Pet Paradise

The man sat eating out of a bowl of pears, using his wooden spoon, as his daughter danced in front of the television set. He waved his spoon around and yelled:

"I'm trying to watch this Tanya."

"What is it?"

"What does it look like?"

"It looks like ice skating. Daddy, watch me ice skate."

She performed for her dad in front of the TV, twirling her arms around and spinning on her right foot. Then, she slide on the carpet from right to left. The man threw his spoon against the wall and it fell to the floor in a couple dozen pieces.

"I told you to move. Now move!"

Her motions stopped and she stood, silent. Tanya's two lips began to quiver until the liquid in her eyes was too much to bear. The cries reverberated through the room and some of the water in my bowl began to ripple.

"Well if you'd listen every once in a while you wouldn't be crying. I can't even eat my pears anymore."

The man got up and walked into the kitchen as Tanya moved over to the couch, sitting on the farthest spot possible from her Dad's favorite seat. Keeping her head down, she sniffled quietly as the man entered the room with a metal spoon.

"Don't make me break this one" he said as he waved it in her direction as he sat down and began to slurp the pears again. His eyes became fixated on the screen again.

"I don't know how these guys twist in the air like that. Did you see that Tanya?"

She just stared at her feet as she dangled them from the couch.

"Maybe if you practiced more than once a week you would be able to make the Olympics someday. These guys practice a few times every day. It's a job. If you want to be good then you have to treat it like a job. Not just fun stuff that you do with your friends." As he finished the last pear, he put the bowl to his mouth and drank the pear juice.

"Did you feed your stupid fish today?"

"No."

"Well, are you doing to? I had to get you the thing at the store."

Slowly she shuffled her pick socks over in front of my bowl. I don't know how it happens, but whenever the little flakes come out of that tube and float on top of the water it really makes my day. This time was especially memorable because not only did some food drop in, but the whole case, along with the top fell in too.

"Uh oh."

"What did you do?"

"The cap fell off and..." He pulled her back by the arm and threw her across the room.

"Come on Tanya. You can't even feed the fish without screwing up."

For some reason the man, that dastardly man, scooped all of the food from the bowl out and flung it into the garbage can. His hand kept swooping in and going out with more food than I could stuff into my mouth. I tried hard, but I just couldn't keep up. Finally, he whipped the last bit of food across the room at Tanya and it landed on her face.

"I'm not buying anymore of that fish crap cause you don't know how to take any responsibility. I'm gonna flush that thing down..." and at that point I tried to stop listening because I knew the sentence couldn't finish well, but I heard it anyways.

"...drain."

"No!" She screamed at a pitch that only the dog could hear after that and he quickly got up and left the room.

"Yes you brat. I'm tired of getting interrupted at key points in my day to take care of all your stuff. If it's not the fish, I'm cleaning your room. Or I'm doing your dishes, or moving your doll crap from the living room. I can't even watch the ice skating cause you keep dancing in front of the TV."

He stuck his hand in the bowl once more, this time emerging with me. It's a strange feeling being out of the water and I couldn't really breath, but I did hear one last thing from Tanya on my way down the toilet.

"I wish Mom was here."

And that was the story of Herby the goldfish and how he got to the pearly gates. The next story is bound to brighten even the darkest of days. It's about a young frog named Marshall. He was one of the strangest cases that I even encountered in my 7 million years of gatekeeper. Marshall, well, I guess I'll let you hear the story in his own words.

I was a frog living on the outskirts of Düsseldorf, Germany in the eighteen hundreds. It was a quiet city back in those days. This was before Hitler and the Nazi's, but about the same time as Gorgeous George Von Stupledoppler took up shop in the Queen's quarters. He was a character and a half. Anyhow, like I said before, I lived in Düsseldorf. Now, in those days it was customary for frogs to hang out on the outside of the ponds, never entering the water for fear of the loch ness. They say that she or he lived inside of any swamp that carried too many frogs. This was common knowledge, but I was not one to follow the crowd. So, I started to hop across ponds on lily pads to pass the time. It actually became a passion of mine to see how many lilies I could hop in one day. My record was never matched, and I'm pretty sure it never will be. All of my frog friends called me crazy for doing it, but as you know, it's become a trademark of my species. At first they called it the Marshall Leap, but I believe that name has gone with the times.

So, my story starts on a day like any other as I was minding my own business, hopping on some lily pads. Out of the dense forest came a beautiful princess. She was the love child of the Queen and Gorgeous George Von Stupledoppler, so you know she had a good gene pool. Anyways, I was hopping along until she bent over and grabbed me with her dainty hands out of the murky pond and held me up to her face. I was staring her right in the eyes, wondering what she was doing. Why would a princess be grabbing and holding frogs in the middle of the forest? Then, she gave me a kiss. Looking back, I guess she hoped I would turn into a handsome prince and take her to be my wife. Unfortunately for her, I became an ugly prince. Being the superficial girl that she was, she left me in the forest, alone and confused.

Sad because I could no longer hop on the lily pads without plummeting into the depths of the pond, I set out on a venture that would take me to far off places. I met foreign dignitaries and played shuffleboard with tourists from Holland. One day I saw a play written by William Shakespeare and wondered what all the fuss was about. I couldn't even understand what anyone was saying. For these and a few other reasons, I went back to my old pond, depressed with life as a human. Nothing was better than trying to set personal records for lily pad jumping.

