A Hundred Acres of Shadows

(Inspired by a true story. Loosely. With thanks to @bmahersciwriter and Captain Morgan.)

The bear lowered his rotund form into the chair and contemplated his guests.
"Well, gentlemen, I think you know why I've brought you here."
As they protested their ignorance, he slid a stoneware jar across the table and pointed to the label.
"Do you know what that says?"
The rabbit was the first to assay an answer.
"Um, well, it's supposed to be 'honey' but it's not spelled--"
"That's right, honey. And do you know what is actually in that jar? Or, rather, what isn't?" He held up a paw before they could respond. "Never mind, I'm sure you do. I'm sure you are aware that when the boys in my lab ran some basic tests on this alleged top-quality domestic honey you were so good to provide for me, they found that all of the pollen had mysteriously vanished from it."
"There must be some mistake," the owl protested weakly.
"Oh, a mistake?" The bear turned to the small pig who had been sitting in silence to his right
"Mr. Let, these gentlemen think that your boys made a mistake. Do you think that is possible?".
The pig shook his head slowly. "Never. Not a chance."
"Well, there you have it," said the bear. "I have to say, gentlemen, I am very disappointed in you. I have been running this operation under the name of Saunders," he indicated the sign over his head. "For many years now, and never before has this good name been sullied in any way. And now you have put me in the very uncomfortable position of having sold counterfeit Chinese honey to my valued customers."
"I assure you," said the owl. "We would never have--"
"Do you know what the Chinese do to their honey?" the bear went on, unheeding. "They water it down. Replace it with beet sugar, high fructose corn syrup. They let it get contaminated with antibiotics."
"Over in that room," he said, pointing to an interior door. "There is a baby kangaroo in the throes of a serious allergic reaction. He'll live, thanks to my doctors, but his mother is understandably concerned. Have you ever been kicked by an angry female kangaroo, gentlemen? No? Well, I wouldn't recommend it."
The pair on the other side of the desk looked at each other, then around the room for possible means of escape. But there was only one exit to the outside, and the bouncer was blocking it, poised to spring.
"We had no idea," the rabbit pleaded. "We were operating on good faith, I swear."
"Of course you were," the bear soothed. "Why wouldn't you be? Why would anyone take a cheap product and sell it at an incredible markup by claiming it was something else?"
"No," he said, shaking his head. "Of course I believe you. My friend here," he pointed to the donkey at his left. "He always sees the worst in everything, but I believe in fair play."
The bear stood up.
"My friends here are going to take you down to the footbridge over the creek. It would be a good idea for you to go with them quietly. When you get to the bridge, you are both going to jump off on the upstream side. One of you will come out the other side first. And the other one. . . won't."

I know what you're thinking. "Did he add six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is straight Indonesian Robusta, the most powerful coffee in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel latte?

Well, do ya, punk?

How To Make A Cup Of Tea: A Handy Powerpoint Guide

A Bicycle Built for Neptune

In what is being described as a "major blow" to feminist t-shirt makers everywhere, pescatorial behaviorists at the University of Toomuchtimeontheirhands, New Mexico, have determined that fish do, in fact, require bicycles.

"To be honest, we're all a little surprised by these results," said Dr. Phil Landers, the principle investigator on the project. "The idea that legless animals that spend their entire existence under water might have such a strong affinity for such a clearly terrestrial machine seems counterintuitive, but that's the beauty of science. You just never know what you're going to learn."

He admitted to being unclear on how exactly the project was initiated, but denied early reports that it had anything to do with graduate student Diana Hartman's recent breakup with her longtime boyfriend and the lab's subsequent bar crawl to "help her get over that jerk".

In their experiments, the researchers observed the behavior patterns of two representative groups of fish, half of which were allowed unlimited access to bicycles while the others were not. They observed that the bicycle-positive fish appeared to be living happy and fullfilling lives, while those deprived of the two-wheeled conveyances became moody and irritable and were inclined to collect figurines.

What the fish actually do with the bicycles remains unknown.
"Obviously, these data raise almost as many questions as they answer," said Postdoctoral Fellow Roy Dreyfuss. "I think we're gonna need a bigger grant."

The wider implications of these results remain to be investigated, although law enforcement agencies have expressed interest in their possible relationship to the ususually high rate of bicycle thefts in towns along the Easter seaboard. Representatives of the Shwinn corporation refused to comment on reports of what is described as a "standing order" for an annual delivery of five thousand ten-speeds to the Santa Monica pier.

For their part, longtime advocates of the fish-bicycle anti-relationship claim to be undisturbed by the findings.
"While we welcome and encourage all forms of scientific inquiry," said a Metaphor Research Center spokesperson, "these people are clearly full of what a bear does in the woods."

The New Ghettoization

Did you ever hear about something that you initially took to be a sign of the end of days, but then realized it was actually good news? That's how I felt when I heard about this Martha Stewart-themed housing development: rising dread and deep fear for what horrors we mortals have wrought, turning into a pleasant sense of optimism, only partially driven by cold medication.

Ms. Stewart is, of course, only the latest entity offering corporate identity as a surrogate for personal taste. You can already move into homes "inspired" by Thomas Kincade, in that paradise on Earth known as Vallejo, or forfeit your free will to the Disney Corporation in central Florida.

Now, I would rather live between a skunk ranch and a pit bull breeder* on a haunted Indian burial ground than in one of these places (after all, the restless spirits of the undead may fling knives around the room and make blood pour down the walls, but at least they'll never sneer at you for letting your lawn dry up or try and tell you what color you can paint your upstairs windowsills), but that isn't the point. The point is, there are people in the world who do want to live like that, and isn't it nice that we can round them up and put them all in the same place? Just think: they can live out the rest of their days squabbling amongst themselves about what three styles of ye olde light fixtures are classy enough to be allowed on the exteriors of their oversized, cheaply built houses, secure in the knowledge that no one near them will ever do anything even slightly individual and/or distinctive (which, as you know, causes all housing values within a ten mile radius to plummet like penguins dropped out of a hot air balloon), and leave the rest of us alone. Instead of segregating by race or religion, we can segregate by taste! (Or lack thereof.) (Or willingness to have said taste decided for one by a former model with excellent marketing skills.) So I say, good! Build more of these! Let every person in America who is afraid that their inability to control every aspect of their environment will drag them down to the dregs of society move in, so that those of us who don't can go ahead and paint our houses any damn way we please, and plant vegetable gardens in our front lawns, and convert our back yards into habitats for our seven pet gila lizards. The world would be a better place for it.

*Because the dogs would scare the skunks. Get it?

A situation in which I would be required to do a situp to save my life

(Int. dungeon. I am lying on a plank over a pool of hungry piranhas with my hands tied across my chest and a giant razor-sharp blade hanging over me.)
Sinister, Shadowy Figure: Unless you can reach the cord hanging over you and grab it with your teeth in the next three minutes, this blade will fall on you and you will die!
Me: Curses!
Shadowy, Sinister Figure: Bwahaha! Now, I'd love to stay and watch, but I have a mah jongg game that starts at three. Tootles!
Me: (trying to sit up) Ehn!
Me: (trying some more) Urk.
Me: (flopping around, trying to build up some momentum) huphuphup- urg!
Me: Come on stomach muscles, do your stuff!
(My stomach muscles do what stuff they can, raising my shoulders a full four inches off the ground.)
Giant, Razor-Sharp Blade: Shthunk.
(I die.)


See? That's what I'm talking about.