OUR FURRY FRIENDS

by Cynthia MacGregor

(cont'd from yesterday)

Domestic house cats love the environment of a warm, friendly, cozy home. Their best place to be is wherever there’s a poker game going on, since poker players are always being reminded to feed the kitty. (And I sure wouldn’t kitty you about that.)

Cats love to eat mice. You should not let your cat near your computer.

Responsible pet-owners spay their female cats and dogs and alter their male ones. Animal doctors can perform this service. Animal doctors are called vets. They all served in foreign wars. The young kids who help them with this simple operation are called alter boys. The dedicated ones perform their tasks very religiously.

Snails are mostly famous because computer users refer to postal mail as “snail” or “snailmail.” The snails of America would be up in arms over this, except they haven’t any.

The old joke about turtles applies equally to snails: If you see one without his shell, is he naked or homeless?

Slugs are large snails without shells. They are generally considered to be gross and icky. So much so that people threaten other people with them: “Stop it or I’ll slug you.” Slugs can be fatal, too. In Western novels, the good guy often killed the bad guy (or occasionally vice versa) by putting a slug in him. Some slugs are heavy drinkers. Characters in books, especially old-fashioned hard-boiled detective novels, often took slugs of whiskey.

Antelope should not be confused with cantaloupe, which they sound like but don’t look anything like. Antelope are famous for playing with deer out on the range. The last game ended in extra innings and was tied Deer 4-Antelope 4. The game was called on account of rain, dear. Nowadays the only one playing on the range is Emeril. Other people still play in the West, even if not on the range—notably in Las Vegas. If your mom’s or dad’s sister runs off to Nevada for a quickie wedding, you can still see your aunt elope out West.

Many deer have been killed by hunters only because they needed a few bucks. Sometimes a hunter needs some doe so he can have a little fawn. But he needs to get home safely with his prize; he has to be careful not to make a mis-stag and take the wrong rut home, as my friend did. He was hurrying because his son was coming home from college that weekend. But when I asked him venison was due home, he didn’t know exactly.

In his haste, he drove under a low-hanging tree and lost the deer off the top of his car. Only one hoof remained. I suppose hoof a deer is better than none? He wanted the pelt, though, to make a deerskin rug. Whenever I see one of those things, I always wonder, Hide they do that?

Of course not all animals are furry—if feather you want proof of that, go look at chickens. There are many different breeds of them. Rhode Island Reads are the best educated.

One enterprising farmer tended to his birds by day and cooked them by night—he had a mobile kitchen, and he drove this vehicle around the neighborhood, selling his specialty, chicken in wine sauce. He, of course, called his business coq au van. And he drummed up business by handing out coop ons.

Before we close this essay, we should give at least a mention to humankind’s closest cousins, the apes, or prime mates. But we don’t want to monkey around with this subject too much. An old expressions goes, “Monkey see, monkey do.” Monkey doo can smell pretty foul. Some apes are gorillas and some are boys, but all are fond of scratching their heads, eating bananas, and masturbating just when your three-year-old gets in front of their cage at the zoo. Monkeys can be very perverse. As I said, they’re humankind’s closest cousin.