In answer to Aggie’s “assignment” (which I found out about here), submitted late because the Damned Dog ate my homework:
“That’s My Story and I’m Sticking to It”
I am an Olde Pharte, the embodiment of the stereotypical irascible curmudgeon with a heart of antimony. When I do have to interact with people, I enjoy most twisting their tiny little brains into knots and leaving them thinking we were having fun, when in fact I was having fun mocking them.
Almost no one catches wise.
And then…
It was a typical Thursday evening, and I was out, walking the Damned Dog. (I refuse to call my wife’s animated mop by the anthropomorphic name she gave it; as much as I despise people, it’s an insult to most of even the self-lobotomized among humanity to use a name one might in the phone book to describe this creature.) As usual, the Damned Dog was taking its damned time voiding its bladder and bowels—a necessity at night if I want to avoid stepping in “presents” deposited on my path to paying the mid-nightly water bill.
Well, it was a typical Thursday evening until, “Psst! Hey, mister! Can ya gimme a hand?” came at me in a whistling, oddly mechanical sotto voce from the shadows beside old lady McIntyre’s garage.
WTF? Whoever it was looked to be really short and sounded almost as though he were whispering through some sort of brass musical instrument. Well, even though I only had The Animated Mop as my great defender, I didn’t feel threatened by a midget whispering through a trumpet. If he (she-it?–couldn’t tell) had a whole brass band with him (she-it?), that could be a different situation, though. Oh, well, “Who are you? What do you want?”
“I’m kinda stuck here.”
OK, button on my cap light. WTF?!? No, seriously, WTF?!?
Yeh, it was apparently an “it” and… and shiny, with what appeared to be tentacles. And its head? Stuck. In the hole it appeared to have poked through the side of the garage.
“How’d ya get stuck?”
“Ate too much, I guess.”
“Too much what?”
“Too much hydrocarbon.”
“What?”
“The vehicle inside this building was just full of bunches ‘n’ bunches of hydrocarbons, and I gorged on the stuff until I’m just too full to get out by the hole I came in by. Can ya gimme a hand?”
“What do I get out of it?”
“Interstellar goodwill?”
I considered the situation. I had a good knee brace on my right knee, and my left leg and hip hadn’t been acting up all that much recently, so I figured I could handle a little physical exercise.
“OK, hold still,” and I hauled off and booted the nasty lil bugger’s head into old lady McIntyre’s back yard. So maybe I didn’t consider what the lil critter had been eating and maybe its head did draw a spark off a trash can on its way to the back yard. These things happen. My eyebrows will probably grow back, old lady McIntyre’s insurance will replace her garage and car and the Damned Dog looks better with no fur.
That’s my story and I’m sticking with it. Stop laughing at me, or I’ll hit you with my cane. (The knee brace wasn’t quite as good as I thought.)
