commission owed back to the convention center, which uses the money to pay off the bonds it borrowed to build the convention center. A city tourism tax followed, applied on the theory that the candy bar was a visitor.

Accompanying it was a 20-ounce Gatorade, which picked up an additional chilling surcharge, a refrigeration fee and a separate charge listed only as 'beverage.' Together, the two items rang up at $25.14, a figure the receipt described as 'a service charge, not a gratuity.'

Nearby, an exhibitor who had paid $200 to have a case of water delivered to her own booth watched the transaction in silence. 'I saw the water on the truck,' she said. 'I could have carried it. They told me carrying it is a union job, a catering job and a fire code issue at the same time.'

The banquet captain, receiving seven different instructions about the price from seven people in charge, chose the highest one.

At press time, an attendee who had smuggled in a granola bar from home was spotted eating it behind a pillar, nervously, like a man committing a felony against the caterer.