I’m sitting a mere six feet from Splotch right now, gentle reader, and he’s giving me the eye. In his look rest a hundred pointed inquiries including one very pertinent to you and me: Why aren’t you communicating with me? To Splotch I would answer, “Why, because I don’t speak Rabblish.” To you I will provide a slightly longer explanation.
You see, dear reader, the recent release of Elf simply bookended a long string of slights cast upon your dear CEO. While I was away on a joyride along the Limpopo River, I received word that my wonderfully excessive skyscraper was razed by a vocal minority of “Citizens against Hilarious Experimentation on Sentient Monkeys.” I would’ve enjoyed negotiating with them–Buckshotnese would’ve been my dialect of choice–but business prevented me from doing so. I gunned my hovercraft, hauling ass to the skyscraper only to find my life’s work in smoldering ruin. Ethernet cords snaked here and there like confused worms, and the sun beat down on a noontime panorama of mayhem.
“What a grand stroke of luck!” I thought. I originally wanted to renovate by installing solid gold elevators and diamond-coated bidets, but the thought of adding to something old struck me as infinitely plebian. All I need to do is dip into one of my twelve Swiss bank accounts (run by real Swiss people) and build a new skyscraper real quick-like.
That’s about it. I figured that being upfront with you would be the best policy.
There have been recent moments, gentle reader, when I’ve been certain that things are out of my control. Moments that at first glance could be labeled “lucky” turn out to be far more complicated, and luck quickly becomes too crass and unwieldy a term. I can only conclude that a greater, wiser power is at work, and for that I’m thankful.
I’m also thankful for monolithic bookstores hell-bent on market takeover. Come to think of it, did you ever really empathize with Meg Ryan’s big beef in You’ve Got Mail? True, independent bookstores–a dying breed of book purveyor, consensus might say–hold a certain charm and deserve a space. If your mother and your mother’s mother owned the store, then by golly you’d damn well want it to last. As a customer, however, I can see myself doing what most people would probably do: walk into the store, take a couple of whiffs of musty air, pretend to “browse” when confronted by a salesperson, then cross the street for cheaper wares at Border’s.
And that’s exactly what I did last evening, though I eschewed the “musty bookstore” part. My copy of The Da Vinci Code insisted on going straight back to Amazon, so I needed to fill the immediate void. The drinkmasters generously filled my mug with house favorite “Bali Hai Chai”– bless them for lacing coconut juice with tea–and I eventually walked out with two shiny new books. American Pastoral and One Hundred Years of Solitude look to be real winners; let me know if you’ve read them already! Neatfreak also introduced this series to me. Check it out by all means. It was filed under the “Art” section and has every right to be there.
Opportunity, gentle reader, has recently provided me with a chance to adopt a five-month-old pet bunny. His current name is “Splotch.” While this is succinct, cute, and memorable, I will have to remedy it immediately. I’m torn between “Reginald Carotene” and “Bunnyzle in the Hizouse,” so I’ll just let the matter sit. Now, before you ridicule me for inability to nurture living creatures, I’ll have you know my past pets lived like kings. Flying kings, to be specific, kings that jumped out of skyscraper windows to see if they could soar to the heavens.
No, no, that was just a fib designed to tickle the Evil Bone, that bloodthirsty savagery inherent in us all. Hold on, I need to go kill an elf. There, done.
In truth, my sister and I have had pets of all kinds: fish, parakeets, guinea pigs, hamsters, a rabbit, a dog, a cat, an African pygmy hedgehog, even a robin, though that one eventually went to the preserve because of New York state law. We had grand success with each and every creature, the notable exception being the African pygmy hedgehog. “Sonic,” so went his good Christian name, decided to flout our veritable Noah’s Ark one fine evening. After shimmying out of his cage, he attempted to murder the hamster, slinked over to the guinea pig, and finally delivered his culinary coup de grace by getting up on his hind legs and pawing at the parakeets.
It was in this position that my mum caught him red-clawed, a frenzied ball of spikes dancing the Hungry Dance against a nightlight backdrop.
“Cat food,” the animal expo representative told us, “is all he needs.”
What could have been a Beatrix Potter tale gone hopelessly vile turned out for the best, as Sonic was thwarted by his foot-long height and lack of opposable thumbs. The birds were–and you’ll have to excuse me as I indulge in a grotesque pun–unflappable for the most part, the guinea pig shortly resumed her eating schedule, and the hamster lie burrowed deep in his woodchips. All the animals lived to a ripe old age, the notable exception again being Sonic. It just so happened, dear reader, that my parents gave Sonic away to a family friend, who then “gave him away to the zoo.”
“Which zoo?” I remember asking, faultlessly naive.
“The Bronx Zoo,” they replied. But I never did see Sonic at the Bronx Zoo.
How does this relate to Reginald Carotene? I haven’t the foggiest idea. The End.