Back at the pond, all my friends welcomed me with loud ribbits. It was great until I saw them all hopping around on the lilies. I could have cried a whole other pond, but instead I plotted a way to transform back into a frog. It wouldn't be easy, but I had to find a magical wizard who could make it happen. Luckily, a wizard was passing through the forest that very day and said that he would make me into a frog if I gave him all my money and clothes. The deal was done before he could finish the sentence and I was changed back into my old self. As the wizard left, he said that the only condition, that he forgot to tell me about beforehand, was that I would only be able to survive for three hours. This brought on a whole new set of problems.

Staring into the dark forest, I pondered at my final hours, wondering what lay beyond the universe as I knew it. Was there anything out there for a little old frog like me? My oldest friend Pierre walked over to me with only an hour remaining and said that I either needed to end it all right now, or try to make something of myself in the remaining time that I had. It was settled. I would try to break my own record of lily pad jumping.

The pond was not forgiving that day my friends. I tried to break it, and it broke me right back. Never had I seen such distances between pads before. It was as if the pond gods were out to kill me before the actual deadline. But, hopping along on the last seconds, I broke my full day record in the hour, making it 295,473 jumps without falling in. My last seconds on earth were joyful, and I passed into this realm with the adoration and respect of all the frogs in the outskirts of Dusseldorf

Marshall is the kind of frog that just lights up a room when he enters. He's been a real great addition to the heavenly realms since he made his final jump. We now turn to one of the great risk takers in all of the animal kingdom, Sammy the squirrel. His is a story of great conflict and pain, but also of triumph and personal strength. Here is his tale.

Saturday afternoons were probably the worst time of the week. The weekdays were great because people were always going to and from work, taking their kids to ball games and picnics, and driving around wherever they went. Sunday's were always pretty good because a lot of people drive to church in the morning or go out for family breakfasts and then do some shopping the rest of the day. But nobody goes out on Saturday afternoons. Maybe there is some good television going or something, but the roads are empty. That makes it the worst time to be a risk taking squirrel.

Now, some of us like to cross the streets when no one is around, but no me and my buddies. We always like traffic because it gives you the rush that young squirrels need to stay away from hallucinogenic drugs like mushrooms or garbage. We kept it clean because our high was racing through fast paced traffic. On Monday mornings everyone likes to take an extra ten minutes to sleep and make up for it on the drive to work. Well that was the time when we got our most action. My friends and I (we called ourselves the Rebel Racing Squirrel's with a Vengeance) stood in line on the side of the road at about five in the morning, just waiting for the day to begin. Joe Bob, the craziest of us all, would make some practice runs with the early birds. He even caused a few accidents by stopping in the middle of the street as a car approached. These people really don't like to kill animals cause they think we are so human like with all the evolution crap that they spout that they will slam on the breaks and risk killing themselves and other drivers just to save a little squirrel like Joe Bob. That guy was dangerous.

But after a few warm up runs, it was time for the real action to start. Cars would start speeding by with reckless abandon and the Rebel Racing Squirrel's with a Vengeance would dash out, one by one, in front of the traffic. This really threw these human's mornings out of shape. Some would even honk their horns, as if we really cared whether they liked it or not. We were only out their for the sheer enjoyment factor. I can't even explain the feeling that comes with causing a fender bender or making a hot shot businessman swerve into oncoming traffic. It's not that we are bad creatures or anything. It's our nature. We were made to crave the action and that is what we did.

On the fateful Saturday things were a little different. Traffic was minimal, as normal, but something didn't feel right all day. I had eaten a rotten acorn and felt like throwing up, but Joe Bob came over and asked if I would go make a few runs just for kicks. I could I turn him down? So we were out at Dead Squirrels Pass running in front of the few cars that went by when Joe Bob came up with an idea.

"How about we jump on the hood of the next car that drives by?"

"What?"

"Yea. How about we scare the human so bad that they drive off of the road. We will go along for the ride. How could it get much better than that?"

I stared at him for a long time, trying to figure out how he came up with such crazy things to do. But finally I agreed. To be honest, I wasn't really going to go through with it. Instead, I was going to pretend to go with him, but let him jump by himself. He would never know the difference because going through with this stunt would be a certain death ticket. Soon enough we heard an engine rumble in the background, so we both took our places on the curb. We would wait until the car was about twenty feet away and then spring onto the street and hop onto the hood of the car. Joe Bob was giggling with excitement as I stood trembling. Why was I even considering this?

We could see the front end of the car coming around the turn, so we went out into the road and began the flight up to the hood. I don't remember exactly what happened, but it seems that the car we imagined wasn't a semi-truck because neither of us made it even half way up the grill before getting splattered. Joe Bob and I stuck to the front of the truck as it continued to drive, unfazed by the incident. Unbelievably we were both still alive long enough to exchange a few words.

"We didn't make it Joe Bob."

"Yea. I know."

"What do you think we should do?"

"I don't know. I don't think we can do much."

"Yea. It was fun though."

And with those words, the semi ran into a telephone pole, smashing us both between the grill and the cold metal.

What a great story. I could hear that one all day long and never get tired of it. Well, that's all the stories we have for today. Please come back another time and hear more great stories from the animals that contribute to society before making their way to the promised land. Remember, my name in Bartleby, and I'll be waiting for your pets to tell me all of the embarrassing things that you do when you think no one is watching. Keep in mind, your pet can see you do these things too. Have a good one.